Autonomous behavior system combing motivation with consciousness using dopamine

Abstract

To enhance the affinity between humans and robots, we have attempted to give a robot "consciousness" and ¿emotion¿ such as that identified in humans and animals. A hierarchical structure model has been developed to connect the robot's consciousness with the robot's behavior. However, it is difficult to autonomously control the timing that changes the consciousness and behavior of the robot. Therefore, in order to induce and autonomously change consciousness and behavior, a motivation model has been developed, and was combined with the hierarchical structure model. Then, the action of dopamine in neurotransmitters was incorporated in the motivation model to add activity to the robot in conjunction with the incentive to perform an behavior. In this paper the expression of emotion by a Conscious Behavior Robot (Conbe-I) that incorporated this motivation model, and the autonomous behaviors performed to take an object from human's hand were studied.