A THEORY OF DEVELOPMENTAL MENTAL ARCHITECTURE AND THE DAV ARCHITECTURE DESIGN

Abstract

The software architecture of a developmental robot is a challenging new research subject. This paper presents a theory of developmental mental architecture. Five architecture types, from the simplest Type-1 (observation-driven Markov decision process) to Type-5 (DOSASE MDP), are introduced. The properties and limitations of a simpler one are discussed before the introduction of the next more complex one. Further, we present the architecture design of the Dav robot, a humanoid robot built in the Embodied Intelligence Laboratory at Michigan State University. The framework of the Dav architecture is hand-designed, but the actual controller is developed, i.e. generated autonomously by the developmental program through real-time, online interactions with the real physical environment. We present the Dav architecture and the major components that realize the architecture. The designed architecture for Dav is the next generation version from its extensively tested predecessor, the SAIL developmental robot. Closely related to the issue of performance metrics, the paper also introduces the notion of intelligence completeness (concept completeness, intelligence-metric completeness, and factor completeness) and establishes the concept of the completeness theorem for developmental robotics.