Modular Behavior Controller for Underwater Robot Teams: A Biologically Inspired Concept for Advanced Tasks

In ambition to give subaqueous robot groups more robustness and behavioral flexibility for real applications; this paper proposes a modularized behavior control architecture. Schools of naval mammals provide the proof that also individual members of the group can achieve higher leveled intelligence independent of the simplicity of their collective behavior. Due to their structurally and functionally modularized brain organization, dolphins are capable of language based communication and learning complex motions by human training. Inspired by dolphins, 3 modules for the behavior controller can be conceptualized. The swarming module optimized by evolutionary methods represents the basic behavior given in the natural environment. The mission module includes extendable sets of behavior primitives that can be structured by reinforcement learning. A knowledge based sensing module can be implemented separately to increase the information reliability. With this approach, subaqueous robot schools can be expected to perform more advanced tasks than just moving as a swarm.