Evolving a Conspicuous Point Detector based on an Artificial Dorsal Stream - SLAM System

The goal of purposive or behavioral vision is to study the interactions of a visual system with the real world, creating a balance between perception and action. It is said that a system that accomplishes a visuomotor task needs to implement a selective perception process allowing specific motion-action commands. This combination is understood as a visual behavior. This paper describes a real-working system, consisting of a robotic manipulator in a hand-eye configuration, which is used as a research platform in order to evolve a specialised visual routine capable of estimating specific motion-actions. The core idea is to evolve a conspicuous point detector, based on the artificial dorsal stream model, with the purpose of using this detector inside a simultaneous localization and map building system. Experimental results show as a proof-of-concept several interesting ideas; first, that it is in fact possible to find prominent points in an image through a visual attention process; and second, that the proposed system is able to design specific visual behaviors.