Neuroplanners for hand/eye coordination

The authors generalize a previously described architecture, which they now call a neuroplanner, and apply it to an extension of the problem it was initially designed to solve-the target-directed control of a robot arm in an obstacle-cluttered workspace. By target directed they mean that the arm can position its end-effector at the point of gaze specified by a pair of stereo targetting cameras. Hence, the system is able to 'touch the point targetted by its eyes. The new design extends the targetting system to an articulated camera platform-the equivalent of the human eye-head-neck system. This permits the robot to solve the inverse problem: given the current configuration of the arm, the system is able to reorient the camera platform to focus on the end-effector. Because of obstacles, the camera platform will generally have to peer around obstacles that block its view. Hence the new system is able to move the eye-head-neck system to see the hand.<>