Case-based reactive navigation: a method for on-line selection and adaptation of reactive robotic control parameters

We present a new line of research investigating on-line adaptive reactive control mechanisms for autonomous intelligent agents. We discuss a case-based method for dynamic selection and modification of behavior assemblages for a navigational system. The case-based reasoning module is designed as an addition to a traditional reactive control system, and provides more flexible performance in novel environments without extensive high level reasoning that would otherwise slow the system down. The method is implemented in the ACBARR (case-based reactive robotic) system and evaluated through empirical simulation of the system on several different environments, including "box canyon" environments known to be problematic for reactive control systems in general.