An Embodied Intelligence-Based Biologically Inspired Strategy for Searching a Moving Target

Bacterial chemotaxis in unicellular Escherichia coli, the simplest biological creature, enables it to perform effective searching behaviour even with a single sensor, achieved via a sequence of “tumbling” and “swimming” behaviours guided by gradient information. Recent studies show that suitable random walk strategies may guide the behaviour in the absence of gradient information. This article presents a novel and minimalistic biologically inspired search strategy inspired by bacterial chemotaxis and embodied intelligence concept: a concept stating that intelligent behaviour is a result of the interaction among the “brain,” body morphology including the sensory sensitivity tuned by the morphology, and the environment. Specifically, we present bacterial chemotaxis inspired searching behaviour with and without gradient information based on biological fluctuation framework: a mathematical framework that explains how biological creatures utilize noises in their behaviour. Via extensive simulation of a single sensor mobile robot that searches for a moving target, we will demonstrate how the effectiveness of the search depends on the sensory sensitivity and the inherent random walk strategies produced by the brain of the robot, comprising Ballistic, Levy, Brownian, and Stationary search. The result demonstrates the importance of embodied intelligence even in a behaviour inspired by the simplest creature.