Compact Internal Representation of Dynamic Environments: Simple Memory Structures for Complex Situations

Abstract

In this chapter the novel concept of Compact Internal Representation (CIR) is introduced as a generalization of the internal representation extensively used in literature as a base for cognition and consciousness. CIR is suitable to represent dynamic environments and their potential interactions with the agent as static (time-independent) structures, suitable to be stored, managed, compared and recovered by memory. In this work the application of CIR as the cognitive core of moving autonomous artificial agents is presented in the context of collision avoidance against dynamical obstacles. The structure that emerges, even if not directly related to the insect neurobiology, is quite simple and could enhance the capabilities of the computational model already presented in the previous chapter, in view of its robotic implementation.