Delving into neural networks, subsumption architecture, principles and design of intelligent systems, and future applications, the authors strive to exhaust the literature and compress it into concise, readable text with plenty of illustrations where appropriate. Given the freshness of the material, it feels less like a textbook and more like a treasure map--we don't know what we'll find when we get there but we know it's going to be good. Whether robotics is a career, a hobby or a side interest for you, Understanding Intelligence will help you get to work from the bottom up. --Rob Lightner, amazon.com --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Synopsis
Evolutionary theory says that the brain has evolved not to do mathematical proofs but to control behaviour and ensure survival. Researchers agree that intelligence always manifests itself in behaviour - thus it is behaviour that must be understood. A new field has grown around the study of behaviour-based intelligence, also known as embodied cognitive science, "new AI" and "behaviour-based AI". This book provides a systematic introduction to this new way of thinking. After discussing concepts and approaches such as subsumption architecture, Braitenberg vehicles, evolutionary robotics, artificial life, self-organization and learning, the authors derive a set of principles and a framework for the study of naturally and artificially intelligent systems, or autonomous agents. This framework is based on a synthetic methodology whose goal is understanding by designing and building. The text includes the background material required to understand the principles underlying intelligence, as well as information of intelligent robotics and simulated agents so readers can begin experiments and projects on their own.

The reader is guided through a series of case studies that illustrate the design principles of embodied cognitive science.