Novelty and Reinforcement Learning in the Value System of Developmental Robots

Abstract

The value system of a developmental robot signals the occurrence of salient sensory inputs, modulates the mapping from sensory inputs to action outputs, and evaluates candidate actions. In the work reported here, a low level value system is modeled and implemented. It simulates the non-associative animal learning mechanism known as habituation effect. Reinforcement learning is also integrated with novelty. Experimental results show that the proposed value system works as designed in a study of robot viewing angle selection.