Body schema or the body as its own best model

TL;DR

This paper explores the concept of using the environment and the body itself as its own best model, comparing biological systems like octopuses and humans with robotic approaches to understand the most effective strategies for embodiment and control.

Contribution

It provides an analysis of biological and robotic body representations, arguing for a shift towards minimal or implicit models inspired by biological systems for improved robotic behavior.

Findings

Octopuses rely on mechanical properties and peripheral nervous system, with minimal central body representation.

Humans have distributed and implicit body maps, with some peripheral offloading.

Robots depend heavily on explicit body models for planning and execution.

Abstract

Rodney Brooks (1991) put forth the idea that during an agent's interaction with its environment, representations of the world often stand in the way. Instead, using the world as its own best model, i.e. interacting with it directly without making models, often leads to better and more natural behavior. The same perspective can be applied to representations of the agent's body. I analyze different examples from biology -- octopus and humans in particular -- and compare them with robots and their body models. At one end of the spectrum, the octopus, a highly intelligent animal, largely relies on the mechanical properties of its arms and peripheral nervous system. No central representations or maps of its body were found in its central nervous system. Primate brains do contain areas dedicated to processing body-related information and different body maps were found. Yet, these representations are still largely implicit and distributed and some functionality is also offloaded to the periphery. Robots, on the other hand, rely almost exclusively on their body models when planning and executing behaviors. I analyze the pros and cons of these different approaches and propose what may be the best solution for robots of the future.