ABSTRACT
The history of intelligent mobile robots can be traced back to the 1950s. Their predecessors were artifi cial turtles, developed within the framework of cybernetics-the conglomerate of control theory, information science and biology-pioneered by Norbert Wiener in the late 1940s. Perhaps the best known artifi cial turtle is the Tortoise created by William Grey Walter (Walter 1950). It was a simple wheel-based robot that moved toward a weak light and ran away from a bright light. Despite primitive sensors-a photocell and a contact gauge-the Tortoise was able to avoid obstacles and to simulate insect-like behavior. Further coverage of the history of intelligent mobile robots can be found in the lecture notes by Lynne Parker (2012).
