Chapter 6. Moving Abilities

Key Topics

• The Art of Navigation

• Game Bots and Movement

• Autonomous Navigation for Animats

• Criteria for Motion

• Case Study

Movement is an ability humans often take for granted. It is truly incredible how many different skills combine perfectly to create the smooth flow of a human body. One only appreciates the art when one studies it, practices it in extreme conditions, or tries to re-create it. Instead of attempting to practice it in extreme conditions, we'll take a less adventurous approach—which doesn't involve standing up. This chapter covers movement and shows how to re-create it instead!

To get an idea of the different ways of solving the problem of movement, this chapter will:

• Focus on understanding the ability of humans and animals to move around.

• Examine the approach of existing game bots, analyzing what they do particularly well—and badly.

• Discuss how animats deal with embodiment to tackle the some problem.

This general understanding identifies desirable properties of motion, later used as requirements applied to the AI. To finish the chapter, we'll propose a brief case study of the obstacle-avoidance behaviors we want to re-create.