Bristol-board tortoises

The tortoises of Bristol-board are robots which were developed by the neurophysiologist William Grey Walter at the institute of Bristol-board neurology to the beginning of the year 1950. Elmer and Elsie (for Electro MEchanical Robots, Light Sensitive ), as Walter named his the first two tortoises, or Machina Speculatrix , belongs to the first autonomous electronic robots. The tortoises of Grey Walter are also regarded as one of the first achievements contributing to the development of the Cybernétique. They constitute finally the ancestors of the robots of ground and the weapons known as intelligent .

Behavior

The tortoises located the sources of light of low intensity in the surroundings and turned around. They could circumvent the obstacles and avoid the sources of light plus sharp which caused to burn them, but when that their batteries started to weaken, they drew in fact their energy there.

The tortoises of Grey Walter exhibent a complex behavior which make pionnières of of them what one calls in addition the artificial Vie. On the one hand they tend to explore their environment (from where their name of Machina Speculatrix ) and on the other hand they present an action simple reflex with respect to the light according to his intensity.

See too

• Elmer, page of homonymy,