We investigate the effect of sensorimotor delay on the pursuit and interception control strategies in the context of robotics. A first-order lead-lag model is introduced to model interception as observed in nature. This model was studied via extensive simulations that incorporate both a sensorimotor delay and a compensatory feedforward controller, allowing examination of the effects of various sensorimotor delays over a range of target velocity to pursuer velocity ratios. It was found that, with appropriate tuning, both the pursuit and constant bearing strategies operate effectively over a wide range of sensorimotor delays. Additionally, for each strategy, the use of a generalised mean value for this gain provides near-optimal performance, compared to separately optimising the gain for each combination of velocity ratio and delay. Finally, it is demonstrated that the constant bearing approach intercepts the target approximately 20% faster, on average, than the pursuit strategy across varying delays.
['Reuben Strydom', 'Surya P. N. Singh', 'Mandyam V. Srinivasan']
Biologically inspired interception: A comparison of pursuit and constant bearing strategies in the presence of sensorimotor delay