title: Perception as abduction: turning sensor data into meaningful representation.
abstract: This article presents a formal theory of robot perception as a form of abduction. The theory pins down the process whereby low-level sensor data is transformed into a symbolic representation of the external world, drawing together aspects such as incompleteness, top-down information flow, active perception, attention, and sensor fusion in a unifying framework. In addition, a number of themes are identified that are common to both the engineer concerned with developing a rigorous theory of perception, such as the one on offer here, and the philosopher of mind who is exercised by questions relating to mental representation and intentionality.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College, London, England.
authors.forename: Murray
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shanahan