1. A robotic system comprising: a humanoid robot having a plurality of robotic joints each being moveable using at least one actuator; and a distributed controller configured to control the movement of each of the robotic joints, the controller including a visual perception module (VPM) adapted to visually identify and track an object in the field of view of the robot under predetermined threshold ambient lighting conditions; wherein the VPM includes a plurality of optical devices for collecting an image of the object, at least one of a laser device and a range imaging device for detecting positional information of the object, and a host machine having an algorithm for processing the image and the positional information to thereby visually identify and track the object, the VPM being configured to automatically adapt an exposure time of the optical devices to prevent feature data loss of the image under the threshold lighting conditions.