How to use potential fields (Hierarchical Paradigm) to control my robot

edit

I'm new in Robotics and I'm reading Introduction to AI robotics book and one of the task that I have to do is to implement in a simulator potential fields from Hierarchical Paradigm.

I've been reading the tutorials and I suppose that I have to implement a plugin for a model that will use a range sensor (a sonar? a laser?), is that correct?

What do I have to do if I want to implement potential fields in Gazebo?