iRat – Intelligent Rat animat technology

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2017-10-24T21:09:58+00:00

The iRat (intelligent Rat animat Technology) is a rat animat robot designed for robotic and neuroscience teams as a tool for studies in navigation, embodied cognition, and neuroscience research. The rat animat has capabilities comparable to the (then) popular standard Pioneer DX robots, but is an order of magnitude smaller in size and weight. The robot’s specifications are: approximately 0.08m2 with a mass of 0.5kg, camera sensor, proximity and odometry sensors, [...]

LingoDroids

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2017-10-24T21:09:52+00:00

Lingodroids are language learning robots that play games to construct shared lexicons. These fascinating mobile robots have learnt lexicons for places, distances, directions, and time. Our latest work demonstrates how to handle referential uncertainty, that is, how to resolve a word’s meaning between multiple candidates. Further, we have demonstrated language learning between robots that have different embodiment and cognitive capabilities. They differed in their sensors (camera images versus laser ranges); [...]

Insect environment replication

2017-10-24T21:09:55+00:00

Scientists are trying to understand insect behaviour. To assist we developed a virtual world for Bees. This virtual world consisted of up to six monitors surrounding the Bee along with a controllable platform. We have a virtual display running across up to six monitors @ 1920 x 1200 @ 60 Hz. Using a Python interface the neuroscientists could configure the textures, windows, ground, camera pose, etc. A LEGO mechanism allowed the [...]

Rodent Scope – A wireless telemetry system for animals

2017-10-24T21:09:55+00:00

Extracellular recordings in animals, made using wire implants within the brain, detect changes in the extracellular voltage when neurons discharge. Typically, electrophysiologists tether their rodent to their neural recording equipment which limits the range of possible experiments. In this project we designed a digital wireless neural telemetry system, Rodent Scope (RoSco), which enables new experiments such as neural recordings from rodents in large outdoor environments and social experiments. It is small, [...]

Spike Time Robotics

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2017-10-24T21:09:56+00:00

In this study a spiking network controls the iRat in real time. The study demonstrates how the neural controller directs the rat animat’s movement towards temporal stimuli of the appropriate frequency using an approach based on Braitenberg Vehicles. The circuit responds robustly after four cycles when first detecting a light pulsing at 1 Hz, and rapidly after one-to-three cycles when primed by recent experiences with the same frequency. This study [...]

Rat meets iRat

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2017-10-24T21:09:56+00:00

Rats have long since been used in a wide range of behavioral studies. This project is ongoing work to use the iRat as modeling platform for neuroscience studies, for testing neural models of bio-inspired navigation algorithms and for behavioral studies showing rat-robot interactions. Many of the rats observed the iRat, peeping over the wall to check where it was, and often tracking around behind it. Over a period of four days, five [...]

A Rat in the Browser

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2017-10-24T21:09:56+00:00

A telerobot, is a telepresence device that allows a user to interact with a robot over the internet. There are few active public telerobots on the internet. This work describes a new Internet telerobot framework suitable for autonomous mobile robots and designed for user edutainment. Users could give the robot navigation goals. The results demonstrated a reliable autonomous mobile robot system that, within 24 hours of continuous operation, reached 447 goals, traveled [...]

OpenRatSLAM

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2017-10-24T21:09:55+00:00

OpenRatSLAM, is an open-source C++ (ROS / OpenCV) and MATLAB version of RatSLAM. RatSLAM is a robot SLAM system based on the neural processes underlying navigation in the rodent brain, in particular the hippocampus.

Blind Bayes

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2017-10-24T21:09:56+00:00

aka Maintaining a Cognitive Map in Darkness: The Need to Fuse Boundary Knowledge with Path Integration The iRat was used in one of Allen Cheung's studies to find out if animals need "cognitive maps". From the abstract: "Spatial navigation requires the processing of complex, disparate and often ambiguous sensory data. The neurocomputations underpinning this vital ability remain poorly understood. Controversy remains as to whether multimodal sensory information must be combined into [...]