ROBOTICS AND NEUROBIOLOGY

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands (Spain), June 17, 2005, 11:40am

This interdisciplinary one-day workshop takes place in the context of IWINAC 2005 (http://www.iwinac.uned.es), the first edition of a conference that inherits the 14-year-long tradition of IWANN (http://www.iwinac.uned.es/prev-iwann.html), in bringing together researchers and practitioners from technology and life sciences.

Recent progress in biologically-inspired robotics suggests that the interplay between robotic research and the current understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying the behavior of living organisms is a very promising track to be followed. Interaction between the two fields is useful for both robotics research, which can take inspiration from biological solutions to engineering problems, and neurobiology, that can benefit from artificial emulation of biological mechanisms which can prove the validity of research hypothesis.

All included papers (see list below) refer to robotic applications with strong neurobiological inspiration. The first two contributions deal with navigation and both draw their inspiration from the functioning of the hippocampus. The first paper focuses on novelty-based learning, the second on transition cells. The following paper presents a model of fish optic tectum aimed at developing a natural obstacle avoidance behavior for animats. Legged locomotion is the subject of the fourth paper, in which a set of neural controllers are evolved and compared, in order to develop a coordinated gait for multi-dof legs. The fifth paper presents a model of the primary and secondary somatosensory cortices designed to provide a robot with the ability of recognizing objects through haptic perception. Finally, the last work analyzes and compares robotic and human vision-based grasping mechanisms, and proposes a new approach to robotic vision for grasping inspired by neuroscience findings.

Spatial navigation based on novelty mediated autobiographical memory
Emilia I. Barakova and Tino Lourens

Transition cells and neural fields for navigation and planning
Nicolas Cuperlier, Mathias Quoy, Philippe Laroque and Philippe Gaussier

Avoidance behavior controlled by a model of vertebrate midbrain mechanisms
David P.M. Northmore and Brett J. Graham

Evolved Neural Reflex-Oscillators for Walking Machines
Arndt von Twickel and Frank Pasemann

A Haptic System for the Lucs Haptic Hand I
Magnus Johnsson, Robert Pallbo and Christian Balkenius

Vision and grasping: humans vs. robots
Eris Chinellato and Angel P. del Pobil

Emilia Barakova - Brain Science Institute, RIKEN (Japan)
Luc Berthouze - AIST, Tsukuba (Japan)
Joanna J. Bryson - University of Bath (UK)
Guido Bugmann - University of Plymouth (UK)
Lola Cañamero - University of Hertfordshire (UK)
Jody Culham - University of Western Ontario (Canada)
Kerstin Dautenhahn - University of Hertfordshire (UK)
Jose del R. Millan - IDIAP Research Institute (Switzerland)
Richard Duro - Universidad de A Coruña (Spain)
Andy Fagg - University of Oklahoma (USA)
Nicolas Franceschini - Université de la Méditerranée (France)
John Hallam - The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute (Denmark)
Denise Henriques - University of York (Canada)
Max Lungarella - University of Tokyo (Japan)
george Maistros - University of Edinburgh (UK)
Chrystopher L. Nehaniv - University of Hertfordshire (UK)
Ulrich Rückert - University of Paderborn (Germany)
Juan V. Sánchez-Andrés - Universidad de la Laguna (Spain)
Jose Santos-Victor - Universidade Técnica de Lisboa (Portugal)
Joaquin Sitte - Queensland University of Technology (Australia)
Mikhail Svinin - Bio-Mimetic Control Research Center, RIKEN (Japan)
Barbara Webb - University of Edinburgh (UK)
Stefan Wermter - University of Sunderland (UK)
Tom Ziemke - University of Skövde (Sweden)