ITR: Research and Design of Robot Group Behavior Development

University Of California-Davis, Davis CA

Investigators

Abstract

This research aims to further integrate the study of behavior in both animals and robots. The research investigates how rules of animal behavior can be analyzed, quantified, coded, and instantiated in robots. It focuses on individual and group sensorimotor behavior from a developmental perspective using Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus). Robotic rat pups will be built that instantiate sensorimotor rules discovered by careful observation and computational modeling of pups in isolation and in groups at different stages of development. Specific attention will be paid to how these rules change at different stages of development. For the study of behavior, the aim is to use robotic systems to validate rule-based computational models of behavior and generate testable predictions. For robotics, the aim is to transfer information from organisms that start out life as simple sensorimotor systems, but subsequently develop social behaviors, while developing new sensorimotor, learning, and cognitive capabilities. By studying precisely how these capabilities develop, this research will provide additional insight into the emergence of group behaviors in robotics. In the longer run, this research should facilitate the design of group robotic systems that develop greater and greater sensorimotor, learning, and cognitive capabilities over time.