Head Eye Coordination, Motion Detection and Feedback Control with Counters

Texas Tech University, Lubbock TX

Investigators

Abstract

The proposal deals with orientation control of the human head/eye combination. The goal is to obtain the tracking signals to the combined head eye pair for the purpose of gaze fixation and tracking. The geometric framework utilizes Lagrangian dynamics in order to derive the dynamical system. For the purpose of tracking, the PI proposes to use nonlinear dynamics and control theory. The control signals to the human head eye complex are derived from three sources. The first two are position and velocity of the head and the eye. They are related to the muscles that actuate the eye movement and the vestibulo ocular reflex. The third signal is the target velocity in the coordinate system attached to the eye. The focus is to study dynamics and control of eye/head orientation; statistical modeling of the retinal signals conditioned on the target motion followed by target motion estimation and event based control implemented as a dynamical system with counters Intellectual Merit: The three major components of this proposal are: (a) Orientation control of the head eye combination for the purpose of ?Tracking?. (b) Statistical Modeling of the Retina for the purpose of estimating ?Target Motion Parameters?. (c) Dynamic control with counters in order to implement ?Event Based Control?. This component of the proposal can be described as ? Dynamic Control Theory with Event Based Counters. The deterministic signals are triggered by the events and the dynamic controller is described by an equation that has two components ? a smooth part and a jump discontinuity. The PI plans to work with researchers from the University of Chicago for the turtle retina and with Technische Universit¨at M¨unchen for the eye/head coordination. Broader Impacts: The project is interdisciplinary and attracts attention from sensor guided robotics, nonlinear control and systems theory and neuroscientists interested in modeling. The research would be performed as integral part of the laboratory for Bio Cybernetics and Intelligent Systems. The research results would be part of a senior undergraduate special topics course, attended by students from Engineering, Biology and Arts and Sciences.