NCS-FO: Collaborative Research: Understanding the neural basis for sensorimotor control loops using whisker-based robotic hardware platforms

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

This project will construct robots in order to understand how animals gather information through the sense of touch and how animals use touch information to perform complex behaviors. The results will be important to both neuroscience and engineering. On the neuroscience side, the results will address how the brain combines information about movement and touch, thereby improving our understanding of stroke and brain injury. On the engineering side, the work will develop novel robots and sensors that use touch to sense object location, shape, and texture, to track fluid wakes in water, and to sense the direction of airflow. These capabilities will improve the ability of robots to work in challenging environments; for example, robots could explore dark areas more easily or provide surgeons with a better sense of touch during surgery. To train the next generation of scientists and engineers, both undergraduate and graduate students will help construct the robots and will explore industry- and government-related applications of whisker-based touch sensing. The research team will investigate technology transfer opportunities in robotics and medicine, flow sensing, instrument placement, corrosion detection, three-dimensional tactile profilometry, and compliance sensing. The fundamental scientific rationale for the work is that understanding how animal nervous systems process complex sensory and motor information necessarily requires quantification of the input. However, it is currently impossible for neuroscientists to record from all primary sensory neurons involved in a particular sensorimotor behavior. The three stages of this project exploit the whisker system of mammals in an endeavor to completely quantify whisker-based input and early neural processing in the rat (Rattus norvegicus) and the harbor seal (Phoca vitulina). The first stage of work will focus on the development of modular, reconfigurable, artificial whiskers that can sense both touch and fluid flow. The materials, manufacturing, and sensor designs necessary for whiskers at multiple length scales will be investigated and signals from the whiskers will be represented based on known coding properties of primary whisker-sensitive neurons in the trigeminal ganglion (TG). The second stage of work will involve the construction of whisker arrays that anatomically match those of the rat and the seal. These arrays will be used to develop combined hardware and software models of the responses of the entire population of TG neurons. Finally, in the third stage of work, the whisker arrays will be mounted on robotic platforms, and the robots will be put through the same head movements as real animals during natural behavior. This process will allow us to simulate the entire TG neuron population response during complex, natural behaviors. Overall, the project will help unlock the basis by which low-level but powerful neural circuits confer animals with flexibility and resourcefulness in sensing and movement. This project is funded by Integrative Strategies for Understanding Neural and Cognitive Systems (NSF-NCS), a mulitdisciplinary program jointly supported by the Directorates for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), Education and Human Resources (EHR), Engineering (ENG), and Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE).