789 research outputs found

    A future of living machines? International trends and prospects in biomimetic and biohybrid systems

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    Research in the fields of biomimetic and biohybrid systems is developing at an accelerating rate. Biomimetics can be understood as the development of new technologies using principles abstracted from the study of biological systems, however, biomimetics can also be viewed from an alternate perspective as an important methodology for improving our understanding of the world we live in and of ourselves as biological organisms. A biohybrid entity comprises at least one artificial (engineered) component combined with a biological one. With technologies such as microscale mobile computing, prosthetics and implants, humankind is moving towards a more biohybrid future in which biomimetics helps us to engineer biocompatible technologies. This paper reviews recent progress in the development of biomimetic and biohybrid systems focusing particularly on technologies that emulate living organisms—living machines. Based on our recent bibliographic analysis [1] we examine how biomimetics is already creating life-like robots and identify some key unresolved challenges that constitute bottlenecks for the field. Drawing on our recent research in biomimetic mammalian robots, including humanoids, we review the future prospects for such machines and consider some of their likely impacts on society, including the existential risk of creating artifacts with significant autonomy that could come to match or exceed humankind in intelligence. We conclude that living machines are more likely to be a benefit than a threat but that we should also ensure that progress in biomimetics and biohybrid systems is made with broad societal consent. © (2014) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only

    Using humanoid robots to study human behavior

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    Our understanding of human behavior advances as our humanoid robotics work progresses-and vice versa. This team's work focuses on trajectory formation and planning, learning from demonstration, oculomotor control and interactive behaviors. They are programming robotic behavior based on how we humans “program” behavior in-or train-each other

    Beyond Gazing, Pointing, and Reaching: A Survey of Developmental Robotics

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    Developmental robotics is an emerging field located at the intersection of developmental psychology and robotics, that has lately attracted quite some attention. This paper gives a survey of a variety of research projects dealing with or inspired by developmental issues, and outlines possible future directions

    The implications of embodiment for behavior and cognition: animal and robotic case studies

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    In this paper, we will argue that if we want to understand the function of the brain (or the control in the case of robots), we must understand how the brain is embedded into the physical system, and how the organism interacts with the real world. While embodiment has often been used in its trivial meaning, i.e. 'intelligence requires a body', the concept has deeper and more important implications, concerned with the relation between physical and information (neural, control) processes. A number of case studies are presented to illustrate the concept. These involve animals and robots and are concentrated around locomotion, grasping, and visual perception. A theoretical scheme that can be used to embed the diverse case studies will be presented. Finally, we will establish a link between the low-level sensory-motor processes and cognition. We will present an embodied view on categorization, and propose the concepts of 'body schema' and 'forward models' as a natural extension of the embodied approach toward first representations.Comment: Book chapter in W. Tschacher & C. Bergomi, ed., 'The Implications of Embodiment: Cognition and Communication', Exeter: Imprint Academic, pp. 31-5

    Whisking with robots from rat vibrissae to biomimetic technology for active touch

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    This article summarizes some of the key features of the rat vibrissal system, including the actively controlled sweeping movements of the vibrissae known as whisking, and reviews the past and ongoing research aimed at replicating some of this functionality in biomimetic robots

    Natural Computational Architectures for Cognitive Info-Communication

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    Recent comprehensive overview of 40 years of research in cognitive architectures, (Kotseruba and Tsotsos 2020), evaluates modelling of the core cognitive abilities in humans, but only marginally addresses biologically plausible approaches based on natural computation. This mini review presentsa set of perspectives and approaches which have shaped the development of biologically inspired computational models in the recent past that can lead to the development of biologically more realistic cognitive architectures. For describing continuum of natural cognitive architectures, from basal cellular to human-level cognition, we use evolutionary info-computational framework, where natural/ physical/ morphological computation leads to evolution of increasingly complex cognitive systems. Forty years ago, when the first cognitive architectures have been proposed, understanding of cognition, embodiment and evolution was different. So was the state of the art of information physics, bioinformatics, information chemistry, computational neuroscience, complexity theory, selforganization, theory of evolution, information and computation. Novel developments support a constructive interdisciplinary framework for cognitive architectures in the context of computing nature, where interactions between constituents at different levels of organization lead to complexification of agency and increased cognitive capacities. We identify several important research questions for further investigation that can increase understanding of cognition in nature and inspire new developments of cognitive technologies. Recently, basal cell cognition attracted a lot of interest for its possible applications in medicine, new computing technologies, as well as micro- and nanorobotics. Bio-cognition of cells connected into tissues/organs, and organisms with the group (social) levels of information processing provides insights into cognition mechanisms that can support the development of new AI platforms and cognitive robotics
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