1,372 research outputs found
Closed loop interactions between spiking neural network and robotic simulators based on MUSIC and ROS
In order to properly assess the function and computational properties of
simulated neural systems, it is necessary to account for the nature of the
stimuli that drive the system. However, providing stimuli that are rich and yet
both reproducible and amenable to experimental manipulations is technically
challenging, and even more so if a closed-loop scenario is required. In this
work, we present a novel approach to solve this problem, connecting robotics
and neural network simulators. We implement a middleware solution that bridges
the Robotic Operating System (ROS) to the Multi-Simulator Coordinator (MUSIC).
This enables any robotic and neural simulators that implement the corresponding
interfaces to be efficiently coupled, allowing real-time performance for a wide
range of configurations. This work extends the toolset available for
researchers in both neurorobotics and computational neuroscience, and creates
the opportunity to perform closed-loop experiments of arbitrary complexity to
address questions in multiple areas, including embodiment, agency, and
reinforcement learning
Operationally meaningful representations of physical systems in neural networks
To make progress in science, we often build abstract representations of
physical systems that meaningfully encode information about the systems. The
representations learnt by most current machine learning techniques reflect
statistical structure present in the training data; however, these methods do
not allow us to specify explicit and operationally meaningful requirements on
the representation. Here, we present a neural network architecture based on the
notion that agents dealing with different aspects of a physical system should
be able to communicate relevant information as efficiently as possible to one
another. This produces representations that separate different parameters which
are useful for making statements about the physical system in different
experimental settings. We present examples involving both classical and quantum
physics. For instance, our architecture finds a compact representation of an
arbitrary two-qubit system that separates local parameters from parameters
describing quantum correlations. We further show that this method can be
combined with reinforcement learning to enable representation learning within
interactive scenarios where agents need to explore experimental settings to
identify relevant variables.Comment: 24 pages, 13 figure
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