[Tyler]

Robots: Brain-Machine Interfaces  
     




  Like reported a few days
ago, insects have an amazing vision system, far surpassing any of
our current sensing technology. Charles Higgins from
the University of Arizona has now
told the Robots podcast how
he taps into
the spinal cord of dragonflies to use them as extremely powerful sensors
for his robots (compare his work on Neuromorphic Vision). The
picture above shows an earlier version of the robot with an onboard moth
used as a sensor in a closed-loop control system and a dragonfly.
The same episode also features an interview with Steve
Potter at the Laboratory for
NeuroEngineering at Emory and Georgia Tech
famous for his Hybrots
(hybrid robots). Rather than interfacing with existing animals, he grows
neural circuits in Petri-dishes and hooks them up to the sensors and
actuators of robots. Potter describes the resulting semi-living animals
or animats, and he discusses both technical and ethical implications of
this technology. Tune in to this episode on brain-machine
interfaces or listen to two previous, related episodes on building
robot flies and manufacturing
insect-sized robots.


   

http://robots.net/article/2900.html