The Visual Neuroscience of Robotic Grasping

The Visual Neuroscience of Robotic Grasping
Author: Eris Chinellato
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2015-06-19
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3319203037

This book presents interdisciplinary research that pursues the mutual enrichment of neuroscience and robotics. Building on experimental work, and on the wealth of literature regarding the two cortical pathways of visual processing - the dorsal and ventral streams - we define and implement, computationally and on a real robot, a functional model of the brain areas involved in vision-based grasping actions. Grasping in robotics is largely an unsolved problem, and we show how the bio-inspired approach is successful in dealing with some fundamental issues of the task. Our robotic system can safely perform grasping actions on different unmodeled objects, denoting especially reliable visual and visuomotor skills. The computational model and the robotic experiments help in validating theories on the mechanisms employed by the brain areas more directly involved in grasping actions. This book offers new insights and research hypotheses regarding such mechanisms, especially for what concerns the interaction between the dorsal and ventral streams. Moreover, it helps in establishing a common research framework for neuroscientists and roboticists regarding research on brain functions.

Advances in Neuro-Information Processing

Advances in Neuro-Information Processing
Author: Mario Köppen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 1273
Release: 2009-07-10
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3642024890

The two volume set LNCS 5506 and LNCS 5507 constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Neural Information Processing, ICONIP 2008, held in Auckland, New Zealand, in November 2008. The 260 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous ordinary paper submissions and 15 special organized sessions. 116 papers are published in the first volume and 112 in the second volume. The contributions deal with topics in the areas of data mining methods for cybersecurity, computational models and their applications to machine learning and pattern recognition, lifelong incremental learning for intelligent systems, application of intelligent methods in ecological informatics, pattern recognition from real-world information by svm and other sophisticated techniques, dynamics of neural networks, recent advances in brain-inspired technologies for robotics, neural information processing in cooperative multi-robot systems.

Blended Cognition

Blended Cognition
Author: Jordi Vallverdú
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2019-04-12
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 3030031047

This edited volume is about how unprejudiced approaches to real human cognition can improve the design of AI. It covers many aspects of human cognition and across 12 chapters the reader can explore multiple approaches about the complexities of human cognitive skills and reasoning, always guided by experts from different but complimentary academic fields. A central concept is explained: blended cognition, the natural skill of human beings for combining constantly different heuristics during their several task-solving activities. Something that was sometimes observed like a problem as “bad reasoning”, is now the central key for the understanding of the richness, adaptability and creativity of human cognition. The topic of this book connects in a significant way with the disciplines of psychology, neurology, anthropology, philosophy, logics, engineering, logics, and AI. In a nutshell: understanding better humans for designing better machines. Any person with interests on natural and artificial reasoning should read this book as a primary source of inspiration and a way to achieve a critical thinking on these topics.

Metrics of Sensory Motor Coordination and Integration in Robots and Animals

Metrics of Sensory Motor Coordination and Integration in Robots and Animals
Author: Fabio Bonsignorio
Publisher:
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2020
Genre: Robots
ISBN: 9783030141257

This book focuses on a critical issue in the study of physical agents, whether natural or artificial: the quantitative modelling of sensory–motor coordination. Adopting a novel approach, it defines a common scientific framework for both the intelligent systems designed by engineers and those that have evolved naturally. As such it contributes to the widespread adoption of a rigorous quantitative and refutable approach in the scientific study of 'embodied intelligence and cognition More than 70 years after Norbert Wieners famous book Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1948), robotics, AI and life sciences seem to be converging towards a common model of what we can call the 'science of embodied intelligent/cognitive agents. This book is interesting for an interdisciplinary community of researchers, technologists and entrepreneurs working at the frontiers of robotics and AI, neuroscience and general life and brain sciences.

Evolution of Grasping Behaviour in Anthropomorphic Robotic Arms with Embodied Neural Controllers

Evolution of Grasping Behaviour in Anthropomorphic Robotic Arms with Embodied Neural Controllers
Author: Gianluca Massera
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2010
Genre:
ISBN:

The works reported in this thesis focus upon synthesising neural controllers for anthropomorphic robots that are able to manipulate objects through an automatic design process based on artificial evolution. The use of Evolutionary Robotics makes it possible to reduce the characteristics and parameters specified by the designer to a minimum, and the robot's skills evolve as it interacts with the environment. The primary objective of these experiments is to investigate whether neural controllers that are regulating the state of the motors on the basis of the current and previously experienced sensors (i.e. without relying on an inverse model) can enable the robots to solve such complex tasks. Another objective of these experiments is to investigate whether the Evolutionary Robotics approach can be successfully applied to scenarios that are significantly more complex than those to which it is typically applied (in terms of the complexity of the robot's morphology, the size of the neural controller, and the complexity of the task). The obtained results indicate that skills such as reaching, grasping, and discriminating among objects can be accomplished without the need to learn precise inverse internal models of the arm/hand structure. This would also support the hypothesis that the human central nervous system (cns) does necessarily have internal models of the limbs (not excluding the fact that it might possess such models for other purposes), but can act by shifting the equilibrium points/cycles of the underlying musculoskeletal system. Consequently, the resulting controllers of such fundamental skills would be less complex. Thus, the learning of more complex behaviours will be easier to design because the underlying controller of the arm/hand structure is less complex. Moreover, the obtained results also show how evolved robots exploit sensory-motor coordination in order to accomplish their tasks.

Wearable Robots

Wearable Robots
Author: José L. Pons
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2008-04-15
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0470987650

A wearable robot is a mechatronic system that is designed around the shape and function of the human body, with segments and joints corresponding to those of the person it is externally coupled with. Teleoperation and power amplification were the first applications, but after recent technological advances the range of application fields has widened. Increasing recognition from the scientific community means that this technology is now employed in telemanipulation, man-amplification, neuromotor control research and rehabilitation, and to assist with impaired human motor control. Logical in structure and original in its global orientation, this volume gives a full overview of wearable robotics, providing the reader with a complete understanding of the key applications and technologies suitable for its development. The main topics are demonstrated through two detailed case studies; one on a lower limb active orthosis for a human leg, and one on a wearable robot that suppresses upper limb tremor. These examples highlight the difficulties and potentialities in this area of technology, illustrating how design decisions should be made based on these. As well as discussing the cognitive interaction between human and robot, this comprehensive text also covers: the mechanics of the wearable robot and it’s biomechanical interaction with the user, including state-of-the-art technologies that enable sensory and motor interaction between human (biological) and wearable artificial (mechatronic) systems; the basis for bioinspiration and biomimetism, general rules for the development of biologically-inspired designs, and how these could serve recursively as biological models to explain biological systems; the study on the development of networks for wearable robotics. Wearable Robotics: Biomechatronic Exoskeletons will appeal to lecturers, senior undergraduate students, postgraduates and other researchers of medical, electrical and bio engineering who are interested in the area of assistive robotics. Active system developers in this sector of the engineering industry will also find it an informative and welcome resource.

The Handbook of Brain Theory and Neural Networks

The Handbook of Brain Theory and Neural Networks
Author: Michael A. Arbib
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 1328
Release: 2003
Genre: Neural circuitry
ISBN: 0262011972

This second edition presents the enormous progress made in recent years in the many subfields related to the two great questions : how does the brain work? and, How can we build intelligent machines? This second edition greatly increases the coverage of models of fundamental neurobiology, cognitive neuroscience, and neural network approaches to language. (Midwest).

Handbook of Neural Engineering

Handbook of Neural Engineering
Author: Metin Akay
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 681
Release: 2007-01-09
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0470068280

An important new work establishing a foundation for future developments in neural engineering The Handbook of Neural Engineering provides theoretical foundations in computational neural science and engineering and current applications in wearable and implantable neural sensors/probes. Inside, leading experts from diverse disciplinary groups representing academia, industry, and private and government organizations present peer-reviewed contributions on the brain-computer interface, nano-neural engineering, neural prostheses, imaging the brain, neural signal processing, the brain, and neurons. The Handbook of Neural Engineering covers: Neural signal and image processing--the analysis and modeling of neural activity and EEG-related activities using the nonlinear and nonstationary analysis methods, including the chaos, fractal, and time-frequency and time-scale analysis methods--and how to measure functional, physiological, and metabolic activities in the human brain using current and emerging medical imaging technologies Neuro-nanotechnology, artificial implants, and neural prosthesis--the design of multi-electrode arrays to study how the neurons of human and animals encode stimuli, the evaluation of functional changes in neural networks after stroke and spinal cord injuries, and improvements in therapeutic applications using neural prostheses Neurorobotics and neural rehabilitation engineering--the recent developments in the areas of biorobotic system, biosonar head, limb kinematics, and robot-assisted activity to improve the treatment of elderly subjects at the hospital and home, as well as the interactions of the neuron chip, neural information processing, perception and neural dynamics, learning memory and behavior, biological neural networks, and neural control

The Human Hand as an Inspiration for Robot Hand Development

The Human Hand as an Inspiration for Robot Hand Development
Author: Ravi Balasubramanian
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 573
Release: 2014-01-03
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 3319030175

“The Human Hand as an Inspiration for Robot Hand Development” presents an edited collection of authoritative contributions in the area of robot hands. The results described in the volume are expected to lead to more robust, dependable, and inexpensive distributed systems such as those endowed with complex and advanced sensing, actuation, computation, and communication capabilities. The twenty-four chapters discuss the field of robotic grasping and manipulation viewed in light of the human hand’s capabilities and push the state-of-the-art in robot hand design and control. Topics discussed include human hand biomechanics, neural control, sensory feedback and perception, and robotic grasp and manipulation. This book will be useful for researchers from diverse areas such as robotics, biomechanics, neuroscience, and anthropologists.