Objective
The goal of this project is to reproduce, at a functional level, the echolocation system of bats in a bionic bat head that can then be used to investigate how the world is not just perceived but actively explored by bats. This bionic bat head, of similar size to a real bat head, will consist of an emission/reception system capable of generating/processing bat vocalisations in real-time and a multi-degree of freedom mechanical system to allow pinnate movement and shape control. Construction of such a bionic head is one half of the work, the other half is to gain more insight into neural sensory-data encoding from use of the head in echolocation tasks routinely executed by bats. In particular, the capabilities of the bionic head for active sensing will allow us to investigate many of the active sensing strategies thought to be used by bats.
OBJECTIVES
To construct a bionic head that reproduces at a functional level the echolocation system of bats it must be of similar size to a real bat head in order to reproduce the relevant physics. Hence, we plan to develop new, small, ultrasonic transducers with controllable beam width; neuromorphic cochlea models capable of extracting biologically plausible features from the complex echoes in real-time; new, small, actuators to control a multi-degree of freedom mechanical system that allows realistic pinnae movement and shape control. The bionic head will then be mounted on a robot arm/mobile robot to use its active sensing capabilities in exploring features present in the sensory data as well as their neural encoding.
DESCRIPTION OF WORK
To attain the double objective --constructing a bionic bat head of size similar to a real bat head and to use that bionic bat head to gain more insight into neural sensory-data encoding in an active sensing context - we will concentrate our efforts on developing a number of key components. We will first simulate - and later actually construct-- new, small, ultrasonic transducers with controllable beam properties. Appropriate driver electronics will be designed to drive these transducers both for the emission and the reception subsystem. We will develop new neuromorphic cochlea models capable of extracting biologically plausible features from the complex echoes in real-time. Next, these models will be implemented on purpose-built hardware, e.g. DSP or PGA technology, to guarantee real-time operation. The bionic bat head is completed with the design of a new, small, actuating system to control pinna movement and pinnae shape. Finally this bionic bat head will be used to study echolocation based activities carried out by bats. In the context of such routine activities and using the active sensing capabilities of the bionic bat head, we will first identify and characterise possible cues present in the echoes. Next, we will explore biologically plausible spike coding schemes to represent these echo features.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
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Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
2000 ANTWERPEN
Belgium