Sponsor
This work was supported by NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship NNX12AN24H, as well as a GAANN Fellowship.
Published In
Frontiers in Neurorobotics
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-2017
Subjects
Artificial neural networks, Locomotion -- Computer simulation
Abstract
A dynamical model of an animal’s nervous system, or synthetic nervous system (SNS), is a potentially transformational control method. Due to increasingly detailed data on the connectivity and dynamics of both mammalian and insect nervous systems, controlling a legged robot with an SNS is largely a problem of parameter tuning. Our approach to this problem is to design functional subnetworks that perform specific operations, and then assemble them into larger models of the nervous system. In this paper, we present networks that perform addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, differentiation, and integration of incoming signals. Parameters are set within each subnetwork to produce the desired output by utilizing the operating range of neural activity, R, the gain of the operation, k, and bounds based on biological values. The assembly of large networks from functional subnetworks underpins our recent results with MantisBot.
DOI
10.3389/fnbot.2017.00037
Persistent Identifier
http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/21176
Citation Details
Szczecinski NS, Hunt AJ and Quinn RD (2017) A Functional Subnetwork Approach to Designing Synthetic Nervous Systems That Control Legged Robot Locomotion. Front. Neurorobot. 11:37.
Description
© 2017 Szczecinski, Hunt and Quinn. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Article is available online at: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbot.2017.00037