Live demonstration: Spiking neural circuit based navigation inspired by C. elegans thermotaxis

Author

Shetty, Chirag ; Nitchith, Sri ; Rawat, Rishabh ; Nandakumar, S.R. ; Shah, Pritesh ; Kulkarni, Shruti ; Rajendran, Bipin

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Indian Inst. of Technol. Bombay, Mumbai, India

fYear

2015

fDate

24-27 May 2015

Firstpage

1905

Lastpage

1905

Abstract

We demonstrate a Spiking Neural Network (SNN) driven autonomous navigation system implemented on a robot. The neural architecture is inspired by those in nematode Caenorhabditis elegans used for thermotaxis, the behavior of tracking thermal isotherms. Our network uses light intensity as the sensor input, instead of temperature in the worm. The network is able to detect the gradations in sensor-input based on local information, and to make decisions in real time. This enables the robot to do a random search and to track specific intensity regions.

Keywords

biomimetics; decision making; mobile robots; navigation; neural nets; optical sensors; C. elegans thermotaxis; SNN; autonomous navigation system; light intensity; nematode Caenorhabditis elegans; neural architecture; robot; spiking neural circuit; spiking neural network; thermal isotherms; Biological neural networks; Grippers; Navigation; Neurons; Real-time systems; Robot sensing systems;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 2015 IEEE International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Lisbon

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ISCAS.2015.7169038

Filename

7169038