NCS-FO: Collaborative Research: Understanding the neural basis for sensorimotor control loops using whisker-based robotic hardware platforms

这个项目将建造机器人，以了解动物如何通过触觉收集信息，以及动物如何使用触觉信息来执行复杂的行为。研究结果对神经科学和工程学都很重要。在神经科学方面，研究结果将解决大脑如何结合运动和触觉信息，从而提高我们对中风和脑损伤的理解。在工程方面，这项工作将开发新颖的机器人和传感器，使用触摸来感知物体的位置、形状和纹理，跟踪水中的流体尾迹，并感知气流的方向。这些能力将提高机器人在具有挑战性的环境中工作的能力；例如，机器人可以更容易地探索黑暗区域，或者在手术过程中为外科医生提供更好的触觉。为了培养下一代科学家和工程师，本科生和研究生都将帮助构建机器人，并将探索基于须的触摸传感的工业和政府相关应用。研究团队将研究机器人和医学、流量传感、仪器放置、腐蚀检测、三维触觉轮廓测量和顺应性传感等领域的技术转移机会。这项工作的基本科学原理是，了解动物神经系统如何处理复杂的感觉和运动信息，必须对输入进行量化。然而，对于神经科学家来说，目前还不可能记录所有参与特定感觉运动行为的初级感觉神经元。该项目的三个阶段利用哺乳动物的须系统，试图完全量化基于须的输入和大鼠（褐家鼠）和斑海豹（Phoca vitulina）的早期神经处理。第一阶段的工作将集中在模块化、可重构的人造晶须的开发上，这种晶须可以感知触摸和流体流动。研究人员将研究多种长度尺度须所需的材料、制造和传感器设计，并根据三叉神经节（TG）中初级须敏感神经元的已知编码特性来表示来自须的信号。第二阶段的工作将包括构建在解剖学上与老鼠和海豹相匹配的胡须阵列。这些阵列将用于开发整个TG神经元群体反应的组合硬件和软件模型。最后，在第三阶段的工作中，须阵列将被安装在机器人平台上，机器人将在自然行为中进行与真实动物相同的头部运动。这个过程将使我们能够模拟整个TG神经元群体在复杂的自然行为中的反应。总的来说，这个项目将有助于解开低级但强大的神经回路赋予动物感知和运动的灵活性和足智多谋的基础。该项目由理解神经和认知系统的综合策略（NSF-NCS）资助，这是一个由计算机与信息科学与工程（CISE）、教育与人力资源（EHR）、工程（ENG）和社会、行为和经济科学（SBE）联合支持的多学科项目。

This project will construct robots in order to understand how animals gather information through the sense of touch and how animals use touch information to perform complex behaviors. The results will be important to both neuroscience and engineering. On the neuroscience side, the results will address how the brain combines information about movement and touch, thereby improving our understanding of stroke and brain injury. On the engineering side, the work will develop novel robots and sensors that use touch to sense object location, shape, and texture, to track fluid wakes in water, and to sense the direction of airflow. These capabilities will improve the ability of robots to work in challenging environments; for example, robots could explore dark areas more easily or provide surgeons with a better sense of touch during surgery. To train the next generation of scientists and engineers, both undergraduate and graduate students will help construct the robots and will explore industry- and government-related applications of whisker-based touch sensing. The research team will investigate technology transfer opportunities in robotics and medicine, flow sensing, instrument placement, corrosion detection, three-dimensional tactile profilometry, and compliance sensing. The fundamental scientific rationale for the work is that understanding how animal nervous systems process complex sensory and motor information necessarily requires quantification of the input. However, it is currently impossible for neuroscientists to record from all primary sensory neurons involved in a particular sensorimotor behavior. The three stages of this project exploit the whisker system of mammals in an endeavor to completely quantify whisker-based input and early neural processing in the rat (Rattus norvegicus) and the harbor seal (Phoca vitulina). The first stage of work will focus on the development of modular, reconfigurable, artificial whiskers that can sense both touch and fluid flow. The materials, manufacturing, and sensor designs necessary for whiskers at multiple length scales will be investigated and signals from the whiskers will be represented based on known coding properties of primary whisker-sensitive neurons in the trigeminal ganglion (TG). The second stage of work will involve the construction of whisker arrays that anatomically match those of the rat and the seal. These arrays will be used to develop combined hardware and software models of the responses of the entire population of TG neurons. Finally, in the third stage of work, the whisker arrays will be mounted on robotic platforms, and the robots will be put through the same head movements as real animals during natural behavior. This process will allow us to simulate the entire TG neuron population response during complex, natural behaviors. Overall, the project will help unlock the basis by which low-level but powerful neural circuits confer animals with flexibility and resourcefulness in sensing and movement.This project is funded by Integrative Strategies for Understanding Neural and Cognitive Systems (NSF-NCS), a mulitdisciplinary program jointly supported by the Directorates for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), Education and Human Resources (EHR), Engineering (ENG), and Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE).