Robo-fin

These projects investigate numerous applications of Neurophysiology, Sensor based motion guidance, experimental methods include measurement of the propulsion capabilities of robotic models of electric fish “We’ve developed a hypothesis regarding why active sensing animals such as electric fish, bats, and rats tend to have highly accurate spatial maps of their surround. We are testing this hypothesis using fish mazes.”

the robo-fin is a robot based on the sinusoidal fin movements of the knife fish.

“Our research group pursues both empirical and modeling efforts in mechanics and neurobiology, integrating the two together within simulation environments.”

http://www.neuromech.northwestern.edu/uropatagium/

electrical tracking systems

I found this article on http://www.jyi.org/news/nb.php?id=905 JYI, Inc. is a exciting, student-led initiative to broaden the scope of the undergraduate scientific experience. The experiment sounds quite interesting. The evolution of the mono-fin is apparently to minimize distortion if the fishes body while swimming (tis is one theory anyway) – and this suggests that it can also compensate for the swaying movements of plants purely through sensory response?

“Electric” Fish Illuminate How Brain Directs Movement
“Two properties of the fish, called glass knifefish, made them ideal for motion studies. First, the nocturnal fish “see” in the dark by emitting weak electric signals and gathering feedback through special electroreceptors in their brain cells. Second, the fish are capable of moving back and forth in a small tube, a behavior crucial to the study design.

The researchers used robotics to move a small plastic tube back and forth with increasing frequency. The fish, which used the tube as a hiding place, performed an electrical tracking technique to stay hidden in the tube as it moved. But the fish could only process the speed of the moving tube below a frequency of one motion per second (1Hz), a quality scientists describe as “low-pass” since receptors in brain cells only detect frequencies lower than a certain limit.

hexapod cockroach robot control

It is a hexapod with kinematics based… It is a hexapod with kinematics based on studies of the cockroach Blaberus discoidalis performed in the Ritzmann Lab in the Biology Department at CWRU.

By Garnet Hertz (2005) “Cockroach Controlled Mobile Robot” is an experimental mechanism that uses a living Madagascan hissing cockroach atop a modified trackball to control a three-wheeled robot. If the cockroach moves left, the robot moves left. Infrared sensors also provide navigation feedback to the cockroach, striving to create a pseudo-intelligent system with the cockroach as the CPU