Robot rat to lead the way in touch technology

The gaol of the project is to develop machines with sophisticated touch technology, like robots that can use their whiskers like a rat to explore their surroundings. The 7.3 million Euro project will bring together nine research groups from seven countries to develop new technologies inspired by the use of touch in the animal kingdom.

These could have a number of possible applications in modern day society from search and rescue robots that could pick their way through rubble and debris to mine-clearing machines to planetary rovers in space.

While vision supplies information about distant objects, touch is invaluable in sensing the nearby environment. The Norwegian rat and the Etruscan shrew, for example, use their whiskers to make sense of their environment. The mammals sweep their whiskers back and forth at high speeds in a controlled manner, allowing them to use touch signals alone to recognize familiar items, determine the shape and surface of objects, and track and capture prey. However, in designing intelligent, life-like machines, the use of touch has been largely overlooked, until now.

The research team at the BCCN is led by Professor Michael Brecht of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. His research group will focus on the Etruscan shrew, the smallest mammal. This animal hunts prey of almost the same size as itself. Thus, guided by vibrissal touch this animal places breath-takingly fast and precise attacks on its insect prey. “The sensory-motor perfomance of this animal is astonishing. Using novel microscopy techniques will offer unique insights about the mammalian brain function,” Brecht says.

The Europe-wide research effort is coordinated by Professor Tony Prescott of the University of Sheffield. Using their understanding of the animal kingdom, the team will develop two machines endowed with similar sensing capabilities, including a whiskered robot that can seek-out, identify and track fast-moving target objects. Professor Prescott said: “Overall, our project will bring about a step-change in the understanding of active touch sensing and in the use of whisker-like sensors in intelligent machines. By learning from nature and developing technologies that do use this physical sense, our researchers will be able to enhance the capabilities of the machines of the future.”

Notes to editors:
The BIOTACT (BIOmimetic Technology for vibrissal ACtive Touch) project will develop novel biomimetic computational methods and technologies for active touch sensing.
Project Partners include: Tony Prescott, Dept. of Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK (Co-ordinator); Ehud Ahissar, Weizmann Institute, Israel; Wulfram Gerstner, EPFL, Switzerland; Mathew Diamond, International School of Advanced Studies, Trieste, Italy; Tony Pipe/Chris Melhuish, Bristol Robotics Lab, UK; Michael Brecht, Berlin Bernstein Centre for Computational Neuroscience, Germany; David Golomb, Ben Gurion University, Israel; Patrick Pirim, Brain Vision Systems, Paris, France; Mitra Hartmann, Northwestern University, Chicago, USA.
For more information about BIOTACT, please visit www.biotact.org
The project is funded by the EU “Information Systems Technologies” theme, under the “Future Emerging Technologies” (FET) programme. For more information, visit www.cordis.europa.eu/ist/fet/
For further information, please contact:
Prof. Michael Brecht
Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Philippstr. 13, House 6
10115 Berlin
Germany
Email: michael.brecht (at) bccn-berlin.de
Phone: +49 30 2093 6770
Fax: +49 30 2093 6771