Robotics Seminar - Surviving in an uncertain world with slow communication pathways

Dr Thrishantha Nanayakkara, Imperial College London, will conduct this seminar on "morphological computation", whole-body control, and communication pathways within the body.

Abstract 

Telecommunication community can benefit from some findings in neuroscience and robotics. The neuroscience community has long been trying to understand how the central nervous system is managing the concurrent control of the whole body with many degrees of freedom to survive in situations that needs fast responses, but with slow communication pathways. The robotics community too has addressed the same problem of surviving in uncertain environments by efficiently solving the concurrent computation problems. In this talk, Dr Thrishantha Nanayakkara will show some recent findings from his lab that show the physical circuits in the body work in conjunction with neural controllers to solve control problems locally. This phenomenon is called “morphological computation” – the seamless computation that spans across neural, musculo-skeletal, and environmental circuits. He will also demonstrate how they test some of these hypotheses using laboratory made robotic devices.

Further information

Find out more about Dr Thrishantha Nanayakkara by visiting his Imperial College London staff profile.

If you have any queries regarding the seminar contact Dr Matteo Leonetti.