A guest post on the IEEE Spectrum Automation blog by author William Hertling discusses how the open source culture can revolutionize the future of robotics and AI. In both academic and industrial community, the idea of a slow, incremental progress in challenging fields such as machine perception and robotics is the standard way of thinking. May be we should think again, suggests Hertling Read the rest of this entry »
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Open sourcing AI & Robotics
| May 5, 2012 -
Reinforcement Learning with Trace Conditioning
| March 14, 2012
In the previous post, I introduced the project undertaken last semester. In this post, I will go into further detail on my particular task in the project: reinforcement learning. If you recall, the robot we wish to control is an iRobot Create (a vacuumless Roomba), which we have augmented with a web camera. The camera is able to pan to 150° in either direction from center. Read the rest of this entry »Comments: Leave a commentCategories: Robotics -
Learning Approach/Avoidance Behaviors for Visual Stimuli
| March 12, 2012
In the fall of 2011, I, along with Jeremy Wurbs and Annan Mozeika, initiated a project to use visual tracking and reinforcement learning to cause an iRobot Create to develop approach and avoidance behaviors. This work was done for credit in Boston University's "Topics in Adaptive Mobile Robotics" course. Read the rest of this entry »Comments: Leave a commentCategories: Robotics -
Cognitive computing & Cog Ex Machina
| February 21, 2012
A very interesting article just came out on on Mercury News with an interview to"HP Labs Director Prith Banerjee mentioning the latest HP Lab strategies and Cog Ex Machina, the software platform developed by HP Labs in collaboration with the Boston University Neuromorphics Lab. Full disclosure... I direct that lab! So yes, I may be biased... but read on. This gives some hints of what applications can come out of this platform. And we hope this is just the beginning!
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Silicon synapses
| December 8, 2011
I was recently interviewed by Scope, a publication established in 2005 to showcase the work undertaken by the students in the MIT Graduate Program in Science Writing. The interview was about a research project led by Chi-Sang Poon, whose MIT group has designed a chip emulating in detail the dynamics of brain synapses, the junctions between neurons. Read the rest of this entry »Comments: Leave a commentCategories: Brain-interfaces, Neurobiology -
Optic Flow-Based Navigation
| October 31, 2011
This summer, I was part of the Boston University Research Internship in Science and Engineering. I worked primarily with Samuel Kim, another high school intern from Minnesota, Florian Raudies, a postdoctorate research associate in the Cognitive and Neural Systems Department, Schuyler Eldridge, an electrical engineering graduate student, and Dr. Ajay Joshi, the assistant professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. Much of the work was done in the Boston University's Neuromorphics Laboratory. Read the rest of this entry » -
The name of the Outstein
| September 29, 2011
On Friday, September 16, 2011 Boston University chartered a vibrant new center to house research in Computational Neuroscience and Neural Technology (CompNet). In addition to some new areas of emphasis CompNet will support many aspects of the research mission of the former Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems (CNS). The closing of the CNS Department affords an opportunity to reflect on an epoch through the lens of the Outstein symbol that came to be its de facto logo. On the left, the Outstein logo. Read the rest of this entry »Comments: Leave a commentCategories: Computing, Neurobiology -
Study Computational Neuroscience at Boston University
| September 21, 2011
The Computational Neuroscience PhD specialization of Boston University’s Graduate Program for Neuroscience provides students with a uniquely specialized curriculum that supplements core neuroscience coursework with advanced training in a wide array of computational methods for studying the nervous system and developing neuroscience-related technologies. Topics of study include: neural network modeling, neural dynamics, sensory, motor, and cognitive modeling, statistical modeling, sensory and motor prosthesis, brain-machine interfaces, neuroinformatics, neuromorphic engineering, and robotics. Coursework is chosen from the wide array of computational and neuroscience courses offered by the many departments and programs of the main Boston University campus and the BU School of Medicine. Students pursue their research interests in laboratories across the University and have the opportunity to combine hands on experimental research with highly sophisticated computational analysis.Comments: 1 Comment -
Learning to see in a virtual world
| September 18, 2011
This post is authored by Jasmin Leveille and Gennady Livitz, two Neuromorphics Lab researchers working on the development of the MoNETA brain. The goal of the MOdular Neural Exploring Traveling Agent (MoNETA; Versace and Chanlder, 2010) project is to develop an animat, or virtual agent, that can intelligently interact and learn to navigate a virtual world making decisions aimed at increasing rewards while avoiding danger. The animat is designed to be modular: a whole brain system, or artificial nervous system including many cortical and subcortical areas found in mammalian brains, is progressively refined with more complex and adaptive modules, and is tested in increasingly more challenging environment. This post discusses the development of a key component of the visual system. Read the rest of this entry »Comments: Leave a comment -
SSVEP-controlled robots
| September 2, 2011
Both the brain-computer interface (BCI) and bran-machine interface (BMI) fields have shown some interesting applications as of late. One interesting potential is sure to be seen in the realm of EEG-controlled robotics. A partnership between the Neural Prosthetics Lab, Neuromorphics Lab, and Speech Lab at Boston University is underway to merge adaptive robotics with BCI control. Read the rest of this entry »Comments: 8 CommentsCategories: Brain-interfaces, Robotics