Related papers: Evaluating Morphological Computation in Muscle and…
The field of embodied intelligence emphasises the importance of the morphology and environment with respect to the behaviour of a cognitive system. The contribution of the morphology to the behaviour, commonly known as morphological…
The question how an agent is affected by its embodiment has attracted growing attention in recent years. A new field of artificial intelligence has emerged, which is based on the idea that intelligence cannot be understood without taking…
We present a self-contained, soft robotic hand composed of soft pneumatic actuator modules that are equipped with strain and pressure sensing. We show how this data can be used to discern whether a grasp was successful. Co-locating sensing…
An embodied agent constantly influences its environment and is influenced by it. We use the sensorimotor loop to model these interactions and thereby we can quantify different information flows in the system by various information theoretic…
The Integrated Information Theory provides a quantitative approach to consciousness and can be applied to neural networks. An embodied agent controlled by such a network influences and is being influenced by its environment. This involves,…
Tailoring the design of robot bodies for control purposes is implicitly performed by engineers, however, a methodology or set of tools is largely absent and optimization of morphology (shape, material properties of robot bodies, etc.) is…
Evolution sculpts both the body plans and nervous systems of agents together over time. In contrast, in AI and robotics, a robot's body plan is usually designed by hand, and control policies are then optimized for that fixed design. The…
Humans and animals excel in combining information from multiple sensory modalities, controlling their complex bodies, adapting to growth, failures, or using tools. These capabilities are also highly desirable in robots. They are displayed…
Soft robotics holds transformative potential for enabling adaptive and adaptable systems in dynamic environments. However, the interplay between morphological and control complexities and their collective impact on task performance remains…
With the rise of modern deep learning, neural networks have become an essential part of virtually every artificial intelligence system, making it difficult even to imagine different models for intelligent behavior. In contrast, nature…
Robotic performance emerges from the coupling of body and controller, yet it remains unclear when morphology-control co-design is necessary. We present a unified framework that embeds morphology and control parameters within a single neural…
Physical interactive robotics, ranging from wearable devices to collaborative humanoid robots, require close coordination between mechanical design and control. However, evaluating interactive dynamics is challenging due to complex human…
Natural beings undergo a morphological development process of their bodies while they are learning and adapting to the environments they face from infancy to adulthood. In fact, this is the period where the most important learning…
Recent studies have demonstrated the immense potential of exploiting muscle actuator morphology for natural and robust movement -- in simulation. A validation on real robotic hardware is yet missing. In this study, we emulate muscle…
Exposing an Evolutionary Algorithm that is used to evolve robot controllers to variable conditions is necessary to obtain solutions which are robust and can cross the reality gap. However, we do not yet have methods for analyzing and…
The embodied learning of human motor control requires whole-body neuro-actuated musculoskeletal dynamics, while the internal muscle-driven processes underlying movement remain inaccessible to direct measurement. Computational modeling…
We use topological data analysis and machine learning to study a seminal model of collective motion in biology [D'Orsogna et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 (2006)]. This model describes agents interacting nonlinearly via attractive-repulsive…
Whereas naturally occurring swarms thrive when crowded, physical interactions in robotic swarms are either avoided or carefully controlled, thus limiting their operational density. Here we present a mechanical design rule that allows robots…
It is prevalent in contemporary AI and robotics to separately postulate a brain modeled by neural networks and employ it to learn intelligent and adaptive behavior. While this method has worked very well for many types of tasks, it isn't…
Summary of results in last project period (1. 10. 2009 - 30. 9. 2010) of SNFS Project "From locomotion to cognition" The research that we have been involved in, and will continue to do, starts from the insight that in order to understand…