Emulating the Functionality of Rodents’ Neurobiological Navigation and Spatial Cognition Cells in a Mobile Robot
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Authors
Zeno, Peter
Issue Date
2015-03-27
Type
Presentation
Language
en_US
Keywords
Robot , Navigation system , Rodent , Brain cells
Alternative Title
Abstract
A unique roving robot navigational system is presented here, which is inspired by the rat’s navigational and spatial awareness brain cells. The rat, as well as all mammalians, are capable of exploring their surroundings when foraging or avoiding predators, and remembering their way home or to the closest known shelter. The robot built in this study, named ratbot, uses characteristics and interpreted functionalities of the specialized navigational and spatial cognition brain cells, which are primarily found in the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex. These cells are the: place cells, head direction cells, boundary cells, and grid cells, as well as memory used for the storage and access of salient distal cues. To navigate from one waypoint to another, the ratbot uses inspiration from place cells and head direction cells, known as path integration. This is accomplished through use of vectors and vector mathematics. Additionally, the ratbot uses a field programmable gate array (FPGA) to emulate grid cell inspired functionality for environment mapping and spatial cognition.