Project Description

Embodied Autonomous Systems

SPECS has a long track record in embodied models of cognition. We have focused on the 2014-2018 period both on the emulation of rodent navigation behavior and human social behavior. These models have served a number of basic and applied EC projects (e.g., HR-Recycler, socSMCs, WYSIWYD, EASEL, cDAC). The most notable outcomes are an integrated architecture for the real-time control of social behaviors which has been validated a broad range if Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) studies (e.g. Lallee et al, 2015), the DACX model of rodent navigation and spatial cognition (Maffei et al 2015) and a control architecture for a robot tutoring system (Vouloutsi et al, 2016). These models have also provided the foundation for the development and deployment of a STEM training module for school students.

for references see https://specs-lab.com/publications/

The Robotic Systems Laboratory is a multidisciplinary environment that supports research in the following areas of interest:

  • Classical conditioning, operant conditioning and learning models based on the Distributed Adaptive Control framework, which has become a standard in the field of artificial intelligence and behavior-based robotics
  • Embodied models of cognition.
  • Multi-robot exploration and coordination
  • Navigation in human and animal behavior
  • Implementation in robots of brain models of the hippocampus, cerebellum, thalamus/cortex
  • Rule learning VR robots/avatars
  • Fast and reliable insect-based visual navigation models for flying vehicles
  • Investigation of the neuronal substrates of chemical sensing and their application to odor discrimination and localization.

see the Robotics facility to learn about the different robots available in SPECS

See our other research lines: