9511721 DeWeerth Humans and animals move around in their environments with seeming ease. To design better robotic devices, engineers would like to capture the design principles that animals use. This in an interdisciplinary project between engineers, computer scientists and biologist directed at gaining a better understanding of the ways animals control movement, by studying the neural systems that generate swimming motion in fish and other simple animals. This research will consist both of studying the nervous system of the particular animals and of modeling the behaviors generated by these systems. The circuits in the nervous systems that create the observed patterns of movement, even in these relatively simple animals are very complex. Therefore, the research of these investigators will focus on the design of very large-scale integrated (VLSI) circuits that emulate the function of the biology. These complex artificial circuits make it much easier to create neuron firing patterns in real time that are very similar to those found in their biological counterparts. The end goal of this research is to develop a better understanding of the biology while learning how to better engineer systems that perform complex tasks that can currently only be performed by humans and other animals.
