Phonotaxis in crickets and robots



Projects: Phonotaxis Software: NRS	Phonotaxis in crickets and robots Phonotaxis is the ability to approach sound sources. Female crickets can locate males by phonotaxis to the song they produce. The behaviour and underlying physiology have been studied in some depth. The official phonotaxis page is here, though some of the information is reproduced on this page. Projects Phonotaxis Our project is concerned with building a robot model of this behaviour. It uses a specially designed electronic circuit to model the cricket ears and a simulated spiking neuron network to process the signal, and is mounted on a robot to be tested in various experiments. Current investigations are concerned with integrating additional sensorimotor systems with this behaviour, to make a walking robot that can perform taxis outdoors. Involved inside group: Barbara Webb Richard Reeve Mark Payne Matthew Howard Involved outside group Berthold Hedwig, Dept of Zoology, University of Cambridge James Poulet, Dept of Zoology, University of Cambridge Andre van Schaik, Computing and Audio Research Laboratory, University of Sydney Elisabetta Chicca, Institute of Neuroinformatics, University/ETH Zurich Giacomo Indiveri, Institute of Neuroinformatics, University/ETH Zurich Andrew Horchler, Biologically Inspired Robotics Lab, Case Western Reserve University Formerly involved: Ben Torben-Nielsen, Institute for Knowledge and Agent Technology, Universiteit Maastricht, the Netherlands Paolo Russo, University of Catania Recent publications: Reeve, R., van Schaik, A., Jin, C., Hamilton, T., Torben-Neilsen, B. and Webb, B. Directional hearing in a silicon cricket. Biosystems (in revision) Torben-Nielsen, B., Webb, B, and Reeve, R. New ears for a robot cricket. Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (2005) Reeve, R., Webb, B., Horchler, A., Indiveri, G. and Quinn, R. New Technologies for testing a model of cricket phonotaxis on an outdoor robot platform. Robotics and Autonomous Systems (2005), 51(1):41-54 (pdf) Horchler, A., Reeve, R., Webb, B. and Quinn, R. Robot phonotaxis in the wild: a biologically inspired approach to outdoor sound localization. Advanced Robotics (2004), 18(8):801-816 (pdf) Reeve, R. and Webb, B. New neural circuits for robot phonotaxis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A (2003), 361(1811):2245-2266 (pdf) Webb, B., Reeve, R., Horchler, A. and Quinn, R. Testing a model of cricket phonotaxis on an outdoor robot platform. Proceedings of the 4th British Conference on (Mobile) Robotics - Towards Intelligent Mobile Robots (2003) Software NRS The software we use for all of our experiments is called NRS, and can be found here.

Phonotaxis is the ability to approach sound sources. Female crickets can locate males by phonotaxis to the song they produce. The behaviour and underlying physiology have been studied in some depth.

The official phonotaxis page is here, though some of the information is reproduced on this page.

Projects

Phonotaxis

Our project is concerned with building a robot model of this behaviour. It uses a specially designed electronic circuit to model the cricket ears and a simulated spiking neuron network to process the signal, and is mounted on a robot to be tested in various experiments.

Current investigations are concerned with integrating additional sensorimotor systems with this behaviour, to make a walking robot that can perform taxis outdoors.

Involved inside group:

Involved outside group

Berthold Hedwig, Dept of Zoology, University of Cambridge
James Poulet, Dept of Zoology, University of Cambridge
Andre van Schaik, Computing and Audio Research Laboratory, University of Sydney
Elisabetta Chicca, Institute of Neuroinformatics, University/ETH Zurich
Giacomo Indiveri, Institute of Neuroinformatics, University/ETH Zurich
Andrew Horchler, Biologically Inspired Robotics Lab, Case Western Reserve University

Formerly involved:

Ben Torben-Nielsen, Institute for Knowledge and Agent Technology, Universiteit Maastricht, the Netherlands
Paolo Russo, University of Catania

Recent publications:

Reeve, R., van Schaik, A., Jin, C., Hamilton, T., Torben-Neilsen, B. and Webb, B. Directional hearing in a silicon cricket. Biosystems (in revision)

Torben-Nielsen, B., Webb, B, and Reeve, R. New ears for a robot cricket. Proceedings of the International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (2005)

Reeve, R., Webb, B., Horchler, A., Indiveri, G. and Quinn, R. New Technologies for testing a model of cricket phonotaxis on an outdoor robot platform. Robotics and Autonomous Systems (2005), 51(1):41-54 (pdf)

Horchler, A., Reeve, R., Webb, B. and Quinn, R. Robot phonotaxis in the wild: a biologically inspired approach to outdoor sound localization. Advanced Robotics (2004), 18(8):801-816 (pdf)

Reeve, R. and Webb, B. New neural circuits for robot phonotaxis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A (2003), 361(1811):2245-2266 (pdf)

Webb, B., Reeve, R., Horchler, A. and Quinn, R. Testing a model of cricket phonotaxis on an outdoor robot platform. Proceedings of the 4th British Conference on (Mobile) Robotics - Towards Intelligent Mobile Robots (2003)

Software

NRS

The software we use for all of our experiments is called NRS, and can be found here.

Projects:

Software: