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A Cricket-Controlled Robot Orienting towards a Sound Source

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Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems (TAROS 2011)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 6856))

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Abstract

We designed a closed-loop experimental setup that interfaces an insect with a robot for testing phonotaxis (sound recognition and localisation) behaviour in crickets. The experimental platform consists of a trackball mounted on a robot, so that a cricket walking on the trackball has its movements translated into corresponding movement of the robot. We describe the implementation of this system and compare the performance with previous cricket data and a neural model circuit on the same robot. Crickets are able to drive the robot towards the sound source, although they show substantially longer walking and stopping bouts than in more standard experimental setups. The potential and the current limitations of the robot setup together with alternative designs are discussed.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Perception, Action, and Behaviour, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Jan Wessnitzer, Alexandros Asthenidis, Georgios Petrou & Barbara Webb

Authors
  1. Jan Wessnitzer
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  2. Alexandros Asthenidis
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  3. Georgios Petrou
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  4. Barbara Webb
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, The University of Sheffield, Mappin Street, S1 3JD, Sheffield, UK

    Roderich Groß

  2. Materials and Engineering Research Institute, Sheffield Hallam University, City Campus, Horward Street, S1 1WB, Sheffield, UK

    Lyuba Alboul  & Jacques Penders  & 

  3. Department of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL), University of Bristol and the West of England, Bristol Business Park, BS16 1QD, Bistol, UK

    Chris Melhuish

  4. Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London, Exhibition Road, SW7 2BT, London, UK

    Mark Witkowski

  5. Department of Psychology, The University of Sheffield, Wstern Bank, S10 2TN, Sheffield, UK

    Tony J. Prescott

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© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Wessnitzer, J., Asthenidis, A., Petrou, G., Webb, B. (2011). A Cricket-Controlled Robot Orienting towards a Sound Source. In: Groß, R., Alboul, L., Melhuish, C., Witkowski, M., Prescott, T.J., Penders, J. (eds) Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems. TAROS 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 6856. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23232-9_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23232-9_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-23231-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-23232-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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