Biomimetic Robots

For his PhD work, Dr. Blustein created robots that were designed to mimic how real animals behave in the wild. Animals like lobsters, jellyfish and honeybees can figure their way out of tricky and unfamiliar situations, while modern robots often get stuck, lost, or break down. By modelling animal behaviour, Dr. Blustein’s team hoped to improve the capability of their robots to navigate autonomously in uncertain environments.

Dr. Blustein also used the animal-inspired robots to expand our understanding of how the nervous system works. How does the lobster’s brain control leg movement when the animal is walking forward? RoboLobster, a robotic lobster created for the project, is controlled by a simulated nervous system based on what is thought to be going on in real lobsters. By looking at differences in how a real lobster and RoboLobster behaved under controlled environmental conditions, the team could identify gaps in their knowledge of lobster nervous systems. If the robot behaved differently from the lobster, the team would know that something was wrong with their model of the lobster’s nervous system, and could run more biological experiments to figure out what was missing. Because the nervous system of a lobster is simpler than our own, this work could also shed light on the basics of how human nervous systems work. Understanding the basic neuroscience principles evident in lobsters may help us treat neurological problems such as strokes and traumatic brain injuries.

You can read more about why robots are used to study biology in this Northeastern Global News post, or in this blog post by Dr. Blustein. For more info on the collaborative Robobees project, check out this article.

Related publications

Westphal, A, D Blustein , and J Ayers. 2013. A biomimetic neuronal network-based controller for guided helicopter flight. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 8064:299-310.   [journal page] [pdf]

Ayers, J,  D Blustein & A Westphal. 2012. A Conserved Biomimetic Control Architecture for Walking, Swimming and Flying Robots. Lecture Notes on Artificial Intelligence, 7375, 1-12. [journal page] [pdf]

Ayers, J, A Westphal & D Blustein. 2011. A Conserved Neural Circuit-based Architecture for Ambulatory and Undulatory Biomimetic Robots. Marine Technology, 45(4):147-152.  [journal page] [pdf]

Blustein, D & J Ayers. 2010. A conserved network for control of arthropod exteroceptive optical flow reflexes during locomotion. Lect Notes Artificia lntelligence, 6226:72-81. [online excerpt] [pdf]