Robots That Act Like Rats -- and Vice Versa

By Roland Piquepaille

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have recorded the behavior of baby rats in enclosed rectangular environments and saw that the rat pups, almost blind and deaf, didn't move much after hitting the walls of their cages. They decided to build rat-like robots, inject them some software and rules, and see what will come from this. Surprisingly, they saw that their robots didn't follow their software rules and started unexpected movements, such as circling the rectangular arena after a shock into a wall. This led them to revisit the original animal data and to conclude that baby rats also had similar behaviors even if they didn't pay attention to it previously. Now the researchers want to give different sets of rules to their rat-like robots to predict the behavior or more sophisticated robots -- and also the rats' one. Read more...

Robots that act like rat pups can tell us something about the behavior of both, according to UC Davis researchers.
Sanjay Joshi, assistant professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering, and associate professor of psychology Jeffrey Schank have recorded the behavior of rat pups and built rat-like robots with the same basic senses and motor skills to see how behavior can emerge from a simple set of rules.

Here are the basic facts.

Seven to 10-day-old rat pups, blind and deaf, do not seem to do a whole lot. Videotaped in a rectangular arena in Schank's laboratory, they move about until they hit a wall, feel their way along the wall until their nose goes into a corner, then mostly stay put. Because their senses and responses are so limited, pups should be a good starting point for building robots that can do the same thing.
Joshi's laboratory built foot-long robots with tapered snouts, about the same shape as a rat pup. The robots are ringed by sensors so that they "feel" when they bump into a wall or corner. They are programmed to stay in contact with objects they touch, as rats do.
Rat-like robots

Here is a picture of one of these rat-like robots. (Credit: University of California, Davis) This image comes from the Robotics, Autonomous Systems, and Controls Laboratory (RASCAL) web page.

And here is what -- unexpectedly -- happened.

But when the robotic "rats" were put into a rectangular arena like that used for experiments with real rats, the robots showed a new behavior. They scuttled along the walls and repeatedly bumped into one corner, but favored one wall. Instead of stopping in a corner they kept going, circling the arena.
"When we re-analyzed the animal data, we found that the animals were also favoring one wall over another as they bumped around in corners," Joshi said. "The robots showed us what to look for in animal studies."
Compared paths of rat pups and rat-like robots

On the above image, you can see the actual travel paths of a robotic rat pup with instantiated rules (left) and of a 10-day old rat pup (right). (Credit: University of California, Davis)

Now, the question is: what can we expect from these similarities between animals and robots' behaviors?

The [researchers are] also looking at the behavior that emerges when groups of robotic rats interact using different kinds of rules. This should show biologists what the rats may be doing. Understanding the biology of these simple systems might later inform the design of more sophisticated robots, Joshi said.

For more information, you can read the two following papers.

Sources: University of California, Davis, via EurekAlert!, February 14, 2005

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