As a newish member of the department, this talk serves primarily as my introduction of myself (via the work I did before coming here). Although my previous research in robotics is somewhat outside this Department's official spectrum of interests, I will endeavor to make the talk relevant (or at least entertaining) by looking at the design of robotic interfaces through some photographic examples. The official abstract for the talk is the following:
Strong evidence that one understands a behavioural control mechanism can be demonstrated by building a working model of it. Models used to describe the perceptual mechanisms underlying animal behaviour are often constructed using mathematics or computer simulation. Increasingly, however, it is becoming possible to build robotic (or 'bionic') models of these mechanisms. A bionic model mimics biological control mechanisms by reconstructing them via functionally analogous transducers and electro-mechanical circuitry. Because a robotic model inhabits a physical environment, it affords examination of realistic (e.g., real-time, noisy, etc.) environmental interactions. In this talk, I will present a bionic model (a 6 DOF robotic sonar sensing head) which I used to investigate auditory spatial perception. I will show how the model has been used to generate and test an acoustical explanation for the dramatic ear movements used by the Greater Horseshoe bat. For more information contact: ashley@dcs.gla.ac.uk