Thanks for posting that. The idea of neuron based control systems remind me of the BEAM bio-core walkers I've seen. Basically their gate emerges out of the firing of signals.
This one is pretty neat too: granted it's radio controlled, but that means a small enough micro controller could control it.
I'm about halfway through a wonderful book about the cognitive science aspect of this kind of device: Andy Clark's "Being there: Putting brain, body and world together again".
His basic point is that we have a bad assumption that effective interaction with the world requires a being (human, animal, robot...) to have an internal representation of the relevant parts of the world, and to act on that representation to make decisions about how to behave. He points out that many very effective organisms act without internal representations, but instead have body parts that follow simple rules, resulting in effective behavior.
It's really a wonderful paradigm shift for me. I've always had that assumption that representations are necessary. It's interesting that practical robotics is butting up against the limitations of onboard representations and overcoming those limitations the same way that simple organisms do.
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Whit+
"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." - Walt Disney
This one is pretty neat too:
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·"If you build it, they will come."
http://www.amazon.com/Being-There-Putting-Brain-Together/dp/0262531569/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278519227&sr=8-3
His basic point is that we have a bad assumption that effective interaction with the world requires a being (human, animal, robot...) to have an internal representation of the relevant parts of the world, and to act on that representation to make decisions about how to behave. He points out that many very effective organisms act without internal representations, but instead have body parts that follow simple rules, resulting in effective behavior.
It's really a wonderful paradigm shift for me. I've always had that assumption that representations are necessary. It's interesting that practical robotics is butting up against the limitations of onboard representations and overcoming those limitations the same way that simple organisms do.
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