Robot Rat To Lead The Way In Touch Technology
ScienceDaily (Feb. 15, 2008) — A new initiative, bringing together nine research groups from seven countries, including teams of robotics and brain researchers from Europe, the USA and Israel, has recently been set up with the aim of imitating nature. Based on principles of active sensing adopted widely in the animal kingdom, the multinational team is developing innovative touch technologies, including a 'whiskered' robotic rat. The whiskered robot will be able to quickly locate, identify and capture moving objects. 'The use of touch in the design of artificial intelligence systems has been largely overlooked, until now,' says Prof. Ehud Ahissar of the Weizmann Institute of Science's Neurobiology Department, whose research team is one of the groups participating in the multinational project.