This post is authored by Jasmin Leveille and Gennady Livitz, two Neuromorphics Lab researchers working on the development of the MoNETA brain. The goal of the MOdular Neural Exploring Traveling Agent (MoNETA; Versace and Chanlder, 2010) project is to develop an animat, or virtual agent, that can intelligently interact and learn to navigate a virtual world making decisions aimed at increasing rewards while avoiding danger. The animat is designed to be modular: a whole brain system, or artificial nervous system including many cortical and subcortical areas found in mammalian brains, is progressively refined with more complex and adaptive modules, and is tested in increasingly more challenging environment. This post discusses the development of a key component of the visual system. Read the rest of this entry »
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Learning to see in a virtual world
| September 18, 2011Comments: Leave a comment -
Behind the scenes of the Neuromorphics Lab
| June 6, 2011
I walked into the building and there was a human-sized robot waiting to greet me. It shook my hand, took my coat, and brought me to sit in the room where my interview was going to be held. It asked me whether I needed a drink, and then proceeded to clean the countertops and water the plants. When I asked whether there was a reason it was working so hard, it simply said, "I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do." Read the rest of this entry »Comments: Leave a comment -
The Neuromorphics Lab on the cover page of IEEE Computer
| February 10, 2011
For the memristors/neuromorphic computing aficionados, a new article featured on the cover page of the February edition of IEEE Computer describing the joint work done by Hewlett-Packard and the Neuromorphics Lab at Boston University summarizing the challenges and the accomplishments of the past year. And what a year! The abstract says it all: "In a synchronous digital platform for building large cognitive models, memristive nanodevices form dense, resistive memories that can be placed close to conventional processing circuitry. Through adaptive transformations, the devices can interact with the world in real time." Read the rest of this entry »Comments: Leave a comment -
The Neuromorphics Lab on Popular Science
| February 1, 2011
No, we have not invented the flying Humvee, and we are not about to. However, if you buy the February edition of Popular Science, you will find, on page 41, a nice overview of three projects, the Connectome, the Blue Brain, and SyNAPSE. These initiatives do not share the same goals, but can be all assimilated by the way they combine neuroscience and computer science to achieve their objectives. Read the rest of this entry »Comments: Leave a comment