Bio-Inspired and Biomimetic Intelligence in Robotics: 2nd Edition

A special issue of Biomimetics (ISSN 2313-7673). This special issue belongs to the section "Locomotion and Bioinspired Robotics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2024 | Viewed by 1238

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Computer Science, University of York, Heslington YO10 5GH, UK
Interests: robot learning; applied control; bioinspiration and biomimetics
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Guest Editor
Machine Life and Intelligence Research Centre, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, China
Interests: brain-inspired intelligence; motion perception; machine vision; computational neuroscience
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Guest Editor
Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Brunei, Mukim Gadong A BE1410, Brunei
Interests: artificial intelligence; autonomous systems; and embedded technologies
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Robotics is a multidisciplinary research field that demonstrates enormous potential. It concerns developing intelligent robotic systems that are capable of making decisions and acting autonomously in real and dynamic environments to accomplish tasks and assist humans in the betterment of society. Recently, advances in the computational study of intelligent behaviors such as learning and adaptation have led to powerful insights about the nature of learning in both humans, animals, materials, and machines. However, new and challenging theoretical and technological problems are being posed. One can apply the computational metaphor in different ways, and computational learning has become an important topic within many paradigms, including artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, control theory, cognitive intelligence, behavioral intelligence, and statistics. Such a convergence of interests is encouraging, but few researchers in this active area communicate across disciplinary boundaries and even fewer are skilled in the ‘language’ and techniques of more than one approach. With this new era of computational learning for robotics, further research is needed to advance the field and to evaluate multidisciplinary concerns regarding learning and adaptation techniques.

The aim of this Special Issue is to highlight the roles of advanced bio-inspired and biomimetic intelligence for robotics applications and prior knowledge in achieving successes, especially how they contribute to taming the complexity of related domains. This includes but is not limited to the following topics:

  • Behavioral and biological learning and control;
  • Computational neuroscience;
  • Cognitive robotics and computation;
  • Evolutionary robotics, multi-robot systems, and swarm intelligence;
  • Computational modeling of biological systems;
  • Biomechanics, biomechatronics, and bioengineering;
  • Smart materials;
  • Soft robotics and sensing;
  • Human‒robot interaction and collaboration;
  • Bio-inspired approaches for robot design, control, and optimization;
  • Morphological computation and embodied intelligence;
  • Bio-inspired spiking neural networks;
  • Bio-inspired vision systems;
  • Imitation learning, Bayesian/probabilistic learning;
  • Bio-inspired legged robotics;
  • Bio-inspired/biomimetic underwater robotics;
  • Micro- and Nano-robotics;
  • Healthcare and rehabilitation;
  • Flexible electronics and piezoelectric actuators.

Dr. Pengcheng Liu
Dr. Qinbing Fu
Dr. Tiong Hoo Lim
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biomimetics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

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Keywords

  • biological inspiration
  • biomimetics
  • computational learning
  • robotics

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

22 pages, 20719 KiB  
Article
A Computationally Efficient Neuronal Model for Collision Detection with Contrast Polarity-Specific Feed-Forward Inhibition
by Guangxuan Gao, Renyuan Liu, Mengying Wang and Qinbing Fu
Biomimetics 2024, 9(11), 650; https://doi.org/10.3390/biomimetics9110650 - 22 Oct 2024
Viewed by 708
Abstract
Animals utilize their well-evolved dynamic vision systems to perceive and evade collision threats. Driven by biological research, bio-inspired models based on lobula giant movement detectors (LGMDs) address certain gaps in constructing artificial collision-detecting vision systems with robust selectivity, offering reliable, low-cost, and miniaturized [...] Read more.
Animals utilize their well-evolved dynamic vision systems to perceive and evade collision threats. Driven by biological research, bio-inspired models based on lobula giant movement detectors (LGMDs) address certain gaps in constructing artificial collision-detecting vision systems with robust selectivity, offering reliable, low-cost, and miniaturized collision sensors across various scenes. Recent progress in neuroscience has revealed the energetic advantages of dendritic arrangements presynaptic to the LGMDs, which receive contrast polarity-specific signals on separate dendritic fields. Specifically, feed-forward inhibitory inputs arise from parallel ON/OFF pathways interacting with excitation. However, none of the previous research has investigated the evolution of a computational LGMD model with feed-forward inhibition (FFI) separated by opposite polarity. This study fills this vacancy by presenting an optimized neuronal model where FFI is divided into ON/OFF channels, each with distinct synaptic connections. To align with the energy efficiency of biological systems, we introduce an activation function associated with neural computation of FFI and interactions between local excitation and lateral inhibition within ON/OFF channels, ignoring non-active signal processing. This approach significantly improves the time efficiency of the LGMD model, focusing only on substantial luminance changes in image streams. The proposed neuronal model not only accelerates visual processing in relatively stationary scenes but also maintains robust selectivity to ON/OFF-contrast looming stimuli. Additionally, it can suppress translational motion to a moderate extent. Comparative testing with state-of-the-art based on ON/OFF channels was conducted systematically using a range of visual stimuli, including indoor structured and complex outdoor scenes. The results demonstrated significant time savings in silico while retaining original collision selectivity. Furthermore, the optimized model was implemented in the embedded vision system of a micro-mobile robot, achieving the highest success ratio of collision avoidance at 97.51% while nearly halving the processing time compared with previous models. This highlights a robust and parsimonious collision-sensing mode that effectively addresses real-world challenges. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bio-Inspired and Biomimetic Intelligence in Robotics: 2nd Edition)
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