Northwest Labs B103 and Zoom
Agile movement and embodied intelligence: Computational and comparative considerations
Abstract: I will tell several research stories with the broad theme of developing data-intensive approaches to connect brain and behavior. They all highlight my love of natural behaviors, dynamical systems, and open science. These vignettes feature several fun collaborations, including joint work with experimental neurobiologists, mathematicians, and engineers. In particular, I will ask how insects and birds perform dexterous, coordinated movements in uncertain, complex environments. This ability is enabled by the sensation of mechanical forces to inform rapid corrections in body orientation. In a set of results that combine biomechanics, sparse sensing mathematical theory, and neural encoding, we find that, far from being a bug, neural encoding by biological sensors is a feature that acts as a transformation superbly matched to detect body rotation. Our ongoing and future work explores biological principles that achieve agile movements, including understanding and designing neural-inspired sensors, actuators, and controllers.