BIOTACT · BIOmimetic Technology for vibrissal ACtive Touch

BIOTACT will develop novel biomimetic computational methods and technologies for active touch sensing. The project is inspired by the functionality, morphology, and neural processing architectures of biological sensory systems that use tactile hairs known as whiskers or vibrissae. It will focus on two animals that are tactile specialists--the Norwegian rat and the Etruscan shrew. Both species make actively-controlled sweeping movements of their facial whiskers (whisking") as they explore their environments. Specific objectives are to understand, and then 'reverse-engineer' in the form of computational models, the ability of these animals to:i. generate fast rhythmic whisking behaviour, exquisitely modulated by sensory feedback, that allows precise positioning of the vibrissae in a manner that maximises information uptake