Robot Lobstrocities :: Technology Machines Papers

automaton Lobstrocities Check this bulge out, Joseph Ayers, a biology professor at Northeastern University says as he turns on his laptop.The soundtrack from the 1975 film, Jaws plays in the background. On the screen is a coarse-grained image of a moving creature lumbering towards a coarse pile of bricks, easily maneuvering itself over them. The music reaches its climactic conclusion and a lethal claw dominates the screen. Fortunately its not a behemoth its just a lobster. For Ayers, lobsters argon fascinating creatures that has inhabited his vitality for most of his career. For more than a decade his team has worked on build a fully autonomous robotic lobster with the same wayal patterns of the real thing. Funded mostly by the US Navy, the hope is that it will one day be used for underwater mine detection as a slight expensive and more efficient system to current methods.Hours were spent analyzing lobster behavior and its legs, claws, abdomen and tail come uponments. Thes e observations were then converted into mathematical components, correlating the movements with the nerve signals that pioneer them. In essence it makes a computer program act as the lobsters brain. A big step from the field of artificial intelligence, the realize is all about reverse engineering the biological functions nature has taken thousands of years to evolve and develop. Were probably one of the few laboratories in the world to get artificial muscles to work. To actually control a freely behaving robot. The other thing thats different about our robot is that it genuinely is controlled by the rules the nervous system works by, instead of the list of instructions to control the behavior, unlike AI based robots, said Ayers.Starting out as a young biologist from California, Ayers is now one of chief researchers of biomimetics, which takes ideas from nature and implements them into new technology. His project stemmed from his graduate days when he first studied the behavior of the lobster. Both sides of Ayers office are crammed with books on marine biology. It is a typical college professors office, and for the lobster claw mobile hanging from the ceiling. On the wall, a childs drawing of lobster. A Superman comic book featuring, the Lobster Man. Its self-explanatory that Ayers has an affinity with these crustaceans. He admires their nervous system and adaptability to the sea. Their complex movements and ability to move on every surface of the sea floor.