Rolf Pfeifer

Haptic discrimination of material properties by a robotic hand

One of the key aspects of understanding human intelligence is to investigate how humans interact with their environment. Performing articulated movement and manipulation tasks in a constantly changing environment, have proven more difficult than expected. The difficulties of robot manipulation are in part due to the unbalanced relation between vision and haptic sensing. Most robots are equipped with high resolution cameras, which images are processed by well established computer vision algorithms such as color segmentation, motion detection, edge detection, etc. However, the majority of robots have very limited haptic capabilities. This paper presents our attempt to overcome this difficulties by: (a) using a tendon driven robotic hand with rich dynamical movements and (b) covering the hand with a set of haptic sensors on the palm and the fingertips, the sensors are based on a simplified version of an artificial skin with strain gauges and PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) films. The results show that if the robotic hand actively explores different objects using the exploratory procedures: tapping and squeezing, material properties such as hardness and texture can be used to discriminate haptically between different objects.

50 Years of Artificial Intelligence: essays dedicated to the 50th anniversary of artificial intelligence (Festschrift)

Historical and Philosphical Issues.- AI in the 21st Century - With Historical Reflections.- The Physical Symbol System Hypothesis: Status and Prospects.- Fifty Years of AI: From Symbols to Embodiment - and Back.- 2006: Celebrating 75 Years of AI - History and Outlook: The Next 25 Years.- Evolutionary Humanoid Robotics: Past, Present and Future.- Philosophical Foundations of AI.- On the Role of AI in the Ongoing Paradigm Shift within the Cognitive Sciences.- Information Theory and Quantification.- On the Information Theoretic Implications of Embodiment - Principles and Methods.- Development Via Information Self-structuring of Sensorimotor Experience and Interaction.- How Information and Embodiment Shape Intelligent Information Processing.- Preliminary Considerations for a Quantitative Theory of Networked Embodied Intelligence.- A Quantitative Investigation into Distribution of Memory and Learning in Multi Agent Systems with Implicit Communications.- Morphology and Dynamics.- AI in Locomotion: Challenges and Perspectives of Underactuated Robots.- On the Task Distribution Between Control and Mechanical Systems.- Bacteria Integrated Swimming Microrobots.- Adaptive Multi-modal Sensors.- Neurorobotics.- What Can AI Get from Neuroscience?.- Dynamical Systems in the Sensorimotor Loop: On the Interrelation Between Internal and External Mechanisms of Evolved Robot Behavior.- Adaptive Behavior Control with Self-regulating Neurons.- Brain Area V6A: A Cognitive Model for an Embodied Artificial Intelligence.- The Man-Machine Interaction: The Influence of Artificial Intelligence on Rehabilitation Robotics.- Machine Intelligence, Cognition, and Natural Language Processing.- Tests of Machine Intelligence.- A Hierarchical Concept Oriented Representation for Spatial Cognition in Mobile Robots.- Anticipation and Future-Oriented Capabilities in Natural and Artificial Cognition.- Computer-Supported Human-Human Multilingual Communication.- Human-Like Intelligence: Motivation, Emotions, and Consciousness.- A Paradigm Shift in Artificial Intelligence: Why Social Intelligence Matters in the Design and Development of Robots with Human-Like Intelligence.- Intrinsically Motivated Machines.- Curious and Creative Machines.- Applying Data Fusion in a Rational Decision Making with Emotional Regulation.- How to Build Consciousness into a Robot: The Sensorimotor Approach.- Robot Platforms.- A Human-Like Robot Torso ZAR5 with Fluidic Muscles: Toward a Common Platform for Embodied AI.- The iCub Cognitive Humanoid Robot: An Open-System Research Platform for Enactive Cognition.- Intelligent Mobile Manipulators in Industrial Applications:Experiences and Challenges.- Art and AI.- The Dynamic Darwinian Diorama: A Landlocked Archipelago Enhances Epistemology.

Optimal coding for naturally occurring whisker deflections

It is largely unknown how the properties of the somatosensory system relate to the properties of naturally occurring whisker deflections. Here, we analyse representations of simulated neurons that have optimally sparse activity in response to recorded reflections of a rat whisker from surfaces of everyday objects. These representations predict a number of interesting properties of neurons in the somatosensory system that have not been measured yet.