Originally published March 2 2005
Robotic rats developed tendencies similar to blind, deaf baby rats
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
In a recent test to see how well robots programmed with a simple set of rules will act, a set of robotic rats acted very similar to blind, deaf baby rats. By putting these young rats into a rectangular area and watching them feel their way along a wall, scientists were able to establish a baseline behavior. After this, small, rat-shaped robots designed to feel along walls were put into the same area and they acted in ways very similar to the real rats.
In a test that might've sent some folks shrieking from the room, robots programmed with no more sense than a blind, deaf baby rat developed new behaviors on their own.
Welcome to biorobotics, an emerging field in which automated machines are used to study living creatures -- and vice versa.
Psychology professor Jeffrey Schank and mechanical and aeronautical engineering professor Sanjay Joshi, both of the University of California, Davis, designed an experiment to record the behavior of young rats and robots that were confined to the same basic sets of rules in a rectangular arena.
Rat pups that were just seven to 10 days old and blind and deaf felt their way along a wall until their nose hit a corner, where they would stay put.
When the robotic rats were placed in a similar rectangular arena, they showed different behavior than their furry counterparts.
The behavior exhibited by the robots was not included in the written computer code, but instead emerged as a combination of the written instructions and interactions with the environment at each instant.
Joshi says this is evidence of what scientists call emergent behavior, or new and unexpected behavior that grows from a simple set of rules.
"It could be the result of how they get into the corner in the first place, mixed with what their brain tells them to do once they hit a wall.
Results from this type of experiment may help biologists determine what rats may be doing in groups.
"The robots can help us create controlled experiments that would not be possible using live animals," Joshi said.
"In the future, we hope to create more and more sophisticated and realistic robotic models of living creatures to help understand the creatures themselves."
And understanding the biology of these simple systems might later inform the design of more sophisticated robots.
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