ResearchTalks Vol.6 - Control groups of animals with robotic lures

Control of animal groups with robotic lures

Sempo Grégory Unit of Social Ecology, ULB

gsempo@ulb.ac.be

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The use of lures is very old in the history of interactions between humans and animals.

These lures are often the result of a tradition, obtained by “trials and errors”. Most of the time, previous studies of animal behavior (isolated or in groups) leading to formal models are lacking. Moreover, these lures do not interact together and do not have any adaptive capability.

Lures

Lures At the individual level, behavioral sciences have shown that:

animal interactions could be rather “simple” signals; it is possible to interact with animals by making specifically designed artifacts.

Michelsen et al. (BES, 1992) Patricelli et al. (Nature, 2002)

No interaction

The artificial agent is passive (does not respond to the animal) →the loop is not closed

The loop is not closed

ROBOFISH (J. Krauze, BES 2010) FEMBOT GROUSE (G. Patricielli, behav. Ecol 2010)

Robotic squirrel (M.A. Barbour, Proc Royal Soc B 2012)

Lures At the individual level, behavioral sciences have shown that:

animal interactions could be rather “simple” signals; it is possible to interact with animals by making specifically designed artifacts.

Michelsen et al. (BES, 1992)

Patricelli et al. (Nature, 2002)

Vaughan (SAB, 1998) No interaction

Interaction Not a « congener »

Review: Knight, J. Nature (2005).

Ishii, Robotica 2013

Cyborgs

REMOTE CONTROLLED RAT (S. Talwar, Nature 2002)

ROBOT BEETLE (Maharbiz, DARPA)

ROBOT ROACH (Bozkurt, IEEE 2012)

develop mixed-societies composed of social animals and artificial agents (robots) that interact and share collective decision. Case study: shelter selection by cockroaches and robots

Mixed societies (natural and artificial agents)

Implementation : external view

12 IR Proximity Sensors ⇒ Cockroach detection ⇒ Wall detection ⇒ Robot detection

2 Photodiodes ⇒ Shelter detection

Linear Camera ⇒ Cockroach detection

(Correll N. et al., 2006)

Swistrack software RFID

Tracking tool: analysis of individual behaviour

Project leader: D. Fresneau

Collective choices in mixed societies

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(Halloy et al. 2007, Science)

Experimental demonstration (different shelters)

12 cockroaches & 4 robots

Collective selection of the light shelter

Light Dark

Summary

Existence of shared and controlled collective choice between machines

and animals

Implementation of active chemical communication between robots & animals

Both machines insects are able, independently of each other, to perform such collective decision.

Partners

•Unit of Social Ecology (USE) •International Solvay Institutes for Physics and Chemistry •Autonomous Systems Laboratory (ASL1) •Ethologie-Evolution-Ecologie (EVE) •Swarm-intelligent Systems Group (SWIS) •Laboratoire d'Ethologie Expérimentale et Comparée (LEEC)

•FNRS

©Philippe PLAILLY / EURELIOS