Silvia Tolu, phD and researcher in bio-robotics will present the big and very prestitious project: The Human Brain Project that aims to put in place a cutting-edge research infrastructure that will allow scientific and industrial researchers to advance our knowledge in the fields of neuroscience, computing, and brain-related medicine.

Neuro-robotics: connecting body, environment and brain. Understanding the brain is a challenge that more than 100 research institutions in Europe are trying to achieve in the framework of one of the two largest scientific projects ever funded by the European union, the 10-years project called: The Human Brain.

This project aims to map the human brain and create an ICT-based research infrastructure to help advance neuroscience, medicine and computing. Among 13 sub-projects, the tenth is dedicated to Neuro-robotics in which researchers have created a platform for linking virtual brain models and simulated robot bodies.

The main goal of the team at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) is to get new insights into the brain’s connections ant its interactions with the body and surroundings, so that the brain is not only understood as a closed, abstract entity. We will discuss the brain and body relationship, and its importance on AI and robotics.

Our approach is exemplified by bio-mimetic modular control architectures based on cerebellar internal models concept and machine learning optimisation that lead to a real-time control system. The system has been tested on different robotic platforms under both manipulation, visual, and locomotion tasks.

This will be the state-of-the-art for more complex bio-inspired control architectures for neuro-robotics towards emulating the central nervous system functioning in motor control and learning.