Then
d
n
a
NOW
ROBOTS: FROM NANO
TO TINY TO SMALL
by Tom Carroll
Electro-Biological
Intelligence
I take a lot of magazines — most
to keep abreast of a broad range of
technical subjects — but I rely on
Forbes for business and financial
articles, at least until the November
12th issue. An article in the issue,
“Interview With A Cyborg” by
Courtney Myers caught my eye. I had
heard bits and pieces about Kevin
Warwick's experimentation with
cybernetics and the implantation of a
100 electrode array that he had in his
arm back in 2002. (Figure 1 shows
Warwick with his 'bionic' hand
controlled by the electrode implant.)
As the "world's only cyborg," he has
been able to control an artificial hand
and an electric wheelchair from brain
impulses picked up by the electrodes
and transmitted through a computer
to these devices. What interested me
most was his little robot, Gordon, that
he and fellow university professor, Dr.
Ben Whalley, head of the School of
Pharmacy unveiled that past August.
This robot is nothing short of amazing
with a most unique brain (see Figure 2).
Gordon's brain is not a RAM or
ROM coupled with a microcontroller/
processor, but fetal rat neurons in
FIGURE 1. Warwick and hand.
what is similar to a very small Petri
dish, connected to an array of 60
electrodes sprouting out the edge. As
in the electrode array Warwick has in
his arm, these cells — immersed in a
nutrient-rich and oxygenated saline
solution — emit faint electrical 'signals'
that can be used to control the
robot. The cell culture is remote from
the actual mobile robot and is
interconnected by an RF link. The cells
need to be temperature controlled
and cannot withstand the jostling
of a mobile robot. No computer
intelligence is used; the learning and
control is strictly by the rat neurons.
These cells mature in a week or
so, and begin to actually divide
and grow from 50,000 to
FIGURE 2. Whalley examining
the rat neuron “brain.”
76 SERVO 02.2009
