An implementation of a biologically inspired model of head direction cells on a robot

Authors:
Theocharis Kyriacou
Affiliations:
Research Institute for the Environment, Physical Sciences and Applied Mathematics, Keele University, Keele, UK
Venue:
TAROS'11 Proceedings of the 12th Annual conference on Towards autonomous robotic systems
Year:
2011

Citing 2
Cited 1

Sigma-Pi learning: on radial basis functions and cortical associative learning

Advances in neural information processing systems 2
Head Direction Cells and the Neural Mechanisms of Spatial Orientation (Bradford Books)

Head Direction Cells and the Neural Mechanisms of Spatial Orientation (Bradford Books)

Using an evolutionary algorithm to determine the parameters of a biologically inspired model of head direction cells

Journal of Computational Neuroscience

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Abstract

A biologically inspired model of head direction cells is presented and tested on a small mobile robot. Head direction cells (discovered in the brain of rats in 1984) encode the head orientation of their host irrespective of the host's location in the environment. The head direction system thus acts as a biological compass (though not a magnetic one) for its host. Head direction cells are influenced in different ways by idiothetic (host-centred) and allothetic (not host-centred) cues. The model presented here uses the visual, vestibular and kinesthetic inputs that are simulated by robot sensors. Three test cases are presented that cover different state combinations of the inputs. The test results are compared with biological observations in previous literature.