Research Opportunities in the Symbiotic Computing Lab

• Independent study at all levels.
• Graduate research assistantships in robotics and computational neuroscience.
• Undergraduate research in our new REU Site on Integrated Machine Learning Systems (the deadline for our 2008 program is February 1st).

General Project Topic Areas

• Robot learning of grasp affordances (mapping vision to grasp actions)
• Robot manipulation task learning through human-robot interaction
• Relational spatio-temporal basis functions for task learning

Computational Neuroscience and Motor Control

• Models of cortical control of arm movements in support of brain-machine interfaces. Immediate needs include:
  • Nonlinear dimensionality reduction methods (e.g., ISO-map)
  • Support vector regression with "spike kernels"
  • Automated techniques for neural spike sorting
  • Techniques for real-time control of a robotic arm given neural activity. We are particularly interested in developing methods that will allow for online adaptation of the control algorithms
• Hybrid models of reinforcement and supervised learning
• Learning and using muscle synergies in object manipulation

• bion. A neural model of learning for control
• Pulse-Pool. Heart beat sensing and social interaction
• Artificial lifeforms

Specific Independent Study Projects: Spring 2008

• Interactive art: mechanical design and control of a single-limb robot
• Interactive art: Hebbian learning models for adaptive bion behavior
• Design and construction of a mobile manipulator robot (robotics, embedded systems, artificial intelligence)
• Construction and control of a multi-finger robotic hand
• Robot learning of manipulation sequences based on human observation

Application Procedure

• Make an appointment (fagg at ou.edu)
• Come ready to discuss a research paper that you have read in the topic area in which you are interested

fagg at ou.edu

Last modified: Mon Jan 7 00:26:36 2008