The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made possible increasingly complex autonomous robots. Robots for in extreme environments such as space or deep ocean exploration require energy efficiency and multiple gaits. For example, a deep ocean robot should be able to swim, crawl, and climb with little disturbance of the ocean floor. However, current AI processes result in code that is costly in power and computational resources. This project proposes to develop a robot to emulate the swimming, crawling, and climbing behaviors of C. Elegans suitable for low power microcontrollers or microprocessors.

This project proposes designing and constructing a robot emulating the swimming, crawling, and climbing behaviors of C. Elegans. It will be necessary to develop a formal map of the C. Elegans neuron-muscular system,  realistic models of the pertinent cells, re-usable computer simulations, and finally implementation in hardware.

It will advance understanding of C. Elegans and make available alternatives for robot design.

Applications

• A robot that can crawl over an argicultural field and measure/monitor moisture, ph, etc.
• A robot that can crawl or swim un-tethered for extended time in deep waters
• A robot for space exploration that is not restrained by wheeled mobility and thus able to traverse soft or liquid surfaces.

References

1. Alejandro Bilbao, Amar K. Patel, Mizanur Rahman, Siva A. Vanapalli, and Jerzy Blawzdziewicz. Roll maneuvers are essential for active reorientation of ¡i¿caenorhabditis elegans¡/i¿ in 3d media. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(16):E3616–E3625, 2018.

2. Julijana Gjorgjieva, David Biron, and Gal Haspel. Neurobiology of caenorhabditis elegans locomotion: Where do we stand? BioScience, 64(6):476–486, 06 2014.

3. Huang W ... Huang Y, Luo J. A single neuron in c. elegans orchestrates multiple motor outputs through parallel modes of transmission. (33):4430–4445, October 2023.

4. Zhaoyu Li, Jie Liu, Maohua Zheng, and X.Z. Shawn Xu. Encoding of both analog- and digital-like behavioral outputs by one c. elegans interneuron. (159):751–765, November 2014.

5. Stuart J. Russell and Peter Norvig. Artificial Intelligence, A Modern Approach, 3e. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2015.

6. Barbulescu Ruxandra, Mestre Gonçalo, Oliveira Arlindo L., and Silveira Luı́s Miguel. Learning the dynamics of realistic models of c. elegans nervous system with recurrent neural networks. Scientific Reports, 13(1):467 ff, 01 2023.

7. Claude Shannon. 1950 – maze-solving mouse, 1950.