A first in the world of science: A robot dog powered by live brain cells was developed

A game-changing development has been achieved in the scientific world. Researchers working at Australia-based company Cortical Labs managed to direct the movements of a physical robot dog by integrating living brain cells that they multiplied in the laboratory into silicon chips.

FIRST PHYSICAL TEST IN BIO-CHIP TECHNOLOGY

Living brain cells placed on a silicon chip were equipped with two-way electrical signals via electrodes. In this way, the activities of the neurons were directly transformed into the movements of the robot dog. Bio-chip technology, which has previously attracted attention with playing computer games such as Pong and Doom, was tested on a robotic system in the physical world for the first time with this study.

AN APPROACH BEYOND TRADITIONAL SYSTEMS

Although today's robots demonstrate high success in physical movements, they still have difficulty in quickly adapting to changing conditions and making decisions in complex situations. The main advantage of this biological approach is that, unlike traditional artificial intelligence systems, the human brain requires much less energy and can cope better with unknown situations. The system, which was also tested in a virtual environment in partnership with Honda Research Institute Europe, was trained with thousands of hours of interactions.

CRITICAL STEP FOR AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS OF THE FUTURE