Publisher's Synopsis
Neurorobotics is an interdisciplinary field that draws on artificial intelligence, cognitive sciences, computer science, engineering, psychology, neuroscience, and robotics. Because the brain is closely coupled to the body and situated in the environment, neurorobots-autonomous systems modelled after some aspect of the brain-offer a powerful tool for studying neural function and may also be a means for developing autonomous systems with intelligence that rivals that of biological organisms. This textbook introduces approaches and design principles for developing intelligent autonomous systems grounded in biology and neuroscience. It is written for anyone interested in learning about this topic and can be used in cognitive robotics courses for students in psychology, cognitive science, and computer science. Neurorobotics covers the background and foundations of the field, with information on early neurorobots, relevant principles of neuroscience, learning rules and mechanisms, and reinforcement learning and prediction; neurorobot design principles grounded in neuroscience and principles of neuroscience research; and examples of neurorobots for navigation, developmental robotics, and social robots, presented with the cognitive science and neuroscience background that inspired them. A supplementary website offers videos, robot simulations, and links to software repositories with neurorobot examples. Series Overview: Over the past decade new approaches have emerged that have revolutionized the design of intelligent robotic systems. Even more recently, research on autonomous agents has undergone a renaissance as it has progressed from its roots in distributed AI. This new series, Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Agents, joins these research communities together and focuses on their commonalities, such as emergent intelligence, coordinated activity, and situatedness.
