Building synthetic brains capable of human level discovery and invention...

Summary - IEI builds virtual reality simulations within which robots and their neuro-control systems may be built, trained, and tested within their intended mission environments. At the core of such VR robots are STANNO-based Creativity Machines that drive motion planning as well as more ambitious long-range navigation and strategic planning. Once the 'brains' of these simulated robots have rehearsed in their mission environment, they may be ported to the corresponding hardware-based robot that can then exercise the very skills learned within the simulation environment. Later, these controlling neural architectures systems may be exchanged between the hardware robot and its virtual reality simulation in an ongoing bootstrapping cycle that cumulatively perfects the necessary skills to fulfill a particular mission. In effect the robot is cumulatively dreaming in virtual reality so as to improve its real world performance.

Details - Under contract with the Air Force Research Laboratory, IEI is currently developing a virtual robotic development and test environment in which 'creative' robots based upon the IEI neural network paradigms may be designed, trained, and tested within representative mission environments. Within this application called "CSMARRT" (Creative, Self-Learning, Multi-Sensory, Adaptive, Reconfigurable, Robotics, Toolbox), robots may be designed using a newly invented form of XML called Robotic Markup Language (RML). Using RML, robot designers may specify structure, mechanics, both STANNO-modeled sensors and actuators, as well as STANNO-implemented neural architectures. Once constructed, these virtual robots can be imported into various learning environments where they may autonomously develop movement strategies, schemes for integrating sensor signals, and clever ways of meeting their mission objectives. Alternate views within the application's GUI allow the user to visualize how individual neural network modules have 'knitted' themselves into complex control architectures. Using CSMARRT, completed designs may be exported to other simulation environments such ARA's Endgame Framework to simulate a variety of battlefield environments. Similarly, IEI is perfecting the means to export cultivated robotic brains from CSMARRT to a variety of embedded targets such as FPGAs.

CSMARRT will soon be generalized for civilian use in the gaming and entertainment industries. For more details, contact Max Metzger.