Advanced Sensing System for Physiological and Behavioral Studies of Octopuses
Abstract
Understanding how an octopus adapts, learns, and evolves to novel tasks, situations, and environments requires new insights into oct opus neurodynamics. A key to gaining insights into the octopus neurodyanamics is a full view testing environment to simultaneousl y acquire in vivo and ex vivo data from freely moving octopuses. Such a testing environment will be enabled by established and novel sensing technologies including novel conformal and wireless electronics to be surface mounted or surgically implanted in the centra l brain and along the arms of octopuses, high-resolution pressure sensors distributed on environmental surfaces, and multiple camera s for 3D reconstruction of octopuss body kinematics. This DURIP seeks to build and instrument an advanced sensing system to suppor t an ongoing Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) project entitled A CyberOctopus that learns, evolves and adapt s (N00014-18-S-F006), which is currently funded by the Office of Naval Research. The development of this sensing system involves se veral tasks: 1) building aquarium setups for housing living octopuses for physiological and behavioral studies; 2) creating ultra-co mpliant, implantable, and wireless electronics for recording neural and electromyogram signals; 3) creating large-scale, high resolu tion pressure sensors patterned on all surfaces (walls, floor, contained objects) in the octopus environment; and 4) setting up mul tiple cameras to obtain 3D vision of octopuses. The in vivo and ex vivo sensing data will be synchronized and correlated to support the development of a computational model of living octopuses, which is the objective of the MURI project. The development and testi ng of this sensing system at the University of Southern California (USC) will benefit from close collaborations with the MURI team l everaging their expertise in different areas related to octopuses. This system will directly support the MURI project and could also serve as a platform for physiological and behavioral studies of other marine animals for the broader research community. This sens ing system will also provide USC students and researchers hands-on educational experiences in various fields including biology, neur al science, control, and artificial intelligence. It will thus be a platform for attracting future Navy researchers.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Oct 22, 2021
- Source ID
- N000142112927
Entities
People
- Hangbo Zhao
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Southern California