Artificial Lobster Eye Research Group

Artificial Lobster Eye Vision System

The artificial lobster eye research group is an interdisciplinary group of researchers working to mimic compound eye visual systems and especially those of lobsters. Compound eyes appear to be of especial interest to VLSI structures. Research is conducted in four main areas:

• 1. VLSI chip design for an artificial visual system
  VLSI (=Very Large Scale Integrated) circuits are of interest since they offer a practical means of implementing compound eyes and their associated neural activity.
• 2. Augmentation of Synetsim with "eye" modules
  Synetsim is a program for emulating biological neural systems on a PC, primarily set up for studies on the lobster; at present it lacks sensor and sensory neural input modules.
• 3. Theory of chaos behavior of vision systems
  Due to the delay and feedback present in processing visual systems, they are known to exhibit chaos for which a theory is needed as appropriate to an artificial vision system.
• 4. Biomedical engineering applications
  Artificial visual systems have many using in biomedical engineering. Here we concentrate upon the stopping of chaotic behavior.

The research is undertaken at the following facilities:

1. VLSI designs
   under the direction of Professor Mona Zaghloul at the VLSI Design Laboratory of The George Washington University at GWU
2. Physiology and simulation programs
   under the direction of Professor Daniel K. Hartline at the Bekesy Laboratories of the University of Hawaii. Manoa at Békésy Laboratory of Neurobiology, U. Hawaii
3. CAD and chaotic effects
   under the direction of Professor Robert W. Newcomb at the Microsystems Laboratory of the University of Maryland, College Park
4. Stopping of chaotic responses and biomedical applications
   under the direction of Profesor Laura M. Roa of the Grupo de Ingeniería Biomédica at the Universidad de Sevilla

To send email to these researchers click
here for Professor Hartline
here for Professor Newcomb
here for Professor Roa
here for Professor Zaghloul
URL address: http://www.ece.umd.edu/~newcomb/lobs_eye.htm