Design for a brain revisited: the neuromorphic design and functionality of the interactive space 'Ada'.
While much is now known about the operation and organisation of the brain at the neuronal and microcircuit level, we are still some way from understanding it as a complete system from the lowest to the highest levels of description. One way to gain such an integrative understanding of neural systems is to construct them. We have built the largest neuromorphic system yet known, an interactive space called 'Ada' that is able to interact with many people simultaneously using a wide variety of sensory and behavioural modalities. 'She' received 553,700 visitors over 5 months during the Swiss Expo.02 in 2002. In this paper we present the broad motivations, design and technologies behind Ada, and discuss the construction and analysis of the system.
Eng
Kynan
K
Institute of Neuroinformatics, University/ETHZurich, Switzerland. kynan@ini.phys.ethz.ch
Klein
David
D
Bäbler
Andreas
A
Bernardet
Ulysses
U
Blanchard
Mark
M
Costa
Marcio
M
Delbrück
Tobi
T
Douglas
Rodney J
RJ
Hepp
Klaus
K
Manzolli
Jonatas
J
Mintz
Matti
M
Roth
Fabian
F
Rutishauser
Ueli
U
Wassermann
Klaus
K
Whatley
Adrian M
AM
Wittmann
Aaron
A
Wyss
Reto
R
Verschure
Paul F M J
PF
D001519:Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology; D003201:Computers; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology; D009488:Neurosciences / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D011639:Public Opinion; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012371:Robotics / Q000379:methods*; D012985:Software Design