RatCar: A vehicular neuro-robotic platform for a rat with a sustaining structure of the rat body under the vehicle

Abstract

An online neuro-robotic platform in the form of a small vehicle, the "RatCar" has been developed. First, a rat had neural electrodes implanted in the motor cortices to record extracellular potentials. Then, our system combined the rat and its vehicle body by hanging the rat under its floor. In this paper, an experimental platform is proposed to observe and analyze motor commands by correlating neural signals with locomotion states. It was designed to operate in 2 modes; (a) adaptively correlating neural signals and locomotion states to determine motor commands, and (b) applying the estimated motor commands to control the vehicle according to the intention of the rat. As a result, time-varying correlation between neural and locomotion activities has been adaptively visualized in real time to analyze motor commands in various body conditions. In addition, a control of the vehicle has been improved.