Introduction

Empowering robots with human intelligence represents one of the ultimate goals of robotic research. However, robotics and AI have often underestimated the difficulty of replicating perceptual and cognitive capabilities that humans find particularly easy. Perception and cognition are essential components of both tele-operated and autonomous robots, enabling attention-based control, reactive behaviour, situation awareness and seamless human-robot interaction. By leveraging the latest advances in computational and experimental neuroscience, our Centre focuses on both fundamental understanding of brain function and practical applications of these findings for human-robot symbiosis. These include the research of perceptual docking for knowledge acquisition in robotics by using in situ learning of operator specific motor and perceptual and cognitive behaviour; perceptual/cognitive augmentation by extending an individual’s innate abilities and restoring functions that are lost due to diseases such as neurodegenerative diseases and cognitive impairment; intent, emotion, behaviour recognition and user modelling for human robot interaction; and the development of social robotics for managing children’s mental health and care for the elderly.

Research Interests

• Neurorobotics and neural implants
• Brain computer interfacing and neuromodulation
• Neural circuits and molecular mechanisms
• Brain-inspired computation, modelling, learning, and sensorimotor systems
• Perceptual docking for robotic control
• Social robotics for mental health and elderly care