Polish Academy of Science

Non-linear electronic circuits

Dr. Ludovico Minati's recent work at the Institute of Nuclear Physics - Polish Academy of Science (Krakow, Poland) and Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo, Japan) builds on research he has previously conducted at the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento (Trento, Italy), and focuses on emergence and complexity in non-linear electronic circuits. The underlying notion is that there is nothing physically unique about neural dynamics, rather, the statistical properties which we observe are rather universal across diverse self-organized systems.

Therefore it is possible to replicate them, at least to some extent, using non-linear electronic systems. The resulting approach is different from, and complementary to, attempting to replicate specific cognitive functions as more commonly done in artificial intelligence research, because in this case the focus is on realization of a physical system and study of the resulting emergent properties at a statistical level.

Using this approach, it has been possible to readily replicate the spontaneous emergence of community structure and small-world topology even from elementary ring networks, and to obtain a variety of atypical transistor-based circuits which can generate trains of spikes and bursts.

Such circuits have recently allowed realizing a bio-inspired ant-like robot whose emergent gait patterns closely resemble those observed for biological insects. Because these electronic networks are much simpler to investigate and manipulate than biological preparates, their investigation represents an important complement to in-vivo and in-vitro studies.

Visit Dr. Ludovico Minati's website for more information alongside publicly-available datasets and designs.