Self-Repairing Mobile Robotic Car using Astrocyte Neuron Networks

A self-repairing robot utilising a spiking astrocyteneuronnetwork is presented in this paper. It uses the outputspike frequency of neurons to control the motor speed and robotactivation. A software model of the astrocyte-neuron networkpreviously demonstrated self-detection of faults and its selfrepairingcapability. In this paper the application demonstratorof mobile robotics is employed to evaluate the fault-tolerant capabilitiesof the astrocyte-neuron network when implemented ina hardware-based robotic car system. Results demonstrated thatwhen 20% or less synapses associated with a neuron are faulty,the robot car can maintain system performance and complete thetask of forward motion correctly. If 80% synapses are faulty, thesystem performance shows a marginal degradation, however thisdegradation is much smaller than that of conventional faulttoleranttechniques under the same levels of faults. This is thefirst time that astrocyte cells merged within spiking neuronsdemonstrates a self-repairing capabilities in the hardware systemfor a real application