TITLE: Neuron based control mechanism for robot arm movement inspired from neuroscience SPEAKER: Nishant Singh (Middlesex University) ABSTRACT: Cognitive Science research and autonomous robotics were once, two completely different disciplines of science and required entirely different skills and methodologies for their study. This distance is getting constantly shortened now with the advent of computational modelling and Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques. The relentless efforts of the scientists from neuroscience, computer science and robotics is bridging the gap and establishing the roadmap for computational neuroscience and biomimetic robotics study. Networks of Leaky integrate-and-fire (LIF) neurons are known to show asynchronous activity states, which resemble the activity in the cerebral cortex of brain-awake animals. Also, these neurons are constituents of various cell assemblies. Here, implementation of Finite State Automata (FSA) using spiking cell assemblies has been done, using the NEST (Neural Simulation Tool) Simulator. As the cell assemblies interact they realize logical functions within the FSA. This connections of cell assemblies has been applied to govern the arm movement of a robot. The present work outlines a framework that makes use of the spiking neurons and the robotic techniques for generation of the movement of a robotic arm, in performing a pick-and-place task. It provides an idea of integration of an inter-disciplinary venture, linking spiking neurons, finite state automata and the robotic techniques together. It is a neuroscience-inspired work making its application into computation and robotics.