| Charles M. Higgins | |||
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Associate Professor |
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| Office: | ECE Bldg. Rm. 225 | ||
| Email: | higgins@ece.arizona.edu | ||
| Phone: | (520) 621-4296 | ||
| Fax: | (520) 621-2478 | ||
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Computational neuroscience and bio-inspired engineering My laboratory conducts research in areas that vary fromcomputational neuroscience to biologically-inspired engineering. The unifying goal of all these projects is to understand the representations and computational architectures used by biological systems, which are quite different from (and in many cases functionally superior to) conventional engineering systems. These projects are conducted in close collaboration with "wet" neurobiology laboratories who perform anatomical, electrophysiological, and histological studies, mostly in insects. In the area of computational neuroscience, we do mathematical and computational modeling of identified or postulated neural systems at levels from the biophysical to the highly abstract. This work is exemplified by our recent explorations into the neuronal basis of elementary visual motion detection in flies (Higgins, Douglass, and Strausfeld, Visual Neuroscience, 2004). Our work in biologically-inspired engineering involves building highly efficient parallel continuous-time computing designs, the architectures of which directly mimic fundamental aspects of neuronal circuits. This work is primarily focused in the area of visual motion processing. At the core of such designs is an array of highly sensitive low-level visual motion detectors. Systems currently in development for autonomous airborne visual navigation include self-motion estimators, obstacle avoidance systems, and target tracking systems.
Selected Recent Publications Higgins CM, Pant V. Dec 2004. An elaborated model of fly small-target tracking. Biol Cybern, 91:417-28 Higgins CM. Nov 2004. Nondirectional motion may underlie insect behavioral dependence on image speed. Biol Cybern, 91:326-32 Higgins CM, Douglass JK, Strausfeld NJ. Jul 2004. The computational basis of an identified neuronal circuit for elementary motion detection in dipterous insects. Vis Neurosci, 21:567-86 Higgins CM. Apr 2001. Sensory architectures for biologically inspired autonomous robotics. Biol Bull, 200:235-42 |
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