We will bring a Neuromorphic Drummer to Capo Caccia and launch a neuromorphic drumming control problem, as a low-cost and reproducible toy model for neuromorphic locomotion control.

The problem consists in controlling the tempo and velocity of swinging pendulum + drum-pad system through a fully neuromorphic sensing-control-acting sensori-motor loop.

The neuromorphic controller is implemented in a VEX V5 robot brain; sensing and actuation are through the analog channels of a VEX V5 smart motor. All the simulated component can be realized in standard subthreshold current-mode CMOS neuromorphic circuits.

Students will be able to change the controller behavior by designing/adding/tuning basic neuromorphic blocks (neuron, synapses, neuromodulatory signals) with the goal of letting the drummer converge to the desired tempo and velocity as rapidly and efficiently as possible.

Fernandez Lorden, Christian. "Neuromorphic control of embodied central pattern generators." Master thesis (2023) 

Schmetterling, Raphael, et al. "Neuromorphic Control of a Pendulum." arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.05339 (2024).