Implementing Controllers Using Nengo

Nengo is a software package for simulating large-scale neural systems developed at by the University of Waterloo and based on the Neural Engineering Framework. For a brief discussion of the NEF, see A Technical Overview of the Neural Engineering Framework by Stewart. A complete discussion is available in the book Neural Engineering by Eliasmith and Anderson. Using this platform, we can implement various controllers using populations of spiking neurons and integrate those neuro-controllers with SCL's support for simulation and graphics. Also, these neuro-controllers should be able to control physical robots, given enough computational power to run the simulation in real-time, or a different platform for implementing the NEF (i.e. Neurogrid). Our first attempt at real-time control will be with NeuroArm.