TY - GEN
T1 - A rat-like robot WR-5 for animal behavior research
AU - Shi, Qing
AU - Ishii, Hiroyuki
AU - Sugita, Hikaru
AU - Kinoshita, Shinichi
AU - Lin, Zhuohua
AU - Takanishi, Atsuo
AU - Okabayashi, Satoshi
AU - Iida, Naritoshi
AU - Kimura, Hiroshi
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - In animal behavior research, rat models of mental disorders (RMMDs) are developed to screen psychotropic drugs and to clarify the mechanism of mental disorders. Meanwhile, interaction between real rats is used to evaluate the RMMD. However, since rat-rat interaction is hard to control and quantify, we have adopted a bio-inspired robot to interact with real rats owing to its programmability and reconfigurability in testing different models. We have developed several rat-like robots before, however, these robots still can not fully satisfy the requirement of animal experiment. As an improvement, the newest generation rat-like robot called WR-5 is developed. WR-5 can perform mounting and grooming actions naturally as live mature rat owing to adopted differential gear in its waist. Preliminary SIT between WR-5 and mature rats have been conducted strictly following psychological rules. Experimental results show that rats are more active and have fewer frequencies of grooming and rearing actions when WR-5 performs mounting action periodically. The rat-like robot is therefore able to make the anxiety level of rats high by means of performing mounting action.
AB - In animal behavior research, rat models of mental disorders (RMMDs) are developed to screen psychotropic drugs and to clarify the mechanism of mental disorders. Meanwhile, interaction between real rats is used to evaluate the RMMD. However, since rat-rat interaction is hard to control and quantify, we have adopted a bio-inspired robot to interact with real rats owing to its programmability and reconfigurability in testing different models. We have developed several rat-like robots before, however, these robots still can not fully satisfy the requirement of animal experiment. As an improvement, the newest generation rat-like robot called WR-5 is developed. WR-5 can perform mounting and grooming actions naturally as live mature rat owing to adopted differential gear in its waist. Preliminary SIT between WR-5 and mature rats have been conducted strictly following psychological rules. Experimental results show that rats are more active and have fewer frequencies of grooming and rearing actions when WR-5 performs mounting action periodically. The rat-like robot is therefore able to make the anxiety level of rats high by means of performing mounting action.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84876461293&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/ROBIO.2012.6491063
DO - 10.1109/ROBIO.2012.6491063
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84876461293
SN - 9781467321273
T3 - 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, ROBIO 2012 - Conference Digest
SP - 784
EP - 789
BT - 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, ROBIO 2012 - Conference Digest
T2 - 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, ROBIO 2012
Y2 - 11 December 2012 through 14 December 2012
ER -