Quantifying the biomimicry gap in biohybrid robot-fish pairs
This work addresses the problem of validating social interaction models for biohybrid robot-animal systems, which is incremental as it builds on existing biomimetic approaches to improve realism in robotics for animal behavior studies.
The study tackled the challenge of transferring social interaction models from simulations to reality in biohybrid systems by quantifying the 'biomimicry gap' caused by imperfect robotic replicas and communication cues, and demonstrated that their biohybrid system with a robotic fish lure and neural network generates social interactions mirroring real fish pairs, maintaining minimal deviation in real-world interactions.
Biohybrid systems in which robotic lures interact with animals have become compelling tools for probing and identifying the mechanisms underlying collective animal behavior. One key challenge lies in the transfer of social interaction models from simulations to reality, using robotics to validate the modeling hypotheses. This challenge arises in bridging what we term the "biomimicry gap", which is caused by imperfect robotic replicas, communication cues and physics constraints not incorporated in the simulations, that may elicit unrealistic behavioral responses in animals. In this work, we used a biomimetic lure of a rummy-nose tetra fish (Hemigrammus rhodostomus) and a neural network (NN) model for generating biomimetic social interactions. Through experiments with a biohybrid pair comprising a fish and the robotic lure, a pair of real fish, and simulations of pairs of fish, we demonstrate that our biohybrid system generates social interactions mirroring those of genuine fish pairs. Our analyses highlight that: 1) the lure and NN maintain minimal deviation in real-world interactions compared to simulations and fish-only experiments, 2) our NN controls the robot efficiently in real-time, and 3) a comprehensive validation is crucial to bridge the biomimicry gap, ensuring realistic biohybrid systems.