Intelligent systems have found their way from being pure engineering systems to becoming ubiquitous beings in daily life of humans. Be it the numerous sensor based appliances that make up the modern household, or the wearable devices that are being devised, they are designed to be extensions of the sensory network of the user.

IOT technologies are envisaging the ubiquitous network to be either as an augmentation or a supplement to the user’s cognition. The former tries to take cues from the human and other natural sensory networks and the later tries to mimic the cognitive science theories of individual and social cognitive process. This evolution has brought to the fore, an expression to the much attempted endeavor amongst scientists to realize animal/human like robots. A robotic snake, a squid, devices like AIBO and ASIMO are some of the endeavors that stand as a testimony to these efforts. Active researches in focused areas like assistive technologies are witnessing adaptations in the day to day life activities of humans. This has brought forth a new stream of robots called Social Robots. With the development of Social Robots, Human-Robot interaction has reached a new paradigm, where the designs of robot actions are coupled with the study of cognitive reactions from the human brain. This new group of robots are not designed for simple industrial environment; rather, it is based on more deep understanding of human emotions, morphological similarity to social environment and higher cognitive capability. Some of the major challenges in this direction are the development of brain-body systems which includes bio-inspired information processing system, artificial muscle development, design of locomotion system, hierarchic control system design, intelligent sensing and information fusion. In this short- course, we intend to introduce some of the basic foundations towards this direction and provide a flavor of the cutting edge research.

The underlying theory to be discussed in this course is driven by an understanding of the intelligence prevalent in nature, from a fruit fly, or a small fish (copella Arnoldi), to the intelligent being of the highest order – the humans. Understanding of the brain’s constituents and its functioning is a rapidly evolving multidisciplinary research endeavor that is revealing newer insights everyday. Even though modern intelligent devices are keeping up with the rapid progress in brain science, there exists a marked gap between brain theory and engineering systems being developed

This course aims to bridge this gap. It gives insights into brain theory and the challenges that are faced in building intelligent systems that either try to replicate the brain or interface with it. A typical example would be, the quantum of intervention that an intelligent assistive device for old age people are required to get up from a chair is based on the acquisition of brain signals that define the motor plan and transfer of this signal to actuate an intelligent effector with bare minimum force to help the person on their feet. This system involves understanding of brain function, psychology, control theory, Brain computer/machine Interface, and Dynamic Analysis and Product design. The aim of this course is to introduce the students to these disciplines and the challenges of making them interwork to build effective intelligent systems