LCSR Seminar Series: Debojyoti Biswas

Debojyoti Biswas, a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics, presents "Sensing by Acting: Lessons from Weakly Electric Fish for Smarter Robotic Control". From animals navigating complex environments to robots performing complex tasks, effective interaction with the world requires tight integration of sensing and control. Traditional engineering frameworks often treat sensing and control as separate modules: Sensors gather information and controllers act upon it. In contrast, biological systems frequently employ active sensing, deliberately modifying movement to shape incoming sensory feedback and blur the distinction between sensing and action. Active sensing occurs across many organisms: weakly electric fish sweep their bodies to probe electric fields, whereas humans shift their gaze to extract fine spatial detail. When sensory cues are weak or ambiguous, such movements intensify, allowing organisms to regulate perception and behavior through closed-loop interactions with the environment. Yet the principles governing this coupling between sensing and action remain poorly understood. In this talk, Biswas shows how control-theoretic models combined with closed-loop behavioral experiments reveal the principles of active sensing. Using weakly electric fish, he demonstrates how animals regulate sensory feedback and switch between exploratory and task-driven modes. For more about this event, visit the LCSR website.