Associate Professor, Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Computer Science
How do animals process sensory information to control their motion, and how should one design sensor-based robot control systems? Answering these questions involves integrating biomechanics and dynamics with biological and engineering computation.
Dr. Cowan’s lab studies sensorimotor control of animal movement, using a “control theoretic” perspective; specifically, we use mathematical models of biomechanics, together with principles of control theory, to design perturbations. The responses to these perturbations can be used to furnish a quantitative description of the way the nervous system processes sensory information for control.