From Muscle to Brain: Modelling and Control of Functional Materials and Living Systems

This paper describes modelling and control of typical open systems: one is electroactive polymer gel and another is spinal nervous system. It is very important to estimate the model based on their mechanisms in order to navigate the subjects into objective states. Firstly, the wave-shape pattern control method was proposed based on the gel model. Wave-shaped gels with varying curvature were obtained by switching the polarity of a spatially uniform electric field. Secondly, time series of images which represent distribution of somatic information inside the spinal cord were successfully obtained through measurement and computation utilizing somatotopic organization model of the spinal cord. The general problem underlying these studies is the degrees-of-freedom problem. Making use of the nature of functional materials or living systems through modelling their mechanisms helped us to solve the problem.