Brainy Robots - Robotics

To accomplish this, neural nets contain several layers of "nodes," which are analogous to neurons. Each node in one layer is connected to nodes in the other layers. Signals travel through this web of connections with each node acting as a gate, only relaying signals above a certain strength. Adjusting that threshold for individual nodes is how the network 'learns'.

This dinner-napkin sketch of neural nets may sound relatively simple, but in practice, these artificial brains can perform some astoundingly complex logic. In fact, Ayanna calls neural nets a "black-box technology" -- in other words, what happens between the input layer and the output layer is often so difficult to decipher that scientists just treat it as a "black box" that somehow converts inputs into outputs.

By combining these two technologies, Ayanna and her colleagues at JPL hope to create a robot "brain" that can learn on its own how to expertly traverse the alien terrains of other planets.

Such a brainy 'bot might sound more like the science fiction fantasies of children's comics than a real NASA project, but Ayanna thinks the sci-fi flavour of the project contributes to its importance for space exploration.

Ayanna -- who wanted to be television's "Bionic Woman" when she was young, and later decided she wanted to try to build her instead -- says she believes that the flights of imagination common in childhood translate into adult scientific achievement.

"I truly believe science fiction drives real science forward," she says. "You must have imagination to go to the next level."