Kimihiro NISHIO^* and Taiki YASUDA

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Tsuyama National College of Technology, Tsuyama, Okayama 708-8509, Japan

(Received June 24, 2013; Accepted March 4, 2014)

Simple analog–digital circuits for detecting the motion direction based on the information processing of the vertebrate retina were proposed. A network constructed with an array of proposed circuits was applied to a mobile robot. A test circuit was fabricated using discrete metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) transistors on a breadboard. The measured results of the test circuit showed that the unit circuit can output a motion signal. The motion sensor for detecting the movement direction, which consists of an array of unit circuits, was connected to the microcomputer introduced in the mobile robot. It was clarified that the proposed circuits can control the mobile robot.

Key words: analog circuit, digital circuit, retina, mobile robot, vision chip

^*E-mail address: nishio@tsuyama-ct.ac.jp