Cerebellar neurocontroller project, for aerospace applications, in a civilian neurocomputing initiative in the 'decade of the brain'

A key question is how to utilize civilian government agencies along with an industrial consortium to successfully complement the so far primarily defense-oriented neural network research. Civilian artificial neural system projects, such as artificial cerebellar neurocontrollers aimed at duplicating nature's existing neural network solutions for adaptive sensorimotor coordination, are proposed by such a synthesis. The cerebellum provides an intelligent interface between higher possibly symbolic levels of human intelligence and repetitious demands of real world conventional controllers. The generation of such intelligent interfaces could be crucial to the economic feasibility of the human settlement of space and an improvement in telerobotics techniques to permit the cost-effective exploitation of nonterrestrial materials and planetary exploration and monitoring. The authors propose a scientific framework within which such interagency activities could effectively cooperate.