The Synergy Between Neuroscience and Control Theory: The Nervous System as Inspiration for Hard Control Challenges

Here, we review the role of control theory in modeling neural control systems through a top-down analysis approach. Specifically, we examine the role of the brain and central nervous system as the controller in the organism, connected to but isolated from the rest of the animal through insulated interfaces. Though biological and engineering control systems operate on similar principles, they differ in several critical features, which makes drawing inspiration from biology for engineering controllers challenging but worthwhile. We also outline a procedure that the control theorist can use to draw inspiration from the biological controller: starting from the intact, behaving animal; designing experiments to deconstruct and model hierarchies of feedback; modifying feedback topologies; perturbing inputs and plant dynamics; using the resultant outputs to perform system identification; and tuning and validating the resultant control-theoretic model using specially engineered robophysical models.