The simulator has been developed by the research group CASIP, of the department of Architecture and Computer Technology of the University of Granada, to which (right) Professor Eduardo Ros Vidal (coordinator of the projects in which the simulator has been developed) belongs.

Unlike other simulators similar to the preceding versions, EDLUT permits to similar several hundreds of thousands neurons at the same time, instead of several tens. This is possible thanks to the fact that the simulator “compiles” the behaviour of a neuron or several types of neurons in a first stage and  then it simulates medium and great-scale neuronal systems, based on these pre-compiled models.

“This fact means an essential technological advance and indisputably affects the quality of nervous simulation”, says Professor Ros.

Free downloading
Another important advantage of the simulator developed at the University of Granada is that it is free software, this is, that it can be freely downloaded through the Internet. In this sense, EDLUT means “an innovative version with regard to other simulators such as NEURON and GENESIS”, in the words of Ros, and those companies of the biotechnological sector or research centres interested in this field can use it freely and adapt it to their own needs.

The simulator developed at the UGR has been financed by different research projects such as SpikeFORCE and SENSOPAC,initiatives of the European Commission through which research groups of different fields such as neuroscience, biocomputing and electronic engineers have been working since the year 2002 in order to get that robots have similar movement skills to those of animals, and can also perceive a great number of signs of sensors and motors in order to draw cognitive notions.

Eduardo Ros Vidal insists that SENSOPAC, a project which also has the participation of DLR (German Aerospace Agency), besides several universities such as the University of Edinburgh, Erasmus, Pavia, Lund, Cambridge - “intends to be the definitive boost that technology needs to generalise the use of robots in our everyday life”.

University of Granada