Biocomputers

Where your robot learns.

A culture of neurons on an electrode array, in a closed loop with your robot. In this preview the cultures you train on are simulated, and the real neurons are a published recording you can watch.

Start training How it works

01 What you rent

Time on a living network.

You rent time on a culture of neurons grown on a multi-electrode array. While your robot learns, the platform stimulates the culture, records it and feeds the result back.

Neurons: Cortical culture, simulated in this preview
Array: 59 electrodes, 200 µm apart
Loop: Stimulate, record, feedback every 10 ms

02 Sources

Choose where it learns.

Three sources take part in the closed loop. The fourth is real recorded neurons: you can watch them drive a robot, but they cannot learn.

Sandbox culture

SimulatedRecommended

Simulated culture. Starts instantly.

Literature-parameterised dissociated cortical culture on an 8 × 8 MEA. Not a real culture.

Closed loop: Stimulate, record and feed back
Access: Private to your account
In the app: Typical culture (simulated)

CL1 device twin

Simulated

Model of a rented CL1. Sparser, harder to train.

A sparse culture model of the kind fitted from a rented device’s recordings: ~11 active electrodes, short bursts. Demo parameters, not a real device fit.

Closed loop: Stimulate, record and feed back
Access: Shared: one customer at a time, others queue
In the app: Device twin · DEMO-CL1-01 (simulated)

Remote CL1

Simulated device

A rented device, reached through the cloud device broker.

Shows the cloud device-broker path: watch-only by default; closed loop only when enabled in Devices and only through the safety policy. No real hardware is connected in this prototype.

Closed loop: Off until an operator enables it, then only through the safety policy
Access: Shared: one customer at a time, others queue
In the app: Remote CL1 via broker (simulated device)

Real neurons

Real dataWatch-only

Recorded rat cortex (Wagenaar 2006). Watch-only, cannot learn.

Spontaneous activity of a dense rat cortical culture (culture 1‑1) at 25 days in vitro: 600 s of real spike times, replayed in a loop. Read-only.

Closed loop: None: it cannot be stimulated, so it cannot be trained
Access: Watch-only, for every account
In the app: Real neurons · Wagenaar 2006 · culture 1-1 · 25 DIV

03 Safety

Every pulse passes a safety policy.

The remote CL1 is reached through a device broker with a server-side policy in front of every pulse; in this preview it guards the simulated device. Closed loop stays off, watch-only, until an operator enables it. Amplitude is fixed and charge-balanced, reference and ground electrodes are never stimulated, and pulses are capped per second and per session.

Every decision, allowed or refused, is written to an audit log.

04 Shared devices

One customer at a time, in a fair queue.

The CL1 device twin and the remote CL1 are shared cultures, so only one customer uses each at a time. When one is busy, your run joins the queue and starts automatically when it frees up, so you can close the tab. Queued runs survive a server restart, in launch order.

Your sandbox culture is yours alone.

05 Real neurons

Real neurons, from a published recording.

Spontaneous activity of a dense rat cortical culture (culture 1‑1) at 25 days in vitro: 600 s of real spike times, replayed in a loop. Read-only. It drives a robot through watch-only behaviours such as Look toward activity. Because it cannot be stimulated, it cannot be trained.

D. A. Wagenaar, J. Pine, and S. M. Potter (2006). An extremely rich repertoire of bursting patterns during the development of cortical cultures. BMC Neuroscience 7:11.

doi.org/10.1186/1471-2202-7-11

Next step

Start in the sandbox.

The sandbox culture starts instantly. Move to the CL1 device twin when you want a sparser culture that is harder to train.

Start training How training works