(273d) Biological Inspiration for Network Synchronization

Inspired by the collaboration with Dr. Ogunnaike while I was a young post-doc at DuPont, my lab has undertaken a path towards discovering the basic principles that are responsible for the mechanisms that allow biological networks to operate in a highly efficient manner in challenging environments. The discovery of such principles requires a significant research effort in the construction of models for complex biological networks, the development of analysis tools for such networks, and the discovery of structures and architectures for the design and control of such networks. In addition, understanding of the underlying physiological control systems can lead naturally to therapeutic interventions, such as the artificial pancreas.

In this talk I will focus on the work that our lab has done to develop both novel analysis and simulation tools to probe biological oscillators, in particular, the ubiquitous twenty-four-hour circadian rhythms. Using these tools, we have been able to extract design principles of biological networks, with the foremost among these being the principles responsible for robust synchronization of multicellular networks. Over the course of the last several years, our group made progress in the design of algorithms that are guided by these principles and are applied to dynamic sensor networks. Time synchronization has proven to be critical in sensor fusion applications where the time of arrival is utilized as a decision variable. Herein, we present the application of pulse-coupled synchronization to an acoustic event detection system based on a wireless sensor network.