PSPC-Group, coordinated by Prof. Silvio P. Sabatini, is active in investigating the physical processes of biological vision to inspire the designing of artificial perceptual systems based on neuromorphic computational paradigms. The study of biological and artificial vision systems focuses on the physical/structural principles underlying their functional performance.

The PSPC group was established in 1995 with the aim of helping a systematic approach to the modeling and computational studies on visual perception conducted in the former Department of Biophysical and Electronic Engineering of the University of Genoa. The evolution of the research activities has encompassed different phases: starting from the investigation of visual operators for (data-driven) static and dynamic image analysis (1992-1998), to the problem of the understanding of dynamic scenes for visually-guided behavior (1999-2007). The major achievements in the period were: the design of analog integrated perceptual engines, the development of models of Gabor-like receptive fields and of early-vision representation in the full harmonic space, and the development of "large-scale" neuromorphic architectures for distributed representation of depth and motion visual features for guiding actions. More recently (2008-today), the motor/active factor has become even more substantial, not only with reference to the task at hand, but as a component for perception itself. From this perspective, the major achievements were the demonstration of the flexibility of the distributed representations of the visual features, which can support different perception/action specializations. The research has impact on the autonomous development of the perceptual capabilities of robotic systems, as well as on the design of novel systems for the ecological rendering of 3D information in VR, AR and mixed environments.

At present, the PSPC group synergically combines Bioengineering, Computer Science and Psychophysics competences to investigate human perception and its neural correlates as a continuous interactive process with the environment.

In addition, research activities on Human-Computer-Interaction systems are coordinated by the Computer Science members of the group. <<< less