NEST Conference 2024

Diversity and inclusion: Distributed simulation of multiple brain and body models in multiple simulators on multiple computers across multiple organizations

K-1

17 Jun 2024, 09:15

45m

Zoom

Keynote Keynote

Speaker

Tadashi Yamazaki (The University of Electro-Communications)

Description

NEST is the one of the most standard and widely used simulation environment. It is the first-class simulator in our project endorsed by Program for Promoting Researches on the Supercomputer Fugaku [1], where we develop a spiking network model of the mouse brain in NEST on Fugaku, and connect it to a musculoskeletal body model running on a local PC to realize a closed-loop brain-body simulation over the Internet while passing firewalls. Moreover, we include another brain model written in C++ with CUDA on a local GPU machine into the closed loop. To realize this, we needed a way to connect multiple models implemented in multiple simulators running on multiple computers across multiple organizations. We solved this by using Robot Operating System (ROS) [2], which is a de-facto standard communication framework used in the field of robotics, and rosbridge, which encapsulates ROS messages with JSON and transfers via websocket to pass firewalls. Specifically, we developed a C++ library for rosbridge that allows simulators written in C/C++ to communicate over rosbridge. By using those technologies, we were able to realize a closed-loop simulation among a cortico-basal ganglia-thalamus model in NEST on Fugaku, a mouse body model in Gazebo on a local PC, and a cerebellar model in C++ with CUDA on another local GPU machine [3]. These results suggest that ROS and rosbridge can provide more flexibility to and enhance the versatility of NEST.

References

[1] https://www.r-ccs.riken.jp/en/fugaku/org-relations/promoting-research/; [2] M Quigley et al. (2009). "ROS: an open-source robot operating system,” in ICRA Workshop on Open Source Software (Kobe); [3] Y Kuniyoshi et al. Embodied bidirectional simulation of a spiking cortico-basal ganglia-cerebellar-thalamic brain model and a mouse musculoskeletal body model distributed across computers including the supercomputer Fugaku. Frontiers in Neurorobotics, 17:1269848 (13 pages), 2023.

Acknowledgements

This study is conducted through the international collaboration between the Fugaku project in Japan and Neurorobotics Platform of the Human Brain Project in Germany. I would like to thank the collaborators: Yusuke Kuniyoshi, Rin Kuriyama, Shu Omura, Carlos Enrique Gutierrez, Zhe Sun, Taiki Yamada, Tomoya Hirayama, Jun Igarashi, Kenji Doya, Benedikt Feldotto, Ugo Albanese, Alois C. Knoll, and Fabrice O. Morin. Computer resources of Fugaku was supported by the MEXT Program for Promoting Researches on the Supercomputer Fugaku hp200139, hp210169, and hp220162. This study was supported by RIKEN R-CBS Collaborative Technical Development in Data-Driven Brain Science, and JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP17H06310, JP22H05161, JP22J23214, and JP22KJ1372. BF, UA, AK, and FM received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation under the Specific Grant Agreement No. 945539 (Human Brain Project SGA3).