Yossi Yovel

Hi Everybody, I finished my undergraduate studies in biology and physics in Tel Aviv University (Israel), and am now working on my Ph.D in Tubingen University, Germany. The lab in which I am working is studying echolocation behavior in bats from many different points of view. In my project, a Bio-Sonar robot that mimics a bat's transmission-reception abilities is used to create acoustic scenes, similar to those a bat perceives. At the present I am working on the problem of surface classification, and more exact tree classification. The ability to classify surfaces is at the core of many of the bat's fundamental tasks like habitat choice, navigation and homing. I am using a machine learning based classification algorithm (i.e. Support Vector Machines) in order to classify the echoes of different tree species. My interest is to show that the data for classification is available in the echoes, and try to confront more advanced questions such as: Where is the information hidden, and Which parameters in bats echolocation strategy enable this information. The most interesting question we will finally try to address is the relevance of our work in the mathematical playground to what is really happening in the bat's brain.

See you all soon