Automating Commutation

The commutator’s remote control system enables the user to interface the commutator with software to automate the commutation process for the purpose of (for example) preserving signal integrity and relieving the torsion exerted on a freely moving animal during animal behavior experiments.

The following sections outline how to automate the commutator with different headstages, miniscopes, and pose-esitimation data sources. To interface your Open Ephys commutator with a third-party/custom system, refer to the Developer Guide.

Note

Many of these examples use Bonsai. Bonsai is open-source software for processing asynchronous, heterogeneous streams of data. In our case, it can be used to coordinate orientation data (from an IMU sensor or camera sensor for instance) to provide feedback to commutator and automate the commutation process. To learn more about how to use Bonsai, explore the bonsai-rx.org website. It is briefly introduced here because it is utilized heavily in the remainder following guides for controlling and automating commutation.