Michael Milford and Gordon Wyeth, of the University of Queensland, have built a computerised neural network system that mimics the way a rat makes a mental map as it scurries through an area.

Dr Milford said that, while in-car navigation relied on global positioning systems, the researchers' system did not need it.

''There's a huge number of possible applications, but one of the obvious ones is we can take our system indoors, into hospitals, big buildings, or even in built-up areas like Manhattan where GPS doesn't always work.''

In a military application, autonomous remote-controlled robots could enter an area ahead of soldiers and provide detailed mapping, replacing the sketchy information available under current military intelligence systems.

''It's known that animals, and especially rats, have a whole heap of brain cells that are all about navigation and mapping environments,'' he said.

''For instance there's a brain cell in a rat's head which represents, say, its nest when it goes home, and that cell only fires and becomes active when it's back at its nest.

''In a human example there's a cell for the kitchen, car, all those sort of things that tell you where you are in the world.

''We simply model these using computer algorithms and put it into software, and we use these artificial versions of these cells to control a robot or to map a suburb.''

The pair have successfully mapped a 66km road network in Brisbane.

Dr Milford said even abstract subjects were ''mapped'' in the brain, and this was the subject of a larger research project, funded by the Federal Government.

Asked when computers would become smarter than humans, Dr Milford said, ''I think it will be, if they ever do, many, many decades away.'' AAP