Keynote Speaker

Marco Dorigo TITLE Swarm Robotics: The Application of Swarm Intelligence Principles to the Control of Swarms of Robots
Hiroshi Shimizu TITLE Bionetwork following Power Laws

Marco Dorigo

IRIDIA
Université Libre de Bruxelles
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~mdorigo/

TITLE

Swarm Robotics: The Application of Swarm Intelligence Principles to the Control of Swarms of Robots

ABSTRACT

Swarm intelligence is the discipline that deals with natural and artificial systems composed of many individuals that coordinate using decentralized control and self-organization. In particular, it focuses on the collective behaviors that result from the local interactions of the individuals with each other and with their environment. The characterizing property of a swarm intelligence system is its ability to act in a coordinated way without the presence of a coordinator or of an external controller. Swarm robotics could be defined as the application of swarm intelligence principles to the control of groups of robots. In this talk I will discuss results of Swarm-bots, an experiment in swarm robotics. A swarm-bot is an artifact composed of a swarm of assembled s-bots. The s-bots are mobile robots capable of connecting to, and disconnecting from, other s-bots. In the swarm-bot form, the s-bots are attached to each other and, when needed, become a single robotic system that can move and change its shape. S-bots have relatively simple sensors and motors and limited computational capabilities. A swarm-bot can solve problems that cannot be solved by s-bots alone. In the talk, I will shortly describe the s-bots hardware and the methodology we followed to develop algorithms for their control. Then I will focus on the capabilities of the swarm-bot robotic system by showing video recordings of some of the many experiments we performed to study coordinated movement, path formation, self-assembly, collective transport, shape formation, and other collective behaviors.

BIOGRAPHY

Marco Dorigo

1. Education
   Ph.D. in System and Information Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Italy, 1992.
2. Professional experience
   FNRS Research Director, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
   Editor-in-Chief: Swarm Intelligence: 2007-
   Associate Editor: ACM Trans. on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems: 1996-
   Associate Editor: AI Communications: 2000-
   Associate Editor: Cognitive Systems Research: 1999-
   Associate Editor: IEEE Trans. on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: 1993-
   Associate Editor: IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation: 1997-
   Associate Editor: Journal of Heuristics: 1999-
   Editorial Board: Adaptive Behavior: 1996-
   Editorial Board: Artificial Life: 2001-
   Editorial Board: Evolutionary Computation: 1993-
   Editorial Board: Information Sciences: 2004-
   Editorial Board: Journal of Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines: 1999-
   
3. Award
   
   •  ECCAI fellow (2007)
   •  Best Video Award at the video competition organized by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) at the AAAI 2007 conference in Vancouver, Canada (see www.aivideo.org)
   •  IEEE fellow (2006)
   •  2005 IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation Outstanding Paper Award (bestowed in 2007), awarded by the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society
   •  Dr A. De Leeuw-Damry-Bourlart Award in Applied Sciences, awarded in 2005 by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research
   •  Marie Curie Excellence Award, awarded in 2003 by the European Commission
   •  Italian Prize "Marco Somalvico" for Artificial Intelligence, awarded in 1996 by the Italian association for artificial intelligence.
4. Field of Specialization
   Swarm Intelligence
   Swarm Robotics
   Ant Colony Optimization
   Metaheuristics
   
5. Scientific Publications
   (60 journal papers, 3 authored books, 11 edited books, 85 papers in peer-reviewed international conference proceedings, 10 book chapters)
   
   Selected publications:
   •  Dorigo M., V. Maniezzo, and A. Colorni (1996). Ant System: Optimization by a Colony of Cooperating Agents. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics-Part B, 26 (1): 29-41.
   •  Dorigo M., and M. Colombetti (1998). Robot Shaping: An Experiment in Behavior Engineering. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books, pp. 204.
   •  Bonabeau E., M. Dorigo, and G. Theraulaz (1999). Swarm Intelligence: From Natural to Artificial Systems. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp. 308.
   •  Bonabeau E., M. Dorigo, and G. Theraulaz (2000). Inspiration for Optimization from Social Insect Behavior. Nature, 406: 39-42.
   •  Dorigo M. and T. Stützle (2004). Ant Colony Optimization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books.
   •  Gross R., M. Bonani, F. Mondada, and M. Dorigo (2006). Autonomous Self-assembly in Swarm-Bots. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 22(6): 1115-1130.

Hiroshi Shimizu

Department of Bioinformatic Engineering
Graduate School of Information Science and Technology,
Osaka University
2-1 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871 Japan

TITLE

Bionetwork following Power Laws

ABSTRACT

Coming soon...

BIOGRAPHY

Hiroshi Shimizu

1. Education
   PhD in Engineering: Dept of Chemical Engineering, Kyoto University, 1990
2. Professional experience
   Assistant Professor Dept of Biotechnology, Osaka University, 1990
   Associate Professor Dept of Biotechnology, Osaka University, 1995
   Visiting Engineer : Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 1996-1997 (Professor Gregory Stephanopoulos group)
   Associate Professor Dept. of Bioinformatic Eng., Osaka University, 2002
   Professor Dept. of Bioinformatic Eng., Osaka University, 2003
   Associate Editor: Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering (Springer): 2000-
   Associate Editor: Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology (Springer): 2003-2006
   Editor: Journal of Bioscience and Bioengineering (Elsevier Science): 2005-
   
3. Award
   Terui Award (Award of Biochemical Engineering Field)
   Hiroshi Shimizu
   Society for Biotechnology, Japan, September 1997.
   
   Award of the Field of Fermentation and Metabolism, Japan Bioindustry Association
   Hiroshi Shimizu
   
   2007 Excellent Paper Award of The Society for Biotechnology, Japan
   Hiroshi Shimizu et al., Journal of Bioscience and Bioengineering 102, 413 (2006)
   
4. Field of Specialization
   Metabolic Engineering
   Bioinformatics
   Systems Biotechnology
   Modeling, Optimization, and Control of Bioprocesses
   Bioprocess Systems Engineering
   Analysis and Application of Microbial Interaction for Bioprocess Control
   
5. Scientific Publications
   (72 original papers, 18 books, 33 review papers, 76 presentations in International Conferences)
   
   Recent publications:
   •  Identification of target genes for conferring ethanol stress-tolerance to yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae based on DNA microarray data analysis, Takashi Hirasawa, Katsunori Yoshikawa, Yuki Nakakura, Keisuke Nagahisa, Chikara Furusawa, Yoshio Katakura, Hiroshi Shimizu, Suteaki Shioya, Journal of Biotechnology, 131, 33-44 (2007)
   •  Precise metabolic flux analysis of coryneform bacteria with gas spectrometry -mass spectrometry and verification of nuclear magnetic resonance, Tomokazu Shirai, Kunihiro Matsuzakim Masanori Kuzumoto, Keisuke Nagahisa, Chikara Furusawa, Suteaki Shioya, Hiroshi Shimizu, J. Bioscience and Bioengineering 102 (5) 413-424 (2006)
   •  Comparative study of flux redistribution of metabolic pathway in glutamate production in two strains of coryneform bacteria, Tomokazu Shirai, Akinori Nakato, Noriyuki Izutani, Keisuke Nagahisa, Suteaki Shioya, Eiichiro Kimura,Yutaka Kawarabayashi, Akihiko Yamagishi, Takashi Gojobori, and Hiroshi Shimizu, Metabolic Engineering, 7(2), 59-69 (2005)
   •  Clustering gene expression pattern and extracting relationship in gene network based on artificial neural network, Jihua Huang, Hiroshi Shimizu, and Suteaki Shioya, Journal of Bioscience and Bioengineering, 95(5), 421-428 (2003)
   •  Metabolic Engineering -integrating methodologies of molecular breeding and bioprocess systems engineering, Hiroshi Shimizu, J. Bioscience and Bioengineering, 94(6), 563-573 (2002)