UKACC International Conference on Control'96
2-5 September 1996, University of Exeter

Special session on BIOLOGICALLY INSPIRED CONTROL SYSTEMS

Organisers: Dr. Guido Bugmann and Prof. Mike Denham
School of Computing, University of Plymouth, UK

Format: 2 hours session comprising: 5x 20min talks + 20min final discussion

Aim and Scope: Overview of the type of control systems that can be realized based on direct biological inspiration (e.g. "using neural networks" is not sufficient).

Programme

14.05. "A predictive switching model of the Cerebellum"
Prof. Andy Barto
Dept of Computer Science ,
University of Massachussets, USA

14.25. "Are shaping techniques the correct answer for the control of visually guided autonomous mobile robot ?"
Dr. Philippe Gaussier
ENSEA-ETIS, Cergy Pontoise, Paris, FRANCE (pp.1248-1253)

14.45. "Sensorimotor control in insects and robots"
Dr. Barbara Webb
AI Research Group, Psychology Department,
University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK (pp.1254-1259)

15.05. "The use of social insect based control methods with multiple robot systems"
Dr. Owen Holland
Intelligent Autonomous Systems Laboratory,
University of West England, Bristol, UK (pp.1260-1265)

15.25. "Biological temporal sequence processing and its applications in robot control"
Prof. Mike Denham
Neurodynamics Research Group, University of Plymouth, UK (pp.1266-1271)

15.45. Discussion:
- How much do we know of the brain as a controller ?
- Is brain research helping design more intelligent controllers ?
- What are the control problems where help is needed ?

The session will be of interest for control scientists, illustrating the capabilities and limitations of biologically inspired control systems.

Note: The page numbers refer to the pages in the proceedings where the papers can be found (there is no paper for A.Bartos talk):
Proceedings of Control'96, Vol.2
IEE Conference Publication number 427
Published by the Institution of Electrical Engineers, London, ISBN 085296 667

Guido Bugmann, September 1996 gbugmann@soc.plym.ac.uk