Keynotes
Collective Decision Making: The Best-of-n Problem in Robot Swarms
Tuesday 13th September 2016
Presenter
Prof. Dr. Marco Dorigo
Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~mdorigo/HomePageDorigo/
Abstract
Achieving fast and accurate collective decisions with a large number of simple agents without relying on a central planning unit or on global communication is essential for developing complex collective behaviours. In this talk, I will overview recent research done in my lab on collective decision making in robot swarms. In particular, I will present ad hoc and opinion-based methods for the solution of a few variants of the best-of-n problem. I will discuss the results of real robot experiments and show how different types of modelling techniques can help us understanding the dynamics of the swarm collective decisions.
Bio
Marco Dorigo received his PhD degree in electronic engineering in 1992 from Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy. In 1995 he received the title of Agrégé de l'Enseignement Supérieur (professorship qualification) from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium. From 1992 to 1993, he was a Research Fellow at the International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley, CA. In 1993, he was a NATO-CNR Fellow, and from 1994 to 1996, a Marie Curie Fellow. Since 1996, he has been a tenured researcher of the FNRS, the Belgian National Funds for Scientific Research, and a co-director of IRIDIA, the artificial intelligence laboratory of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Prof. Dorigo is the inventor of the ant colony optimization metaheuristic. His current research interests include swarm intelligence, swarm robotics, and metaheuristics for discrete optimization. At IRIDIA he leads a group of approximately twenty researchers who investigate various aspects of swarm intelligence and of its application to robotics, networks and optimization problems. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Swarm Intelligence, an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, of the IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, of the IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development, of the ACM Transactions on Adaptive and Autonomous Systems, and a member of the Editorial Board of many journals on computational intelligence and adaptive systems.
As a result of his numerous scientific contributions, Prof. Dorigo was awarded numerous international prizes, among which the Italian Prize for Artificial Intelligence in 1996, the Marie Curie Excellence Award in 2003, the Dr. A. De Leeuw-Damry-Bourlart Award in Applied Sciences in 2005, the Cajastur International Prize for Soft Computing in 2007, an European Research Council Advanced Grant in 2010, the IEEE Frank Rosenblatt Award in 2015, and the IEEE CIS Evolutionary Computation Pioneer award in 2016. Prof. Dorigo is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), and of the European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence (ECCAI).
Using Data Science and Cloud to Scale and Personalize Services
Wednesday 14th September 2016
Presenter
Dr. Manish Gupta
VP and Director, Xerox Research Center India
http://www.xrci.xerox.com/profile-main/113/
Abstract
Many services, such as healthcare and education are highly human-intensive offerings that remain inaccessible (at acceptable quality level) to large numbers of people. With increasing digitization of the world and easy availability of computational power over the cloud, there is an opportunity to apply data science to transform these services. We begin by describing a dire need and an opportunity to improve the healthcare system worldwide by supporting a shift from reactive treatment to more proactive action. As examples of what is possible, we present new machine learning techniques to predict a class of complications in an ICU, and to identify patients in a hospital who are likely to require ICU admission. We also present work that shows the applicability of remote sensing and data analytics to measure body vitals such as respiration and heart rate, to screen for diseases, and to reduce the need for people to visit a hospital. We then describe a cloud-hosted system called TutorSpace to help with personalization and improved navigation of videos from massive open online courses to enable more effective learning. Finally, we present data-driven techniques to improve public transportation services and to enable cities to reduce traffic congestion while offering a range of transportation options to their citizens. We frame all of the above efforts as examples of using data science and cloud to offer personalized services at scale. We describe some outstanding challenges that need to be met to achieve truly transformational impact.
Bio
Dr. Manish Gupta is Vice President at Xerox Corporation and Director of Xerox Research Centre in India. Previously, Manish has served as Managing Director, Technology Division at Goldman Sachs India, and has held various leadership positions with IBM, including that of Director, IBM Research - India and Chief Technologist, IBM India/South Asia. From 2001 to 2006, he served as a Senior Manager at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, where he led the team developing system software for the Blue Gene/L supercomputer. IBM was awarded a National Medal of Technology and Innovation for Blue Gene by US President Barack Obama in 2009. Manish holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. He has co-authored about 75 papers, with more than 6,000 citations in Google Scholar in the areas of high-performance computing, compilers, and virtual machine optimizations, and has been granted 19 US patents. While at IBM, Manish received an Outstanding Innovation Award, two Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards and the Lou Gerstner Team Award for Client Excellence. Manish serves as the chair of IKDD, the ACM India Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, and was General Co-Chair for IKDD Conference on Data Sciences 2015. He is an ACM Fellow, a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, and a recipient of a Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Delhi.
Future of Robotics – Paving the Way for a Generation ‘R’ of Robotic Natives in the Age of Digitalization
Thursday 15th September 2016
Presenter
Dr. Rainer Bischoff
KUKA AG
Abstract
Humankind is facing disruptive technological innovation, e.g., in the fields of robotics, automation and artificial intelligence. These changes will prove to have at least as much impact on society over the next half a century as the Internet and mainstream IT technology had over the last 50 years. As we are facing a great chance of addressing possibly arising issues in advance – involving self-regulation in the sense of Technology Governance – these challenges have to be discussed on a broad, fact based and interdisciplinary level. The talk will discuss the future of robotics, automation and artificial intelligence. It will explain, why our grandchildren will grow up as the first Generation ‘R’ of Robotic Natives and suggest the concept of Technology & Robotic Governance as a means of self-regulation when dealing with these disruptive technologies. It will also touch the importance of self-organization and self-adaption as enabling technologies for autonomous robotic systems.
Bio
Dr. Rainer Bischoff is Head of KUKA's Corporate Research department based in Augsburg, Germany. In this position he is responsible for the group-wide research and technology development and the maturation of technology for subsequent product development. Dr. Bischoff received his "Doktor-Ingenieur" degree from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in 2010 for his contributions towards the development of personal robots. Dr. Bischoff was Executive Board Chair of the European Robotics Technology Platform EUROP and is Vice-President Industry of euRobotics AISBL - the European Robotics Association he created and led into a public-private partnership with the European Commission. For leadership and outstanding contributions to the cooperation of academia and industry, and for managing and promoting significant technology transfer in the area of industrial and service robotics he was granted the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Career Award in 2012. In 2015, he received the IROS Toshio Fukuda Young Professional Award for his technical contributions to the personal robotic assistant HERMES and his effort in uniting the European Robotics Community.
