Call for Participation
The organizers invite you to participate in the RSS 2007 Workshop on Algorithmic Equivalences Between Biological and Robotic Swarms. The workshop will take place on Saturday, June 30th at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. To participate, please submit an extended abstract (maximum 2 pages long) of your presentation.
Important Dates
submission deadline - May 25th - extended
notification of acceptance - May 30th
final submission of materials - June 25th
workshop - June 30th
Description
This workshop will bring together researchers in biology, robotics and computer science who study distributed physical systems: swarms, hives, colonies, and multi-robot teams. The main goal is to enable rigorous discussion of the common system constraints and algorithmic solutions employed by natural and artificial swarms.
This very focused one-day workshop will consist primarily of directed one-on-one or small-group interaction, moderated discussion and informal panels. Participants will give short (five-minute) presentations with less emphasis on their current research and a strong focus on algorithmic equivalences between biological and robotic distributed systems. Two invited talks will present exemplary work in the fields of robotics and insect biology. A tentative schedule is available. Roboticists can learn from biological research precise models of functional high-level group behavior and the individual-level algorithms used by the organisms. Biologists, on the other hand, can learn from current research in robotics and computer science analytical tools from subjects such as graph theory and complexity theory, to aid in the development and testing of models.
Collectively, we will compile a catalog of analytical tools that are popular, or should be popular, in biological and robotic swarm research, to serve as a common analytical foundation for future research efforts in our field.
Appropriate topics include
- Mathematics for description of swarm behavior
- Algorithms generating swarm behavior in natural or artificial systems
- Physical, topological and other constraints on groups of animals and robots
- Task equivalences for groups of animals and robots
- Use of natural algorithms in robot teams
- Models of group sensing, communication, processing and mobility
Submission
Original or previously published research is welcome if it fits the goals of the workshop. All accepted work will be published in a citable digital archive of the proceedings. The outcome of the workshop will determine potential publication of a position paper or a collection of papers by participants.
All submissions should be in PDF format using the RSS template (a PDF template file is also available). Abstracts should be at most 2 (two) pages in length. There is no need to anonymize your submission.
Submissions should be emailed to swarms-submissions at csail dot mit dot edu by May 15th. Notification of acceptance will be given by May 30th.
Organizers
Paulina Varshavskaya (MIT)
James McLurkin (MIT)
{paulina | jamesm} at csail dot mit dot edu
MIT CSAIL
32 Vassar Street, 32-376
Cambridge MA 02139
Contact
submissions - swarms-submissions at csail dot mit dot edu
workshop - http://projects.csail.mit.edu/rss2007workshop/
RSS 2007 - http://www.robotics-conference.org/