COMPUTING SEMINAR


Title : Micro-Robots: The Artificial Evolution.
Speaker : D.Diaz / IT and University Complutense of Madrid
Date : Wednesday 26 August at 16:00hrs
Place : IT Auditorium, bldg 31/3-005
Information : http://consult.cern.ch/seminars
Organiser : G.Folger / IT

ABSTRACT

Micro-robots are an increasingly popular alternative to classical robots. They are fast to design and build, cheap, and can operate in hostile environments. Typical applications are inspection, handling, and maintenace tasks. One can find them inspecting underground areas, cleaning chemical tanks or sky scrapers, etc.. NASA plans to send a colony of micro robots to Mars.

The seminar will at first describe classical robots which are based on artificial intelligence ("hard artificial intelligence"). Yet, if they face an unfamiliar situation, they are unable to deal with it. Solutions to these problems were found only outside the classical approach: with micro robots. Micro robots, "dumber" than their classical counterparts, emulate insect and not human behavior. Next, the seminar will present the micro-robot principle and describe the different ways (emergent behavior, subsumption architecture, and adaptative learning) to meet the objectives. To conclude the seminar, examples and video displays will illustrate the concepts and show the state of the art.