[info] Connectionists: RSS2008 WS on locomotion control, June 28: Call for participation and poster-abstracts

[Eugen Leitl]

----- Forwarded message from Auke Ijspeert <auke.ijspeert at epfl.ch> -----

From: Auke Ijspeert <auke.ijspeert at epfl.ch>
Date: Thu, 22 May 2008 14:54:17 +0200
To: connectionists at cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Connectionists: RSS2008 WS on locomotion control,
 June 28: Call for participation and poster-abstracts
User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 (Windows/20080421)


   Dear connectionists,
   Researchers in locomotion control and learning might be interested in
   the following workshop that will take place in Zurich, Switzerland, on
   June 28 as part of the RSS2008 conference.
   Best regards,
   Auke Ijspeert

   Control of locomotion: from animals to robots

   Workshop at the "Robotics: Science and Systems" Conference [1]RSS2008,
   Zurich, Switzerland, Saturday, June 28, 2008.

   Organizers:
   [2]Auke Ijspeert (EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland), [3]Paolo Dario (SSSA,
   Italy), and [4]Sten Grillner (Karolinska Institute, Sweden)

   Workshop website: [5]http://birg2.epfl.ch/rss2008/

   Description:
   The goal of the workshop is to discuss how inspiration from the animal
   kingdom can help improving locomotion skills in robots, and how robots
   can be used as scientific tools in animal motor control. All aspects
   of locomotion will be considered including materials, actuators,
   sensors, control, and learning. In particular, the workshop aims at
   exploring how these different aspects can collectively be designed to
   improve the locomotor skills of future robots. We will discuss
   possible roads to tackle the challenges related to having robots get
   out of the labs and move in unstructured and partially unknown
   terrains.

   While robotics has clearly something to gain from biological
   inspiration, we will also discuss how robotics can give something back
   to biology, namely how robots can be used as scientific tools in
   animal motor control. For instance, how robots can be used to test
   hypotheses about neural circuits and/or biomechanical principles in
   invertebrate and vertebrate animals.

   Topics: Neuro-mechanical coupling, central pattern generators,
   compliant robots, passive and dynamic walkers, gait transitions, motor
   learning, swimming robots, crawling robots, walking robots, jumping
   robots, etc.
   Format: The workshop will have an interesting mix of biologists and
   roboticists as invited speakers (see list below) together with a
   poster session, whose participants will be selected after an open call
   for poster (see below). The workshop will be organized such as to
   provide ample time for discussions. We aim at a 75-25% ratio between
   presentations and discussions. We therefore suggest having each talk
   followed by a discussion, i.e. an alternation between talks and
   discussions. To guide the discussions, we will distribute beforehand a
   set of strategic questions (emails to speakers and participants + on
   this web page), and invite speakers and participants to exchange their
   thoughts about them. For more information, see the workshop website:
   [6]http://birg2.epfl.ch/rss2008/

   Invited speakers:

   Paolo Arena, University of Catania, Italy
   Holk Cruse, University of Bielefeld, Germany
   Paolo Dario, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy.
   Robert Full, UC Berkeley, USA. 
   Sten Grillner, The Nobel Institute for Neurophysiology, Karolinska
   Institute, Sweden. 
   Auke Ijspeert, EPFL, Switzerland. 
   Hiroshi Kimura, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan. 
   Roger Quinn, Case Western Reserve University, USA. 
   Stefan Schaal, University of Southern California, USA. 
   Andre Seyfarth, University of Jena, Germany.

   Call for posters

   Researchers in animal and robot locomotion are invited to submit a
   2-page abstract for presenting a poster at the workshop. Accepted
   poster presenters will also have the opportunity to make a 2-min
   poster teaser (i.e. a very short oral presentation) to advertise their
   poster.

   Please send your abstract to [7]auke.ijspeert at epfl.ch before June 14.
   Feel free to send it before, since we will review abstracts as they
   come in and we might have to restrict the number of accepted posters
   due to space restrictions.

   Registration
   Participants will need to register to the RSS2008 conference, see
   [8]http://www.roboticsconference.org/ and
   [9]http://www.roboticsconference.org/registration.shtml
   Note that the early registration for RSS2008 with a 100 Swiss Francs
   discount ends on May 25 (i.e. very soon!).

References

   1. http://www.roboticsconference.org/
   2. http://birg.epfl.ch/page27899.html
   3. http://www-arts.sssup.it/people/prof/pdario/pdario.htm
   4. http://www.neuro.ki.se/grillner/pages/sten1.html
   5. http://birg2.epfl.ch/rss2008/
   6. http://birg2.epfl.ch/rss2008/
   7. mailto:auke.ijspeert at epfl.ch
   8. http://www.roboticsconference.org/
   9. http://www.roboticsconference.org/registration.shtml

----- End forwarded message -----
-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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