Letting Robots Build Their Own Bodies And Make Their Own Minds

Letting Robots Build Their Own Bodies And Make Their Own Minds 

A 3 minutes presentation about my PhD research on the co-evolution of morphology and behavior in swarm robotics.

#robotics   #swarmrobotics   #swarms   #coevolution   #morphologicalcomputation      #3dprinting   #geneticalgorithms   #evolution   #artificialintelligence   #artificialevolution   #jessicameyer   #uwe   #brl   #bristol   #3mt   #epuck  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTx1itvOjKg&feature=share

Robot swarms, robot herds, robot flocks

Robot swarms, robot herds, robot flocks

I'm in the news again. =)

Have you ever seen a herd of robots? Or a shoal of robots? How about a robot flock? All of these collective nouns mean the same as ‘swarm,’ and swarm robotics is an entire field of research.

#robotics   #swarmrobotics   #biomimicry   #swarm   #robotsvsanimals   #jessicameyer  
http://robotsvsanimals.net/2015/03/05/robot-swarms-robot-herds-robot-flocks/

Bristol Bright Night

Bristol Bright Night

I am finding even more posts mentioning me. This one is related to the short talk I gave at the Bristol Bright Night 2014 and my supervisor's Robots vs. Animals talk at the same night.

How do ants build bridges? What can you teach a robot? Could a robot be more like a bee? Come along to see how studying the behaviour of swarms is inspiring engineers in state-of-the-art robotics. Prof. Alan Winfield from the University of the West of England and Ben Coleman from Bristol Zoo will demonstrate how swarming behaviour in the natural world is helping engineers to develop robots that can solve problems and work collaboratively.

We are also part of “Bite Size Research” with a short talk by Jessica Meyer on designing robots for swarm behaviours (7.30pm) and another by Shane Windsor on bird flight and aerial robotics, both in the Watershed.

#robotics   #swarmrobotics   #bristolbrightnight   #bristol   #brl   #uwe   #alanwinfield   #robotsvsanimals   #animals   #swarms   #jessicameyer   
http://robotsvsanimals.net/2014/09/23/bristol-bright-night-robots-vs-animals-talk/

I have just found this blog post from when I took part at the Festival of Nature.

I have just found this blog post from when I took part at the Festival of Nature.

Dave Naish from Bristol Zoo and Professor Alan Winfield from UWE demonstrated how swarms of animals interact  and work collaboratively, and how swarm intelligence is being used in robotics.

Dave explained how ants can achieve complex engineering feats such as building bridges by working collectively. Alan then showed how analysing the behaviour of groups of  insects was informing the design of innovative robots.

Using the idea of “swarm intelligence,” groups of robots can work collectively to collect information about their surroundings and interact with each other. Programming robots to perform such tasks helps to understand how swarms function in nature, and also develops new capacities for emerging robotics technologies.
 
The Robots vs. Animals project is a collaboration between the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, Bristol Zoo and the UWE Science Communication Unit supported by the Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious Awards.

#robotics   #swarmrobotics   #festivalofnature   #bristol   #brl   #uwe   #alanwinfield   #robotsvsanimals   #animals   #bristolzoo   #jessicameyer  
http://robotsvsanimals.net/2014/06/26/roaches-vs-robots-at-the-festival-of-nature/

Robots vs. Animals

Robots vs. Animals

More on the news about my session on Swarm Robotics at the Robots vs. Animals project, with the official photos.

#robotics   #robotsvsanimals   #robots   #animals   #brl   #uwe   #bristolzoo   #bristol   #swarmrobotics   #evolution   #biomimicry   #jessicameyer  
http://robotsvsanimals.net/2014/12/02/bristol-zoo-school-sessions-a-great-success/

More on the news about my session on the Robots vs. Animals

More on the news about my session on the Robots vs. Animals

The students enjoyed a presentation on the evolution of certain animals and learnt how their behaviours have inspired robots being developed in BRL (Bristol Robotics Laboratory) before they got to see the robots at work. One behaviour demonstrated was ‘swarming’; just like birds, fish and insects that sense one another around them and  follow  the trail of others, the group saw robots performing the same action using sensors and cameras. Pupils got to handle cockroaches, a skink and observe rats communicating with one another through different methods.

#robotics   #robotsvsanimals   #robots   #animals   #brl   #uwe   #bristolzoo   #bristol   #bristolgrammarschool   #swarmrobotics   #evolution   #biomimicry     #jessicameyer  
http://www.bristolgrammarschool.co.uk/News/Behaving-like-animals.aspx

I have kick started the project Robots vs.

I have kick started the project Robots vs. Animals at the Bristol Zoo. Mine was the first session! The kids had great fun, and us too.

During the session, the students investigated human-robot interaction, learning about why engineers make robots yawn, dance and gesture like humans in order to make the robots more approachable and engaging. Students saw how evolution is shortening the legs of the blue-tongued skink. This helped them understand how robots are evolving – and one day might be able to change their shape rapidly like Transformers.

#robotics    #brl   #robotsvsanimals   #uwe   #bristol   #bristolzoo   #swarmintelligence   #swarmrobotics   #robots   #animals   #biomimicry     #jessicameyer  
http://info.uwe.ac.uk/news/uwenews/news.aspx?id=2988

Co-Evolution of Morphology and Behavior in Self-Organized Robotic Swarms

Co-Evolution of Morphology and Behavior in Self-Organized Robotic Swarms 

My first very spontaneous attempt at a 3 Minutes Thesis Presentation, where we only have 3 minutes and 1 slide to describe our PhD Thesis for a non-specialist audience. 

Synopsis: The idea of the research is to co-evolve both shape and controller of a robotic swarm, in order for them to work better as a whole. Small robots are not so powerful individually, but when cooperating with each other, by physically hooking together forming a larger organism for example, they become able to solve more complex tasks in robust ways. The shape each robot has influences the way they physically interact with each other; and taking advantage of the morphological computation phenomena, it is believed that a more complex shape can spare the complexity of the controller. Therefore, simultaneously evolving both morphology and behavior should accomplish the highest benefits for the swarm. In order to reach this goal, I am evolving the shape of arm-like structures for the robots’ bodies and, further on, their controllers as well.

#phd   #robotics   #swarmrobotics   #evolution   #3dprinting   #3MT   #3minutesthesis   #video   #uwe   #brl   #geneticalgorithms   #coevolution   #artificialintelligence   #epuck     #jessicameyer  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ9W3M0K0xo&feature=share