ALIFE VII Workshop on the Coevolution
of Brains and Bodies
3 August 2000
Reed College, Portland, Oregon
workshop contact: tim.taylor [at] ed.ac.uk
workshop homepage: http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/timt/cobb/
conference homepage: http://alife7.alife.org/
Latest News (28/7/00):
The finalised schedule
for the workshop is available here.
The talk abstracts are
available here.
[Aim]
[Location/Dates/Format] [Participation]
[Publication] [Organizers]
Aim
This workshop aims to bring together
researchers working on the co-evolution of brains and bodies for physically-
or virtually-embodied creatures. The best known work in this field is still
the seminal research by Karl Sims with his "blockies";
however, a number of research groups have (at last) now started to emulate
and extend Sims' work, and the aim of this workshop is to provide the opportunity
for these groups to discuss their research with others working on similar
topics. The organisers also encourage the attendance of those working on
the evolution of controllers for fixed-morphology and parametric-morphology
creatures, to promote the discussion of the relative merits of both approaches.
The main objective of the
workshop is to identify the major theoretical and technological issues
facing research of this nature, and to discuss possible resolutions of
these issues. Theoretical issues include the genetic representation of
morphologies and controllers, the sorts of controllers best suited for
such systems, and the kind of evolutionary algorithm employed. Technological
issues include, for virtual embodiment, the choice of physics engine, and,
for physical embodiment, methods for automatically generating real robots
with variable morphologies.
Location,
Dates and Format
This workshop is part of the
International Conference on Artificial Life (ALIFE7),
taking place at Reed College, Portland, Oregon over 1-6 August 2000. The
workshop itself will be split into two sessions, at 8-10am and 7-10pm on
3 August. The organizers wish to promote group discussion during these
sessions, and to this end the time given to individual presentations (invited
or submitted) will be limited. The number of participants will be limited
to 30. To encourage group discussions, a list of questions for discussion
will be distributed to all attendees some weeks before the workshop.
Participation
The deadline for applications
to attend the workshop has now passed. If you would like to attend and
have missed the deadline, contact Tim Taylor (tim.taylor [at] ed.ac.uk).
Publication
The organizers plan to publish
a collection of papers based upon the talks and discussions of the workshop.
There will be a separate Call for Papers for this AFTER the workshop.
Organizers
Tim Taylor
International Centre for
Computer Games and Virtual Entertainment (IC-CAVE),
University of Abertay Dundee,
Scotland.
Email: tim.taylor [at] ed.ac.uk
Web: http://www.tim-taylor.com/
John Hallam
Institute of Perception,
Action and Behaviour, Division of Informatics,
University of Edinburgh,
Scotland.
Email: john@dai.ed.ac.uk
Web: http://www.informatics.ed.ac.uk/people/staff/John_Hallam.html
Hod Lipson
Dynamics and Evolutionary
Machine Organization (DEMO) Lab,
Brandeis University,
USA.
Email: lipson@cs.brandeis.edu
Web: http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~lipson/
Tom Ray,
Department of Zoology,
University of Oklahoma,
USA.
Email: tray@ou.edu
Web: http://www.hip.atr.co.jp/~ray/
Document last updated:
Tim Taylor, Monday, 27 March 2006 (updated contact details)