Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems: Third International Conference, Living Machines 2014, Milan, Italy, July 30 – August 1, 2014. Proceedings PDF
Preview Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems: Third International Conference, Living Machines 2014, Milan, Italy, July 30 – August 1, 2014. Proceedings
Armin Duff Nathan F. Lepora Anna Mura Tony J. Prescott Paul F.M.J. Verschure (Eds.) Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems Third International Conference, Living Machines 2014 Milan, Italy, July 30 – August 1, 2014 Proceedings 123 LNAI 8608 Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 8608 Subseries of Lecture Notes in Computer Science LNAI Series Editors Randy Goebel University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada Yuzuru Tanaka Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan Wolfgang Wahlster DFKI and Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany LNAI Founding Series Editor Joerg Siekmann DFKI and Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany Armin Duff Nathan F. Lepora Anna Mura Tony J. Prescott Paul F.M.J. Verschure (Eds.) Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems Third International Conference, Living Machines 2014 Milan, Italy, July 30 – August 1, 2014 Proceedings 13 Volume Editors Armin Duff Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain E-mail: Preface These proceedings contain the papers presented at Living Machines: The Third International Conference on Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems, held in Mi- lan, Italy, July 30 to August 1, 2014. This followed the first and second Living Machines conferences that were held in Barcelona, Spain, in July 2012 and in London, UK, in July 2013. These international conferences are targeted at the intersection of research on novel life-like technologies based on the scientific inves- tigation of biological systems, or biomimetics, and research that seeks to interface biological and artificial systems to create biohybrid systems. The conference aim is to highlight the most exciting international research in both of these fields united by theme of “living machines.” Living Machines promotes the idea that in order to build novel advanced artifacts, such as robots, we need to understand, not only mimic, nature and life and to base technology on the same fundamental principles. This idea is also what dominated the interest and curiosity of one of the greatest geniuses of the Renaissance, Leonardo Da Vinci, establishing a synergy between fundamental knowledge and engineering: “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” In admiration of this champion of knowledge and creativity, the 2014 edition of Living Machines took place at the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci in Milan. In between science and art, Leonardo considered both these disciplines in- struments with which to exercise the same objective, understanding nature and humans. In doing so he mastered engineering, physics, anatomy, drawing, and painting to explore technical solutions shared by living beings to build machines of any kind. Besides his interest in observing nature and life forms (for instance, he studied the anatomy and behavior of birds, in their natural habitat, in or- der to build his flying machines), Leonardo was also a great intellectual with a passion for writing. Leonardo’s sketches and manuscripts were a vehicle to ad- vance his reasoning, to report on his obsession for understanding, as well as to give meaning to his drawings. Through his writings he articulated reflections on nature, reports of experiments, calculations, drawings, plans, discoveries, inven- tions, and commentaries on literature. As a man of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci used interdisciplinary methods, writing treatises on mechanics, anatomy, cosmology, hydraulic, and earth sciences. In this sense, his work can be consid- ered as a true precursor of the modern form of biomimetics expressed in the Living Machines conference. The development of future real-world technologies will depend strongly on our understanding and harnessing of the principles underlying living systems and the flow of communication signals between living and artificial systems. In VI Preface Fig. 1. Word cloud of the most frequent terms appearing in the contributions to Living Machines 2014 this context, research areas presented at the third edition of the Living Machines conference included brain-based systems, active sensing, soft robotics, learning, memory, control architectures, self-regulation, movement and locomotion, sen- sory systems, and perception (Fig. 1). Biomimetics: Past, Present, and Future As was already clear to da Vinci 500 years ago, nature is a good source for finding solutions to technological problems as it continually reinvents itself to solve challenges in the natural world. Nature’s improvements have evolved over hundreds of millions of years in plants and animals resulting in the myriad of natural design solutions around us. Nevertheless, although engineers are able to build incredible robots with some of the attributes and abilities of animals (including humans), we still fall short of reproducing the dexterity and adapt- ability of animal perception, cognition, consciousness, and action. Progress here may depend on advances in the reverse-engineering of natural control systems implemented by biological brains. In this sense Living Machines moves beyond mere “inspiration” to the understanding of principles. The Living Machines con- ference anticipates a future in which there will be many artificial devices with abilities based on biomimetic solutions, and biohybrid systems that combine synthetic and natural components. The 2014 conference reports on a range of such systems from flying micro devices, based on insects, to robotic manipula- tors modeled on the human hand, to fish-like swimming robots. Such systems are expected to have a role in our society, economy, and way of life in years to come. and the Living Machines conference also seeks to anticipate and understand the impacts of these technologies before they happen. Preface VII The Living Machines Conference in Milan The main conference, July 30 to August 1, 2014, took the form of a three- day single-track program including 18 oral, 10 poster spotlights, and 40 poster presentations and six plenary lectures from leading international researchers in biomimetic and biohybrid systems: Mandyam Srinivasan, Queensland Brain In- stitute, Australia: “Insect-inspired cognition and vision”; Andrew Schwartz, Uni- versity of Minnesota, Pittsburgh, USA: “Neural Control of Prosthetics”; Sarah Bergbreiter, University of Maryland, USA: “Microrobotics”; Darwin Caldwell, Italian Institute of Technology, Genova, Italy: “Legged Locomotion and Revise”; Ricard Sole, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain: “Evolution of Com- plex Networks”; Minoru Asada, Osaka University, Japan: “Cognitive and Affec- tive Developmental Robotics.” The program also included an invited talk on “Biomimetics in Design” by Franco Lodato the Creative Director of VSN Mo- bil. Session themes included: soft robotics, neuromechanic systems, locomotion, biohybrid systems, biomimetic systems, active sensing, and social robotics. The conference was complemented with a day of workshops on July 29 around the themes: Embodied Interaction and Internal Models (Volker Du¨rr and Paolo Arena); The Robot Self (Tony Prescott and Paul Verschure); Emergent Social Behaviours in Bio-hybrid Systems (Jos´e Halloy, Thomas Schmickl, and Stuart Wilson); and Biomimetics in Design (Pino Trogu and Franco Lodato). The main meeting, together with a poster and demo session and reception, was hosted at the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, Milan, Italy. This wonderful museum holds the greatest collection in the world of machine models based on the designs and drawings of Leonardo da Vinci and it is the largest science and technology museum in Italy. This venue, with its outstanding collections of natural and human-made technologies provided an ideal setting to host the third Living Machines conference. We wish to thank the many people that were involved in making LM 2014 pos- sible. Tony Prescott and Paul Verschure co-chaired and co-planned the meeting, with Armin Duff chairing the Program Committee and editing the proceedings volume. Anna Mura was responsible for the overall organization of the conference and its communication. The workshop program was chaired by Barbara Mazzo- lai and Anna Mura. Nathan Lepora contributed to the conference program and communication, Carme Buisan and Pedro Omedas, from UPF, Barcelona, Silvia Matti from IIT Milan, and Samantha Johnson from the University of Sheffield provided administrative support including registration, booking, and financing. Additional guidance and support were provided by Roberto Cingolani, Giorgio Metta, and the Living Machines International Advisory Board. We would like to thank artist Behadad Rezazadeh for the design of the LM 2014 logo and Sytse Wierenga with Anna Mura for the web graphics. We would also like to thank the authors and speakers who contributed their work, and the members of the international Program Committee for their detailed and considerate reviews. We are grateful to the six keynote speakers who shared with us their vision of the future of Living Machines. VIII Preface Finally, we wish to thank the sponsors of LM 2014: The Convergence Science Network for Biomimetics and Neurotechnology (CSN II) (ICT-601167), which is funded by the European Union’s Framework 7 (FP7) program in the area of Future Emerging Technologies (FET), the University of Sheffield, the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, and the Instituci´o Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avanc¸ats (ICREA). We are grateful for the additional support provided by the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT). The Living Machines reception at the con- ference venue’s Sala delle Colonne featuring a unique exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci’s machines was supported by the Taylor & Francis group, publishers of the journal Connection Science. July 2014 Armin Duff Nathan F. Lepora Anna Mura Tony J. Prescott Paul F.M.J. Verschure Organization Committees Conference Chairs Tony Prescott University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK Paul Verschure Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies, Barcelona, Spain Program Chair Armin Duff Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain Communication, Organization, and Media Anna Mura Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain Communication Nathan Lepora University of Bristol, Bristol, UK Local Organizers Roberto Cingolani Giorgio Metta Barbara Mazzolai Program Committee Andrew Adamatzky Anders Christensen Robert Allen Frederik Claeyssens Sean Anderson Holk Cruse Joseph Ayers Mark Cutkosky Yoseph Bar-Cohen Danilo De Rossi Lucia Beccai Angel Del Pobil Fr´ed´eric Boyer Peter Dominey Dieter Braun St´ephane Doncieux Federico Carpi Marco Dorigo Hillel Chiel Volker Du¨rr Eris Chinellato Mat Evans X Organization Benoˆıt Girard Martin Pearson Michele Giugliano Giovanni Pezzulo Paul Graham Andrew Philippides Roderich Gross Andrew Pickering Koh Hosoda Tony Pipe Ioannis Ieropoulos Tony Prescott Auke Ijspeert Roger Quinn Holger Krapp Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena Cecilia Laschi Sylvain Saighi Nathan Lepora Thomas Schmickl Arianna Menciassi Reiko Tanaka Ben Mitchinson Pablo Varona Martin Nawrot Eleni Vasilaki Stefano Nolfi Stefano Vassanelli Thomas Nowotny Paul Verschure Jiro Okada Stuart Wilson Enrico Pagello Hartmut Witte Tim Pearce International Steering Committee Iain Anderson Maarja Kruusmaa Joseph Ayers David Lane Ralph-Etienne Cummings Nathan Lepora Mark Cutkosky Barbara Mazzolai Kenji Doya Anna Mura Armin Duff Tony Prescott Jose Halloy Barry Trimmer Koh Hosoda Stefano Vassanelli Auke Ijspeert Paul Verschure Giacomo Indiveri
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