CFP: Biomimetic Robotics - Special Issue of RAS

[Carolina Chang]

		 Call for Papers: Biomimetic Robotics
	   Special Issue of Robotics and Autonomous Systems

	   Guest Editors: Carolina Chang and Paolo Gaudiano
		      {cchang, gaudiano}@bu.edu
		  Boston University Neurobotics Lab
	      Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems

		Submission Deadline: October 31, 1998

It has been argued that today's supercomputers are able to process
information at a rate comparable to that of simple invertebrates.  And
yet, even ignoring physical constraints, no existing algorithm running
on the fastest supercomputer could enable a robot to fly around a
room, avoid obstacles, land upside down on the ceiling, feed,
reproduce, and perform many of the other tasks that a housefly learns
to perform without external training or supervision. The apparent
simplicity with which flies and even much simpler biological organisms
manage to survive in a constantly changing environment suggests that a
potentially fruitful avenue of research is that of understanding the
mechanisms adopted by biological systems for perception and control,
and applying what is learned to robots.

While we may not yet be able to make a computer function as flexibly 
as a housefly, there have been many promising starts in that direction. 
The goal of this special issue is to present recent results in 
"biomimetic robotics", or the application of biological principles 
to robotics. The term "biological" in this case should be taken broadly 
to refer to any aspect of biological function, including for example,
psychological theories or detailed models of neural function. 

Preference will be given to manuscripts describing original work that
closely models biological principles observed in real animals and
that uses real robots. Prospective authors should contact one of the
guest editors as soon as possible to determine the relevance of their
submission to this special issue.

Authors are encouraged to submit manuscripts electronically. The final
version of all accepted manuscripts should be in LaTeX, using the
Elsevier style files available from the Robotics and Autonomous
Systems web-page:

              http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/robot

To submit an electronic copy of your manuscript, preferably in
postscript or PDF format, upload it to the anonymous ftp site
"neurobotics.bu.edu". Use "anonymous" as user name, and your e-mail
as password. Change directory to pub/ras and "put" your file using binary
transfer mode. You will get detailed directions when you enter the ras
directory. To expedite uploading, your document may be compressed by
any commonly used compression scheme. Once you have uploaded
your file to the ftp site, please send e-mail to cchang at bu.edu 
indicating the filename, manuscript title, and the name and contact
information (electronic and surface mail address, phone, fax) for the
corresponding author. The title page of the manuscript should include
contact information for all authors.

For printed submissions, please send your double-spaced manuscript to:

  Carolina Chang
  Boston University Neurobotics Lab
  Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems
  677 Beacon Street
  Boston, MA 02215 USA