Connectionists: Human Brain Project workshop on Neurorobotics @ Biorob2016 - Call for Contributions

[Falotico Egidio]

Dear colleagues  (with advance apologies for any 
cross-postings),

We invite submissions for oral or poster presentations at 
the Huma Brain Project workshop on Neurorobotics that will 
be organized on June 26th, at the sixth IEEE RAS/EMBS 
International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and 
Biomechatronics – BioRob 2016, in Singapore.

http://sssa.bioroboticsinstitute.it/workshops/biorob2016

Prospective authors should submit the extended abstract 
(one A4 page, in PDF format) by March 30th, 2016 . 
Notification of acceptance will be received no later than 
April 8th.
For submission please refer to the following link:
http://sssa.bioroboticsinstitute.it/workshops/biorob2016/HBPPaperSubmissionForm

ABSTRACT
Neurorobotics is already an established branch of robotics 
that in the last years, taking advantage from an increase 
in the accessibility of existing neuroscientific data and 
knowledge, allowed building robotic systems that can 
exhibit robustness, adaptability and several features of 
the human intelligence. Reciprocally, significant 
developments in robotics and machine learning put robotics 
in the service of neuroscience as experimental platforms 
or test-beds of brain models.
In the last years, advanced insights and the increasing 
availability of cheap processing power has led 
Neurorobotics to follow two tracks of research with 
different goals and methods:
The first track focuses on neuro-inspired computing 
paradigms that mimic nervous system functions based on 
Spiking Neural Networks. This does not only foster our 
understanding of biological systems but also contributes 
to future technical applications in artificial systems. In 
the past, limited processing power and the lack of 
appropriate models and tools shifted the focus of research 
far away from biological neural networks. Recently a 
number of projects like the US BRAIN Initiative and the 
Human Brain Project have taken up the challenge by 
combining efforts from the fields of neuroscience and 
computer science to enable the large scale modeling and 
simulation of biological neural networks with billions of 
spiking neurons.
The second track, extending the theory of classical 
artificial neural networks, mostly relies on simpler 
neuron models but integrate them in novel network 
architectures. These networks are extensively used in 
robotics, allowing mimicking the function of some brain 
areas in order to reproduce complex behaviors with a 
reduced computational cost.
This workshop seeks to present and discuss advances in 
neuroscientific models for cognition and new perspectives 
in control for robotic applications based on both 
biologically-inspired and artificial neural networks. The 
final goal is to bring together researchers from both 
robotics and neuroscience in order to explore how to 
maximize the progress at the multidisciplinary frontier 
evaluating the advantages of both tracks of the 
Neurorobotics research.
  
  TOPICS OF INTEREST
- Bio-inspired sensory-motor coordination and adaptive 
control
- Active perception
- Neurocontrollers
- Self-organization and sensory-motor mapping
- Predictive behaviour
- Bio-inspired learning robots
- Robot imitation and learning by demonstration
- Memory-based algorithms
- Cognitive behaviours in robots
- Reservoir computing
- Deep learning
- Neuromorphic computing for robotics

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
•Giorgio Metta (Italian Institute of Technology, Italy) - 
“The use of motor invariants can improve action 
discrimination”
•Tomohiro Shibata (Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan) 
– “Functional Robotic Assistance of Human Motor Learning”
•Ruediger Dillman  (Research Center for Information 
Technology, Germany) - “Modelling Cortical Sensor-Motor 
Control Functionalities with a Spiking Neural-Robot 
Control Simulator”
•Sunil L. Kukreja (National University of Singapore, 
Singapore) – “Integration of Neuromorphic Tactile 
Perception with Haptic Feedback in a Virtual and Augmented 
Reality World for Advanced Robotic Control”
  
Best Regards,
Egidio Falotico, Cecilia Laschi (The BioRobotics 
Institite,Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna , Italy)
Florian Röhrbein, Florian Walter (Technical University of 
Munich, Germany)
Organizers