Neuromorphic Engineering Workshop

[Terry Sejnowski]

          WORKSHOP ON NEUROMORPHIC  ENGINEERING

                JUNE 24 - JULY 14, 1996

                 TELLURIDE, COLORADO

    Deadline for application is April 5, 1996.

Christof  Koch  (Caltech)  and Terry  Sejnowski  (Salk Institute/UCSD)
invite applications for  one three week  workshop that will be held in
Telluride, Colorado in 1996.

The first two   Telluride Workshops on  Neuromorphic Engineering  were
held in the summer of 1994 and 1995, sponsored by NSF and co-funded by
the  "Center for Neuromorphic  Systems  Engineering" at Caltech,  were
resounding successes.  A summary  of  these workshops, togther with  a
list of participants is available from:

http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~timmer/telluride.html                  
or
http://www.salk.edu/~bryan/telluride.html

GOALS:

Carver  Mead introduced the term "Neuromorphic  Engineering" for a new
field   based on  the design  and   fabrication  of artificial  neural
systems, such as vision  systems, head-eye systems, and roving robots,
whose architecture  and   design  principles  are based on    those of
biological nervous systems.   The goal of  this  workshop is to  bring
together young   investigators and more  established  researchers from
academia   with  their  counterparts      in industry   and   national
laboratories, working on  both neurobiological as well as  engineering
aspects of sensory systems and sensory-motor integration. The focus of
the workshop will  be  on "active" participation, with   demonstration
systems and hands-on-experience for all participants.

Neuromorphic engineering has   a   wide range  of  applications   from
nonlinear  adaptive control of complex systems  to the design of smart
sensors. Many of the fundamental principles in this field, such as the
use of  learning methods and    the design of  parallel hardware,  are
inspired by  biological  systems.  However, existing applications  are
modest  and the challenge of scaling   up from small artificial neural
networks and  designing  completely autonomous systems   at the levels
achieved by  biological systems lies  ahead. The assumption underlying
this three  week workshop is that the  next generation of neuromorphic
systems would benefit from  closer  attention to the principles  found
through experimental and theoretical studies of brain systems.


FORMAT:

The  three week workshop is  co-organized  by Dana Ballard (Rochester,
US), Rodney Douglas (Zurich,  Switzerland) and Misha Mahowald (Zurich,
Switzerland).   It  is  composed of lectures,   practical tutorials on
aVLSI design, hands-on projects, and  interest groups.  Apart from the
lectures, the  activities run concurrently.  However, participants are
free to attend any of these activities at their own convenience.

There will be two  lectures in the morning that  cover issues that are
important to the community  in general.  Because  of the diverse range
of backgrounds among the participants, the  majority of these lectures
will be  tutorials, rather than  detailed reports of current research.
These lectures will be given by invited speakers. Participants will be
free  to  explore   and  play with   whatever    they  choose in   the
afternoon.  Projects and interest  groups meet in the late afternoons,
and after dinner.

The aVLSI practical tutorials will  cover all aspects of aVLSI design,
simulation, layout,  and testing over  the course of the  three weeks.
The first week covers basics of transistors, simple circuit design and
simulation.  This material is intended  for  participants who have  no
experience with aVLSI. The second week will focus on design frames for
silicon retinas,  from the silicon  compilation and  layout of on-chip
video scanners, to  building    the peripheral boards  necessary   for
interfacing aVLSI retinas to video output  monitors. Retina chips will
be provided.  The third week will feature a session on floating gates,
including  lectures  on the physics  of  tunneling  and injection, and
experimentation with test chips.

Projects that are carried out during  the workshop will be centered in
four  groups: 1) active  perception, 2) elements of autonomous robots,
3) robot manipulation, and 4) multichip neuron networks.

The "active perception" project  group will emphasize vision and human
sensory-motor coordination and  will be organized  by Dana Ballard and
Mary  Hayhoe (Rochester). Issues  to  be covered will  include spatial
localization and constancy,  attention, motor planning, eye movements,
and  the  use   of   visual motion  information   for  motor  control.
Demonstrations  will  include  a robot   head   active vision   system
consisting  of a three  degree-of-freedom binocular camera system that
is fully programmable.    The vision system  is  based  on a  DataCube
videopipe which in turn provides drive  signals to the three motors of
the head. Projects will involve  programming the DataCube to implement
a variety of vision/oculomotor algorithms.

The "elements of autonomous robots"  group will focus on small walking
robots. It will  look at  characteristics   and sources of parts   for
building  robots, play  with  working examples  of  legged robots, and
discuss CPG's and theories   of nonlinear oscillators for  locomotion.
It will  also explore the use of  simple aVLSI sensors  for autonomous
robots.

The "robot manipulation" group will use robot arms and working digital
vision boards to investigate    issues of sensory   motor integration,
passive compliance of the limb, and learning of inverse kinematics and
inverse dynamics.

The   "multichip neuron  networks"  project  group  will  use existing
interchip communication    interfaces to  program  small networks   of
artificial   neurons   to  exhibit    particular  behaviors  such   as
amplification,   oscillation,   and  associative  memory.  Issues   in
multichip communication will be discussed.


PARTIAL LIST OF INVITED LECTURERS:

Dana Ballard, Rochester.
Randy Beer, Case-Western Reserve.
Kwabena Boahen, Caltech.
Avis Cohen, Maryland.
Tobi Delbruck, Arithmos, Palo Alto.
Steve DeWeerth, Georgia Tech.
Chris Dioro, Caltech.
Rodney Douglas, Zurich. 
John Elias, Delaware University.
Mary Hayhoe, Rochester.
Geoffrey Hinton, Toronto.
Christof Koch, Caltech. 
Shih-Chii Liu, Caltech and Rockwell.
Misha Mahowald, Zurich. 
Stefan Schaal, Georgia Tech.
Mark Tilden, Los Alamos.
Terry Sejnowski, Salk Institute and UC San Diego. 
Paul Viola, MIT


LOCATION AND ARRANGEMENTS:

The    workshop  will take  place   at  the "Telluride Summer Research
Center," located in the small  town of  Telluride,  9000 feet high  in
Southwest Colorado, about  6 hours away from  Denver (350 miles) and 5
hours  from Aspen. Continental and United  Airlines provide many daily
flights directly into Telluride. Participants will be housed in shared
condominiums,  within walking distance   of  the Center. Bring  hiking
boots  and  a backpack, since   Telluride is  surrounded  by beautiful
mountains (several mountains are in the 14,000+ range).

The       workshop  is    intended   to     be    very  informal   and
hands-on.   Participants are  not   required   to have  had   previous
experience  in analog VLSI  circuit  design, computational  or machine
vision, systems level  neurophysiology  or modeling  the  brain at the
systems level. However, we  strongly encourage active researchers with
relevant backgrounds from academia, industry and national laboratories
to apply, in particular if they are  prepared to talk about their work
or  to  bring    demonstrations  to  Telluride (e.g.  robots,   chips,
software).

Internet access will  be provided.  Technical staff present throughout
the  workshops will assist with  software and hardware issues. We will
have a network of SUN workstations running UNIX, one or two MACs and a
few PCs running windows and LINUX.

We  have funds to  reimburse  some  participants for  up to  $500.- of
domestic  travel and for all  housing expenses.  Please specify on the
application whether such finanical help is needed.

Unless  otherwise  arranged with   one  of the  organizers, we  expect
participants to stay for the duration of this three week workshop.

HOW TO APPLY:

The deadline for receipt of applications is April 5, 1996.

Applicants  should  be at the   level  of graduate  students  or above
(i.e. post-doctoral  fellows, faculty, research and  engineering staff
and     the   equivalent    positions    in  industry   and   national
laboratories). We   actively encourage  qualified  women  and minority
candidates to apply. 

Application should include:

1. Name, address, telephone, e-mail, FAX, and minority status (optional).

2. Curriculum Vitae.

3. One page summary of background and interests relevant to the workshop.

4. Description of special equipment needed for demonstrations that could be 
brought to the workshop. 

5. Two letters of recommendation

Complete applications should be sent to:

Prof. Terrence Sejnowski
The Salk Institute
10010 North Torrey Pines Road
San Diego, CA 92037

email: terry at salk.edu

FAX: (619) 587 0417

Applicants will be notified around May 1, 1996.