Telluride Workshop 2000

[terry@salk.edu]

                      NEUROMORPHIC ENGINEERING WORKSHOP

                 Sunday, JUNE 25 - Saturday, JULY 15, 2000

                            TELLURIDE, COLORADO

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Avis COHEN (University of Maryland)
             Rodney DOUGLAS (Institute of Neuroinformatics,
             UNI/ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
             Timmer HORIUCHI (Johns Hopkins University)
             Giacomo INDIVERI (Institute of Neuroinformatics,
             UNI/ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
             Christof KOCH (California Institute of Technology)
             Terrence SEJNOWSKI (Salk Institute and UCSD)
             Shihab SHAMMA (University of Maryland)
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

We invite applications for a three week summer workshop that will be held in
Telluride, Colorado from Sunday, June 26 to Sunday, July 15, 2000. The
application deadline is Friday, March 3, and application instructions are
described at the bottom of this document.

The 1999 summer workshop on "Neuromorphic Engineering", sponsored by the
National Science Foundation, the Gatsby Foundation, NASA, the Office of
Naval Research, and by the Center for Neuromorphic Systems Engineering at
the California Institute of Technology, was an exciting event and a great
success. A detailed report on the workshop is available here. We strongly
encourage interested parties to browse through the previous workshop web
pages.



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 (with an emphasis on analog and
asynchronous digital VLSI), 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 real biological
nervous systems as whole systems.

FORMAT:

The three week summer workshop will include background lectures on systems
neuroscience (in particular learning, oculo-motor and other motor systems
and attention), practical tutorials on analog VLSI design, small mobile
robots (Koalas and Kheperas), hands-on projects, and special interest
groups. Participants are required to take part and possibly complete at
least one of the projects proposed (soon to be defined). They are
furthermore encouraged to become involved in as many of the other activities
proposed as interest and time allow. 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 analog VLSI practical tutorials will cover all aspects of analog VLSI
design, simulation, layout, and testing during the three weeks of the
workshop. The first week covers basics of transistors, simple circuit design
and simulation. This material is intended for participants who have no
experience with analog VLSI. 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 analog
VLSI retinas to video output monitors. Retina chips will be provided. The
third week will feature sessions on floating gates, including lectures on
the physics of tunneling and injection, and on inter-chip communication
systems. We will also feature a tutorial on the use of small, mobile robots,
focussing on Koala's, as an ideal platform for vision, auditory and
sensory-motor circuits.

Projects that are carried out during the workshop will be centered in a
number of groups, including

   * active vision
   * audition
   * olfaction
   * motor control
   * central pattern generator
   * robotics, multichip communication
   * analog VLSI
   * learning

The active perception project group will emphasize vision and human
sensory-motor coordination. 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 central pattern generator group will focus on small walking and
undulating robots. It will look at characteristics and sources of parts for
building robots, play with working examples of legged and segmented robots,
and discuss CPG's and theories of nonlinear oscillators for locomotion. It
will also explore the use of simple analog VLSI sensors for autonomous
robots.

The robotics group will use rovers and working digital vision boards as well
as other possible sensors to investigate issues of sensorimotor integration,
navigation and learning.

The audition group aims to develop biologically plausible algorithms and
aVLSI implementations of specific auditory tasks such as source localization
and tracking, and sound pattern recognition. Projects will be integrated
with visual and motor tasks in the context of a robot platform.

The multichip communication 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.

LOCATION AND ARRANGEMENTS:

The workshop will take place at the new Telluride Public High School (and
not at the Elementary School which is being renovated this year) located in
the small town of Telluride, 9000 feet high in Southwest Colorado, about 6
hours drive away from Denver (350 miles). Continental and United Airlines
provide daily flights directly into Telluride. All facilities within the
beautifully renovated public school building are fully accessible to
participants with disabilities. Participants will be housed in ski
condominiums, within walking distance of the school. Participants are
expected to share condominiums.

No cars are required. Bring hiking boots, warm clothes and a backpack, since
Telluride is surrounded by beautiful mountains.
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 work on
specific projects, talk about their own work or 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 workstations running UNIX, MACs and PCs running LINUX and
Microsoft Windows.
Unless otherwise arranged with one of the organizers, we expect participants
to stay for the entire duration of this three week workshop.

FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENT:

We have several funding requests pending to pay for most of the costs
associated with this workshop.
As in 1999, after notification of acceptances have been mailed out around
April 1. 2000, participants are expected to pay a $275.- workshop fee. In
case of real hardship, this can be waived.
Shared condominiums will be provided for all academic participants at no
cost to them. We expect participant from National Laboratories and Industry
to pay for these modestly priced condominiums.
We expect to have funds to reimburse student participants for travel (up to
$500 for US domestic travel and up to $800 for overseas travel). Please
specify on the application whether such financial help is needed.

HOW TO APPLY:

The deadline for receipt of applications is March 3. 2000.
Applicants should be at the level of graduate students or above (i.e.
postdoctoral 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:

   * First name, Last name, valid email address.
   * Curriculum Vitae.
   * One page summary of background and interests relevant to the workshop.
   * Description of special equipment needed for demonstrations that could
     be brought to the workshop.
   * 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 by email around March 31. 1999