Telluride Workshop and Summer School on Neuromorphic Engineering

[Giacomo Indiveri]

Apologies for cross-postings...

--

We invite applications for the  annual three week "Telluride  Workshop
and Summer  School on Neuromorphic  Engineering" that will be  held in
Telluride, Colorado from Sunday, June 30 to Saturday,  July 21.  2002.
The application deadline    is   FRIDAY, MARCH 15,    and  application
instructions are described at the bottom of this document.

Like each of  these workshops that have  taken  place since  1994, the
2001 Workshop and Summer School on Neuromorphic Engineering, sponsored
by  the National Science  Foundation, the  Gatsby Foundation, Whitaker
Foundation, 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 is available at the web-site:
http://www.ini.unizh.ch/telluride01.
We strongly   encourage  interested parties   to   browse through  the
previous workshop web pages.
For a discussion of the underlying science and technology and a report
on the 2001 school, see the September 20  issue of "The Economist"
(or visit the web-page
http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=779503 )


  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, vision,
speech understanding and robotics.  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 school 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, Kheperas and LEGO),  hands-on
projects, and  special interest groups.   Participants are required to
take part and possibly complete at least one of the projects proposed.
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.  In  the  early afternoon there   will be tutorial   on a wide
spectrum of  topics, including analog  VLSI, mobile robotics, auditory
systems, central-pattern-generators, selective  attention  mechanisms,
etc.

Projects that are carried out during the  workshop will be centered in
a number of working 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 an  active  vision system consisting of  a
three degree-of-freedom pan-tilt unit, and a silicon retina chip.

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  SCHOOL will  take  place in  the  small town  of Telluride,  9000
feet high in Southwest  Colorado, about 6 hours drive  away from Denver
(350  miles).  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.

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
PCs running LINUX and Microsoft Windows.

No cars are required.  Given the  small size of the town, we recommend
that you  do NOT rent a car.   Bring hiking boots, warm  clothes and a
backpack, since Telluride is surrounded by beautiful mountains. Unless
otherwise arranged with one  of the organizers, we expect participants
to stay for the entire duration of this three week workshop.


  FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENT:

Notification of  acceptances will be  mailed out around  Monday, April
8. 2002.  Participants are  expected to pay a $275.00  workshop fee at
that time in order to reserve a  place in the workshop.  The cost of a
shared condominium  will be covered for all  academic participants but
upgrades  to  a  private  room  will cost  extra.   Participants  from
National  Laboratories and  Industry  are expected  to  pay for  these
condominiums.   Travel reimbursement  of up  to $500  for  US domestic
travel  and  up  to $800  for  overseas  travel  will be  possible  if
financial help is needed (Please specify on the application).


  HOW TO APPLY:

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 or software  needed for 
demonstrations that
   could be brought to the workshop.
* Two letters of recommendation

Complete applications should be sent to:

Terrence Sejnowski
The Salk Institute
10010 North Torrey Pines Road
San Diego, CA 92037
e-mail: telluride at salk.edu
FAX: (858) 587 0417

APPLICATION DEADLINE: MARCH 15, 2002