Connectionists: Call for Posters: IROS Workshop on Advances in Biologically Inspired Brain-Like Cognition and Control for Learning Robot

[Florian Röhrbein]

CALL FOR POSTERS  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IROS Half-Day Workshop on Advances in Biologically Inspired Brain-Like Cognition and Control for Learning Robots
http://neurorobotics.net/workshop/iros-workshop/ <http://neurorobotics.net/workshop/iros-workshop/>
We encourage the submission of poster abstracts for our IROS 2015 workshop (see below for relevant topics of interest). Accepted submitters will not only get the chance to present their posters during this exciting event and meet other experts from the field but also to publish their work in a special issue of the journal frontiers in Neurorobotics (http://journal.frontiersin.org/journal/neurorobotics <http://journal.frontiersin.org/journal/neurorobotics>). Submitted abstracts should be 0.5 – 2 pages long and will be reviewed by at least two peers. The selection of accepted posters will be done by the organizing committee, based on the reviews. We are looking forward to receiving your submission!
PLACE & DATES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IROS 2015 2015 Hamburg, Germany (www.iros2015.org <http://www.iros2015.org/>)
Abstract Submission Deadline: August 15
Notification of Acceptance: September 07
Workshop: October 02, 2015, Morning Session
OBJECTIVES -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even today’s most advanced robots perform poorly at simple everyday tasks carried out routinely by humans and animals. This has very early motivated researchers to adopt neurobiological principles of cognition and control in robotics, yielding numerous approaches based on artificial neural networks and machine learning. However, many of the originally proposed methods employ neural networks solely for the purpose of approximating and replicating standard control architectures. At the same time, research focusing more on biological plausibility severely suffered from limitations on size and accuracy of the neural simulations imposed by hardware constraints.
In recent years, new theoretical insights and the increasing availability of cheap processing power have brought new momentum to the field which has evolved into two tracks of research with different goals and methods. In the new and emerging field of neurorobotics, the focus is on a close correspondence to experimental findings from neurosciences. Detailed simulations of spiking neural networks and the use biologically plausible neural learning rules are therefore more important than mathematical tractability or implementation efficiency and enable a seamless exchange of results between both disciplines. In contrast, new approaches extending the theory of classical artificial neural networks mostly rely on simpler neuron models but integrate them at much larger scales or embed them in novel network architectures. 
This workshop seeks to provide a platform to present and discuss advances in biologically inspired brain-like cognition and control for robotic applications based on both biologically plausible and artificial neural networks. By bringing together experts from both fields, we intend to foster a fruitful exchange between the different communities. The global scope of the workshop furthermore makes participation also equally attractive for researchers new to the field. Interactive demonstrations of tools and implementations will help to get all attendants actively involved. A dedicated poster session additionally offers enough room for individual discussion.
TOPICS OF INTEREST -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neurorobotics
Spiking neural networks for robotic applications
Bio-inspired learning
Self-organization
Embodiment
Applications of neuromorphic hardware designs in robotics
Reservoir computing
Deep learning 
INVITED SPEAKERS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Auke Jan Ijspeert, Biorobotics Laboratory, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Joni Dambre, Reservoir Computing Lab, Ghent University, Belgium
Manfred Hild, Neurorobotics Research Laboratory, Beuth Hochschule für Technik Berlin,Germany
Herbert Jäger, Jacobs University, Germany
Jason Yosinski, Cornell University, USA (tenative) 
ORGANIZERS --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Florian Walter, Technische Universität München, Germany
Florian Röhrbein, Technische Universität München, Germany
Stefan Ulbrich, FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik, Germany
Rüdiger Dillmann, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), Germany 
CONTACT --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Florian Walter
Institut für Informatik VI, Technische Universität München
Boltzmannstraße 3, 85748 Garching b. München, Germany
florian.walter at tum.de
http://www.neurorobotics.net
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