| NICOLAS
REEVES
NXI GESTATIO DESIGN LAB
UNIVERSITY OF QUEBEC IN MONTREAL
MONTREAL, CANADA |
ALCHERIO
MARTINOLI
SWARM-INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS GROUP (SWIS)
ÉCOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FÉDÉRALE DE LAUSANNE,
SWITZERLAND |
ALAN
WINFIELD
FACULTY OF COMPUTING ENGINEEIRNG AND MATHEMATICAL
SCIENCES
UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST OF ENGLAND, BRISTOL, UK |
GUY
THÉRAULAZ
RESEARCH CENTER ON ANIMAL COGNITION
PAUL SABATIER UNIVERSITY
TOULOUSE, FRANCE |
The
NXI GESTATIO Design Lab for arts, architecture and design
explores the consequences of the formal nature of digital
information in all the aspects of the design of our built
and cultural environment. It develops many research-creation
projects based on artificial life processes resulting
in spatial structures called "MESAPs", french
acronym for "Evolving morphologies with no prior
addressing", which can be found in such different
systems as coral reefs, anthills, geological fault systems,
medieval villages, medinas, slums and squatter settlements...
MESAPs develop assemblages and configurations that can
be extremely complex, impossible to describe with standard
Euclidian geometry. Their characterization and their simulation
present major challenges, for which the NXI GESTATIO design
lab developed collaborations with high-level science and
technology labs.
The
different simulation tools developed for these tasks have
immediately revealed a vast potential for architectural
design and artistic creation. Besides its research programs,
the lab has developed an artistic practice which is now
known at an international level, through many presentations
and installations.
The
[ SAILS] project is the outcome of the Mascarillons project,
initiated in NXI GESTATIO, through an attempt to bring
to robotic organisms the potential of distributed processes.
The Mascarillons are the first [ SAILS ] aerobots. These
cubic blimps are designed, assembled and tested in Montreal,
with collaborations end exchanges with all the other partners.
|
Founded
in 2003, the Swarm-Intelligent Systems (SWIS) à group
is structurally integrated in the Nonlinear
Systems Laboratory is affiliated with the National Center
of Competence in Mobile Communication and Information Systems.
SWIS has inherited the research projects of the Collective
Robotics (CORO) group founded in December 1999 at the California
Institute of Technology, Pasadena, U.S.A.
Its mission focuses on the development of design, modeling,
control, and optimization methodologies for self-organized,
collectively intelligent, distributed systems. A special
emphasis is currently set on real-time, embedded systems :
multi-robot platforms, sensor and actuators networks, intelligent
vehicles.
As co-researchers in the Mascarillon project, SWIS is contributing
to the design and optimization of the distributed control
algorithms in order to achieve efficient and robust self-assembling
of the cubic blimps. SWIS is also involved, as consultant,
in the design and optimization of the complex and highly
constrained on-board mechatronics of the cubic blimp. |
Alan
Winfield's researches focus on control, communications and
software architectures for collective robotics. The work
is concerned with software and communications architecture
that might facilitate potentially large populations of mobile
agents. The LinuxBot and the uLinuxBot are robots that achieve
remarkable abilities as platform researches to achieve these
objectives. A part of the work is concerned with the self-organisation
and continuous connectivity between mobiles, distributed
agents communicating through range-limited wireless networking.
Another research program is concerned by adaptive neural
control, focusing on neuro-controllers capable of real-time,
on-line learning.
In
the Mascarillon project, the expertise developed through
Dr. Winfield's project in the field of flocking blimps is
of the greatest interest for the distibuted control of the
flying automata. Neuro-controllers may also play an essential
role in maintaining the stability and smoothness of moves
of the intrinsequely instable Mascarillons. |
The
CRCA (Center for Research in is dedicated to the study of
the different mechanisms implied in the coordination of
collective activities of social insects such as wasps, ants,
fish schools and herds of sheeps. The objective is to identify
and characterize both the individual behaviors and the interactions
between individuals at the origin of the collective behaviors
that are observed in these societies. The knowledge of these
interactions is then used to build models in which the properties
of the dynamics emerging from these behaviors and interactions
at the level of the colony. Through these models, predictions
are made that can be verified through experiments and observations.
This
problematic lays at the heart of the study of non-linear
biological phenomena, and is also related to the study of
emerging cognitive phenomena. Many aspects of the collective
behaviors of social insects can be seen as distibuted cognitive
processes originating from a large number of interacting
agents. Some of these models can then be converted to efficient
methods or tools for optimisation and control in computer
science and robotics. Within the Mascarillon program, through
different levels of simulation, we plan to explore the interaction
rules between the automata and the space of possible collective
forms that can emerge from these rules, starting from our
previous research works on auto-assembled structures.
|
|
CONTACT
Nicolas
Reeves
NXI GESTATIO design lab
[art, architecture, design]
School of Design
University of Quebec in Montreal
1440, Sanguinet Suite DE6250-55
CP8888, Succ. Centre-Ville
Montreal H3C 3P8 Quebec
CANADA
T: 514-987 3000 ext. 3761
F:514-987 7717
E:reeves.nicolas [at] uqam.ca
NXI
GESTATIO web page
|
CONTACT
Alcherio Martinoli
Swarm-Intelligent Systems Group
EPFL IC ISC GR-MA
BC 210 (Building BC)
Station 14
CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
T: +41 21 693 68 91
F: +41 21 693 67 00
alcherio.martinoli [at] epfl.ch
Alcherio
Martinoli's web page |
CONTACT
Alan
Winfield
Faculty of Computing Engineering and Mathematical Sciences
University of the West of England, Bristol
Coldharbour Lane
Bristol
BS16 1QY
UK
T : +44 117 344 3498
F: +44 117 344 2734
E:alan.winfield[at]awe.ac.uk
Alan
Winfield's web page
|
CONTACT
Guy
Théraulaz
Center for Research in Animal Cognition
UMR 5169, Bât IVR3, b3
118, route de Narbonne
F - 31062 Toulouse cedex 4
FRANCE
Tél: +33 5 61 55 67 31, Fax: +33 5 61 55 61 54y
T: +33 5 01 55 67 32
F: +33 5 61 55 61
E:theraula [at] cict.fr
Guy
ThÈraulaz's web page
|
