Course contents

• Complex dynamical systems: basic definitions and concepts - propaedeutic to robotic topics
• Main methods and approaches for programming robotic systems
  • Behavior-Based Robotics 
  • The Subsumption Architecture 
  • Artificial Evolution and Artificial Life 
  • The Dynamical Systems Approach 
  • Automatic design of robot programs
  • Relations with machine learning and planning
• Notable examples (e.g., notion of embodiment, sensory-motor coordination, niches) 

Readings/Bibliography

• Slides available at AMS Campus
• Course textbook: R. Pfeifer and C. Scheier, "Understanding intelligence", The MIT Press, 1999.

Additional readings

• R.A. Brooks, A robust layered control system for a mobile robot, IEEE Journal of Robotics and Automation, Vol. RA-2, No.1, 1986.
• B. Kosko and S. Isaka, Fuzzy logic, Scientific American, July 1993.
• J. Bongard, Evolutionary robotics, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 56, No. 8, 2013.
• Tutorial on Q-learning.

Final exam modalities

Information on exam modalities are provided here.

Robotic simulator

In this course we use the robotic simulator ARGoS, developed at IRIDIA. The latest release of ARGoS is argos3, which can be downloaded and installed by following the instruction provided in the (provisional) link in 07-robotic_simulation.pdf.

Go to lab webpage.

AI*IA - Italian association for artificial intelligence

The Italian association for artificial intelligence is a non profit association promoting AI research. Website: www.aixia.it For further information, students can also contact Andrea Roli.