Call for Papers

Bird-of-a-feather Workshop at GECCO 2000

Evolution of Sensors in Nature, Hardware and Simulation

A workshop on evolution of sensors in nature, hardware and simulation is to be organized within the GECCO Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference July 8-July 12, 2000, Las Vegas, Riviera Hotel, Nevada, USA.
 

I. Workshop Description

In natural evolution one finds impressive examples for the principle of exploiting new sensory channels and making use of the implicit information they encode. Olfactory, tactile, auditive and visual, but also e.g. electric and even magnetic senses have emerged in a vast multitude of variants, often utilizing organs not originally "intended" for the purpose they serve at present. Motivated by these observations, the topic of sensor evolution is becoming a very modern and promising direction of research situated between biology, robotics and Artificial Life. Research in this direction strives at:
 

1. insights into how biological systems evolve strategies to access new information channels
2. new concepts for design of sensors for flexible and adaptive autonomous agents, an important issue in evolutionary robotics
3. an understanding of the relationship between the information available to an agent and the way it is processed, which is of particular interest for Artificial Life research.

The intention of the workshop is to approach these questions by studying biological systems as well as hardware or software realizations of evolvable sensors.

We are happy to announce that the authors of selected submissions will have the opportunity to submit an extended version to a special issue of the MIT press journal 'Artificial Life' on Sensor Evolution.
 

II. Topics of interest

Submissions are solicited on any of the following topics:
 

• Sensor evolution in nature
• General concepts for hardware and simulated sensor evolution
• Hardware realizations of evolvable sensors
• Simulation experiments modeling natural sensor evolution
• Abstract sensor evolution models
• Connection between evolution of sensors and of corresponding (e.g. neural) information processing
• Feature identification as meta-sensors
• Evolution of communication capabilities

III.  Submissions and Workshop format

Prospective authors are requested to send their submissions (3-5 pages) until March 1, 2000 to

Daniel Polani  Institut fuer Informatik  Johannes Gutenberg-Universitaet  D-55099 Mainz, Germany  polani@informatik.uni-mainz.de.

Electronic submissions (postscript or pdf only) are encouraged. In case of a hardcopy submission please make sure the submissions are received by the workshop organizers by March 1, 2000. In this case please submit 3 copies of your paper. Accepted submissions will be published in the GECCO workshop proceedings. The authors will have the opportunity to present their papers during the workshop.Following the presentations a brainstorm session is envisaged. 

For additional information send an e-mail to the workshop chairs.

Please note that the authors of selected submissions will have the opportunity to submit an extended version to a special issue of the MIT press journal 'Artificial Life' on Sensor Evolution.
 
 

IV. Important Dates
 

March 15, 2000:	Submission due
March 25, 2000:	Notification of acceptance
April 20, 2000	Camera-ready paper due.
July 8, 2000	Workshop (fee included in conference fee)

 

V. List of Accepted Papers
 

Magdalena D. Bugajska and Alan C. Schultz	Co-Evolution of Form and Function in the Design of Autonomous Agents: Micro Air Vehicle Project
Jens Ziegler and Wolfgang Banzhaf	Evolving a "Nose" for a Robot
Thiemo Krink	Trade-offs in the Communication of Cooperative Agents
Jaime Davila	Genetic Evolution of Sensors and Topology for a Neurally Controlled Robot
Achim Liese, Daniel Polani and Thomas Uthmann	A Model for the Evolution of Visual Agent Receptors

 
 
 

VI. On GECCO

The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-2000) will present the latest high-quality research results in the growing field of genetic and evolutionary computation. The GECCO-99 conference attracted 619 attendees and was the largest and most comprehensive conference in the field of genetic and evolutionary computation. GECCO-2000 will be the inaugural conference of the recently formed International Society for Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (www.isgec.org). The new society and the GECCO conference brings together the oldest society in the field of evolutionary computation (ISGA) as well as the two largest conferences in the field (the Genetic Programming Conference and the International Conference on Genetic Algorithms). Twelve workshops (included in conference registration fee) will be held on Saturday July 8, 2000; 24 tutorials (included in conference registration fee) will be given on Sunday July 9; and presentation of papers will occur on July 10 - 12 (Monday - Wednesday). For more information about hotels, travel, student travel grants, see the conference's WWW pagesSee the conference's WWW page for the deadline in June for submitting late-breaking papers.
 
 
 

VII. See also

• The Workshop on Evolution of Sensors at Alife VII
• The Call for Papers for a special issue of the MIT press journal 'Artificial Life' on sensor evolution

Last updated: Apr 18, 2000.