Robotics weekly meetings
Purpose
- Community. Keep everyone updated as to what other work is going on in the lab
- Research. Cross germination. Get feedback. Get help on problems. Get ideas.
- Admin. Lab administration.
Format
- Presentation & Discussion (30 - 50 mins)
- Work you have been doing
- Reading you have been doing in the context of your work
- Other reading on something you are passionate about
- Robotics Group Administration (0 - 15 mins)
Try and make your session as involving as possible for everyone:
- Send round material to be read beforehand.
- Ask people before the meeting what aspects of your work / reading they would like to know about or discuss.
- Think about implications of what you are presenting for the research direction of the lab as a whole - methodologies, technologies etc.
Timing & Attendance
The weekly meetings ALWAYS take place on
Unless:
- A given Wednesday is a public holiday, or
- Something very important (like a Ph.D. defense) is overlapping.
If either should happen the meeting is postponed to the next day.
Please indicate on this wiki page if you are not going to be able to attend a meeting (no later than the Friday before).
If you forget to note your absence in advance you will be severely punished and will be forced to buy a nice, big cake for the following meeting.
Previous Meetings
See Minutes and agendas from previous meetings.
Wednesday 11th January - Alexandre
Agenda
- Presentation / Discussion
- I will introduce a new experiment that involves a group of robots trying to estimate collectively
the direction of the nest, whereas they can not see it anymore.
- After a quick description of the experiment I'll introduce a set of simple behavioural rules devised to produce the desired collective behaviour.
- Then I'll present some simulation results, and describe how the group of robots manages to estimate the direction
of the nest, and how it behaves in varying conditions (noise of the system, number of robots, duration of the experiment...).
- Lastly I will discuss some tradeoff problems : robots estimate better the direction
of the nest if they are numerous, but on the other hand they have difficulties to synchronize for achieving a collective prey retrieval.
- And I will discuss some scalability and bifurcation features of the system
- If I have some time, but it is not likely, I will present you my latest results on optimal foraging
and improvements I did, following the suggestions of many of you.
- Robotics Group Admin
- Anders: Robotics room server
- Anders: s-bot status (Rehan is going to kidnap the robots?)
- Anders: BibTeX file for robotics conferences and journals.
- Marco: Who takes care of the e-pucks?.
- Marco: NASA wants to cooperate with us.
Reading material
People who will be absent
Results
Download the presentation (.pdf)
- Anders: Robotics room server
- There is a new computer in the arena. It needs to be installed and configured. For people who do not have laptops and for the overhead camera, etc.
- Anders: s-bot status (Rehan is going to kidnap the robots?)
- Rehan is (maybe) going to take all the s-bots to Switzerland the final week of January.
- Anders: BibTeX file for robotics conferences and journals.
- A common BibTeX DB is already on the way. In a months time we should be able to test it.
- Marco: Who takes care of the e-pucks?.
- The e-pucks will arrive soon. Noone volunteered to test them. Marco will pick one at random.
- Marco: NASA wants to cooperate with us.
- IRIDIA is likely going to sign a contract with NASA for a number of experiments, in simulation and on the real robots, for transporting (lifting) building material on the moon.
Wednesday 18th January - Rehan
Agenda
- Presentation / Discussion
- Sbot Common Interface
- Design Principles Design
- Implementation (Current)
- Live Demonstration
- Robotics Group Admin
Reading material
People who will be absent
Results
Wednesday 25th January - Anders
This meeting is going to be a bit technical.
Agenda
- Presentation / Discussion
- Simulation
- TwoDee: Philosophy, limitations and implementation
- Discussion on simulation
- Robotics Group Admin
Reading material
No reading is required, but I would recommend that people interested in or working with simulation to read Jacobi's "Evolutionary Robotics and the Radical Envelope-of-Noise Hypothesis" (.ps.Z), (1997), Journal of Adaptive Behavior vol. 6, No. 2, 325-368.
People who will be absent Rehan
Results
Wednesday 1st Febuary - Elio
Agenda
- Presentation / Discussion
- Robotics Group Admin
Reading material
People who will be absent
Results
Wednesday 8th January - Christos
Agenda
- Presentation / Discussion
- Robotics Group Admin
Reading material
People who will be absent
Results
Wednesday 15th February - Marco
Agenda
- Presentation / Discussion
- Robotics Group Admin
Reading material
People who will be absent
Results
Wednesday 22nd February - Roderich
Agenda
- Presentation / Discussion
- Robotics Group Admin
Reading material
People who will be absent
Results
Wednesday 1st March - Shervin
Agenda
- Presentation / Discussion
- Robotics Group Admin
Reading material
People who will be absent
Results
