LEURRE: Artificial life control in mixed-societies

• Research unit: EU RFP
• Project number: 01.0573

Key words (English)

Forecasting; Information Processing; Information Systems; Innovation; Technology Transfer

Alternative project number (English)

EU project number: IST-2001-35506

Research programs (English)

EU-programme: 5. Frame Research Programme - 1.2.8 Generic R&D activities

Short description (English)

See abstract

Further information (English)

Full name of research-institution/enterprise:
EPF Lausanne
Autonomous Systems Lab (ASL) - I2S - STI

Abstract (English)

The framework of the project is 'artificial life control in mixed-societies'. The project will: study formal behaviour protocol models for mixed-societies; develop tools for using these models; provide a general methodology towards the control of mixed-societies; validate the concepts by applying the tools to the control of laboratory experiments and to agriculture environments.

Objectives:
(1) LEURRE will develop a formal behavioural model for mixed-societies and study its properties. LEURRE will formalise the behaviours in a formal language and provide a library of tools for dealing with them;
(2) LEURRE will show that this behavioural model gives an understanding of the capabilities of animal groups. Experiments on 'real' mixed-societies will prove this point;
(3) In LEURRE we will show that it is feasible to change the global behaviour of a mixed-society and a demonstration will be provided on our 'real' mixed-societies;
(4) LEURRE will propose guidelines towards some general methodology for performing such control on mixed-societies;
(5) Applications to agriculture will be provided. This will enhance the relevance of our results to the quality of live and the management of living resources.

Work description:
LEURRE will be carried on in five workpackages:
(1) Specification of a formal behaviour model which is divided into several tasks: definition of the behaviour model; definition of the generic elementary behaviours, their algorithms, their constraints; implementation of these behaviours in insect-like micro-robots (insbots); specification of a formal language for the description of these generic behaviours and of the corresponding algorithms and constraints; definition of a interface between a behaviour database and simulation languages; definition of a general methodology;
(2) A laboratory realisation of a mixed-society of cockroaches and insbots which is divided into several tasks: simulations; control; validation of the formal model;
(3) Real-life applications in agriculture. There are two additional workpackages:
(4) Demonstration and dissemination and
(5) Management.

The work will be performed by a team of specialists in the field of ethnology and artificial systems.

References in databases (English)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 01.0573