Invited Keynote: Autonomous Systems Inspired by Biology

Abstract

We can currently see the rapid formation of an exciting multidisciplinary field focusing on the application of biological principles and mechanisms to develop autonomous systems (software agents and robots) that act highly flexible and robust in the face of environmental contingency and uncertainty. In this talk I will give an overview of various aspects of this field. The state of the art will be illustrated with divers examples of bio-inspired approaches to system adaptivity, functional and structural optimization, collective and swarm behavior, locomotion, sensor-motor control, and (co-)evolution. A focus will be on representative work on biologically inspired autonomous systems done at the Swarmlab of Maastricht University, including recent research motivated by the behavior of social insects such as bees and ants.