Karl TuylsOn monday March 21st, Prof. Karl Tuyls from Maastricht University will give an invited lecture in the Artificial Intelligence course. Karl Tuyls is head of Swarmlab, the robotics laboratory at the Department of Knowledge Engineering (DKE), Maastricht University. His main research interests lie at the intersection of Reinforcement Learning, Multi-Agent Systems and (Evolutionary) Game Theory. Everyone is invited to attend this guest lecture.

Title: "Nature-Inspired Autonomous Systems"

Abstract:
In this talk I will focus on how to build adaptive systems (agents or robots) capable of learning from their environment and peers in order to solve complex tasks. For this purpose we draw inspirations from nature and investigate bio-inspired techniques such as swarm intelligence (social insect behavior as found in honyebees and ants), reinforcement learning and evolutionary algorithms. I will discuss two research lines of the swarmlab research laboratory, i.e., one, how to design large-scale distributed, self-organizing robot systems capable of solving complex coordination tasks, such as foraging for food. These tasks find direct application in areas as automated patrolling, localization of danger and localization of victims in rescue management scenarios. Secondly, how to (optimally) learn from the environment and peers using a combination of reinforcement learning and evolutionary game theory in multi-agent systems in both cooperative and competitive situations. Finally, I will draw connections between both research lines.

Location: G004 (CMI)