Agent connectivity: the role of cooperation in the regulation of the behavior of animals and robots. September 12, 2009

Cooperative agents themselves and their environments are dynamic in nature, therefore the labor requirements of different tasks changes over time. In these systems parallel processing (of material and information) and division of labor are prevalent and they must accommodate to new demands. To meet new demands, efficient allocation of the agents to different tasks is required via continuous dynamic adjustments in response to these changes. Flexibility in response to external changes and internal perturbation is an essential for survivor of animals and efficient performance of agents. Theoretical and empirical findings on a diverse array of natural and artificial agents show that interactions among agents (called agent connectivity) often play important roles in structuring division of labor or problem solving. Inspired by this natural phenomena, this workshop wants to explore how performance of cooperative agents can be regulated via agent connectivity, especially how relying on shared and connected information rather than on the individual agent’s own assessment can provide efficient solutions to different problem sets.

The goal of this workshop is to foster collaborations and exchange of ideas between biologists, computational scientists and roboticists.

We are especially interested in:

1. How Agent Connectivity can allow the sharing of information among more agents, and across greater distances, than direct perception of task stimuli.
2. How Agent Connectivity may function to control agents behavior, or to overcome task inertia.
3. How “catalytic individuals” with better or more information can propagates the information through the connected colony faster.
4. How individuals can assess the colony status indirectly via their own perceived individual cues.

This is a workshop to be held within the framework of ECAL 2009 conference.

Conference information provided by konferenciakalauz.hu

Official Website: http://www.ecal2009.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=74&Itemid=65