Autonomous Robotics: Action, Perception, and Cognition

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Gregor Schöner

Neuroinformatics is concerned with the discovery of new solutions to technical problems of information processing. These solutions are sought based on analogies with nervous systems and the behavior of organisms. This course focuses on three exemplary problems to illustrate this approach:

  1. Artificial action (autonomous robotics)
  2. Artificial perception (robot vision)
  3. Artificial cognition (simplest cognitive capabilities of autonomous robots such as decision making, memory, behavioral organization).

The main methodological emphasis is on nonlinear dynamical systems approaches and dynamic (neural) fields.

Exercises will be integrated into the lectures. They will consist of elementary mathematical exercises, the design of (thought) experiments and their analysis, and the design of simple artificial systems, all on the basis of the theoretical framework exposed in the main lectures.

Organization

The rules for the are summarized in this document.

Dates

Lecture: Thursday 14:15 - 16:00 (NB 3/57)
First lecture: 18 April 2013

Exercise: Thursday 16:15 - 17:00 (NB 3/57)
First exercise: May 16 (as opposed to the erroneous date announced on the first exercise sheet)

Exam

The exam is comprised of content from the lectures and exercises.

Date: TBA

Location: NB 3/57

Registration: Students of the course "Angewandte Informatik" register the exam with their examination office (Prüfungsamt), all other students should check with their examination office whether they have to register for the exam. If not, please send an email to Prof. Dr. Gregor Schöner.

Exam Results

Results will be published here once they are available.

Lecture slides

00: Organization - Gregor Schöner, April 18

01: Schedule - Gregor Schöner, April 18

02: Introduction - Gregor Schöner, April 18

03: Autonomous vehicles - attractor dynamics - Jean-Stephane Jokeit, April 25

04: Dynamical Systems Tutorial - Gregor Schöner, May 2

05: Movement Generation for Robot Arms - Hendrik Reimann, May 16

Exercise sheets

Exercise sheets will be handed out in the lecture, and will be made available here. Exercises are held by Oliver Lomp.

Exercise 01 - due May 2

Exercise 02 - due May 16

Exercise 03 - due June 6 - Assignments marked with an asterisk (*) count as a bonus, i.e., they can help you get more than 100%! (sorry for the confusion)