Events Simon Stevin Lectures Detail
17th Simon Stevin Lecture on Optimization in Engineering
"Swarm Intelligence "
Marco Dorigo
Iridia,Université Libre de Bruxelles (http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~mdorigo/HomePageDorigo/)
Abstract:
Swarm intelligence is the discipline that deals with natural and artificial systems composed of many individuals that coordinate using decentralized control and self-organization. In particular, it focuses on the collective behaviors that result from the local interactions of the individuals with each other and with their environment.
In the talk I will overview some interesting social insect behaviors and then describe some computer science and engineering applications that took inspiration from these behaviors. In particular, I will discuss the food foraging behaviour of ants and how it inspired a methodology for the approximate solution of difficult discrete optimization problems and the self-assembly and cooperative transport observed in some ant species and the corresponding behaviors implemented in swarms of robots.
Biographical Information
Marco Dorigo is a research director for the Belgian Funds for Scientific Research (FNRS), and a co-director of IRIDIA, the artificial intelligence lab of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He is the proponent of the "ant colony optimization" metaheuristic on which he wrote a book with MIT Press in 2004, and one of the founders of the swarm intelligence research field. Recently he got involved with research in "swarm robotics": he is the coordinator of "Swarm-bots: Swarms of self-assembling artefacts" and of "Swarmanoid: Towards humanoid robotic swarms" two swarm robotics projects funded by the Future and Emerging Technologies Program of the European Commission.
In 2003 he was awarded the "Marie Curie Research Excellence Award" by the European Commission; on November 22, 2005, he was presented the "FNRS - Dr A. De Leeuw-Damry-Bourlart award in Applied Sciences" by the King of Belgium, Albert II; and in 2007 he received the "Cajastur International Prize for Soft Computing", awarded by the "Foundation for the Advancement of Soft Computing". He his the recipient of an ERC Advanced Grant (2010).
About the Lecture Series:
The "Simon Stevin Lecture Series on Optimization in Engineering" is set up in order to promote optimization in engineering. For this aim, every quarter of the year an outstanding international scholar is invited to report on latest progress in the development of optimization algorithms and their applications in engineering.
Simon Stevin (1548-1620) was a Flemish mathematician and engineer. Among other, he helped to advance the use of decimal fractions, was the first to explain the tides by the attraction of the moon, and discovered the hydrostatic paradox. He made numerous inventions, among them a wind propelled carriage with sails, the "land yacht", which once impressed Prince Maurice of Orange as it moved faster than horses, in around 1600 on the beach between Scheveningen and Petten. Simon Stevin was fond of promoting the use of science in daily life and in craftmanship, and translated various mathematical terms into dutch. Among other, he introduced the dutch word for mathematics, "wiskunde".
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Two OPTEC professors have been awarded three "Gouden Krijtjes", the yearly teaching awards given by the organization of engineering students (vtk). Prof. Lombaert was awarded the prize for the best course in civil engineering, and Prof. Diehl the prizes for the best professor and the best course in mathematical engineering (where he teaches numerical optimization). They received these awards at the yearly "proffentap" where experienced students taught them how to draft beer professionally.
