Cognition across species: from nature to robotic application
Abstract
What kind of cognition is necessary to attain intelligent behavior? This workshop addresses this question by proposing different examples of nature-inspired intelligent systems. It discusses the natural models' cognition capabilities, functionalities, and intelligence and how their behavioral mechanisms have been translated into robot controllers. Nature provides a variety of systems implementing different levels and complex cognitive processes. Mammals are the most representative of cognitive systems endowed with learning mechanisms inspiring artificial intelligence and control architectures. However, many other biological examples display intelligent, cognitive-like behaviors based on radically different principles, and can thus provide a different perspective to enable disruptively new functionalities or approaches to control systems. We will provide examples from brain-endowed and brain-less biological models; from humans, octopuses, mice, insects and through to the plant kingdom. What do these systems have in common? What can they teach us? How can we shift diversified cognitive paradigms to robotics? These are challenging but crucial questions to define a control architecture enabling effective operations in out-of-factory scenarios. This workshop intends to create an active and stimulating forum where senior and young researchers with far-distant backgrounds can meet and discuss the meaning of cognition, creating connections among disciplines and envisioning future cognitive robots.