Keynote Speakers:

Professor Toshio Fukuda IEEE Division X Director, 2001-2002

Prof. Toshio Fukuda (M'83-SM'93-F'95) graduated from Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan in 1971 and received the Master of Engineering degree and the Doctor of Engineering degree both from the University of Tokyo, in 1973 and 1977, respectively. Meanwhile, he studied at the graduate school of Yale University from 1973 to 1975. In 1977, he joined the National Mechanical Engineering Laboratory in Japan. From 1979 to 1980, he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Stuttgart, West Germany. He joined the Science University of Tokyo in 1981, and then joined Department of Mechanical Engineering, Nagoya University, Japan in 1989.

He was the Vice President of IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (1990- ). He is the member of the administrative committees in IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and IEEE Industrial Electronics Society. He was the Publication chairman (1991-1992) and the Secretary of IEEE Neural Network Council (1992-1993). He was chairman of Division of Robotics and Mechatronics of Japan Society of Mechanical Engineering (JSME), chairman of Committee of Technical Committee of Robotics in Society of Instrument and Control Engineer (SICE) and chairman of many other technical committees. He was the President of IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (1998-1999). He is elected as Director of the IEEE Division X, Systems and Control. He was the Founding General Chairman of IEEE International Workshop on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) held in Tokyo (1988) and Program Chairman of IJCNN '91-Singapore (Nov., 1991). He was the Steering Chairman of the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN'93-NAGOYA, 1993). He was the General Chairman of the IEEE Int'l Conference on Robotics and Automation (May, 1995), the Program Co-chairman of the Fuzz-IEEE Conference (Mar., 1995) and the General Chairman of the IEEE Int'l Conference on Evolutionary Computation (ICEC'96, May, 1996) and the steering member of many other international conferences. He was the General Chairman of Second Conference of Virtual Reality Society of Japan, September 1997. He was the General Chairman of Int'l Conference on Industrial Electronics, Control and Instrumentation-2000 (IECON-2000, October 2000). Currently, he is the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics (2000-2002), Journal of Micromechatronics (2000- ), Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence (JACI) and IEEE Nanotechnology Council President (2002-).

He has received many awards such as Contribution Award from the Robotics and Mechatornics Division of JSME (1995), Best Paper Award of ICEC'96 and Best Paper Award of IECON'96, City of Grenoble Medal (1997), IEEE Eugene Mittelmann Achievement Award (1997), Banki Donat Medal from Polytechnic University of Budapest, Hungary (1997), and Medal from City of Sartillo, Mexico (1998), IEEE Third Millennium Medal (2000). IEEE Fellow (1995). SICE Fellow (1995).

Professor Kevin Warwick University of Reading, UK

Prof. Kevin Warwick is Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, UK, having previously held appointments at Oxford, Warwick and Newcastle Universities and Imperial College, London, as well as working for British Telecom for 6 years. Professor Warwick regularly achieves a high level of research support having brought in over £2 million in new research contracts over the last two years. Coupled with this he has published over 300 academic papers.

Title: Neural Implants: A New Kind of Medicine or the Next Evolutionary Step? 

There are now a number of ways in which technology and biology are being merged – creating what in the science fiction world are termed Cyborgs – Cybernetic Organisms. In this presentation a look will be taken at four different investigations involving the use of implant technology and micro electrode arrays.You will be introduced to technology for identifying and tracking humans, robots with biological brains, deep brain stimulation for therapeutic purposes and neural implants to enhance human abilities. In each case practical experimentation involving Kevin's own research will be shown.Investigation number 4 led to Kevin receiving a neural implant which linked his nervous system bi-directionally with the internet. With this in place neural signals were transmitted to various technological devices to directly control them, in some cases via the internet, and feedback to the brain was obtained from the fingertips of a robot hand, ultrasonic (extra) sensory input and neural signals directly from another human’s nervous system. A view will be taken as to the prospects for the future, including the realistic potential, by 2015, for thought communication – thereby opening up tremendous commercial potential. Clearly though, an individual whose brain is part human - part machine can have abilities that far surpass those who remain with a human brain alone. Will such an individual exhibit different moral and ethical values to those of an individual today? If so, will this be the next evolutionary step for humanity?

Prof. Rolf Pfeifer Full professor of computer science Director, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Department of Informatics, Faculty of Mathematics and Science and Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology University of Zurich Switzerland

Rolf Pfeifer received his masters degree in physics and mathematics and his Ph.D. in computer science from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland. He spent three years as a post-doctoral fellow at Carnegie-Mellon University and at Yale University in the US. Since 1987 he has been a professor of computer science at the Department of Informatics, University of Zurich, and director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Having worked as a visiting professor and research fellow at Free University of Brussels, the MIT Artificial Intelligence laboratory, the Neurosciences Institute (NSI) in San Diego, and the Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Paris, he was elected "21st Century COE Professor, Information Science and Technology" at the University of Tokyo for 2003/2004, from where he held the first global, fully interactive, videoconferencing-based lecture series "The AI Lectures from Tokyo" (including Tokyo, Beijing, Jeddah, Warsaw, Munich, and Zurich). His research interests are in the areas of embodiment, biorobotics, artificial evolution and morphogenesis, self-reconfiguration and self-repair, and educational technology. He is the author of the book "Understanding Intelligence" (with C. Scheier) and he is currently working on a popular science book entitled "How the body shapes the way we think: a new view of intelligence," MIT Press, 2006 (with Josh Bongard). He has published over 100 scientific articles.The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the University of Zurich, about 20 researchers from diverse backgrounds (mathematics, computer science, physics, psychology, engineering (electrical, mechanical), neurobiology, ethology, medicine). All research projects are interdisciplinary. Funding: Swiss National Science Foundation, European Union (AMOUSE, PACE, RobotCub), private industry, HFSP. The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory has many connections with European, Japanese, and US Research Institutes.

Title: Cognition – the interaction of brain, body, and environment

Traditionally, in robotics, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience, there has been a focus on the study of the control or the neural system itself. Recently there has been an increasing interest into the notion of embodiment in all disciplines dealing with intelligent behavior, including psychology, philosophy, and linguistics. In this talk, I explore the far-reaching and often surprising implications of this concept.  While embodiment has often been used in its trivial meaning, i.e. „intelligence requires a body“, there are deeper and more important consequences, cognition as emergent from the interaction of brain, body, and environment, or more generally from the relation between physical and information (neural, control) processes. Often, morphology and materials can take over some of the functions normally attributed to control, a phenomenon called “morphological computation”. It can be shown that through the embodied interaction with the environment, in particular through sensory-motor coordination, information structure is induced in the sensory data, thus facilitating categorization, perception and learning. A number of case studies are presented to illustrate the concepts introduced. I conclude with some speculations about potential lessons for robotics and cognitive science.

Said E. El-Khamy, Fellow IEEE Emeritus Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University,Alexandria, Egypt.

Sunil K. Agrawal, PhD, Professor Director of Mechanical Systems Laboratory Fellow of the ASME

Sunil K. Agrawal received a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University in 1990. He is currently the Director of Mechanical Systems Laboratory. He has published close to 200 journal and conference papers and 2 books in the areas of controlled mechanical systems, dynamic optimization, and robotics. Dr. Agrawal is a Fellow of the ASME and his other honors include a Presidential Faculty Fellowship from the White House in 1994, a Bessel Prize from Germany in 2003, and a Humboldt US Senior Scientist Award in 2007. He has served on editorial boards on numerous journals published by ASME and IEEE.

Title: Exoskeletons for Gait Assistance and Training of Motor Impaired Subjects

Abstract: Robotics is emerging as a promising tool for training of human functional movement. The current research in this area is focused primarily on upper extremity movements. This talk describes novel designs of three lower extremity exoskeletons, intended for gait assistance and training of motor-impaired patients. The design of each of these exoskeletons is novel and different. Force and position sensors on the exoskeleton provide feedback to the user during training. The exoskeletons have undergone tests on healthy and stroke survivors to assess their potential for treadmill training. These results will be presented. GBO is a Gravity Balancing un-motorized Orthosis which can alter the gravity acting at the hip and knee joints during swing. ALEX is an Actively driven Leg Exoskeleton which can modulate the foot trajectory using motors at the joints. SUE is a bilateral Swing-assist Un-motorized Exoskeleton to propel the leg during gait. Videos of the training using theses exoskeletons are available on the website.

This research was supported by NIH through a BRP program. Please follow the links below to see articles related to these works.

http://mechsys4.me.udel.edu/docs/robots_help_stroke_patients.pdf

http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2008/nov/robot110907.html

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