Call for papers prepared on October 4, 2011. More details and up-to-date information at http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/ants2012.

Important Dates

Submission deadline           March 2, 2012

Notification of acceptance    May 3, 2012

Camera ready copy             May 17, 2012

Conference                    September 12-14, 2012

Scope of the Conference

Swarm intelligence is a relatively new discipline that deals with the study of self-organizing processes both in nature and in artificial systems. Researchers in ethology and animal behavior have proposed many models to explain interesting aspects of social insect behavior such as self-organization and shape-formation. Recently, algorithms and methods inspired by these models have been proposed to solve difficult problems in many domains.

An example of a particularly successful research direction in swarm intelligence is ant colony optimization, the main focus of which is on discrete optimization problems. Ant colony optimization has been applied successfully to a large number of difficult discrete optimization problems including the traveling salesman problem, the quadratic assignment problem, scheduling, vehicle routing, etc., as well as to routing in telecommunication networks. Another interesting approach is that of particle swarm optimization, that focuses on continuous optimization problems. Here too, a number of successful applications can be found in the recent literature.  Swarm robotics is another relevant field. Here, the focus is on applying swarm intelligence techniques to the control of large groups of cooperating autonomous robots.

ANTS 2012 will give researchers in swarm intelligence the opportunity to meet, to present their latest research, and to discuss current developments and applications.

The three-day conference will be held in Brussels, Belgium, on September 12-14, 2012. 

Relevant Research Areas

ANTS 2012 solicits contributions dealing with any aspect of swarm intelligence. Typical, but not exclusive, topics of interest are:

• Behavioral models of social insects or other animal societies that can stimulate new algorithmic approaches.
• Empirical and theoretical research in swarm intelligence.
• Application of swarm intelligence methods, such as ant colony optimization or particle swarm optimization, to real-world problems.
• Theoretical and experimental research in swarm robotics systems.

Publication Details

Conference proceedings will be published by Springer in the LNCS series.

The journal Swarm Intelligence will publish a special issue dedicated to ANTS 2012 that will contain extended versions of the best research works presented at the conference. Further details will soon be published on the web site.

Best Paper Award

A best paper award will be presented at the conference.

Further Information

Up-to-date information will be published on the web site http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/ants2012/. For information about local arrangements, registration forms, etc., please refer to the above-mentioned web site or contact the local organizers at the address below.

Conference Address

ANTS 2012 - IRIDIA CP 194/6, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Av. F. D. Roosevelt 50, 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium.

Tel: +32-2-6502729

Fax: +32-2-6502715

Website: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/ants2012

Email: ants@iridia.ulb.ac.be

ANTS 2012 Organizing Committee

General Chair: 

Marco Dorigo, IRIDIA, ULB, Brussels, Belgium

Technical Program Chairs:

Christian Blum, ALBCOM, LSI, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya

Andries Engelbrecht, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Roderich Groß, Sheffield University, UK

Publication Chair:

Anders Lyhne Christensen, Instituto Universitario de Lisboa, Portugal

Organization Chairs:

Mauro Birattari, IRIDIA, ULB, Brussels, Belgium

Thomas Stützle, IRIDIA, ULB, Brussels, Belgium

Local Arrangements:

Andreagiovanni Reina, IRIDIA, ULB, Brussels, Belgium

Arne Brutschy, IRIDIA, ULB, Brussels, Belgium

• How do ant colonies forage for food?
• Why do cockroaches tend to aggregate in clumps?
• How can we design robotic swarms to do what we want them to?
• How can we design molecular computers using self-assembling DNA molecules?

All of these problems are related. All of them have large numbers of individual agents (be they bugs, robots, or molecules) acting independently to accomplish some goal. The students will explore behavior of these systems using a variety of mathematical techniques.

For more information, you can visit the course webpage.

Artificial Life is an interdisciplinary undertaking that investigates the fundamental properties of living systems through the simulation and synthesis of biological entities and processes. It also attempts to design and build artificial systems that display properties of organisms, or societies of organisms, out of abiotic or virtual parts.

In the early 1990's, the first two ECAL conferences in Paris and Brussels were mainly centered on theoretical biology and the physics of complex systems. Today, the Alife comunity can look back on these origins and take more inspiration from new developments at the intersection between computer science and theoretical biology — thus this year's ECAL will refocus on complex biological systems. Closing a loop, this ECAL will mark the 20th anniversary of the 1st ECAL and will be framed as a tribute to the late Francisco Varela, co-organizer in 1991 with two of this year's committee members (Paul Bourgine and Hugues Bersini).

All information about the conference can be found at this addres: www.ecal11.org

• Theoretical advances of particle swarm optimization, ant colony optimization. 
• Optimization techniques in dynamic, multi-objective, constrained environments. 
• Grid and distributed computing, machine learning, data mining, data clustering, graph partitioning, and decision making based on swarm intelligence principles. 
• Adaptation and applications of swarm intelligence principles to real world problems in various domains, including : medicine, biology, chemistry, finance, insurance, economics, social sciences, transportation, tourism, education, defense, telecommunications, energy, management, information retrieval, software engineering, fraud detection, environment, remote-sensing, 
• Robot swarm,…

Hereafter are the important dates for paper submissions:

• Submission deadline: March 10, 2011 
• Notification of acceptance: April 20, 2011 
• Camera / CD ready: May 10, 2011 
• Registration for authors (deadline): May 20, 2011 
• Conference: June 14-15, 2011 

Selected papers will be proposed for submission in special issues of selected International Journals: Computers & Operations Research, Computers & Industrial Engineering, Algorithmic Operations Research. 

The organizers also encourage scientists to submit proposals for special sessions, workshops and panels. For more details about the conference and submission process, visit the conference website at: http://icsi11.eisti.fr/

Important Dates:

• Special session proposals deadline: December 01, 2010.
• Paper submission deadline: January 01, 2011.
• Notification of acceptance: March 01, 2011.
• Camera-ready copy and author registration: March 15, 2011.
• Conference: June 12-15, 2011.

Hereafter is the list of the topics that will be discussed during this workshop:

• urban street patterns and urban area transportation
• foraging networks in animals
• optimality and constraints in transportation networks
• long distance air and maritime transportation
• spatial and planar networks

The following people will give a talk during this workshop:

• Thomas Courtat (Orange, France)
• Marc Barthélemy (Cea, Saclay, France)
• César Ducruet (Géographie-Cités, Paris, France)
• Mark Fricker (University of Oxford, UK)
• Michael Gastner (Imperial College, London, UK)
• Jacques Gautrais (CRCA Toulouse, France)
• Luke Heaton (Oxford)
• Christian Jost (CRCA Toulouse, France)
• Vito Latora (Università di Catania, Italy)
• Igor Lugo (postdoc, Géographie-Cités)
• Emanuele Strano (UDSU, Strathclyde Univesirsity, UK)

Registration to the workshop is free but mandatory, as the workshop attendance is limited. Details on registration and contributed talks can be found on http://iscpif.fr./tnnt2010.

During swarm robotics meetings, one can encounter computer scientists, mathematicians, roboticists or engineers. But it is less common to find a biologist in such events. Yet, swarm robotics has largely developed from biological discoveries that have been made during the last thirty years about the organization of animal societies. One reason that explains the defection of biologists is the difficulty they have to find relevant information for their own work in this new research field. They consider robots as "cool" gadgets, but not as tools able to make progress in the study of social behaviors.

In this seminar, I will review some of the ways swarm robotics can contribute to the study of collective animal behavior. I argue that robotics and affiliated disciplines can bring significant improvements in this biological field, from a technical, conceptual and pedagogical point of view. I will build my discussion on top of five observations I have made while collaborating as a biologist with computer scientists and roboticists: robots require a complete specification; robots are physical entities; robots implement new technologies; robots can be inadvertent sources of biological inspiration; and robots are indeed "cool" gadgets."

More information about the location of the lecture can be found here: http://www.stevens.edu/ses/about_soe/events/rss/index.php.

• Submission Deadline: Oct 31, 2010
• Notification Due: Dec 15, 2010
• Final Version Due: Jan 15, 2011

More information about invited speakers, registration and poster submission can be found in the flyer of the workshop or on the dedicated website (not working yet).

Click here to view the embedded video.

The original video can be found here on the Radiolab blog.