This one-year award will support US participation in a U.S.-U.K. joint workshop on "Cognitive Robots and Control," organized by the PI at Vanderbilt University and by William Harwin at the University of Reading, to be held in Reading, UK, in 2005.
Intellectual merit. The field of robotics has evolved independently of cognitive science and neuroscience except for classical artificial intelligence and neural networks. However, most robots lack robustness. One challenge for the robotics community is the realization of cognitive robots through the integration of robotic body and mind that can handle difficult or novel situations. In the effort to understand human cognition and to develop embedded cognitive artifacts, all three fields will benefit by collaboration.
The proposed workshop will bring together researchers and students in robotics, philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and computational neuroscience to address the following broad issues: What can the robotics community learn from advances in cognitive science and computational neuroscience to develop the next generation of robots? How can international collaboration in this emerging field be established? What kinds of research topics should be pursued? How can the robotics community contribute to the cognitive science and neuroscience communities?
Broader impacts. The workshop will help develop: 1) strengthened partnerships between researchers in the field of robotics, machine consciousness, cognitive science, artificial intelligence (AI), and neuroscience; 2) the development of robots and other cognitive systems capable of responding robustly in novel situations; and 3) test beds for cognitive scientists and neuroscientists to validate their cognitive and learning algorithms and models. By including students and underrepresented groups, the workshop will foster the development of new researchers in this interdisciplinary area.
