Photos

Photos by courtesy of Prof. Fumihiko Asano, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan


Award Winners

Best Poster Award

Motoyasu Tanaka and Kazuo Tanaka
Shape Control for a Snake Robot via Sequential Switching

Best Poster Award: Voting Top 2–5

  1. Nobuaki Mizumoto, Ryota Sato, Naohisa Nagaya, Masato Abe, Shigeto Dobata and Ryusuke Fujisawa
    Tracking Movement of Individual Insects with an Omnidirectional Treadmill Mechanism
  2. Takayuki Narumi, Kenta Uemichi, Hisao Honda and Koichi Osaki
    A Model for Worker Honeybees Building the Triggers of Honeycomb Construction Process
  3. Dhananjay Ipparthi, Andrew Winslow, Massimo Mastrangeli and Marco Dorigo
    A Study of Yield Predictions for a Model of Homogeneous Self-Assembling Components
  4. William Savoie, Arman Pazouki, Dan Negrut and Daniel Goldman
    Smarticles: Design and Construction of Smart Particles to Aid Discovery of Principles of Smart, Active Granular Matter

Best Student Paper Award

Vadim Linevich, Daria Monaenkova and Daniel I Goldman
Robophysical Study of Excavation in the Confined Environments

Best Student Paper Award Finalists

Naoki Nishikawa, Reiji Suzuki and Takaya Arita
Evolutionary Search of Cooperative Behaviors by Heterogeneous Swarm Robots
Nhu Hai Phung, Masao Kubo, Akihiro Yamaguchi, Hiroshi Sato, Saori Iwanaga and Akira Namatame
Enclosing of the Target Zone
Naoki Tatebe, Kiyohiko Hattori, Toshinori Kagawa, Yasunori Owada, Kiyoshi Hamaguchi and Keiki Takadama
Deployment of Wireless Mesh Network Using RSSI-Based Swarm Robots
Vadim Linevich, Daria Monaenkova and Daniel I Goldman
Robophysical Study of Excavation in the Confined Environments
Yohichi Mototake and Takashi Ikegami
A Simulation Study of Large Scale Swarms
Kota Tomine, Wataru Noguchi, Hiroyuki Iizuka and Masahito Yamamoto
Discriminating Social Behavior of Guppy Swarm by Convolutional Neural Network

Outstanding Paper Award (Category: Bioinspired Studies)

Ioannis Poulakakis and Qu Cao
Control of Quadrupedal Bounding with Flexible Torso and Speed Transitions with Sums of Squares Verification

Outstanding Paper Award (Category: Swarms)

Takayuki Niizato, Hisashi Murakami, Kazuki Sangu, Takenori Tomaru, Yuta Nishiyama, Kohei Sonoda and Yukio Gunji
Difference in the searching strategy of Plecoglossus altivelis between single individuals and groups

Outstanding Paper Award Finalists

Takayuki Niizato, Hisashi Murakami, Kazuki Sangu, Takenori Tomaru, Yuta Nishiyama, Kohei Sonoda and Yukio Gunji
Difference in the searching strategy of Plecoglossus altivelis between single individuals and groups
Tetsuyuki Takahama and Setsuko Sakai Takahama
Improving Particle Swarm Optimization by Estimating Landscape Modality Using a Proximity Graph
Keitaro Naruse
Prediction of Swarm Disconnection of Flocking
Kazuaki Yamada and Yuto Yamazaki
Specialization in Swarm Robotics Using a Response Threshold Model
Olaf Witkowski and Takashi Ikegami
Swarm Ethics: Evolution of Cooperation in a Multi-Agent Foraging
Ioannis Poulakakis and Qu Cao
Control of Quadrupedal Bounding with Flexible Torso and Speed Transitions with Sums of Squares Verification
Toshiyuki Yasuda, Shigehito Nakatani, Akitoshi Adachi and Kazuhiro Ohkura
Generating Flocking Behavior of a Real Robotic Swarm that Travels between Two Landmarks


Scope

Living things that survive natural selection have beautiful skills and intelligent behavior. A swarm can perform many functions that its component individuals cannot possibly accomplish alone. In addition to the ability to adapt to the environment, but also to construct a suitable environment for its own advantage. The constructive understanding of intelligence of living things is a very interesting approach from the point of view of biology and engineering. The aim of this first symposium SWARM2015 is the construction of a bridge between biologists and engineers who are interested in the intelligence of living things and the creation of a new academic field by integrating biology and engineering. This symposium will focus on the biological and engineering approaches to understanding swarm behavior and biologically-inspired robotics. All aspects of swarm behavior and bio-inspired robotics are welcome, including, but not limited to, the following topics:

Biology

  • Social Insects
  • Evolutionary Cooperation
  • Ethology
  • Social Physiology
  • Adaptation
  • Self-Organization
  • Sociometry
  • Phase Polyphenism
  • Quorum Sensing

Engineering

  • Swarm Intelligence
  • Swarm Robotics
  • Biomimetics
  • Bio-Inspired Robotics
  • Multi-Agent Systems
  • Walking Robots
  • Modular Robotics
  • Decentralized Control
  • Distributed Systems

Call for Papers (PDF) Call for Participants (PDF)


Keynote Speech

Diversity of Collective Decision-Making Patterns Resulting from Social Behaviour

Prof. Jean-Louis Deneubourg
(Université Libre de Bruxelles)


Control and Coordination of Multi-Robot Systems

Prof. Magnus Egerstedt
(Georgia Institute of Technology)


Distributed Information Processing by Insect Societies

Prof. Stephen Pratt
(Arizona State University)

Keynote Speech 1: Diversity of Collective Decision-Making Patterns Resulting from Social Behaviour by Prof. Jean-Louis Deneubourg

Group-living animals are often faced with choosing between one or more alternative resource sites. A central question is how a collective decision is taken. This experimental and theoretical review demonstrates that choices can emerge through nonlinear interaction dynamics between « equal » individuals without perfect knowledge or leadership. We explore a number of situations differing in the number and quality of the options, in the type of interactions, and in the number of individuals concerned. The interplay between individual responses to site characteristics and to group-members can give rise to a diversity of patterns of decision-making. We will focus on how the environmental characteristics influence the collective responses and their diversity in different situations. We will also discuss how the individual complexity affects the collective response and how the synergy between artificial agents and organisms is the source of new collective efficiency. Using choice experiments and a theoretical approach, we will show how individuals in a group dramatically outperform the problem-solving ability of a single individual. Our research points towards a generic self-organized collective decision-making process shared by many group living-species and its extension to mixed animal-artificial agents.

Jean-Louis Deneubourg is Research Director at the Belgium National Science Foundation (FNRS) and professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He graduated as a physical-chemist from the ULB and he obtained his PhD from the ULB (1979). He published 3 books and around 300 scientific articles. His research is concerned with collective decision-making/pattern formation in animal societies, mainly social and gregarious arthropods and vertebrates (fish and primates) and how these groups can display cognitive capabilities that go beyond the scope of single individuals. Among his contributions, he was the first to study collective decision-making associated to the trail recruitment in ants. Some of his results were a source of inspiration for the ant colony optimization algorithms developed by computer scientists. Since 2000, has also working on interaction between artificial objects and animals and on mixed societies, societies where animals and robots communicate and cooperate.

Keynote Speech 2: Control and Coordination of Multi-Robot Systems by Prof. Magnus Egerstedt

The last few years have seen significant progress in our understanding of how one should structure multi-robot systems. New control, coordination, and communication strategies have emerged and, in this talk, we discuss some of these developments. Inspiration will be drawn from naturally occurring, self-organizing systems and we will show how one can go, in a provably correct manner, from global, team-level specifications to local coordination rules for achieving and maintaining formations, area coverage, and biologically inspired swarming behaviors.

Magnus Egerstedt is the Schlumberger Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he serves as Associate Chair for Research. Dr. Egerstedt conducts research in the areas of control theory and robotics, with particular focus on control and coordination of complex networks, such as multi-robot systems, mobile sensor networks, and cyber-physical systems. Magnus Egerstedt is the Deputy Editor-in-Chief for the IEEE Transactions on Network Control Systems, the director of the Georgia Robotics and Intelligent Systems Laboratory (GRITS Lab), and a Fellow of the IEEE.

Keynote Speech 3: Distributed Information Processing by Insect Societies by Prof. Stephen Pratt

Insect societies are leading examples of decentralized control in the natural world, and a source of inspiration for the design of analogous artificial systems. In this talk I will use examples from ants to illustrate the behavioral mechanisms behind the colony's complex social organization. I will focus on how coordinated group behavior emerges from interactions among many poorly informed ants following appropriate decision rules. By focusing on the interplay between cognition at individual and group levels, I will consider how cooperation both enhances, and is constrained by, the abilities of individual insects.

Stephen Pratt is an Associate Professor in the School of Life Sciences. His research focuses on the social organization of ant and bee colonies, with a special focus on mechanistic understanding of highly coordinated group behavior. He also works with engineers to apply the resulting insights to artificial systems such as robotic swarms. He received his PhD from Cornell University and has worked at the University of Bath, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Princeton University.


Tutorials

Swarm robotics research at IRIDIA

Prof. Marco Dorigo
(Université Libre de Bruxelles)


Social Conflicts and the Underlying Autonomous Decentralized Control in Ants

Prof. Kazuki Tsuji
(University of the Ryukyus)


Top-Down Control of Reproduction and Self-Organization of Labor in Termites

Prof. Kenji Matsuura
(Kyoto University)

Tutorial 1: Swarm robotics research at IRIDIA by Prof. Marco Dorigo

Swarm robotics is about constructing and controlling swarms of autonomous robots that cooperate to perform tasks that go beyond the capabilities of the single robots in the swarm. In this talk, I will give an overview of recent and ongoing research in swarm robotics in my research lab, IRIDIA, at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. In particular, I will present results obtained with homogeneous and heterogeneous swarms of robots that cooperate both physically and logically in search and retrieval tasks.

Marco Dorigo received the Laurea, Master of Technology, degree in industrial technologies engineering in 1986, and the Ph.D. degree in electronic engineering in 1992 from the Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy. From 1992 to 1993, he was a Research Fellow at the International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley, CA. In 1993, he was a NATO-CNR Fellow, and from 1994 to 1996, a Marie Curie Fellow. Since 1996, he has been a tenured Researcher of the FNRS, the Belgian National Funds for Scientific Research, and co-director of IRIDIA, the artificial intelligence laboratory of the ULB. He is the inventor of the ant colony optimization metaheuristic. His current research interests include swarm intelligence, swarm robotics, and metaheuristics for discrete optimization. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Swarm Intelligence, and an Associate Editor or member of the Editorial Boards of many journals on computational intelligence and adaptive systems. Dr. Dorigo is a Fellow of IEEE, AAAI, and ECCAI. He was awarded the Italian Prize for Artificial Intelligence in 1996, the Marie Curie Excellence Award in 2003, the Dr. A. De Leeuw-Damry-Bourlart award in applied sciences in 2005, the Cajastur International Prize for Soft Computing in 2007, an ERC Advanced Grant in 2010, the IEEE Frank Rosenblatt Award in 2015, and the IEEE Evolutionary Computation Pioneer Award in 2016.

Tutorial 2: Social Conflicts and the Underlying Autonomous Decentralized Control in Ants by Prof. Kazuki Tsuji

Groups of individuals in social insects form cooperative societies or "superorganisms". However, it is also known that evolutionary conflicts which can lead to "the tragedy of the commons" are widespread in those societies. A major question in evolutionary biology is how resolution of conflicts among the lower-level units was achieved to form the higher unit. Policing is an important mechanism that enables the formation of group harmony by preventing selfish behavior of the lower units. Ohtsuki and Tsuji (2009) has proposed a new hypothesis on the mechanism of evolution of worker policing in social Hymenoptera. A novel prediction of this model is that worker policing will depend on the stage of colony growth and under queen single mating strong worker policing will occur only at the ergonomic stage. In this symposium I will talk about two topics related to this hypothesis. First, I show data strongly supporting Ohtsuki and Tsuji's prediction in the ponerine ant Diacamma sp. (Tsuji et al. unpublished data, Tsuji et al. 2012). Second, I suggest a proximate mechanism of colony size related behavioral regulation in this ant that is achieved though individual contacts. This is a pioneering study revealing an explicit colony size "sensing" mechanism in social insects.

  • Ohtsuki, H., Tsuji, K. (2009) Adaptive reproduction schedule as a cause of worker policing in social Hymenoptera: a dynamic game analysis. The American Naturalist 173:747–758.
  • Tsuji, K., Kikuta, N., Kikuchi, T. (2012) Determination of the cost of worker reproduction via diminished lifespan in the ant Diacamma sp.. Evolution 66: 1322–1331.
Kazuki Tsuji started his science in the sociobiological study of the parthenogenetic ant Pristomyrmex supervised by Yosiaki Ito in Nagoya. Recently he has extended his scientific interest to the general evolutionary and ecological dynamics including community ecology and sociophysiology. After receiving a Ph.D. from Nagoya University in 1989, he did postdoctoral research at the University of Würzburg, where he was supervised by Bert Hölldobler. He was hired for a tenured position at Toyama University in 1995, and in 2001, he moved to the University of the Ryukyus as a professor. Currently, he is the head of the IUSSI (International Union for the Study of Social Insects) Japanese Section.

Tutorial 3: Top-Down Control of Reproduction and Self-Organization of Labor in Termites by Prof. Kenji Matsuura

Social insects rely heavily on pheromone communication to maintain their sociality. Their reproductive system is regulated by queen pheromone. We identified a queen-produced volatile chemical that inhibits the differentiation of new neotenic reproductives in a termite. In contrast to this top-down control, social insects also rely on self-organizing rules to perform social labor, as members communicate with neighbors to make consensual decisions. By using shelter-tube construction and egg piling behavior as model systems, we are identifying the algorithm of collective building and decision making system in termites.

  • Matsuura, K., Vargo, E.L., Kawatsu, K., Labadie, P.E., Nakano, H., Yashiro, T. and Tsuji, K. (2009) Queen succession through asexual reproduction in termites. Science, 323: 1687.
  • Matsuura K., Himuro, C., Yokoi T., Yamamoto Y., Vargo E.L. and Keller, L. (2010) Identification of a pheromone regulating caste differentiation in termites. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.USA, 107: 12963–12968.
  • Yamamoto Y. and Matsuura K. (2011) Queen pheromone regulates egg production in a termite. Biology Letters 7(5): 727–729.
  • Mizumoto, N. and Matsuura, K. (2013) Colony-specific architecture of shelter tubes by termites. Insectes Sociaux 60: 525–530.
Kenji Matsuura is Professor of the Graduate School of Agriculture at Kyoto University, where he has been since 2012. He received his undergraduate degree from Kyoto University in 1998 and his Ph.D. from Kyoto University in 2002. From 2002 to 2004 he was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University. Following an Associate Professor at Okayama University, he moved in 2012 back to Kyoto University as Professor of Insect Ecology. He has received a number of awards for his research excellence (including Miyaji Award of the Ecological Society of Japan, Population Ecology Young Scientist Award and Japan Ethological Society Award) and was awarded Japan Academy Medal in 2011. His research primarily focuses on the behavioral ecology and evolution of termites, including the evolution of reproductive systems, the evolution of pheromone communication, as well as the interactions between termites and other organisms. His major scientific contributions and discoveries include: includes the finding of the novel reproductive system of termites, Asexual Queen Succession (AQS) (published in Science); the first identification of termite queen pheromone (published in PNAS); discovery of the termite-egg mimicking fungus ‘termite ball’ and identification of the mechanism of its egg mimicry (published in Royal Society B and Current Biology); test of kin selection in termites (published in Nature Communications).


Workshop

Embodied sensorimotor interaction: from locomotion to collective behavior

Deadline for poster abstract submission: June 30, 2015
Notification of acceptance: July 31, 2015
Workshop: October 28, 2015

Overview

Animals show fascinating adaptive and versatile abilities. For example, they can move around and at the same time avoid obstacles in order to successfully navigate through their complex cluttered environment for finding their food source. While moving, they can also adapt their locomotion to deal with unknown situations. Furthermore, they can interact with each other to form collective behavior for anti-predator, enhanced foraging, and even increased locomotion efficiency. These complex achievements emerge from tightly as well as loosely coupled interactions between many ingredients including biomechanics (i.e., morphology, muscles, and materials), sensory feedback, centralized/decentralized mechanisms, and communication. Developing these key ingredients and implementing them in artificial systems to approach the level of performance of living creatures remains a grand challenge. To address these issues, our workshop at SWARM 2015, “Embodied sensorimotor interaction: from locomotion to collective behavior” will bring together leading experts, working in the domains of bio-inspired robotics, swarm robotics, modular robotics, embodied AI, evolutionary robotics, and computational neuroscience, to present their recent developments on robot locomotion and collective behavior and discuss future directions to overcome this challenge.


The full-day workshop is composed of the following parts:
  1. Invited talks by experts from swarm robotics, bio-inspired locomotion control, and embodied AI,
  2. Poster presentations,
  3. Discussion and future steps
We are also pleased to invite contributions in the form of 1 page conf. style abstract on (but are not limited to) the following topics. The selected contributions will be presented in a form of a poster during the workshop. We particularly encourage young scientists to contribute and attend, even presenting their research at an early stage an engage in discussions. We also welcome live demonstrations on robot locomotion and collective behavior. Submissions have to be sent to poma[at]mmmi.sdu.dk (please replace [at] with @) in PDF format. One author per accepted workshop contribution (poster, demo) is required to register for the workshop and attend the workshop to present the accepted submission.

The workshop organizers:

Florentin Wörgötter, Poramate Manoonpong, Yuichi Ambe, and Shinya Aoi

The workshop topics include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Bio-inspired robotics (e.g., walking robots, flying robots, etc.),
  • Locomotion control,
  • Collective behavior control,
  • Swarm and self-organizing systems (e.g., modular robots)

List of speakers:

  • Danish Shaikh (Centre for BioRobotics, The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute, SDU, Denmark)
  • Kasper Støy (IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark)
  • Yulia Sandamirskaya (Institute for Neural Computation, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany)
  • Koh Hosoda (Dept. of Adaptive Machine Systems, Grad. school of Engineering, Osaka University, Japan)
  • Shinya Aoi (Kyoto University, Japan)
  • Yuichi Ambe (Kyoto University, Japan)
  • Poramate Manoonpong (Centre for BioRobotics, The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute, SDU, Denmark)
  • Nora Ayanian (the Automatic Coordination of Teams Lab, USC Viterbi School of Engineering, USA)
  • Florentin Wörgötter (Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Göttingen)

Workshop Program (PDF)

12:40 Workshop start
12:40–12:45 Brief Introduction, announcements
Florentin Wörgötter

Embodied sensorimotor interaction

12:45–13:15 Embodied auditory localization: the Lizard ear
Danish Shaikh
13:15–13:45 Flora-robotica: plant-robot hybrid collective organisms
Kasper Støy
13:45–14:15 Behaviour organisation and learning with Dynamic Neural Fields: towards neuromorphic cognitive robots
Yulia Sandamirskaya

Locomotion

14:15–14:45 Muscular-Skeletal Biped Robots for Understanding Morphological Functions of Human Body Structure
Koh Hosoda
14:45–15:15 Legged robot and neuromusculoskeletal model for revealing adaptation mechanism in split-belt treadmill walking
Shinya Aoi
15:15–15:45 Insect gait mechanism through neuromechanical interaction: A modeling study
Yuichi Ambe
15:45–16:00 Coffee Break
16:00–16:30 Neural dynamics and synaptic plasticity in a recurrent neural network for complex autonomous behaviors of a biomechanical walking robot
Poramate Manoonpong

Collective behavior

16:30–17:00 Mixed Reality Experimentation for Multirobot Systems
Nora Ayanian
17:00–17:30 Control without Control(ers): How Robots can Learn to Behave with Memory
Florentin Wörgötter

Spotlight 3-5 min talks

17:30–18:10
  • Self-Adaptive Recurrent Neural Networks for Robust Spatiotemporal Processing: from Animals to Robots, Sakyasingha Dasgupta
  • TEGOTAE-based decentralized control mechanism underlying myriapod locomotion, Kotaro Yasui
  • Design of a Modular Quadruped Robot for Empirically Exploring the Effects of Morphology on the Emergence of Gaits, Mamani Jerome
  • Investigation of the Effect of Body Flexibility on Bounding Gait with a Simple Model, Tomoya Kamimura
  • Analysis of flock guidance based on the vector field representation, Yuto Sato
  • Pheeno, A Versatile Swarm Robotic Research and Education Platform, Sean Wilson
  • Collective Sharing of Network Energy and Packet-Relay Task in Wireless Multi-hop Infrastructure, Rui Teng
18:10–18:30Discussion & Closing


Organized Session

Organized session proposals are invited. An orgnized session proposal should include the title, aim and scope of the session, and the names, e-mail addresses, affiliations and short bios of the organizers. The proposal can include additional information such as a list of potential contributors. At least three papers should be arranged in an organized session.
Proposals should be sent by e-mail to SWARM 2015 Secretariat.
All proposals should be submitted by May 1st, 2015. Early proposals are highly encouraged.
(Closed. Thank you.)

Accepted Sessions

Control Theory on Networks by SICE Research Committee on Control and Signal Processing on Networks

The aim of the organized session is to introduce the most recent works on control theory on networks and its applications to robotics, communications, and social networks. In this session, we will have one invited presentation and 5 regular presentations. The presenters are mostly researchers of control theory, but we welcome people in all areas of research.
Invited Talk: Multi-robot Coordination Based on Gradient Systems by Dr. Shinsaku Izumi (Okayama Prefectural University)
In this talk, we discuss a controller design method for multi-robot coordination based on gradient systems. Gradient systems are systems where the time derivative of the state is equal to the gradient of a function. In the design method, the controller of each robot is constructed so that the resulting feedback system is the gradient system for a function representing the achievement degree of a motion-coordination task. I introduce this design method and show its application to robotic mass games, that is, to let robots organize themselves into a formation displaying a given grayscale image.


Multi-Agent Models on Swarm Behavior by Yukio-Pegio Gunji (Waseda University), Hiroshi Sato (National Defense Academy of Japan), and Tomohiro Shirakawa (National Defense Academy of Japan)

We here organize a special session about modeling and analysis regarding swarm behavior and biological behavior explained by multi-agent based systems. The organized session will have new foci on mathematical modeling and analysis of swarm, school, group intelligence, dilemma of exploration and exploitation in foraging, complementing the traditional topics of mathematical biology.


Unsolved Problems in Robotic Limit Cycle Walking by Fumihiko Asano (Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)

The aim of this session is to introduce and share the current challenging problems that are mathematically intractable in the field of robotic limit cycle walking and discuss the future direction. In this session, the presenters discuss mainly about the equations and solutions that describe the behaviors of limit cycle walkers, but we also welcome related topics in this field such as nonlinear phenomena numerically-discovered, chaotic dynamics and control, and discussions from a practical point of view.


Implicit and Explicit Control for Swarm Intelligence by Koichi Osuka (Osaka University) and Akio Ishiguro (Tohoku University)

This organized session will provide discussions on implicit and explicit control for swarm intelligence. We expect investigations not only of explicit control design but also of implicit law that includes physical and chemical properties found in natural systems.
Scopes (but not limited to): Formation control, Swarm intelligence, Embodiment cognition, Emergent intelligence, Adaptive functionality


Cooperation and Coordination in Swarm Dynamics by Takashi Ikegami (University of Tokyo) and Hiraku Nishimori (Hiroshima University)

A circular causal relationship between micro agent behavior and the collective macro behavior has been already reported in many biological examples. We discuss the endogenous and exogenous mechanisms of macro swarm dynamics, e.g. swarming behavior triggered by some external causes or by its internal dynamics of each agent. This session invites those who are interested in and have been studying such exo/endogenous mechanisms in simulated experimental and data-tracked swarm behavior.

Demonstration of Swarm Robots "Murata Cheerleaders' "


October 29, 2015 at Room III

  • 11:40–
  • 12:25–
  • 13:10–

Information about Murata Cheerleaders' technologies

Stabilization, Synchronization, Sensing and Communication.

The secret of their amazing balance lies in three gyro sensors, which identify the direction that their bodies are leaning toward, and then move them in that direction. Body alignment remains perfect, even when dancing atop the ball. This highly sophisticated system is an upgraded version of a system originally developed for the MURATA BOY and MURATA GIRL robots.
Murata Cheerleaders use gyro sensors much like those found in the electronic stability control systems of vehicles.
Each Murata Cheerleader is equipped with five ultrasonic microphones and four infrared sensors, installed in its head. Data from these sensors are shared via a wireless network, enabling each Cheerleader's position to be accurately located in real time. Relative positions are determined with a combination of ultrasonic and infrared signals, which travel at different speeds. It's the same principle as counting the seconds between a flash of lightning and the sound of thunder to determine distance.

Each Cheerleader has a communication module to relay the data to a central control system, where relative positions are processed to ensure that the Murata Cheerleaders move flawlessly without bumping into each other.
Murata Cheerleaders contain many Murata components, from sensors, capacitors and inductors to filters and much more. Read more about Murata products.

This is a collaboration of Murata and Kyoto University.
The swarm control strategies are developed by the laboratory of Prof. Fumitoshi Matsuno.


Program

Click here for the symposium program.

Program at a Glance

Wednesday, October 28

Thursday, October 29

Room I
Room II
Room III
Room IV
9:30–10:30
Keynote Speech (2) by Prof. Magnus Egerstedt


10:40–11:40
Tutorial (2) by Prof. Kazuki Tsuji


11:40–13:00  Lunch Break 11:40–13:30
Demonstration of Swarm Robots "Murata Cheerleaders'"
11:40–13:00  Lunch Break
13:00–15:00
Poster Session (1): Systems
13:00–15:00
Poster Session (2): Robotics
13:00–15:00
Poster Session (3): Biology

15:20–17:20
OS4: Implicit and Explicit Control for Swarm Intelligence
15:20–17:20
Multi-Agent Systems
15:20–17:20
Foraging

18:10–20:10
Banquet at at ArtGrace Wedding Hills

Friday, October 30


Speaker Instructions

For Oral Sessions

  • Please arrive in the session room at least five minutes before the session begins and be sure to let the session chairs know you are there. VGA connection will be provided and there will be no audio hookup for your computer.
  • Each speaker will be allocated a total of 20 minutes.
  • Organizers do not provide PCs in session rooms; please bring your own.


For Poster Sessions

Presenting your brief spotlight talk and poster

  • The session will be held from 13:00-15:00 on Thursday Oct. 29 in the Room I, II, and IV.
  • The session has two components: first, brief 3-minute spotlight talks for all papers in the session, and then a poster presentation of about 60 minutes for all papers in the session that will be held in the session room.
  • This will afford you the opportunity to present your work to a large audience and to interact more deeply with those who are interested to learn more.

Brief 3-minute spotlight talk

  • Please arrive in the session room at least five minutes before the session begins and be sure to let the session chairs know you are there. VGA connection will be provided and there will be no audio hookup for your computer.
  • Each speaker will be allocated a total of 3 minutes for their spotlight talk.
  • Your presentation is an advertisement for your paper, so focus on insights rather than details.
  • You will have only three minutes, but there will be no changeover time and no questions, so you should be able to get your message across so the audience will know if they want to learn more and visit your poster during the poster presentation. Questions and discussions will happen during the poster presentation.

Setting up your 3-minute talk

  • While the speaker before you is speaking, you will have three minutes to set up your laptop.
  • When the previous speaker finishes, your monitor will be projected to the screen, and the spotlight will shift to you. Your three minutes starts right then and you can begin your talk.
  • Even if you fail to connect during your three-minute setup time, you should complete your talk within the allotted time without any slide.
  • You must finish in three minutes. After three minutes, your laptop will no longer be projected, and next speaker’s laptop is projected by a switcher automatically.
  • Organizers do not provide PCs in session rooms; please bring your own.

Poster presentation

  • The poster presentation will be held in the same room as the spotlight talk and will begin immediately after the last spotlight talk.
  • Poster presentation will approximately 60 minutes.
  • At least one of the authors of each accepted poster is required to be present at the poster during the entire poster session.

Preparing your poster

  • You are responsible for printing and for setting up and taking down your poster.
  • Posters will be displayed on poster display boards that are distributed in the poster session room.
  • The poster should follow the International Standards Organization (ISO) size A0. The dimensions for A0 format are 84cm x 119cm. The orientation of the poster should be portrait.

Setting up your poster

  • Posters will be assigned positions on the poster display boards according to their poster number. The poster number can be found below. You should put your poster on poster display board with your number.
  • Posters can be affixed to the poster boards with tape or pins, which will be provided. The poster display boards will be set up by 13:00 on Thursday, and you should set your poster up no later than 13:00.

  • P1-1: On Social Behaviours and Sampling Times in Multi-Agent Source Localization, Mansoor Shaukat and Mandar Chitre
  • P1-2: Information Seeking and Model Predictive Control of A Cooperative Robot Swarm, Shuhei Emoto, Ilge Akkaya and Edward A. Lee
  • P1-3: Desynchronization based Response Threshold Model for Task Allocation in Multi-Agent Systems, Wonki Lee
  • P1-4: Enclosing of the Target Zone, Nhu Hai Phung, Masao Kubo, Akihiro Yamaguchi, Hiroshi Sato, Saori Iwanaga and Akira Namatame
  • P1-5: Alignment Forming in Source Seeking for Multi-Agent Systems, Samratul Fuady and Hideaki Ishii
  • P1-6: Possibility of Adaptive Behavior of Ants Based on Global Information, Tomohiro Hayakawa, Yuichi Ogawa, Shigeto Dobata, Kazuki Tsuji and Fumitoshi Matsuno
  • P1-7: A Study of Yield Predictions for a Model of Homogeneous Self-Assembling Components, Dhananjay Ipparthi, Andrew Winslow, Massimo Mastrangeli and Marco Dorigo
  • P1-8: Attractive-Repulsive Group-Based Particle Swarm Optimization (ARGPSO) for Trajectory Planning of Multiple-Vehicles, Anugrah Kusumo Pamosoaji and Keum-Shik Hong
  • P1-9: Modular Networks Emerge from Non-Linearly Noise Reductions, Yusuke Ikemoto and Kosuke Sekiyama
  • P1-10: Deep Learning Based Acoustic Events Recognition for Robotic Systems, Tadaaki Niwa, Takashi Kawakami, Ryosuke Ooe, Tamotsu Mitamura, Masahiro Kinoshita and Masaaki Wajima
  • P1-11: Global Estimation of Multi-Agent Movement by Adhoc Information Sharing between Agents with SpotPass Communication, Kiyohiko Hattori, Toshinori Kagwa and Yasunori Owada
  • P1-12: A Predator-Prey Artificial World That Yields Swarm Behavior, Masaki Kadota, Toshiyuki Yasuda, Yoshiyuki Matsumura and Kazuhiro Ohkura
  • P1-13: Understanding Autonomous Task Allocation by Clustering a Swarm Robotics System, Yu Tian, Ohkura Kazuhiro and Yasuda Toshiyuki
  • P2-1: Clustering Control of a One-Dimensional Robot Swarm Using a Reaction-Diffusion System, Yusuke Makihata, Naoyuki Hara and Keiji Konishi
  • P2-2: A Dung Beetle-Like Leg and its Adaptive Neural Control, Giuliano Di Canio, Stoyan Stoyanov, Jørgen Christian Larsen, John Hallam, Alexander Kovalev, Thomas Kleinteich, Stanislav N. Gorb and Poramate Manoonpong
  • P2-3: Shape Control for a Snake Robot via Sequential Switching, Motoyasu Tanaka and Kazuo Tanaka
  • P2-4: Gradual Learning for Behavior Acquisition by Evolving Artificial Neural Network, Ryosuke Ooe and Takashi Kawakami
  • P2-5: A Combination of Central Pattern Generator-Based and Reflex-Based Neural Networks for Dynamic, Adaptive, Robust Bipedal Locomotion, Giuliano Di Canio, Jørgen Christian Larsen, Florentin Woergoetter and Poramate Manoonpong
  • P2-6: Development of a Prototype of Snake-Like Robot with Contact Sensors that Moves in Obstacles by Reflexive Behavior, Suxiang Yuan, Tetsushi Kamegawa and Akio Gofuku
  • P2-7: Two-Dimensional Modeling of Peristaltic Mobile Robot, Yuta Ikeuchi and Norihiro Kamamichi
  • P2-8: Correcting Orientation of Helices in the Space. The Case of Rolling Gaits with Modular Snake Robots, Kamilo Melo
  • P2-9: Simulation Results of Behavior of a Simple Snake-Like Robot in a Narrow Passage, Tsubasa Watanabe, Tetsushi Kamegawa and Akio Gofuku
  • P2-10: Smarticles: Design and Construction of Smart Particles to Aid Discovery of Principles of Smart, Active Granular Matter, William Savoie, Arman Pazouki, Dan Negrut and Daniel Goldman
  • P2-11: A Parallel Computing Implementation of Evolutionary Swarm Robotics Approach, Yufei Wei, Tatsuya Morikawa, Toshiyuki Yasuda, Kazuhiro Ohkura, Yoshiyuki Matsumura and Masaharu Munetomo
  • P2-12: Generating Flocking Behavior of a Real Robotic Swarm that Travels between Two Landmarks, Toshiyuki Yasuda, Shigehito Nakatani, Akitoshi Adachi and Kazuhiro Ohkura
  • P2-13: Real Robotic Swarms for Cooperative Behaviour Acquisition, Masanori Goka and Toshiki Kurokawa
  • P2-14: Towards Autonomous Control of a Biologically Inspired Flying Robot, Aneesh Chand, Michihiro Kawanishi and Narikiyo Tatsuo
  • P3-1: Relation between Spatial Location and Temporal Delay in Flock Behavior, Tsuyoshi Mizuguchi, Makoto Yomosa and Yoshinori Hayakawa
  • P3-2: On the Stability of the Line Formations of Geese, Yoshinori Hayakawa
  • P3-3: A Model for Worker Honeybees Building the Triggers of Honeycomb Construction Process, Takayuki Narumi, Kenta Uemichi, Hisao Honda and Koichi Osaki
  • P3-4: Advice Sharing and Collective Intelligence under Exploration-Exploitation Trade-off in Humans, Wataru Toyokawa
  • P3-5: Behavioral Flexibility of Cooperators Underlies the Robustness of Division of Labor against Invasion of Cheaters, Shigeto Dobata and Kazuki Tsuji
  • P3-6: Modeling Self-Organized Behavior of Starfish, Masao Migita and Shuji Shinohara
  • P3-7: Collective Motion of Flagella and Cilia by Hydrodynamic Interaction, Nariya Uchida and Ramin Golestanian
  • P3-8: Tracking Movement of Individual Insects with an Omnidirectional Treadmill Mechanism, Nobuaki Mizumoto, Ryota Sato, Naohisa Nagaya, Masato Abe, Shigeto Dobata and Ryusuke Fujisawa
  • P3-9: Walking Durations in Free-Walking in Circular Open Fields of Various Diameters, Hiroto Shoji
  • P3-W1: Self-Adaptive Recurrent Neural Networks for Robust Spatiotemporal Processing: from Animals to Robots, Sakyasingha Dasgupta
  • P3-W2: TEGOTAE-based decentralized control mechanism underlying myriapod locomotion, Kotaro Yasui
  • P3-W3: Design of a Modular Quadruped Robot for Empirically Exploring the Effects of Morphology on the Emergence of Gaits, Mamani Jerome
  • P3-W4: Investigation of the Effect of Body Flexibility on Bounding Gait with a Simple Model, Tomoya Kamimura
  • P3-W5: Analysis of flock guidance based on the vector field representation, Yuto Sato
  • P3-W6: Pheeno, A Versatile Swarm Robotic Research and Education Platform, Sean Wilson
  • P3-W7: Collective Sharing of Network Energy and Packet-Relay Task in Wireless Multi-hop Infrastructure, Rui Teng
Room IV: Biology has regular posters (P3-1 to P3-9) and workshop's posters (P3-W1 to P3-W7). The speaker of the regular posters are required a brief 3-minute spotlight talk and a poster presentation. The speaker of the workshop poster requires only the poster presentation.

Putting down your poster

  • The poster display boards will be taken down immediately after the poster session concludes at 15:00 so all posters should be put down as soon as the closing session ends.


Important Dates

Submission of Abstracts and Papers

May 1 May 25, 2015 (Extended. UTC.)

Notification of Acceptance

July 1, 2015
(OS Papers: August 1)

Camera-Ready Submission

September 1, 2015


Submission

There are three options for submission: full paper, short paper or abstract. The only difference between the formats of these options is the number of maximum pages. Full papers and short papers have an 8-page or a 4-page maximum length and should report on new unpublished work. Surveys are also welcome as full papers. Abstracts are limited to 2 pages and can report on previously published work with the expectation of offering new viewpoints on that work. On submission, you will be able to choose your preferred presentation style—oral or poster presentation. No distinction will be made between full papers, short papers and abstracts.

Formatting

The use of LaTeX/MS-Word with the following style format is strongly recommended for preparing your manuscripts.
The MS-WORD template in a single-column format is available only for abstracts without figures and tables.

LaTeX (zip) LaTeX (tgz) MS-Word MS-Word (1 Column Abstract) PDF Sample

Automated Submission System

Your final camera-ready paper formatted according to the required style should be submitted via the EasyChair.
Before submission, you need to finish paying the early registration fee.

Submission Procedure

  1. Log in EasyChair as an author. If you are logging in to EasyChair in another role, such as a chair or a subreviewer, change your role via "SWARM 2015" menu.
  2. Click the "Submission #" menu. If you are an author of several papers, select the corresponding paper number on the "My Submissions" menu.
  3. Click the "Update your information" link at the upper-right, and fill out the form you find. You are asked about the Symposium registration number, whether this is a student paper and whether you would like to join the post-conference journal/book publication.
  4. Click the "Update file" link, and submit your camera-ready PDF.

Special Issue

Selected papers will be invited for further revision and extension for possible publication
in a special issue of Artificial Life and Robotics, Springer.
Invitations can be sent to candidates regardless of the submission category.


Registration

Registration
Type
Earlybird
(on or before Sep. 15)
Late (on or before Oct. 5)/
Onsite
General JPY 45000 JPY 55000
Student JPY 35000 JPY 45000
Each Additional Paper (Up to 4) JPY 20000 n/a
Banquet JPY 3000 JPY 3000

  • At least one author for each paper must register on or before the early registration deadline (September 15, 2015 24:00, Japan Time: UTC+9).
  • Payment for additional papers must be made during the early registration period.
  • We can accept cash payment during the symposium.
  • The onsite payment by credit card is accepted on October 28 and 29. You can pay in cash ONLY on the final day (October 30).
  • Registration fee includes Consumption Tax.
  • Registration fee excludes banquet registration fee (3,000JPY per person).

Registration Flow (Closed. Many thanks.)

1. Sign Up for the Registration System

Please open the Apollon system by Nippon Travel Agency Co., Ltd. and create your account in this system by clicking the "Registration for New Users" button at the upper-right corner of the page.
Please do not forget to proceed to "Registration" after your account is created. The conference registration is not completed yet.

2. Registration

After logging in, please click "Registration" and fill in the form.
After you finish filling in the form, please click the "Submit (finish registering)" button if you are registering only yourself as a participant. If you are going to register other conference participants with your account, please click "Submit (continue making registrations)" button instead.

3. Accommodation (optional)

You can optionally reserve your accomodation with this system. Please proceed to "Accomodations" by clicking the left sidebar button after logging in.

4. Payment

After logging in, please proceed to "Payment" by clicking the left sidebar button.

Accommodations

Hotel reservation is available on the registration site. The following hotels (not listed on the site) provide reasonable offers and are our recommendations:


Banquet/Farewell Party

Banquet of October 29 (Thu) will be held at ArtGrace Wedding Hills at night. ArtGrace Wedding Hills is accessible from the Kyoto University Clock Tower Centennial Hall (the conference venue) by walk. The banquet fee is 3,000 JPY for each person, and is NOT included in the registration fee. To participate in the banquet, you must buy a ticket in advance.
You are invited to the symposium farewell party at Camphora. It starts at 6:10 p.m. on October 30 and is free of charge! The cafe restaurant is at the west of the main front gate of Kyoto University.

ArtGrace Wedding Hills

Schedule

Banquet: Thursday, October 29, 2015 / Farewell Party: Friday, October 30, 2015

Map


Committee

Advisory Committee

  • Andrew Adamatzky (University of the West England, UK)
  • Hajime Asama (The University of Tokyo, Japan)
  • Tamim Asfour (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Germany)
  • Dora Biro (University of Oxford, UK)
  • Howie Choset (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)
  • Jean-Louis Deneubourg (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium)
  • Li-Chen Fu (National Taiwan University, Taiwan)
  • Simon Garnier (Rutgers University, USA)
  • Jan Tommy Gravdahl (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway)
  • Yoshinori Hayakawa (Tohoku University, Japan)
  • Takashi Ikegami (The University of Tokyo, Japan)
  • Yingmin Jia (Beihang University, China)
  • Jeff Jones (University of the West England, UK)
  • Francesco Mondada (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland)
  • James Marshall (University of Sheffield, UK)
  • Toshiya Matsushima (Hokkaido University, Japan)
  • Hiraku Nishimori (Hiroshima University, Japan)
  • Rolf Pfeifer (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
  • Ioannis Poulakakis (University of Delaware, USA)
  • Stephen Pratt (Arizona State University, USA)
  • Jonathan Rossiter (Bristol University, UK)
  • Takao Sasaki (University of Oxford, UK)
  • Hiroshi Sato (National Defense Academy of Japan, Japan)
  • Tomohiro Shirakawa (National Defense Academy of Japan, Japan)
  • Masashi Shiraishi (Waseda University, Japan)
  • David Sumpte (Uppsala Universitet, Sweden)
  • Dimitris P. Tsakiris (University of Crete, Greece)
  • Kazuo Tuchiya (Kyoto University, Japan)
  • Florentin Wörgötter (Georg-August-Universitat Gottingen, Germany)

General Chair

Fumitoshi Matsuno (Kyoto University, Japan)

Vice-General Chairs

  • Marco Dorigo (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium)
  • Yukio Gunji (Waseda University, Japan)
  • Kazuki Tsuji (University of the Ryukyus, Japan)
    • Program Chair

      Kazuhiro Ohkura (Hiroshima University, Japan)

      Vice-Program Chairs

      • Kenji Matsuura (Kyoto University, Japan)
      • Toru Namerikawa (Keio University, Japan)

      Organized Session Chair

      Akio Ishiguro (Tohoku University, Japan)

      Publication Chair

      Keitaro Naruse (The University of Aizu, Japan)

      Publicity Chair

      Ryusuke Fujisawa (Hachinohe Institute of Technology, Japan)

      Registration Chair

      Tetsushi Kamegawa (Okayama University, Japan)

      Finance Chair

      Kazuyuki Ito (Hosei University, Japan)

      Local Arrangement Chair

      Shinya Aoi (Kyoto University, Japan)

      Secretary

      • Takahiro Endo (Kyoto University, Japan)
      • Toshiyuki Yasuda (Hiroshima University, Japan)

      Program Committee

      • Andrew Adamatzky (University of the West England, UK)
      • Hitoshi Aonuma (Hokkaido University, Japan)
      • Fumihiko Asano (Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan)
      • Shunichi Azuma (Kyoto University, Japan)
      • Mauro Birattari (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium)
      • Nikhil Chopra (University of Maryland, USA)
      • Shigeto Dobata (Kyoto University, Japan)
      • Tomassino Ferrauto (Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Italy)
      • Ryusuke Fujisawa (Hachinohe Institute of Technology, Japan)
      • Daniel I. Goldman (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA)
      • Roderich Groß (The University of Sheffield, UK)
      • Takeshi Hatanaka (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan)
      • Kiyohiko Hattori (National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan)
      • Sabine Hauert (Bristol University, UK)
      • Tomohisa Hayakawa (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan)
      • Hiroyuki Iizuka (Hokkaido University, Japan)
      • Takashi Ikegami (The University of Tokyo, Japan)
      • Yusuke Ikemoto (Toyama University, Japan)
      • Hideaki Ishii (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan)
      • Masato Ishikawa (Osaka University, Japan)
      • Kenji Iwadate (Kitami Institute of Technology, Japan)
      • Jeff Jones (University of the West England, UK)
      • Andreas Kolling (The University of Sheffield, UK)
      • Keitaro Naruse (University of Aizu, Japan)
      • Yoshiaki Katada (Setsunan University, Japan)
      • Takashi Kawakami (Hokkaido University of Science, Japan)
      • Tae-Hyoung Kim (Chung-Ang University, Korea)
      • Masao Kubo (National Defense Academy of Japan, Japan)
      • Poramate Manoonpong (The University of Southern Denmark, Denmark)
      • Yoshiyui Matsumura (Shinshu University, Japan)
      • Kamilo Melo (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland)
      • Masao Migita (Shiga University, Japan)
      • Shuhei Miyashita (MIT, USA)
      • Toru Moriyama (Shinshu University, Japan)
      • Masaaki Nagahara (Kyoto University, Japan)
      • Hiraku Nishimori (Hiroshima University, Japan)
      • Stephen Pratt (Arizona State University, USA)
      • Jonathan Rossiter (Bristol University, UK)
      • Kazunori Sakurama (Tottori University, Japan)
      • Hiroshi Sato (National Defense Academy of Japan, Japan)
      • Hyungbo Shim (Seoul National University, Korea)
      • Hiroyuki Shimoji (Hokkaido University, Japan)
      • Tomohiro Shirakawa (National Defense Academy of Japan, Japan)
      • Masashi Shiraishi (Waseda University, Japan)
      • Metin Sitti (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)
      • Serge Stinckwich (Université Pierre et Marie Curie/IRD, France)
      • Ken Sugawara (Tohoku Gakuin University, Japan)
      • Keiji Suzuki (Hokkaido University, Japan)
      • Ikuo Suzuki (Kitami Institute of Technology, Japan)
      • Keiki Takadama (The University of Electro-Communications, Japan)
      • Vito Trianni (Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Italy)
      • Elio Tuci (Aberystwyth University, UK)
      • Ali Emre Turgut (University of Leuven, Belgium)
      • Masaki Yamakita (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan)
      • Masahito Yamamoto (Hokkaido University, Japan)
      • Kazuaki Yamada (Toyo University, Japan)
      • Michiko Watanabe (Kitami Ins6tute of Technology, Japan)
      • Stefan John Witwicki (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland)
      • Daniel Zelazo (Israel Institute of Technology, Israel)


Venue

The Clock Tower Centennial Hall, Yoshida Campus, Kyoto University

Information on access to the WiFi

WiFi internet access at the venue will be available through the eduroam program.

eduroam

eduroam (External Links 1/ 2) is the service by NII, which realize the mutual use of wireless LAN between the educational research institute such as universities. Kyoto University belongs to the project and eduroam account will be available. The way to gain internet access is using an existing eduroam account. You can check if your institute is participating in the eduroam program on these sites (External Links 1/ 2). For information on eduroam accounts, please check your local information provided by your institute.

Contact

If you have any questions regarding the website or the SWARM 2015 program, please feel free to contact SWARM Secretariat:
swarm2015[at]mechatronics.me.kyoto-u.ac.jp (Please replace [at] with @ in the e-mail address.)