Technology is transforming society and the way we work and interact. We are surrounded by technology and computer interfaces that have recently become more intelligent and are able
to adapt to our needs and preferences. Thanks to progress in machine learning and artificial intelligence, we see a major transition from ourselves adapting to fixed technology and services to these by themselves adapting to us human users. Thus, technology works more seamlessly in a continuously increasing number of domains. This includes robots that have traditionally only been used for manufacturing but are now arriving at work and at home as service robots. The success of these would be highly dependent on their behaviour capabilities that depend on their skills in learning and adaptation. We see a rapid progress in both learning algorithms and robotics, and it is challenging for a single research group to both provide an updated set of courses in addition to undertaking state-of-the-research.
This project is concerned with further developing international collaboration with leading partners in the US, Brazil and Japan within the domains of such self-learning systems and robotics. The project is led by the research group Robotics and Intelligent Systems (ROBIN) at the University of Oslo. The collaboration consists of a number of different activities such as short-term and long-term reciprocal stays by students and staff for collaboration in research, curriculum development and teaching materials, guest lectures, and organising intensive courses/workshops.
It is not the best starting a project in international cooperation while a pandemic is going on and with strict travel restrictions. However, we have had contact with project partners in various ways, such as e-mail and online meetings. We have collaborated on article writing based on previous master's / PhD student exchanges which have resulted in two peer-reviewed articles published in 2021 (one in journal and one in conference). There has also been ongoing research where two PhD students have collaborated across borders, and which has led to an article that is about to be completed.
We have also been active in presenting our research and the COINMAC-2 project to the international research community through a number of invited talks and tutorials at international conferences. We have also had active collaboration through the Master / PhD course IN5490 / IN9490 - Advanced Topics in Artificial Intelligence for Intelligent Systems. Here, representatives from several different partners contribute with scientific guest lectures, and project proposals and supervision of research projects that are an important part of the course.
Contact has also been established with new partner institutions in the USA and Canada in 2021 (through relocated researchers from partners). Together with a colleague at the University of Waterloo in Canada, we have been guest editors for a special edition of IEEE Trans. Cognitive and Developmental Systems with 10 articles (tentative publication Dec. 2021).
Technology is transforming society and the way we work and interact. We are surrounded by technology and computer interfaces that have recently become more intelligent and are able to adapt to our needs and preferences. Thanks to progress in machine learning and artificial intelligence, we see a major transition from ourselves adapting to fixed technology and services to these by themselves adapting to us human users. Thus, technology works more seamlessly in a continuously increasing number of domains. This includes robots that have traditionally only been used for manufacturing but are now arriving at work and at home as service robots. The success of these would be highly dependent on their behavior capabilities that depend on their skills in learning and adaptation. We see a rapid progress in both learning algorithms and robotic systems, and it is challenging for a single research group to both provide an updated set of courses in addition to undertaking state-of-the-research.
This project would be concerned with further developing international collaboration with leading partners in the US, Brazil and Japan within the domains of such self-learning systems and robotics. However, two partners are new, and we target now to transfer developed teaching material and concepts between partners. We also plan to have student group collaboration with members from different partners. The project is highly relevant to our current Research Council of Norway funded researcher projects. Thus, it would provide extended momentum to these projects by collaboration in research, teaching, and in strengthening the interaction between the two domains. This will be through a set of different activities like short-term and long-term reciprocal mobility stays by students and staff for collaboration in research, curriculum and teaching material development and organizing intensive courses/workshops.
