Lecture Artificial Life (2V+2Ü) (MA-INF 4201)

Dr. Nils Goerke

Mondays 14 - 16 , HSZ, HS 2, (if reasonable under corona conditions)

eCampus Link: AL on eCampus

Exercise distribution tba via TVS

Start: Mo 4.4.2022, 14

Content :

This lecture is part of the intelligent systems track of the master programme "Computer Science".

The lecture gives an overview over the most prominent aspects of artificial life research from the foundations, including strong and weak artificial life, via the most prominent topics of artificial life to the state of the art and to current applications.

The following topics will be presented and discussed in detail:
Cellular automata, Conway's "Game of Life", mechanisms to structure development and pattern formation, basics of nonlinear systems, Lindenmeyer Systems, evolutionary methods, and genetic algorithms, reinforcement learning, adaptive behaviour, self-organising criticality, swarming behaviour, swarm intelligence, ant algorithms, particle swarm optimization.

Assignment sheets and Exercises groups:

The exercises are arranged to intensify the work with the research topics presented in the lecture. You will get weekly paper-and-pencil assignments that are designed to be worked on in three or two person groups and completed within one week. Your results of the assignments shall be presented and discussed during the exercise group to practice and improve your oral presentation skills. You should be capable of presenting your solutions during the exercise groups. The paper and pencil assignments are accompanied by small programming tasks to be completed using individually implemented programms and stat of the art simulation tools.
To be admitted to the exam you will have to met the following two conditions:
- 50 percent of the reachble points from the assignments
- two times presentation of your results in the exercise groups

Exercises groups schedule

The exercises are designed to help you to comprehend the content of the Artificial Life lecture. The tutors will give you feedback for your assignments, and will answer questions regarded to the lecture.
Distribution to the respective exercises will be probably done by TVS.
Some exercise groups might be operated via the video conferencing tool "BigBluButton".
The links will be made available on the eCampus website.
Please prepare for the exercises; use the opportunity to ask questions; prepare for a fruitfull discussion.

Distribution of the exercises will be done by TVS
Link to TVS

Examination:

After the end of the lecture period  there will be an examination for the module Artificial Life. You will need a minimum of 50% of the possible reachable points from the assignments to be admitted to the examination. As soon as the modalities for the examination are decided we will inform you.

Literature:

Unfortunately no text-book is at the moment available for this module.
Most necessary literature will be named during the lecture.

C. Adami: Introduction to Artificial Life, Springer-Verlag New York, 1998
D. Floreano and C. Mattiussi: Bio-Inspired Artificial Intelligence, The MIT Press, 2008.
E.Bonabeau, M.Dorigo, G.Theraulaz: Swarm Intelligence: From Natural to Artificial Systems, Oxford University Press.