Swarm Intelligence and Self Assembly
CSCI 7000-002
Ants cooperating to create a bridge for others to carry food back to the colony. (Credit: iStockphoto/Hung Meng Tan)
Instructor: Dr. Dustin Reishus
Email: reishus@colorado.edu
Time: MW 4pm-5:15pm
Location: ECCR 137
Office: ECOT 735
Office hours: TBD
Course Information
This course will explore the collective behavior of large-scale distributed systems, in which the basic components range from individual molecules to social insects to swarming robots. It will introduce mathematical models that can be used to formally analyze properties of these systems, explore the expressive power of the ensemble systems, and characterize the simplicity of the individual components.
Smiley face self-assembled from DNA (Credit: Paul Rothemund)
We will use case studies from various disciplines including
- Biology (e.g., ant foraging, cockroach aggregation)
- Biochemistry (e.g., DNA self-assembly, molecular computation)
- Robotics (e.g., swarm robotics, self-reconfigurable robots)
- Differential and difference equation models
- Fokker-Planck diffusion models
- The tile assembly model
Grading
This is a project-based course. There will be no graded homework assignments and no exams. Grades will be based on
- Active participation in class lectures and discussions (10%)
- Presentation of a paper of the student’s choosing (20%)
And a final project which consists of
- Project proposal (15%)
- Oral presentation (25%)
- Written report (30%)
Students may collaborate with one another on the final project to produce a joint final report.
Textbook & Required Reading
There is no textbook for this course. Required reading will consist of articles listed below. In addition, students may be asked to find additional articles related to course material.
Reading list
TBD
Policies
Students are expected to abide by, and will be held to, CU’s honor code.
http://www.colorado.edu/academics/honorcode/
