September 9, 2021 1-2pm in Marcus Nanotechnology room 1117 – 1118
Video Recording: https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/events/playback/2914884e-99a6-4d7f-9e95-81d16e95de96
Michael T. Cox
Research Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Wright State University, Dayton
Abstract
Intelligent physical systems as embodied cognitive systems must perform high-level reasoning while concurrently managing an underlying control architecture. The link between cognition and control must manage the problem of converting continuous values from the real world to symbolic representations (and back). To generate effective behaviors, reasoning must include a capacity to replan, acquire and update new information, detect and respond to anomalies, and perform various operations on system goals. But, these processes are not independent and need further exploration. This paper examines an agent’s choices when multiple goal operations co-occur and interact, and it establishes a method of choosing between them. We demonstrate the benefits and discuss the trade offs involved with this and show positive results in a dynamic marine search task.
Biography
Michael T. Cox is a Research Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Wright State University, Dayton and was the founding Director of Autonomy Research at Parallax Advanced Research. Dr. Cox is a former DARPA/I2O program manager and has held senior research positions at Raytheon BBN Technologies, the CMU School of Computer Science, and the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. He has interests in autonomous systems, mixed-initiative planning, computational metacognition, and case-based reasoning. His research group developed the Metacognitive Integrated Dual-Cycle Architecture (MIDCA) and was instrumental in the development of a high-level approach to autonomy called goal-driven autonomy. He graduated summa cum laude in Computer Science (1986) from Georgia Tech and holds a PhD in Computer Science (1996) from the same.
