06-14410 Nature Inspired Design (A) [Level 3/H]

06-12418 Nature Inspired Design [Level 4/M]

Information and Resources

Bob Durrant

R.J.Durrant@cs.bham.ac.uk

 


This page is the main source of information for these module(s). Further details including overheads, handouts, etc. will be added as the module progresses.


Module Structure and Timetable

Colour coding: Blue = Lecture, Green = Tutorial.

The lecture material for the two modules is the same, however the tutorial work can be different. Students taking 06-12418 will be expected to do much more reading and independent study.

Spring Term

Week (starting)

Session 1 (Learning Centre UG05)
Thursdays 17:00-17:50

Session 2 (Mech Eng G26)
Fridays 13:00-13:50

II.1 (12Jan2009)

1. Introduction

2. Engineering Design and Optimisation

II.2 (19Jan2009)

3a. Creative Design 1

3b. Creative Design 2   Videos

II.3 (26Jan2009)

Tutorial 1

4. Evolutionary Art

II.4 (02Feb2009)

Tutorial 2

5a. Artificial Life and Cellular Automata 1

II.5 (09Feb2009)

Tutorial 3

5b. Artificial Life and Cellular Automata 2

II.6 (16Feb2009)

Tutorial 4

6a. Lindenmayer Systems and Developmental Approaches 1

II.7 (23Feb2009)

Tutorial 5

6b. Lindenmayer Systems and Developmental Approaches 2

II.8 (02Mar2009)

Tutorial 5a

7. Emergence


II.9 (09Mar2009)

8a. Evolvable Hardware 1

8b. Evolvable Hardware 2

8b. Evolvable Hardware 2

9. Artificial Immune Systems

II.10 (16Mar2009)

Tutorial 6

7. Emergence (final section)

10. Molecular Design

II.11 (23Mar2009)

11. Music

Sound Files

2008/9 Competition Winners:

The best entry prize goes to Hector Basevi for Dancing:A Field approach to Boids.

Mr Basevi defined a model of particles in Euclidean space, where the rules governing their interactions drew inspiration from the repulsive and attractive forces between sub-atomic particles. Visualisation of the particles showed interesting and unexpected emergent behaviour. The judges were impressed by the way this approach creatively combined insight from different academic fields.

Hector Basevi's Entry



The popular choice prize goes to Johnny Beardsmore for his Koch Curve Generator.

Mr Beardsmore implemented a program in MATLAB for generating iterations of the Koch Curve recursively. This project very much achieved what we wanted to encourage with this competition, namely to creatively explore some of the ideas introduced in the course and to learn by implementing them. His lively presentation on fractals was great fun and enjoyed by all.

Johnny Beardsmore's Entry

Summer Term

Week (starting)

Session 1 (Learning Centre UG05)
Thursday 17:00-17:50

Session 2 (Mech Eng G26)
Friday 13:00-13:50

05/05/09

Revision Tips

Revision Lectures

 


Assessment

The examinations for the two modules will be different, though sharing some questions. There will be some more advanced questions on the 06-12418 exam, for which you may have to answer questions on material which has not been covered directly on the course (for example you may have to discuss an NI approach related to, but different from, the examples we have studied on the course). 

Both exams will be closed-book.

06-14410 Nature Inspired Design (A)

1.5 hr written closed-book examination (100%)

06-12418 Nature Inspired Design

1.5 hr written closed-book examination (100%)


Resit (MSc students only - see regulations) by examination only. 

For formal details about the aims and objectives and assessment you should look at the official Module Description Page (06-14410 / 06-12418) and Syllabus Page (06-14410 / 06-12418).


Recommended Reading

The first three books and the papers specified in the lectures are the main recommended reading for this module (i.e. those highlighted in green). The remaining fairly long list of books (along with the optional articles to be specified as the course progresses) are some suggested reading that you may want to use either to develop your background knowledge or as starting points for more in-depth exploration of the topics we cover. The majority of these books have previews available on Google Books.
 

 

Title

Author(s)

Publisher

Comments (by Julian Miller)

Creative Evolutionary Systems

Peter J Bentley and David W Corne (ed)

Morgan Kaufmann, 2000.

Very useful reading for course. Highly recommended. Useful for lectures 3a&b, 4, 11.

The Computational Beauty of Nature

Gary William Flake

MIT Press, 1998

Excellent book. Useful for lectures on Artificial life, CellularAutomata, and Emergence (lectures 5a&b, 6a&b, 7).

Evolutionary Design by Computers

Peter J Bentley (ed.)

Morgan Kaufmann, 1999.

Good collection of articles on evolutionary design in engineering. Useful for lectures 2, 3a&b, 4, 6a&b, 8a&b.

Various articles in journals and conference proceedings

 

 

A list of papers will be specified as the module progresses. 

Illustrating Evolutionary Computation with Mathematica

Christian Jacob

Morgan Kaufmann, 2001

A beautiful book, lots on Evolutionary Computation and Lindenmayer Systems and Plant Ecosystems
Useful for lectures 6a&b.

Evolutionary Algorithms in Molecular Design

David E. Clark (Editor)

Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 2000.

Good collection of articles on molecular design useful background for lecture 10.

Emergence: from chaos to order

John H. Holland

Oxford University Press, 1998

Interesting background reading for lecture 7. John Holland is the inventor of genetic algorithms. A very innovative mind.

Emergence: The connected lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software

Steven Johnson

Penguin 2001

Interesting background reading for lecture 7.

The Origin of Order: Self Organization and Selection in Evolution

Stuart Kaufmann

Oxford University Press 1993

A classic: evolution, emergence, chaos, development

Evolutionary Art and Computers

Stephen Todd and William Latham

Academic Press, 1992

Background reading for lecture 4.

The Blind Watchmaker

Richard Dawkins

Penguin 1990.

A classic, introduces biomorphs.

Climbing Mount Improbable

Richard Dawkins

Penguin 1997

Ditto

Adaptive Computing in Design and Manufacture

Ian C. Parmee (ed.)

Springer, 1998

Good for nature inspired engineering design

Genetic Algorithms and Evolution Strategies in Engineering and Computer Science: Recent Advancements and Industrial Applications

D. Quagliarella, J. Periaux, C. Poloni and G. Winter (eds.)

John Wiley, 1997.

Good for nature inspired engineering design

Soft Computing in Engineering Design and Manufacturing

P.K. Chawdhry,R. Roy and R.K.Pant (eds.)

Springer-Verlag, 1998.

Good for nature inspired and creative engineering design

Multiobjective Optimisation using Evolutionary Algorithms

Kalyanmoy Deb

John Wiley 2001

Excellent book on multi-objective optimisation in Engineering (good for lecture 2)

Computing in Nonlinear Media and Automata Collectives

Andrew Adamatzky

IOP Publishing 2001.

Unique source for Excitable Lattice Computation.

A New Kind of Science

Stephen Wolfram

Wolfram Media, 2002

A Massive work, beautifully illustrated. Controversial. Good for lecture 5.

The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants

Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz and Aristid Lindenmayer

Springer-Verlag, 1990

Definitive work on L-systems modelling

The Algorithmic Beauty of Sea Shells

Hans Meinhardt

Springer-Verlag 1995

Definitive work on Reaction Diffusion modelling of Sea Shells. Beautifully illustrated.

The Algorithmic Beauty of Seaweeds, Sponges and Corals

Jaap Kaandorp, and Janet Kubler

Springer-Verlag 2001

As above but on other fractal-like forms.

Lindenmayer Systems, Fractals and Plants

Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz and James Hanan

Springer-Verlag 1989

Very nice slim volume on L-systems with lovely diagrams and illustrations (useful for lectures 6a&b)

Proc. of the First International Conference on Evolvable Systems: From Biology to Hardware (ICES'96), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 1259

T. Higuchi, M. Iwata and W. Liu (eds.)

Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1997

Good collection of articles on evolvable hardware

Proc. of the Second International Conference on Evolvable Systems: From Biology to Hardware (ICES'98), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 1478

Moshe Sipper, Daniel Mange, and Andres Perez-Uribe (Eds.) 

Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1998

Good collection of articles on evolvable hardware

Proc. of the Third International Conference on Evolvable Systems: From Biology to Hardware (ICES'00), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 1801 

Julian Miller, Adrian Thompson, Peter Thomson and Terence C Fogarty (eds.)

Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2000

Good collection of articles on evolvable hardware

Proc. of the Fourth International Conference on Evolvable Systems: From Biology to Hardware (ICES'01), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 2210

Y. Liu, K. Tanaka, M. Iwata, T. Higuchi and M. Yasunaga (eds.)

Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2001

Good collection of articles on evolvable hardware


 


This page is maintained by Bob Durrant. Last updated on 5 May 2009.