David Vernon's Wiki

Cognitive Robotics

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Technical Committee for Cognitive Robotics Website
IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Technical Committee for Cognitive Robotics Resources

Robotics in Africa

There is increasing awareness of the impact - positive and negative - that Industry 4.0 (aka the fourth industrial revolution) will have on developing countries. AI provides opportunities for social and economic empowerment along with the threat of premature industrialization. However, when one thinks of Africa - a continent with 54 countries - cognitive robotics does not spring immediately to mind as the most relevant element of AI for countries that typically have high unemployment and fast-growing populations. But robotics is catching on in Africa and it does have a role to play in the development of Africa. The questions are: what role will it play, how can Africa best exploit the opportunities that intelligent automation and cognitive robotics have to offer, and how can it offset the threats posed by the global factors.

The following links will give you some idea of where the answers lie.

Digitalisation and the future of African manufacturing. London: ODI.
The AI Invasion is Coming to Africa (and It’s a Good Thing)
Premature Deindustrialization
In the Air With Zipline’s Medical Delivery Drones
 - IEEE Spectrum, April 2019
Research Institute against Digestive Cancer (IRCAD)
IRCAD in the press
Drones on the Horizon: Transforming Africa’s Agriculture
Pan-African Robotics Competition
Robotics for Kids
MIT-Africa Robotics Boot Camp

Teaching

Here are some additional material to supplement the courses on my main website.

• Applied Computer Vision
• Artificial Cognitive Systems (support material)
• Cognitive Robotics (course under development)

Research

The CINDY Cognitive Architecture. CINDY stands for Circular Network Dynamics. It is in its early state of development and is based on many other cognitive architectures, especially the iCub cognitive architecture which was never fully realized. The long-term goal is to design and implement an emergent artificial cognitive system that builds on the principles of growth and development through circular causality, drawing on many of the principles of the fields of Enaction, Systems Dynamics, and Second-order Cybernetics.

Links

Here are some random items of interest.