The main goal of artificial intelligence is to work out the principles underlying intelligent behavior. The research program is highly transdisciplinary and is based on the conviction that the interaction between the various disciplines is highly productive. For example, engineers and computer scientists can learn from nature, and biologists and psychologists can learn from building robots and developing computer programs.
All projects contribute, one way or other, to our central theme of understanding intelligence.
Our main research fields are indicated in the boxes with the rounded corners, namely biorobotics, learning and development, evolution and morphogenesis, and collective intelligence. Then, the scientific disciplines participating in the endeavor are listed as well as a number of important applications. Finally, there is a selection of robots developed at the lab and a number of applications. In the biorobotics strand the goal is to model and learn from biological systems, such as the navigation behavior of insects, or the walking dynamics of humans. We have built a flying robot to explore the issues involved in 3-D insect navigation.