This TransAIR workshop will bring together leading experts to address the challenges of developing cognitive architectures for robot agents. The primary goal of the workshop is to open a discussion on possible interdisciplinary collaborations and the identification of prospects for collaborative development, ideally in an open-source open-systems framework. 

The agenda will contain discussions on what can be done in practice today, the innovations we can expect in the short term, and the advances that require longer-term research. We will also address the possibility of community-wide collaboration for consolidating operational cognitive architectures through joint development and common frameworks or interfaces. Invited experts will illustrate current capabilities by making reference to practical demonstrations of robot applications using their own cognitive architecture or their cognitive architecture of choice.

Due to the uncertainties surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and to ensure the well-being of participants, the workshop will be held virtually.

We will use a virtual venue tool to offer a complete virtual workshop experience where you can customize your virtual avatar, explore the workshop by walking around the venue, watch the invited talks, join the live Q&A and panel discussions or have group conversations while enjoying the virtual coffee break or private conversations.

Venue Check-In Information Welcome  Board

The workshop starts on March 22nd and ends on March 28th. During this time, the virtual venue will remain open around the clock. The main activities on every workshop day will take place in three-hour-slots from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) / 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in Central European Time (CET). The last two days (March 27th and 28th) are reserved for networking purposes. These activities consist of invited talks and live Q&A sessions followed by breakout sessions for further discussion. As the virtual venue will remain open, the invited talks (pre-recorded videos) can be watched around the clock. Furthermore, three live panel discussions are organized:

1. Learning and Adaptation in the Minimalist Cognitive Architecture – The minimal functional requirements for a cognitive architecture: The role of learning and adaptation in understanding the effect of your actions on the world.
2. Understanding Human Cognition through Modelling the Human Brain – Neuroscience and computational intelligence: understanding human cognition by modeling the functionalities of the human brain.
3. Developmental Cognitive Robotics as a Gateway to a More Natural HRI – Developmental cognitive robotics and HRI: Exploring how the developmental approach in robotics can bring forward a more natural HRI

Schedule

In conjunction with the main activities, the venue offers virtual booths providing further information about the invited talks and speakers, a lobby and meeting rooms for networking and a media room for watching additional content about the workshop topic.

Lisa Frerichs, University of Bremen:  Communication

Kelvin Okenye, University of Bremen: Webdesign, Social Media

Lisa-Marie Wei-Qing Liu, University of Bremen: Graphic Design