CFP: Shared Control for BMI

2010 IEEE Int. Conf. on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics
Workshop on Brain-Machine Interfaces

Brain-machine interfaces (BMI) offer the possibility of a new generation of technologies that allow users to directly control devices directly via the nervous system. BMIs can be used to develop new communication pathways to restore and augment sensory and motor function in disabled individuals. At the core of BMI system design is a controller that must accommodate the seamless interaction between systems of neurons with electronics and robotics. This workshop solicits papers in any area of BMI, but it will prioritize contributions on innovations in signal processing, controls, and robotics to revolutionize information handling between the nervous system and computing machines.

The concept of “sharing control” between humans and machines has its roots back to the early history of Cybernetics. Compared to that early history, the challenges for BMIs involves developing control systems capable of handling biological signals that are sparse, noisy and dynamic in nature. Moreover, these systems are operating in a wide variety of dynamic environments encountered in the activities of daily life. One of the goals of this workshop is to identify leading advancements in Cybernetics theory that can improve performance in BMIs through cooperative control. Several examples of such systems include intelligent robotics that can assist with obstacle avoidance or accurate grasping, and adaptive algorithms that can learn the robot’s optimal behavior from the user’s nonstationary brain signals.

Of particular interest in this workshop are the principles that allow bi-directional communication and assistance between the user’s nervous system and the device being controlled as well as how to support the dynamic sharing of roles and responsibilities of a control task. In addition, topics sought include the design of collaborative, cognitive workspaces and signal analysis that supports a shared understanding of the task and environment.

The workshop will feature some prominent invited speakers active in research on “shared control” in BMI and other fields such as robotics and human-computer interaction.

Best contributions presented during the workshop will be invited to submit an extended version to a special issue of the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics – Part B that will undergo a normal full review process. The theme of this special issue of SMC-B is “Shared Control in Brain-Machine Interfaces”, and submissions are open to active researchers in the field independently of whether or not they participate in this workshop.

Place & Dates: Istanbul, Turkey. October 10-13, 2010. http://www.smc2010.org

PAPER SUBMISSIONS:
Papers should follow the IEEE format and conference guidelines. The template is available at: http://www.smc2010.org/SMC2010_Paper_Format.zip
Send a PDF copy of your paper to
jose.millan AT epfl.ch
with the title “SMC’10-BMI Workshop”.

ORGANIZERS:
José del R. Millán, Ph.D.
EPFL, Switzerland (http://people.epfl.ch/jose.millan)

Jose M. Carmena, Ph.D.
University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA (http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~carmena)

Justin C. Sanchez, Ph.D.
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA (http://nrg.mbi.ufl.edu)

Michael Smith, Ph.D.
University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

Schedule:
Deadline for submissions: April 15th, 2010
Notification of review: May 15th, 2010
Final manuscript due: June 27th, 2010