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KOVAN research lab is founded to study the synthesis of intelligent systems inspired from nature. Our inspiration stems from a wide range fields ranging from social insects to biological neural systems and evolution. Autonomous agents (including robots) are preferred as a major test-bed in our studies.

Announcements

• iCub has arrived! Click for some pictures
  
  Asst. Prof. Erol Sahin was successful in his bid towards getting an iCub humanoid robot platform from the RobotCub project, ranking 6th among 31 proposals! The project is being carried out in conjunction with the EU ROSSI project and in close collaboration with Tom Ziemke and Erhan Oztop. Check out the project web page

• Don't forget to check out the Publications page!

Highlights

• EU FP7 Project ROSSI

The ROSSI Project (Emergence of communication in RObots through Sensorimotor and Social Interaction) funding within FP7 has started. Within the project, we will be developing a neuro-computational model that would allow robots to develop concepts such as nouns and verbs.

• EU FP6 Project MACS finished successfully!

We have successfully completed the MACS project in which we have developed a formalization of Gibson’s affordance concept and demonstrated how it can be used at all levels of autonomous robot control, ranging from perceptual learning to planning.

• Kontrol Edilebilir Robot Oğulları (Controllable Robotic Swarms)

The main scientific objective of this project is to investigate how and to what extend the dynamics of a robotic swarm can be externally controlled. In the project, a heterogeneous swarm, consisting of two types of mobile robots, one in large numbers but simple, the other in fewer numbers but more complex, will be developed. The experiments to be made with the real robots will be complemented by systematic experiments carried out in physically realistic simulation models that will also be developed. Click here for more information.

• The news about iCub and KOVAN Research Lab in CNNTürk.

Asst. Prof. Erol Sahin has made an interview with one of the leading online newspapers of Turkey about iCub and cognitive robotics in general. Here is a link to the video of the interview.

• Our research on Swarm Intelligence has appeared in the following newspapers:

CNNTurk	Hürriyet	Milliyet

• An interview with Asst. Prof. Erol Sahin appeared on the national channel TRT-2. Click here to watch it.

• A story about GridAE was published on "International Science Grid - This Week ".