Robot Designer To Draw Parallels In Ant World April 19

by Judy Long

Dr. Tucker Balch, assistant professor of computing at Georgia Institute of Technology will speak on "The Secret Life of Ants: What We Can Learn By Observing and Modeling Social Insects" at noon Friday, April 19, in room 104 of the Rogers Engineering and Computer Science Building on the Baylor University campus, sponsored by the school of engineering and computer science.
Balch's interest in the social behavior of ants stems from his research and development of multi-agent robot systems. His lab is the first to apply multi-systems approach to the study of social insects. Balch has authored three books on robot design, including Designing Robot Behavior, Robot Teams: From Diversity to Polymorphism and Robo-Cup 2000: Robot Soccer World Cup IV.
Balch's robots placed first in the AAAI Mobile Robot Competition in 1994 and 1998 and his multi-agent team competed successfully in RoboCup World Cup Soccer in its first year, winning four games and reaching the mid-size play-offs.
Balch received his bachelor's degree from Georgia Tech, his master's from University of California at Davis and his doctorate from Georgia Tech, all in computer science. Before joining the faculty at Georgia Tech, he flew F-15s on the Top Gun Team of the 128th Fighter Squadron in the U.S. Air Force, and then was a research scientist and director of the multirobot lab at Carnegie Mellon University.
For more information, call the School of Engineering and Computer Science at (254) 710-3871.