Philippe Capdepuy

PhD Student in Computer Science

Department of Computer Science
University of Hertfordshire
Hatfield AL10 9AB
United Kingdom

Phone:	+44/1707/28-5118
Email:	p.capdepuy@herts.ac.uk

Research
Current Work
Publications
Miscellaneous

Research

I'm a PhD student in computer science at the University of Hertfordshire since March 2006. My principal supervisor is Daniel Polani and my second supervisor is Chrystopher L. Nehaniv.
My main research subjects concern the perception-action loop and its information theoretic properties along with sensor evolution. We study how information theoretic quantities such as empowerment (cf. Klyubin's work) can be used as a drive to shape the sensors of an agent or its behavioral capacities. We also study these properties in the context of multi-agent systems, i.e. we try to identify the conditions where multiple agents behaving as a group have more abilities than the sum of their own behaviour. In this context we also try to adress issues concerning self-organization in agent societies from an information theory perspective. Our main assumption is that information quantities are universal and not semantically biased, nevertheless they allow us to analyze the semantics that an agent can build through its interactions with a given environment.

Information theory and the perception-action loop
Multi-agent systems
Self-organization and complex systems
Origins of life and cognition
Artificial chemistries

Current Work

My current work focuses on collective behaviour in multi-agent systems. More precisely we use information theoretic quantities such as empowerment as a drive toward collective behaviour. We carried out different simulation experiments whose results reinforce our hypothesis: collective behaviour can be the result of maximizing potential information transfer of the agents' perception-action loops. Here is a video of the kind of behaviours obtained when using these principles:

Publications

Conference papers (in English):

(2008) Capdepuy P., Nehaniv C.L. and Polani D.: Adaptation of the Perception-Action Loop Using Active Channel Sampling, Proceedings of the 2008 NASA/ESA Conference on Adaptive Hardware and Systems. (Preprint,Bibtex)

(2007) Capdepuy P., Nehaniv C.L. and Polani D.: Maximization of Potential Information Flow as a Universal Utility for Collective Behaviour, Proceedings of the First IEEE Symposium on Artificial Life, p. 207-213. (Preprint,Bibtex)

(2007) Capdepuy P., Nehaniv C.L. and Polani D.: Constructing the Basic Umwelt of Artificial Agents: An Information-Theoretic Approach, Proceedings of the Ninth European Conference on Artificial Life, LNCS/LNAI 4648, p. 375-383, Springer. (Preprint,Poster,Bibtex)

(2007) Capdepuy P., Nehaniv C.L. and Polani D.: Grounding Action-Selection in Event-Based Anticipation, Proceedings of the Ninth European Conference on Artificial Life, LNCS/LNAI 4648, p. 253-262, Springer. (Preprint,Poster,Bibtex)

(2007) Capdepuy P., Nehaniv C.L. and Polani D.: Construction of an Internal Predictive Model by Event Anticipation, Anticipatory Behavior in Adaptive Learning Systems - From Brains to Individual and Social Behavior. (Preprint,Bibtex)

(2006) Capdepuy P., Nehaniv C.L. and Polani D.: An Information Theory Based Anticipation Architecture, Ninth International Conference on the Simulation of Adaptive Behavior 2006, Third Workshop on Anticipatory Behavior in Adaptive Learning Systems. (Preprint,Bibtex)

(2005) Capdepuy P. and Kaltenbach M.: Autonomous Systems: Computational Autopoiesis through Artificial Chemistries, European Conference on Artificial Life 2005, Workshop on Artificial Chemistries. (Preprint,Bibtex)

Miscellaneous

Some people

Tom Anthony A PhD student involved in related topics
Arnaud Blanchard My former deskmate, involved in affective computing, robotics...
Jim Crutchfield A researcher involved in computational mechanics, evolution of complexity...
Nicolas Despres A good old friend doing research in programming stuff (I just can't tell more, have a look)
Francis Heylighen A researcher involved in evolution of complexity and evolutionary cybernetic approaches.
Tim Hutton A researcher involved in artificial chemistries and protocells modelling.
Alexander Klyubin Recently got his PhD. Much of my research work is a continuation or is related to his.
Barry McMullin A researcher much involved in artificial life and artificial chemistries.
Chrystopher L. Nehaniv My second supervisor, involved in constructive biology, theoretical computer science and other topics.
John von Neumann A brilliant mathematician that, among other things, pionnered computer science and artificial self-replication.
Daniel Polani My main PhD supervisor, involved in information theory applied to the perception-action loop, sensors evolution and other topics.
Ilya Prigogine A great researcher (Nobel prize) who was involved in evolution of complexity, non-equilibrium thermodynamics, self-organization and many other topics...

Some concepts

Artificial Chemistries A good review of the different kind of artificial chemistries.
Autopoiesis A good introduction to Maturana and Varela's theory of autopoiesis.
Cybernetics Website of Principia Cybernetica Project, a good introduction to cybernetics in various contexts, with many links to related subjects.
Dissipative structures A good description of what is this phenomenon.
Information Theory The wikipedia description of information theory. Good introduction with links to related subjects.

Some good french websites

Automates Intelligents News on robotics, artificial intelligence, sciences... Very good quality.
Cognitive Sciences Wiki A french wiki dedicated to cognitive science and related stuff initiated by Arnaud Blanchard. Feel free to contribute.
Futura Sciences Articles, news and forums about science in general...
RISC An institution affiliated with the CNRS (french national research institute) that relays and centralizes information on cognitive sciences.
Vie Artificielle Articles, news and forums about artificial life, robotics, artificial intelligence...