Training seminar on biological visual neural systems and modelling for chip designers and robotics researchers and developers; it also provides the neural system modellers with the knowledge for VLSI realization. It will be held at UoL in conjunction with workshop two. The target audience includes the key staff involved in WP1 & WP2 & WP4. Neural system modellers from UoL, GZU, UNEW, GZHU, Agile Robots and XJTU will  present their previous research work and basic neural computation algorithms that are relevant to the proposed chip design targets.

The ULTRACEPT Training Seminar was hosted by UoL and took place on the 29th July 2020.  Due to the travel restrictions caused by COVID-19, the workshop was held as an online event using MS Teams. The previous day the group also held Workshop 2.

• Day 1: 28 July 2020 Workshop 2
• Day 2: 29 July 2020 Training Seminar

The training seminar was attended by 26 participants from project partners and provided an opportunity for the project group to participate in a seminar aimed at developing their skills and knowledge.  The agenda for the seminar is set out below.

ULTRACEPT: Ultra-layered perception with brain-inspired information processing for vehicle collision avoidance

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE)

This research has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 778062.

Date: Wednesday 29 July 2020

Time: UK 11:00; China 18:00; Germany 12:00; Buenos Aires 07:00

Location: MS Teams

Training Schedule
UK Time	Item	Presenters
11:00-11:10	Arrival and welcome	Shigang Yue
11:10-11:50	From visual motion to bio-robotics University of Lincoln 30min presentation & 10 min Q&A	Shigang Yue
11:55-12:35	What we can learn from the locust about lateral inter-connections in visual circuits detecting collision University of Newcastle 30min presentation & 10 min Q&A	Claire Rind
12:40-13:20	Connecting Artificial Intelligence and the Real World Agile Robots 30min presentation & 10 min Q&A	Zhaopeng Chen
13:20-14:00	Break
14:00-14:20	Road surface wetness detection from acoustic signals using neural networks Universiti Putra Malaysia 10min presentation & 10min discussion	Siavash Bahrami
14:20-14:35	Final comments

After opening the seminar, ULTRACEPT coordinator Prof Shigang Yue from the University of Lincoln provided the presentation ‘From Visual Motion to Bio-Robots’.

Following, Prof Yue, Dr Claire Rind, the partner lead from the University of Newcastle, delivered a presentation ‘Looming objects are recognised on the smallest scale by the locust DCMD, a collision detecting neuron’.

Next to present was Dr Zhaopeng Chen, the CEO of ULTRACEPT industry partner Agile Robots. Dr Chen presented ‘Connecting Artificial Intelligence and the Real World’.

The final presentation of the day was delivered by Siavash Bahrami, a PhD candidate from the ULTRACEPT partner Universiti Putra Malaysia ‘Road surface wetness detection from acoustic signals using neural networks’. Siavash shared the research activities that he is currently undertaking. You can learn more about Siavash’s research here.