Biologically-inspired Optimisation

The department works on a variety of naturally inspired computational techniques such as neural networks (see Nikolay and Rainer for more details)  genetic algortihms and programming,  and swarm optimisations. 

Swarm Optimisation & Intelligence Swarm intelligence is the property of a system whereby the collective behaviours of unsophisticated agents interacting locally with their environment cause coherent functional global patterns to emerge. Swarm intelligence provides a basis with which it is possible to explore collective (or distributed) problem solving without centralized control or the provision of a global model. Swarm Intelligence research includes both the study of Stochastic Diffusion Processes and Particle Swarm Optimization methods. Using Stochastic Diffusion Processes it has been shown that efficient global decision making can emerge from interaction and communication in a population of individuals each forming hypotheses on the basis of partial evidence. Using Particle Swarm Optimization difficult multi-objective optimization problems have been solved and the underlying principles successfully applied to improvise complex computer generated music. Work in this area is supported by two grants from the EPSRC and one from ESA (the European Space Agency).  (See Tim Blackwell and Mark Bishop for more details) 

Evolutionary Mutation Testing Mutation Testing involves running slightly corrupted versions (mutants) of your target program through your test suite to see if any test cases flag the variations as defects. This enables us to measure abilty of the test suite to detect bugs. We are developing methods using genetic algorithms where the mutant programs and the test suite co-evolve to form a stronger test suite. Contact Sebastian Danicic for more information.

We are also working with the industry on applications of Genetic Programming to electricity distribution. (see Nikolay for more details)

In February 2005, the department played a part in organising the Creative Evolution Conference and hosted and organised theworkshop on Creativity Evolutionary Computing