Swarms exist on all scales in chemistry, molecular biology, entomology, and more recently, robotics. Here, dynamic interactions between large numbers of relatively simple individuals result in complex emergent global patterns. Take as an example the amazing coordination that occurs between thousands of bees in a hive, or millions of cells joining to form hierarchical organ systems with embedded parallel and distributed functions. The success of these systems is typically associated with robustness due to redundancy and the ability to adapt to perturbations. This workshop will allow experts and novices of all fields to identify and address bottlenecks and solutions to common challenges related to our understanding, design and operation of swarms. Key topics will include:

• Coordination and Control How can local interactions between large numbers of simple individuals result in complex global patterns? Broad and detailed scientific talks will help to identify existing and novel strategies for coordination and control in different fields.
• Agent Design Whether in real or artificial systems the individual agents of a swarm have common design features, including energy consumption, locomotion, and sensors. But just how advanced must the individuals be to achieve a specific global behavior? We invite speakers to discuss advantages and disadvantages of passive and active agents, as well as homogeneous and heterogeneous systems.
• Scalability in numbers: from tens to millions of individuals The key to swarms is large numbers. But what challenges are involved in designing such highly scalable systems? We will focus on communication and sharing of information between the agents, as well as how to manufacture and maintain large numbers of agents.
• Modelling We invite researchers to present swarm models to explore optimal design parameters, convergence guarantees, and reconfiguration strategies.
• Assembly, re-configurability, and self-replicating systems An overarching goal for swarm systems include assembly, disassembly, re-configurability, dynamicity, and self-replication. Although these processes already take place in natural systems, replicating them in artificial ones have proven very hard. Recent scientific and technological progress, however, may pave the way for nano-to millimeter scale agents cooperating to manipulate matter.

The workshop will include around sixteen 15-20 min research talks and two poster/demo sessions. All attendees are encouraged to partake with a talk, poster, or demonstration. Please submit abstracts including your affiliation with the center by March 1st 2016 (max. 1 page). Talks will be chosen based on broad interest; the hope being to include as many different research fields as possible.

In addition to interactive presentations and short talks, we have invited five keynote speakers to talk of biological and artificial swarms. Two poster sessions and several social events will provide ample room for discussions and informal interactions.

We are excited to have the following invited speakers:

• Iain Couzin, Department of Collective Behavior, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology
• Auke Jan Ijspeert, Biorobotics Laboratory, EPFL
• Maximilian Kriegleder, Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zurich
• Sijbren Otto, University of Groningen
• Andrew Turberfield, Department of Physics, University of Oxford

June 9th (Thursday)

June 10th (Friday)