Autonomous driving is only one out of many aspects of intelligence required for future transportation systems. Human-machine interaction in a cognitive vehicle is an intriguing use case that requires intelligence beyond the state of the art in machine learning, computer vision, and AI. For safe and convenient human-machine interaction, the intelligent system such as a smart vehicle needs to be able to perceive its environment and make decisions based on the received data. Current state-of-the-art approaches to both intelligent perception and decision making typically rely on machine learning with offline training of neural networks using elaborated datasets. To enable truly adaptive intelligence, as we know it from biological systems, learning that supports decision making and perception needs to happen in real time, in an online fashion. But can such adaptive perceiving, deciding, and learning systems be safe enough to actually be deployed in an intelligent vehicle?

While biological inspiration has led to some of the most successful approaches in perception and machine learning — deep neural networks, — its deployment in real-world, safety-critical settings is yet limited. We aim to explore and critically discuss what biological inspiration in perception, learning, and decision making could bring in the future for increasing intelligence of vehicles and other robotic systems.

Thus, the aim of the workshop is to discuss potential benefits and pitfalls in applying bio-inspired approaches when developing intelligent real-world systems that perceive, interact, learn, and make decisions. We will focus on the application area of intelligent, “cognitive” vehicles and will use an unconventional format: for each of three subtopics we invited 2-4 experts from different schools of thought (for example, traditional machine learning and brain-inspired learning, conventional approach to planning and decision making and cognitive architecture-based approach, event-based bio-inspired vision and conventional machine visions, etc. ). Each speaker will give a short introductory talk followed by a moderated panel discussion around each topic. Furthermore, we will invite researchers from intelligent robotics and vehicles with a focus on perception, learning and decision making to present their work in posters and short spot-light talks.

The workshop will stimulate discussion of the role of biological inspiration in the development of future AI systems in the context of real-world, safety-critical applications of robotic systems in environments shared with humans.