Phil Husbands

Phil Husbands is a professor of computer science and artificial intelligence at the University of Sussex. He is head of the Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems group and co-director of the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics.

Research

Husbands's research interests are in long-term investigations of artificial evolution of nervous systems for robots, with emphasis on:

visually guided robots acting in the real world
theoretical and practical development of advanced evolutionary algorithms for hard engineering and design optimisation problems
development of biologically inspired artificial neural networks incorporating diffusible modulators
computational neuroscience
computer manipulation of sound and image
history and philosophy of AI
swarm intelligence
machine learning.

Husbands has edited several books, including coediting The Mechanical Mind in History and Robots: What everyone needs to know, as well as author of numerous scientific articles. With neuroscientist Michael O'Shea he introduced the idea of GasNets artificial neural networks that use diffusing virtual gases as modulators. These are inspired by nitric oxide volume signalling in real brains. The Sussex team has also done pioneering work on detailed computational modelling of nitric oxide diffusion in the nervous system.