Koen V. Hindriks

Koen V. Hindriks (1971) holds a PhD degree from Utrecht University and a MSc degree from the University of Groningen in Computing Science. He is an Associate Professor at the Delft University of Technology in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science within the Interactive Intelligence section. He is Chair of the Board of the Benelux Association for Artificial Intelligence, a member of the International Society of Applied Intelligence, and theme leader of the Delft Robotics Institute. He has published more than 150 papers on agent technology and organized many events in this area, including the 2012 Dagstuhl Seminar on Engineering Multi-Agent Systems, the AAMAS-2013 and AAMAS-2012 Workshop on Cognitive Agents for Virtual Environments, and the AAMAS-2013 and AAMAS-2012 Workshop on Autonomous Robots and Multirobot Systems. He has also given many tutorials in this area at, for example, the European Agents Systems Summer School 2013, 2012, 2009, AAMAS 2009 and 2008, the PRIMA 2009 Agent School, and the Dutch Research School for Information and Knowledge Systems.

His research focuses on the analysis, modeling, and development of agent technology that integrates different aspects of intelligence such as reasoning, decision-making, planning, learning and interaction but also integrates aspects such as emotional intelligence. This multi-agent technology has been applied, among others, in micro-simulation of domains such as traffic, logistics and supply chain management, serious gaming, negotiation, socio-cognitive robotics, and user modeling. He has designed and developed the agent programming languages 3APL and GOAL and worked on the verification and specification of agent programs.

Talks and Presentations

Awards

IAT 2013, Atlanta - Best Paper Award
First Place Multi-Agent Programming Contest 2011
ICAART 2010, Valencia - Best Paper Award
PRIMA 2009, Nagoya - Best Paper Award
CIA 2008, Prague - System Innovation Award
ATAL 2000, Boston - Best PhD Paper Award
ATAL 1998, Paris - Best PhD Paper Award
BNAIC 1996, Utrecht - Best PhD Paper Award

Research Interests

My research is focussed on the design, specification, and development of (technology for) cognitive agents that are able to reason, autonomously make decisions, exhibit strategic behavior, and interact and coordinate their actions with other agents. Cognitive agents and approaches for coordinating agents have a range of applications, including a.o. robotics, serious games, negotiation and decision-making, multi-agent based modelling and simulation, and logistics and supply chain management.

Cognitive Agents and Multi-Agent/Robot Coordination

Cognitive agents are software agents that maintain a mental state consisting of knowledge, beliefs, and goals. Cognitive agents support autonomous and strategic decision making and derive their choice of action from their beliefs and goals. The design and development of cognitive control for robots requires the integration of many different techniques from AI in a single embedded system. As such, it is closely related to research on the integration of various abilities into software agents. Multi-agent coordination finds a very interesting application in the coordinating of the behavior of multiple robots that need to perform and solve a common task as a team.

Automated Negotiation and Decision Making

Automated agents that negotiate require sophisticated negotiation strategies, opponent modeling techniques (learning), techniques for modelling negotiation domains, and for various other aspects of decision making. Apart from using quantitative techniques I am also interested in using qualitative preferences for decision making. The work on the agent programming language GOAL (see also below) provides a rule-based language for creating agents that are able to make strategic decisions based on their beliefs and goals.

Other research topics I am interested in include a.o. learning techniques for cognitive agents, automated explanation of agent behaviour, socio-cognitive robotics, user modeling by means of cognitive agents, and logics for BDI-like agents for verification purposes (theorem-proving or model-checking).

Agent Platforms

Projects

I am involved in the following projects:

The ITEA 2 "M2MGrids" Project Smart M2M Grids - Automated Dynamic M2M Power Systems (1 Post-doc, 3 years).
The FP7 EU Project "TRADR" Long-Term Human-Robot Teaming for Robot-Assisted Disaster Response (2 PhDs, 1 4-year PostDoc).
The Delft Robotics Project EVA. EVA is a new service robot for providing care.
The Learning Cognitive Agents Project, integrating reinforcement learning into an agent programming language (1 1/2 year PostDoc).
The NGI Project "Smart Roads", which uses agent-based modelling for studying behaviour of car drivers (1 Phd).
The NGI Project "NEGOM", which develops models for multi-party negotiation (3 year PostDoc).
The Socio-Cognitive Robotics Project (3 PhDs).
The Pocket Negotiator project (2 PhDs).

Funding I helped acquire has come from NWO, Agentschap NL, and from the European FP7 Programme.

Events Organized

Programme Chair of the:

25th Benelux Conference on Artificial Intelligence (BNAIC 2013)
26th International Conference on Industrial, Engineering and Other Applications of Applied Intelligent Systems (IEA-AIE 2013)

Publicity Chair of the:

12th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2013)

Co-chair of the:

4th AAMAS Workshop on Autonomous Robots and Multirobot Systems (ARMS 2014)
2nd AAMAS Workshop on Cognitive Agents for Virtual Environments (CAVE 2013)
3rd AAMAS Workshop on Autonomous Robots and Multirobot Systems (ARMS 2013)
1st International Workshop on Cognitive Agents for Virtual Environments (CAVE 2012)
2nd International Workshop on Autonomous Robots and Multirobot Systems (ARMS 2012)
2010 Group Decision and Negotiation Conference (GDN 2010)
2nd International Working Conference on Human Factors and Computational Models in Negotiation (HuCom 2010)
6th International Workshop on Programming Multi-Agent Systems (ProMAS 2008)
1st International Working Conference on Human Factors and Computational Models in Negotiation (HuCom 2008)
11th International Workshop on Cooperative Information Agents (CIA 2007)

I have also co-organised the Dagstuhl Seminar on Engineering Multi-Agent Systems (2012) and the Automated Negotiating Agents Competition (ANAC) in 2010, ,2011, 2012, and 2013.

Current PhD Students

Mark Ligthart: Topic: Social companion robot for children with cancer.; Project: STW/KWF Project Improving Care When Parents Cannot Be There.
Elie Saad: Topic: Ontologies for team decision making in search and rescue robotics.; Project: EU FP7 Project TRADR: Long-Term Human-Robot Teaming for Disaster Response.
Frank Kaptein: Topic: Self-explaining robots.; Project: EU H2020 Project PAL: Personal Assistent for Healthy Lifestyle
Vincent Koeman: Topic: Self-explaining cognitive agents.; Project: TU Delft Cognitive Agent Programming Project.
Chris Rozemuller: Topic: Cooperative teams in search and rescue robotics.; Project: EU FP7 Project TRADR: Long-Term Human-Robot Teaming for Disaster Response.
Chang Wang: Topic: Affordance learning for robots.; Project: TU Delft Socio-Cognitive Robotics Project.
Rosemarijn Looije: Topic: Child-Robot Interaction for children with diabetes.; Project: EU FP7 Project ALIZ-E: Adaptive Strategies for Sustainable Long-Term Social Interaction in joint cooperation with TNO.

Former PhD Students

Chris Detweiler: Topic: Communication support in health care with an emphasis on design for values.; Project: 3TU Centre for Ethics and Technology Project.; Thesis: Accounting for Values in Design (2016-10-18).
Timea Bagosi: Topic: Ontologies for team decision making in search and rescue robotics.; Project: EU FP7 Project TRADR: Long-Term Human-Robot Teaming for Disaster Response.
Junchao Xu: Topic: Emotion expression on humanoid robots.; Project: TU Delft Socio-Cognitive Robotics Project.; Thesis: Affective Body Language of Humanoid Robots: Perception and Effects in Human Robot Interaction (2015-12-14).
Changyun Wei: Topic: Coordination of teams of cognitive robots.; Project: TU Delft Socio-Cognitive Robotics Project.; Thesis: Cognitive Coordination for Cooperative Multi-Robot Teamwork (2015-5-12).
Tim Baarslag: Topic: Bidding strategies for automated negotiation.; Project: Pocket Negotiator, synergy between man and machine.; Thesis: What to Bid and When to Stop (2014-9-18).
Tim received his Phd Cum Laude and was runner-up for the IFAAMAS Victor Lesser dissertation award.
Wietske Visser: Topic: Preference representation for automated negotiation.; Project: Pocket Negotiator, synergy between man and machine.; Thesis: Qualitative multi-criteria preference representation and reasoning (2012-12-4).
Dmytro Tykhonov: Topic: Bidding strategies for automated negotiation.; Thesis: Designing Generic and Efficient Negotiation Strategies (2010-6-7).

Mike E.U. Ligthart, M.A. Neerincx, K.V. Hindriks (2022), Getting acquainted: First steps for child-robot relationship formation, In Frontiers In Robotics and AI Volume 9.

Kelly L.A. van Bindsbergen, Hinke van der Hoek, Marloes van Gorp, Mike E.U. Ligthart, Koen V. Hindriks, Mark A. Neerincx, Tanja Alderliesten, Peter A.N. Bosman, Johannes H.M. Merks, More Authors (2022), Interactive Education on Sleep Hygiene with a Social Robot at a Pediatric Oncology Outpatient Clinic: Feasibility, Experiences, and Preliminary Effectiveness, In Cancers Volume 14.