ECE 657 - Spring 2015

ECE 657 - Computational Intelligence / Intelligent Systems Design

Instructor

Fakhri Karray, extension (35584); Office E5-5029; e-mail: karray@uwaterloo.ca

Throughout the course there will be two to three invited lectures.

Course Outline

Conventional approaches for tackling complex systems are usually modeled/implemented under the assumption of a good understanding of the process (system) dynamics/functionalities and its operating environment. These techniques fail, however, to provide satisfactory results when applied to ill-defined systems, for which analytical and experimental models may not be easily obtained. These same systems may also operate within unpredictable and possibly noisy/uncertain environments. Recent developments in the area of intelligent systems and soft computing have presented powerful alternatives for dealing with the behavior of this class of systems. This course outlines fundamentals of soft computing based design approaches using such tools as approximate reasoning, fuzzy inferencing, neural networks, evolutionary algorithms, and neuro-fuzzy systems. Fundamentals and advances on these procedures are outlined along with their potential applications to various real world applications in virtually most fields of engineering including pattern recognition, big data analysis, classification and clustering, power generation, intelligent transportation, systems and control, intelligent mechatronics, optimization, communication, robotics and manufacturing, to name a few.

Lecture Time

Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:00 am - 2:20 pm, Room DWE 2527

Main Text

Part of material taught in this course and assignments provided are from the following textbook:

F. Karray and C. de Silva, Soft Computing and Intelligent Systems Design, Addison Wesley Publishing, Pearson Education, August 2004

Other Suggested Texts

M. Negnevitsky, Artificial Intelligence, A Guide to Intelligent Systems, Pearson Publishing, 2006
C. T. Lin and C.S. Lee, Neural Fuzzy Systems, Prentice Hall Publishing, 1995
J. Jang, C. Sun, and E. Mizutani, NeuroFuzzy and Soft Computing, Prentice Hall Publishing, 1997

Course Scope

The course is useful for graduate students in virtually all areas of engineering, particularly for those dealing with complex systems at the sort or hard levels. A background in two or more of the following areas should be useful: fuzzy logic, neural networks, system's optimization, dynamic systems, nonlinear mapping, calculus of variation, differential calculus, statistical analysis, advanced algebra, game theory.

Course Material and Online Resources

All course material, including slides, notes, assignments, exams are posted on the course page on Learn. Exams and final projects are uploaded on the course web page on Learn.

Course Requirement

Assignments (0%):
Assignments will be provided on a biweekly to tri-weekly basis. Students are highly encouraged to solve them
Midterm (25%):
A midterm will be assigned around last week of June
Journal Paper Analysis and Presentation (20%)
The student is required as part of the course workload to analyze, and possibly synthesize results of one or more journals publication in one of the areas related to the course.
Final Exam (55%)
As the final exam requirements, the student is asked to work on a final project illustrating and making use of the tools taught during the term.