Invited Talk at Ingenuity Labs

I recently had the pleasure of presenting our work at the 2026 Ingenuity Labs Research Institute Multi-robots Workshop. We explored a central theme across our research: when integrated within a control-theoretic framework, machine learning can enhance the performance of physical systems while preserving formal guarantees of stability and robustness. Specifically, we discussed how the swarm embeddings proposed in our recent work can be reframed as equilibrium manifolds to ensure swarms can maintain coherence and stability while learning to adapt to their environment. ...

15 May 2026 · 1 min · tjards

Web Shepherd: An Interactive Shepherding App

An interactive web app demonstrating shepherding behaviour. Interactive Demo Code and Documentation Slimmer Version for Website Integration References Implemented using the technique described in: Van Havermaet, S., Simoens, P., Landgraf, T., & Khaluf, Y. (2023). Steering herds away from dangers in dynamic environments. Royal Society Open Science, 10(5), 230015. Interface inspired by the work of Nick Frosst.

14 Apr 2026 · 1 min · tjards

Restoring a Science Project from 1996

click for time travel Background The Great Canadian Hairy Star Party was an educational initiative produced by ScienceWeb in 1996. It featured observations, sketches, and other artwork from students across Canada related to Comet Hyakutake, a spectacular comet that passed close to Earth in March of that year. Centre Consolidated Elementary School in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia participated by having students submit their personal observations on a dedicated website. I was one of those students. ...

29 Mar 2026 · 3 min · tjards