Welcome of Chairmen

On behalf of both organizing and scientific committees, it is a great pleasure to welcome all delegates, representatives and participants from around the world to the 2009 International Conference on “COGnitive systems with Interactive Sensors” in the center of Paris, France. The conference is organized in the frame of the european relations set up between SEE and the Institution of Engineering and Technology - IET.

Initiated in 1999 by THALES Scientific & Technical council as internal technical workshop, 1rst COGIS’03 conference was launched as a french workshop by SEE in 2003. Since 2006, COGIS’06 has became an International conference with more than 120 attendees in Paris. In 2007, invited by Standford University, COGIS’07 took place in US to federate new actors in North America. In 2009, SEE and IET have decided to join their forces and their networks to organize this 4th edition of COGIS’09. As soon as 2010, COGIS’10 will be organized in UK by IET in collaboration with SEE.

More than 80 publications will be presented and testify the world wide interest for topics covered by COGIS. The number of accepted papers was equally distributed between Universities and Industries.

The Opening Session put emphasis on French Initiatives : Paul Friedel (SEE President) will present new SEE organization, Alain Dohet (DGA) will present “System and SoS Engineering Application by the French MoD” and Maurice Robin will describe “Digiteo: the ICT Cluster of the Saclay Campus”.
3 international experts have been scheduled with a keynote presentation each day : “The System Concept and its Application to Engineering” by Erik W. Aslaksen, “Recent Advances in Visual Servoing” by François Chaumette, and “An Artificial Being Must and can be Conscious” by Jacques Pitrat.

A dedicated session will be organized to the memory of our colleague and friend Prof. J.P. Lecadre who passed away on July, 1st, 2009. He was an active members of COGIS (speaker in COGIS’03, Scientific Committee member & session Chairman in COGIS’06, Scientific Committee Chairman of COGIS’07). With sincere condolences to his family, former Le Cadre’s PhD students will present his works in domains related to COGIS.
http://www.irisa.fr/vista/Equipe/People/Jean-Pierre.Lecadre.html

The Technical Program covers all the main topics and highlights in the domain of complex systems. All papers are presented in parallel Oral Sessions. A social event organized in “Musée du vin” and Coffee/Lunch breaks will favour opportunities for fruitful exchanges, contacts between all attendees to launch further cooperation.

I would like to acknowledge all the Organizing and Scientific Committee members for their hard work, in evaluating submissions. I also give my thanks to Authors and co-Authors, for their tremendous effort and scientific contribution.

We will be happy to meet you again in 2010 in United Kingdom for COGIS’10 !