doc. RNDr. Luděk Cienciala, Ph.D.

Place of work

Silesian University in Opava

Field

Theoretical computer science, nature-inspired computational models falling under Natural Computing

Associate Professor Luděk Cienciala works at the Department of Informatics, Faculty of Philosophy and Science, Silesian University in Opava. His research focuses on computational techniques inspired by the biochemistry of cellular structure called membrane systems, which were introduced in 1998 by Gheorg Păun. From a certain point of view, we can say that membrane computing is close to the cell counting paradigm. Although the cell is very small in size, it is a completely unique part of living matter in its composition and function. There are multiple models of membrane systems, with research focusing primarily on those that function in some way as multi-agent systems. Membrane computing can be applied to various problems in biology, linguistics, theoretical computer science, applied computing such as computer graphics, cryptography and many others.

These models have been used by the Opava team in the field of hydrology and geoinformatics to model surface water runoff during flash floods or to control robotic systems, simulating the closed system Game of Life.

Research, activities and impact

In 2016 he received the IMCS 2016 Prize for his paper Generalized P colonies with passive environment and in 2022 the Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Machines, Computations and Universality (Debrecen, Hungary) for his paper Languages of Distributed Reactions Systems.

Involved in the IT4Innovations excellence in science project (2016-2020), in the framework of applied research he participated in research and development work for the control of unmanned drone-type elements (2020) and autonomous diagnostic system for predictive diagnostics of the vehicle platform (2022). Within the framework of the Operational Programme and the Applications for Competitiveness – Applications Programme, he is the team leader for the Silesian University in Opava – Faculty of Philosophy and Science – Department of Computer Science of the project aimed at research and development of a portable Ground Control Station with AI elements for autonomous control and mission planning of UAVs and UGVs (2024-2026).

“Most of the work on applications of membrane computation is focused on applications to biology. This is natural given the fact that membrane systems are strongly motivated by biology. This supports our optimism about the (potential) success of applications in modeling various aspects of biological reality, and these models can be contrasted with various models “force-fed” from one area of science to another, where the original model was built for a completely different incompatible phenomenon. Research on membrane systems is dealt with by a considerable group of experts from all over the world, international conferences and meetings are organized to formulate and solve open questions falling within the field. “

Luděk Cienciala

Department of Informatics, Faculty of Philosophy and Science, Silesian University in Opava