From urbano at deec.uc.pt Sun Jun 1 07:15:42 2008 From: urbano at deec.uc.pt (Urbano Nunes) Date: Mon Jun 2 00:56:57 2008 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IEEE IROS 2008 "2nd Workshop on Planning, Perception and Navigation for Intelligent Vehicles]] Message-ID: <1248.87.196.10.60.1212329742.squirrel@webmail.deec.uc.pt> *************************************************************************** 2nd C A L L F O R P A P E R S 2nd WORKSHOP ON PLANNING, PERCEPTION AND NAVIGATION FOR INTELLIGENT VEHICLES http://www.isr.uc.pt/~urbano/WorkIROS08/ (1st PPNIV workshop webpage: http://www.isr.uc.pt/~urbano/WorkICRA07/) At 2008 IEEE INT. CONFERENCE ON INTELLIGENT ROBOTS AND SYSTEMS (IROS 2008) 26 September 2008, Nice, France http://iros2008.inria.fr/ *************************************************************************** Important Dates *************** Paper submission: June 10, 2008 Notification: July 1, 2008 Final submission: July 15, 2008 Workshop: Sept 26, 2008 IEEE IROS08: Sept 22-26, 2008 Scope *********** The purpose of this workshop is to discuss topics related to the challenging problems of autonomous navigation and of driving assistance in open and dynamic environments. Technologies related to application fields such as unmanned outdoor vehicles or intelligent road vehicles will be considered from both the theoretical and technological point of views. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): -Object detection, tracking and classification -Collision prediction and avoidance -Environment perception, vehicle localization and autonomous navigation -Probabilistic methods in navigation -Real-time perception, smart sensors and sensor fusion -Integrated in-vehicle and infrastructure systems -Road scene understanding, and lane keeping -Pedestrian and vehicle detection -Cooperative techniques -Human-centred driver assistance -Driver state, intent and activity sensing -Visual tracking and map building; SLAM in dynamic environments -Real-time motion planning in dynamic environments Submission *********** Authors are invited to submit their papers by email, in PDF format, to urbano@deec.uc.pt (include the paper title and author names in the email). The detailed information on the paper format is available from the IROS2008 page (http://iros2008.inria.fr/). Papers are limited to 4-6 pages. Journal Special Issue ********************* Selected papers will be considered for a special issue of an international Journal. Organizers ********************* Urbano Nunes, (UC, Portugal), http://www.isr.uc.pt/~urbano Christian Laugier (INRIA, France), http://emotion.inrialpes.fr/laugier Alberto Broggi (Univ. Parma, Italy), http://www.ce.unipr.it/broggi From ota at robot.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp Sun Jun 1 22:05:33 2008 From: ota at robot.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp (Ota Jun) Date: Mon Jun 2 00:56:59 2008 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Invitation to submit a paper to DARS 2008 (Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems) Message-ID: <20080602050019.3CD32146BB@rose.arai.pe.u-tokyo.ac.jp> (Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this message) -------------------------------------------------------------------- 2nd Call for papers 9 th International Symposium on DISTRIBUTED AUTONOMOUS ROBOTIC SYSTEMS *** DARS 2008 *** Tsukuba , Ibaraki, Japan November 17-19, 2008 url: http://www.robot.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/DARS2008 Important Days Full paper submission: June 30, 2008 Acceptance notification: August 31, 2008 Final paper submission: September 30, 2008 The Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems dealswith new methodologies, alogrithms, hardwares, system architectures to realize advanced distributed robotic systems. All interested researchers and engineers are invited to participate in DARS 2008 for presentation and discussion. Excellent papers of the conference will be published in a book, by Springer. The International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems successfully took place in 1992, 1994, and 1996 in Japan, in 1998 in Germany (Karlsruhe), in 2000 in USA (Knoxville, Tennessee), in 2002 in Japan (Fukuoka), in 2004 in France (Toulouse) and in 2006 in USA (St. Paul, Minnesota). DARS 2008 will be held in Japan. Topics include but are not limited to: Architectures for teams of robots Ambient Intelligence Biologically inspired systems Control issues in multi-robot systems Distributed decision making/problem solving Distributed/cooperative perception Distributed planning Distributed task execution Human and robot interaction Learning and adaptation in teams of robots Multi-robot applications in exploration, search and rescue, service, etc Mobiligence (Emergence of Intelligence through Mobility) Modular robotics Network robotics Performance metrics for robot teams Reconfigurable robots Robot societies Self-organizing robotic systems Sensor networks Swarm robotics Task allocation Advisory Committee Tamio Arai (Univ. of Tokyo, Japan) Hajime Asama (Univ. of Tokyo, Japan) Raja Chatila (LAAS, France) Ruediger Dillmann (Univ. of Karlsruhe, Germany) Toshio Fukuda (Nagoya Univ., Japan) Maria Gini (Univ. of Minnesota, USA) Tsutomu Hasegawa (Kyushu Univ., Japan) Lynne Parker (Univ. of Tennessee, USA) General Chair Haruhisa Kurokawa (AIST, Japan) Program Chair Jun Ota (Univ. of Tokyo, Japan) Program Co-Chair Kousuke Sekiyama (Nagoya Univ., Japan) Publication Chair Kuniaki Kawabata (RIKEN, Japan) Local Arrangement Comittee Chair Masao Sugi?Univ. of Tokyo, Japan)DARS Proceedings Program Committee members http://www.robot.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/DARS2008/pc_member.html From denis at icmc.usp.br Mon Jun 2 05:57:45 2008 From: denis at icmc.usp.br (Denis Wolf) Date: Mon Jun 2 06:24:53 2008 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP ACM SAC 09 - ROBOT Track Message-ID: <4843EE49.8030602@icmc.usp.br> ACM SAC 2009 - CALL FOR PAPERS Track: Intelligent Robotic Systems (ROBOT) http://www.icmc.usp.br/~lrm/sac09/ The 24th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SIGAPP) March 8 - 12, 2009, Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort & Spa Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA (http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2009/) Chairs: Denis F. Wolf Eduardo Marques Fernando S. Os?rio Call for papers: For the past twenty-three years, the ACM Symposium on Applied Computing has been a primary gathering forum for applied computer scientists, computer engineers, software engineers, and application developers from around the world. For the second year, the ACM SAC will have a specific track on robotics. It aims to be a forum for researchers to share experiences, expose issues, and discuss about this exciting research field. Robotics is a multidisciplinary area of study that presents an enormous commercial and research potential. While industrial robotics covers the study, design, and use of robot systems for manufacturing, mobile robotics concerns about developing systems that are capable of making decisions and acting autonomously in real and unpredictable environments to accomplish determined tasks. In the last decade, technological advances made possible the development of very efficient sensors and electronic devices at affordable prices. This fact has great impact on robotics research, allowing the development of efficient and relatively cheap sensors and computing devices. It also allows robots to accomplish more complex tasks, posing new challenges to scientists and engineers. This track focuses on all aspects of robotics, including related areas and applications. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Rehabilitation Robotics Humanoid Robotics Underwater Robots Search and Rescue Robots Entertainment Robots Multi-robot Coordination Active Perception and Vision Coverage and Deployment Learning Autonomous systems Navigation Localization and Mapping Evolutionary Robotics Grasping Control Architectures and Programming Bio-Inspired Robots Aerial Robotics Contact Modeling and Touching Educational Robotics Smart Actuators Micro/nano robotics Embedded Systems architectures Reconfigurable robotic platforms Vision-based Systems Multi-robot systems Simulation Important Dates * Aug. 16, 2008: Paper submissions * Oct. 11, 2008: Author notification * Oct. 25, 2008: Camera-Ready Copy From pal at isr.ist.utl.pt Mon Jun 2 07:56:21 2008 From: pal at isr.ist.utl.pt (Pedro M. U. A. Lima) Date: Mon Jun 2 08:00:30 2008 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] RSS Workshop Teaching With Robots - final announcement Message-ID: <48440A15.9060608@isr.ist.utl.pt> Teaching With Robots Robotics: Science and Systems 2008 Workshop ETH, Z?rich, Switzerland 28 June 2008 Detailed program at http://www.tufts.edu/~crogers/RSS_Workshop.pdf Organizers Chris Rogers ? Tufts University, USA - crogers@tufts.edu Pedro Lima ? Instituto Superior T?cnico, Portugal - pal@isr.ist.utl.pt Roland Siegwart ? Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland - rsiegwart@ethz.ch Illah Nourbakhsh ? Carnegie Mellon University, USA - illah@cs.cmu.edu Aaron Dollar - MIT, USA - adollar@media.mit.edu Goal The three main goals of the workshop will be to (1) promote hands-on learning at the college level through robotics, (2) identify potential collaborators for increasing the robotics content of the college classroom, and (3) examine the effectiveness of competition-based learning (RoboCup, DARPA challenge, etc). Description Over the past 10 years, a number of low-cost, highly capable robotic platforms have come on the market and have introduced students to math, science, and engineering at all grade levels. Our goal with this workshop is to identify innovative ideas where the hands-on, project-based nature of these platforms have successfully improved student learning at the university level. We propose to identify this in two ways: presentations in the morning and a hands-on discussion in the afternoon. The morning will be comprised of 10 min talks, with the first 1.5 hours being presentations from faculty on successes and failures in the college classroom and the second 1.5 hours being presentations on successes and failures in the college robotic competition world. In the afternoon we will offer a 2.5 hour session of building and programming, where attendees will get a chance to build robots while talking amongst each other. The workshop will be of interest to all researchers and educators in Robotics who support Robotics education through hands-on experimental work in classes and competitions. The advantages and pitfalls of such approaches will be presented for several case studies and discussed for the general case. Schedule 8:30 ? 9:00 Welcome and goals 9:00-10:30 5 presentations (10 minutes each + discussion) by faculty in classroom robotics education ? successes and failures in the classroom 10:30?10:45 Break, informal discussion 10:45-12:15 5 presentations (10 minutes each + discussion) by faculty and mentors involved in robotic competitions ? successes and failures on the competition floor 12:15-1:30 Lunch 1:30-3:00 A chance to test out some of the different robotic toolsets From jlpons at iai.csic.es Tue Jun 3 00:21:57 2008 From: jlpons at iai.csic.es (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Jos=E9_L._Pons?=) Date: Tue Jun 3 03:05:01 2008 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Special Issue on Lower and Upper limb Exoskeletons in jABB Message-ID: <001501c8c54a$8202c310$81786fa1@Gaia> Dear Colleague I would greatly appreciate that you distribute this Call for Papers Special Issue on "Lower & Upper Limb Exoskeletons" for the journal: Applied Bionics and Biomechanics http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/11762322.asp Guest Editors: Professor Jos? L. Pons & Professor Jacob Rosen The deadline for Paper submissions is September, 30, 2008. For more information on this Special Issue, please contact me at the email address shown below. Please inform me at your earliest convenience if you can submit a contribution to this Special Issue. Hoping to hear from you soon. Best regards. Professor Jose L. Pons Email: jlpons@iai.csic.es Jos? L. Pons Grupo de Bioingenier?a - Bioengineering Group Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cient?ficas Ctra. Campo Real, km. 0,200 28500 Arganda del Rey, Madrid, Spain Tel.: 0034 918711900 Fax.: 0034 918717050 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://duerer.usc.edu/pipermail/robotics-worldwide/attachments/20080603/d4f0e7f2/attachment.html From antonelli at unicas.it Tue Jun 3 08:05:25 2008 From: antonelli at unicas.it (Gianluca Antonelli) Date: Tue Jun 3 08:30:32 2008 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] invitation to join the new RAS Marine Robotics Technical Committee Message-ID: <200806031705.25846.antonelli@unicas.it> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Apologies if you received multiple copies of this invitation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You are kindly invited to join the new Technical Committee (TC) on MARINE ROBOTICS of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. TCs encourage research in specific research areas. Membership is free and open to anyone; just email to antonelli@unicas.it to request membership. Further information can be found in the TC web page: http://webuser.unicas.it/antonelli/MarineRoboticsTC and in the RAS web page: http://www.ieee-ras.org/technical/index.php Please notice that, subscribing, you will receive a biannual newsletter. Most of the information will be collected in the webpage. Also, feel free to send us the link to your laboratory and any info you would like to see in the web page. We look forward to receive your request. Best, Gianluca Antonelli Andrew Bennett Giacomo Marani Richard Rikoski Dan Stilwell Junku Yuh From Olivier.Sigaud at lip6.fr Tue Jun 3 23:05:39 2008 From: Olivier.Sigaud at lip6.fr (Olivier Sigaud) Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2008 08:05:39 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2nd call : IROS 2008 workshop "From motor to interaction learning in robots", Nice, 26 sept. 2008 Message-ID: <35788.132.227.203.164.1212559539.squirrel@mailtwo.lip6.fr> Second call for abstract submission: less than one week before deadline. >From motor to interaction learning in robots An IROS 2008 workshop September 26, 2008 Acropolis Convention Center, Nice, FRANCE Deadline for abstract submission : June 10 Organizers: * Olivier Sigaud ISIR, UPMC-Paris 6, Paris, France * Jan Peters Max Planck Institute, Tubingen, Germany * Sethu Vijayakumar University of Edinburgh, Scotland see : http://webia.lip6.fr/~sigaud/IROS2008workshop.html Objectives and topics: From an engineering standpoint, in front of the increasing complexity of robotic systems and the increasing demand for more autonomous and more adaptive robots, the design of on-line, general purpose learning capabilities for their control becomes more and more mandatory. Furthermore, beyond autonomy and adaptation, in the case of humanoid robots in particular, the need for "natural" interaction capabilities with the human user(s) raises new challenges at the interface between interaction models and learning techniques. From neurophysiological studies of human subjects, it is more and more clear that there is much in common between motor learning processes and more cognitive learning and developmental processes, particularly dedicated to interaction. After the much celebrated discovery of the so called "mirror neurons" relating motor learning to imitation and language acquisition, several neurophysiological studies have revealed that brain areas generally considered as motor, such as the cerebellum, or dedicated to action selection, like the basal ganglia, are in fact implied in more general cognitive functions learning such as tool use, imitation, language and so forth. Taken together, these facts advocate for a hierarchical understanding of the brain architecture where motor learning and interaction learning are tightly coupled processes at the root of cognition. The complexity of the computational models resulting from this line of thinking raises the problem of their validation. Here, robotics plays a prominent role as a tool to evaluate the capability of these wide-scope models to give account of the phenomena they address. We particularly welcome papers on the following topics: * robotic implementation of computational or neuromimetic models of motor learning * robotic implementation of computational or neuromimetic models of interaction learning * robotic controllers combining motor learning and interaction learning * hierarchical models of mammal motor systems * computational principles underlying motor learning and/or interaction learning Intended audience: The goal of this workshop is to bring together researchers in "engineering sciences" (roboticists, machine learning experts) interested in motor learning and interaction learning to design better robots, and researchers in "life science" (computational neurosciences researchers, developmental psychologists) interested in robotic implementation of models of these processes in animals and humans, to get a more accurate picture of what both learning processes share, how they interact and how they can eventually be combined in the design of robot controllers. Call for abstracts: We invite submission of abstracts to be discussed or shown as posters during the workshop. Abstract submissions should be sent electronically via email in pdf format to: Olivier.Sigaud at isir.fr, indicating in the subject line "IROS2008 workshop submission". Submitted abstracts should have a maximal length of 4 pages (one page is OK) in 10pt, one-column format. Please use the LNCS Springer-Verlag style at http://www.springeronline.com/comp/lncs/authors.html. Abstracts will be reviewed for acceptance by the program committee and the organizers. We plan to get post-workshop proceedings published based on extended versions (around 20 pages) of your contributions, either as a book or as a special issue of an international journal. Important dates: Deadline for abstract submission June 10 Notification of acceptance July 1 Final version of abstract due July 10 Workshop September 26 Post-proceedings full paper submission Before December 2008 Confirmed speakers: Philippe Gaussier University of Cergy-Pontoise, France Auke Jan Ijspeert EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland Giorgio Metta University of Genova, Italy Stefano Nolfi ISTC, Roma, Italy Pierre-Yves Oudeyer INRIA, Bordeaux Sud-Ouest, France Jan Peters Max Planck Institute, Tubingen, Germany Olivier Sigaud UPMC-Paris 6, Paris, France Marc Toussaint University of Berlin, Germany Sethu Vijayakumar University of Edinburgh, Scotland Program committee: Philippe Gaussier University of Cergy-Pontoise, France Auke Jan Ijspeert EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland Giorgio Metta University of Genova, Italy Pierre-Yves Oudeyer INRIA, Bordeaux Sud-Ouest, France Jan Peters Max Planck Institute, Tubingen, Germany Olivier Sigaud UPMC-Paris 6, Paris, France Marc Toussaint University of Berlin, Germany Sethu Vijayakumar University of Edinburgh, Scotland Feel free to distribute this call as widely as possible Best regards, Olivier Sigaud, Jan Peters and Sethu Vijayakumar -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://duerer.usc.edu/pipermail/robotics-worldwide/attachments/20080604/3665bd1b/attachment-0001.htm From jennifer.l.burke at gmail.com Wed Jun 4 04:50:43 2008 From: jennifer.l.burke at gmail.com (Jenny Burke) Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2008 07:50:43 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IROS 2008 Workshop: Teaching HRI to Humans Message-ID: Workshop: Teaching HRI to Humans Human-robot interaction is widely acknowledged as one of the most critical areas of study in the coming decade. This 1?2 day workshop entitled "Teaching Human-Robot Interaction to Humans" will be held at the 2008 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems to be held September 22-26, 2008 in Nice, France. The workshop is designed to complement the IROS 2008 Conference by providing a forum for faculty teaching in the field of human-robot interaction to share teaching content and methods with their peers in an interactive setting. It is anticipated that the workshop can accommodate 20-30 participants, with preference given to those actively teaching HRI at the graduate or undergraduate level (or preparing to do so). The objectives of the workshop are to: - Create a community of educators within the emerging HRI research community - Identify what is essential in an HRI course - Leverage the experiences to date in teaching HRI - Define the content of a HRI course(s) for different audiences (engineering, psychology, multi-disciplinary, advance graduate, advanced undergraduate or first year graduate student) - Foster the exchange of best practices and pedagogical methods - Provide reference materials for instructors teaching HRI The motivation for the workshop is a direct response to a key finding from the NSF sponsored HRI Young Pioneers Workshops, held in conjunction with the annual ACM/IEEE Conference on Human Robot Interaction. One of the key published findings to emerge from these annual workshops is the need for an interdisciplinary course/ curriculum in human-robot interaction to be taught at the university level. However, there has been no venue for faculty to gather and discuss such a curriculum or teaching methods. The workshop will address the ideal content, structure and methods for teaching a graduate (or undergraduate) level course in human- robot interaction. The focus will be on teaching material directly related to HRI, both novel material that would not be covered in a non-HRI course (ex. affect) or would be taught in a new, multi- disciplinary way for HRI (ex. statistics, natural language processing, hardware design). Description The workshop will address the ideal content, structure and methods for teaching a graduate (or undergraduate) level course in human- robot interaction. The focus will be on teaching material directly related to HRI, both novel material that would not be covered in a non-HRI course (ex. affect) or would be taught in a new, multi- disciplinary way for HRI (ex. statistics, natural language processing, hardware design). Particular topics that will be addressed (but are not limited to) are: - What concepts or topics are unique, or essential, to HRI and must be included in a course? - What methods have been used to teach HRI to a multi-disciplinary audience? - How to teach statistics and evaluation methods? Are there examples of how psychology courses or materials can be leveraged for engineering and computer science majors? - What resources are available, such as the HRIweb website? What are the needs? The gaps? - What are lessons learned from summer schools and other events? - What is the role and experiences using simulations and competitions such as USARsim, Microsoft Robotics Studio, RoboCup, or other systems? - How to incorporate specific topics from established domains such as natural language programming and hardware design into a HRI course? The workshop's format includes short presentations from invited and selected participants, moderated discussion, and small group activities geared toward production of a shared set of teaching resources, including websites, videos, and syllabi/reading lists. Format The format of the workshop will be: - Keynote Address (tba) - Invited and Solicited Short Briefs on HRI Teaching Materials and Methods. - Breakout groups and discussion. Topics would include: The essential reading list The ?perfect? syllabus Hands-on exercises or activities for students Regional differences in teaching HRI Other topics suggested by participants - Moderated wrap-up discussion. This set of shared teaching resources will be published on the Workshop's website and the HRIweb site supported in part by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. In addition, depending on the maturity of the content, a special issue devoted to the teaching of HRI may be proposed for publication in an internationally recognized professional journal such as the Robotics and Automation Society Magazine. Submissions/Dates The workshop will have both invited speakers and speakers selected from solicited submissions. Invited Submissions: Participants are encouraged to submit 2-page briefs on HRI teaching materials and methods. The deadline for submission is June 30, 2008. Selected participants will give 5 -10 minute presentations during the workshop. Briefs and presentation slides will be published as part of the Workshop proceedings. Submissions should be sent directly to the conference organizers. 6/30/08 Deadline for workshop submissions 7/10/08 Notification of acceptance 7/21/08 Submission of final presentation materials (2 MB limit) to workshop organizers 9/22/08 Workshop Organizers: Dr. Jenny Burke, Director, Human-Robot Interaction Lab, University of South Florida, USA email: jennifer.l.burke at gmail.com Dr. Robin Murphy, University of South Florida, USA email: murphy at cse.usf.edu Dr. Aude Billard, EFPL, Switzerland email: aude.billard at epfl.ch Dr. Tatsuya Nomura, ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories & Ryukoku University, Japan email: nomura at rins.ryukoku.ac.jp We welcome your participation--come and be a part of the action in HRI Education! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://duerer.usc.edu/pipermail/robotics-worldwide/attachments/20080604/5f308f53/attachment-0001.htm From bredeche at lri.fr Wed Jun 4 09:18:34 2008 From: bredeche at lri.fr (Nicolas Bredeche) Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:18:34 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Post-doc offer at INRIA Tao in learning algorithms for collective robotic experiments Message-ID: <608587720806040918rea125f9pf87bf200bdcb067a@mail.gmail.com> TAO team is hiring a *Post-Doc* and/or a *PhD student* to work in Learning Algorithms for collective robotic experiments. *Context* The SYMBRION project is a European *Integrated Project* that aims to build self-addembling robotic organisms from autonomous individual small robots. WIthin Symbrion, the TAO team will investigate learning mechanisms in a multi-scale perspective, distinguishing adaptive learning (life-time learning, or on-line learning) and optimization (at an evolutionary time-scale). *Tasks* The task will be to design and implement Machine Learning algorithms under limited resources on the hybrid paltform (software and hardware) provided by the project partners. The stress will be put on dealing with huge robotic logs and learning to construct efficient controller modules. A first task will consist in applying some Learning and/or Data Mining techniques to multiple robot logs, while the robots are driven either by a human being or by a manually written controller. This should allow to automatically generate controller modules ? off-line. A second task will then be to design a high-level controller to perform the action selection among different modules, either hard-coded or automatically designed by the off-line procedure. This controller will be optimized either off-line using Evolutionary Computation, or on-line using some algorithms inspired from the Multi-Armed Bandit techniques. The ultimate goal of the project is to design on-line protocols to allow open-ended evolution at both scales of high-level controller and generation of new low-level modules. *Expertise* Knowledge in Machine Learning and Statistics is of course mandatory, as well as excellent programming skills (C++ and Java). Previous experience in Robotics and/or Evolutionary Computation is welcome. *Practical information* The TAO team is part of INRIA CRI Orsay ?le-de-France and its offices are in LRI at Universit? Pari-s-Sud. French public salaries are what they are, but include medical coverage. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://duerer.usc.edu/pipermail/robotics-worldwide/attachments/20080604/f261d0c6/attachment.htm From spong at control.csl.uiuc.edu Wed Jun 4 14:30:31 2008 From: spong at control.csl.uiuc.edu (Mark Spong) Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:30:31 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdoc positions at UT-Dallas Message-ID: <0c7b01c8c68a$3ba5b080$b2f11180$@csl.uiuc.edu> Post-Doc: University of Texas at Dallas, USA I am seeking one or more postdoctoral researchers in the general areas of robotics and nonlinear control. Particular interests are control of multi-agent and networked robotic systems, human/robot interaction, bilateral teleoperation, control over wireless networks, and bipedal locomotion. Candidates with interest and expertise in healthcare technology, such as wearable or implantable devices for health monitoring, chronic disease management and assistive devices are also strongly encouraged to apply. The successful candidate will have a PhD in engineering or applied mathematics with an emphasis in robotics and nonlinear control theory. Experience in experimental implementation of control is also highly desirable. These positions will be in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Texas at Dallas starting September, 2008, or later. Interested applicants should send, as a single email attachment, a CV (including list of publications), a brief statement of research interests and the names and contact information of three references to the following address: Before August 15th, 2008: Mark W. Spong Coordinated Science Laboratory University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1308 W. Main St. Urbana, IL 61801 After August 15th, 2008: Mark W. Spong, Dean Eric Jonsson School of Engineering Lars Magnus Ericsson Chair University of Texas at Dallas 800 W. Campbell Rd Richardson, TX 75080 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://duerer.usc.edu/pipermail/robotics-worldwide/attachments/20080604/8e64f099/attachment.htm From charlie.kemp at bme.gatech.edu Thu Jun 5 02:42:54 2008 From: charlie.kemp at bme.gatech.edu (Charlie Kemp) Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2008 05:42:54 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICDL 2008: 1-Page Abstracts Due June 11 and Early Registration Ends June 23 Message-ID: <4847B51E.6000607@bme.gatech.edu> 7th International Conference on Development and Learning Asilomar Conference Center, Monterey, California August 9th-12th, 2008, http://www.icdl08.org/ The organizers for ICDL 2008 would like to call your attention to the following notifications: ===================== 1) *One-page poster abstract submissions are due by Wednesday, June 11.* To encourage late-breaking results, the presentation of research not yet sufficiently mature for a full paper, and presentations by more junior investigators, ICDL is encouraging 1-page abstract submissions for poster presentations. These submissions will not be included in the conference proceedings and will be reviewed primarily for relevance. Accepted poster abstracts will be scheduled for presentation during the evening poster sessions. For more information, visit the ICDL submissions page: http://www.icdl08.org/submissions.htm Abstract submissions should be made here: http://icdl08.confmaster.net ===================== 2) *Early registration ends on June 23.* Room availability cannot be guaranteed after this date, and the substantial discounts for participation fees will end at this time. For more information, please visit the registration page: http://www.icdl08.org/Registration.htm From fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com Thu Jun 5 06:57:33 2008 From: fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com (Fabio Bonsignorio) Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:57:33 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Papers: ISR 2008 Special Session on Evaluation Metrics For Walking and Mobile Autonomous Systems Message-ID: (apologies for multiple postings) Dear All, ISR 2008 http://isr08.org/ will host a special session on the evaluation metrics for walking and mobile autonomous machines, with a focus on application and industrial needs (as well as information metrics and sensory motor coordination and such). Technical and position papers from both industry and academia are welcome. If you want to contribute please submit an abstract be email to the organizers by June 15th. This is a somehow hot topic as several related workshop are being organized around the world (under the auspices of EURON Special Interest Group on Good Experimental Methodology and Benchmarking in Robotics). There be aware that there will be a similar one - more academic - in Coimbra at CLAWAR 2008 in September (8-10) http://www.isr.uc.pt/clawar2008/. While two related will be at RSS 08 and IROS 2008. All the best Fabio Call for Papers Special Session on Evaluation Metrics For Walking and Mobile Autonomous Systems In this session will be collected a number of paper on the evaluation of autonomous robotics systems focused on walking machines and other mobile robots specific issues. Focusing in particular on the metrics most fit for the evaluation of overall robustness and energy efficiency, cognitive capabilities, degree of autonomy. A specific attention will be paid to research results replicability. Dates: June 12: Abstract due June 15: Acceptance notification June 29: Full paper due Organizers: Fabio P. Bonsignorio, Heron Robots s.r.l. Angel P. Del Pobil, University Jaume I Castellon John Hallam, South Denmark University -- Fabio P. Bonsignorio Ceo Heron Robots s.r.l. Via R.Ceccardi 1/18 I-16121 Genova Italy www.heronrobots.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://duerer.usc.edu/pipermail/robotics-worldwide/attachments/20080605/0b030ed8/attachment.htm From jmh at cs.utah.edu Thu Jun 5 09:45:51 2008 From: jmh at cs.utah.edu (John Hollerbach) Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:45:51 -0600 (MDT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJRR June 2008 Table of Contents Message-ID: <20080605164551.F0174B9C5D@veto.cs.utah.edu> A new issue of The International Journal of Robotics Research is available online: 1 June 2008; Vol. 27, No. 6 The below Table of Contents is available online at: http://ijr.sagepub.com/content/vol27/issue6/?etoc FAB-MAP: Probabilistic Localization and Mapping in the Space of Appearance Mark Cummins and Paul Newman The International Journal of Robotics Research 2008;27 647-665 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/6/647 Map Matching and Data Association for Large-Scale Two-dimensional Laser Scan-based SLAM Michael Bosse and Robert Zlot The International Journal of Robotics Research 2008;27 667-691 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/6/667 Case Studies in Planar Part Feeding and Assembly Based on Design of Limit Sets T.D. Murphey and K.M. Lynch The International Journal of Robotics Research 2008;27 693-708 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/6/693 Ankle Actuation for Limit Cycle Walkers D.G.E. Hobbelen and M. Wisse The International Journal of Robotics Research 2008;27 709-735 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/6/709 Operational Space Control: A Theoretical and Empirical Comparison Jun Nakanishi, Rick Cory, Michael Mistry, Jan Peters, and Stefan Schaal The International Journal of Robotics Research 2008;27 737-757 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/6/737 From asada at ams.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp Thu Jun 5 16:08:11 2008 From: asada at ams.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp (asada) Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:08:11 +0900 (JST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Welcome to Sab08 in Osaka! In-Reply-To: <0c7b01c8c68a$3ba5b080$b2f11180$@csl.uiuc.edu> References: <0c7b01c8c68a$3ba5b080$b2f11180$@csl.uiuc.edu> Message-ID: <20080606.080811.240488747.asada@ams.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp> Dear all, Thank you for your contribution to Sab08 in Osaka during July 7 and 12, 2008. We expect the very exciting conference with many participants. We shall have four very interesting plenary talks by Profs. Roberto Cordeschi, Ryohei Kanzaki, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and Linda Smith. Furthermore, on the evening of July 8, we shall have a special joint session with British Council featuring special talks by Profs. Giacomo Rizzolatti and Ron Chrisley, who are famous for mirror neurons and engineering consciousness, respectively, followed by a panel discussion. We would like to share this excitement with you at the conference. Please visit http://sab08.org/registration.html for your conference registration. Thanks in advance. -- Minoru Asada, the general chair of SAB08 --------------------------------------------------------- FROM ANIMALS TO ANIMATS 10 The 10th International Conference on the SIMULATION OF ADAPTIVE BEHAVIOR (SAB'08) 7-12 July 2008, Osaka, Japan http://sab08.org ORGANIZING COMMITTEE General Chair: Minoru Asada PC Chair: Jun Tani General Co-Chairs: John Hallam, Jean-Arcady Meyer IMPORTANT DATES Conference dates, July 7-10, 2008 Workshops date, July 11-12, 2008 The objective of this interdisciplinary conference is to bring together researchers in computer science, artificial intelligence, alife, control, robotics, neurosciences, ethology, evolutionary biology, and related fields so as to further our understanding of the behaviors and underlying mechanisms that allow natural and artificial animals to adapt and survive in uncertain environments. The conference will focus on experiments with well-defined models --- robot models, computer simulation models, mathematical models --- designed to help characterize and compare various organizational principles or architectures underlying adaptive behavior in real animals and in synthetic agents, the animats. From RainerBischoff at kuka-roboter.de Fri Jun 6 01:00:58 2008 From: RainerBischoff at kuka-roboter.de (BISCHOFF Rainer) Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:00:58 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IEEE-IFR Joint Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship - Call for Participation Message-ID: (I apologize if you receive this posting more than once.) -------------------------------------------------------------- IEEE-IFR Joint Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation (IERA 2008) -------------------------------------------------------------- Call for Participation -------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, June 11, 2008, Munich, Germany Website: http://www.ieee-ras.org/industrial/iera.php Flyer: http://www.ieee-ras.org/industrial/files/2008-06-11%20IEEE-IFR%20IERA%20Forum%20Final%20Flyer.pdf Program: http://www.ieee-ras.org/industrial/files/2008-06-11%20IEEE-IFR%20IERA%20Forum%20Final%20Program.pdf co-located with Robotik 2008 - Germany's largest robotics conference - June 11-12, 2008 http://www.robotik2008.de and Automatica 2008 - International Trade Fair for Automation - Assembly, Robotics, Vision - June 10-13, 2008 http://www.automatica-munich.de Sponsoring Organizations: International Federation of Robotics (http://www.ifr.org) IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (http://www.ieee-ras.org) -------------------------------------------------------------- The IERA 2008 Forum aims at promoting innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as synergy between academia and industry, in the robotics and automation community. IERA 2008 is organized by both the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) and the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (IEEE-RAS) and consists of: * Innovation and Entrepreneurship Workshop with two invited talks and concluding panel discussion: - The importance of close collaboration between academia and industry - Successful examples from recent years and future challenges. Dr. Bruno Siciliano, IEEE-RAS President, Professor of Control and Robotics PRISMA Lab, Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica, Universit? di Napoli Federico II - The Future of Personal Robotics. Dr.ir. A.J.N. (Albert) van Breemen, Technology & Innovation Consultant, founder of www.PersonalRobotics.nl * IEEE-IFR Invention & Entrepreneurship Award in Robotics and Automation Plenary Lectures and Award Ceremony: - The Kiva Mobile Fulfillment System. Peter Wurman (Eng. Fellow, Kiva Systems, Woburn, USA), Mick Mountz (CEO, Kiva Systems), Raffaello D'Andrea (Professor, ETH Zurich; Eng. Fellow, Kiva Systems) - MINEGEM(TM) - an autonomous underground loader. Elliot Duff (Senior Research Scientist, CSIRO ICT Centre, Kenmore, QLD, Australia) - Scape Bin-Picker. Rune Klausen Larsen (CEO, Scape Technologies A/S, Odense C, Denmark), Ivar Balslev (Deveopment manager, Scape Technologies A/S, Odense C, Denmark) - Assembly 21: innovative system and assembly concept for rear axle assembly for the new C-Class with cooperating robot teams. Dr. Michael Z?rn (Head of Forming, Joining and Assembly Technology, Mercedes-Benz Cars, Stuttgart, Germany), Thomas Brandstetter (Head of Power Train Production Planning Center), Dr. Dieter Steegm?ller (Head of Production and Materials Application Technology) - The Adept Quattro s650 Robot. Joachim Melis (Vice President, Worldwide Sales, Adept Technology, Inc.), Matt Bjork (Quattro Program Manager, Adept Technology Inc., Livermore, CA, USA) -------------------------------------------------------------- On behalf of the IERA 2008 organizing committee Rainer Bischoff Program Chair IERA 2008 KUKA Roboter GmbH 86165 Augsburg Germany Rainer.Bischoff at kuka-roboter.de www.kuka.com From edrumwri at gmail.com Thu Jun 5 20:55:33 2008 From: edrumwri at gmail.com (Evan Drumwright) Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:55:33 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] RSS Workshop on Advances in Simulation of Robot and Task Dynamics Message-ID: Advances in Simulation of Robot and Task Dynamics Robotics: Science and Systems 2008 Workshop Z?rich, Switzerland June, 28 2008 Detailed program: http://www.cs.memphis.edu/rss08-workshop/ Organizers: Evan Drumwright, University of Memphis, USA, edrmwrgh at memphis.edu Kurt Anderson, Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA, anderk5 at rpi.edu Roy Featherstone, Australian National University, Australia, roy.featherstone at anu.edu.au Motivation: Fast algorithms for simulating robot dynamics using multibody mechanics have existed for decades. However, simulated robots are typically restricted to performing free-space motion or locomotive tasks; only within the past few years has simulation of grasping been achieved. Roboticists have yet to simulate performance of tasks that theoretically should be capable of simulation with rigid body dynamics alone, like some part assembly tasks; rigid body dynamics by itself is inadequate to simulate many other tasks, like welding, driving screws, cutting, and drilling. The problems with the state-of-the-art are twofold. First, the numerous approximations employed- whether due to computational complexity requirements or modeling limitations- generally result in algorithms that are surprisingly brittle; significant parameter tuning is generally necessary to yield a stable simulation. Second, the predominant use of only rigid body dynamics strongly limits the types of tasks that can be simulated. Constraining the efforts to resolve these problems is hampered by the requirements to adhere to physical reality (as much as possible) and present low computational demands. Purpose: The purpose of this workshop is to inform roboticists of recent advances that permit dynamic simulation of robots performing tasks with greater robustness, accuracy, and speed than previously available. This workshop will also survey work from the fields of Mechanical Engineering, Computer Graphics, and Robotics toward simulation of a wide range of tasks by robots. Schedule: Time Talk title Speaker -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 02:00 Welcome and Organizers' Introduction TBA 02:15 Efficient Dynamics of Flexible Bodies Miguel A. Otaduy by Decoupling Global and Local Deformations 02:45 Aspects of Robot Dynamics Simulation Roy Featherstone 03:15 Iterative Numerical Methods to Solve Michael Moeller and Christoph Glocker Normal Cone Inclusions 03:45 Coffee Break 04:00 A Robust Algorithm for Modeling Evan Drumwright Contact in Dynamic Robotic Simulation 04:30 TBA Oussama Khatib 05:00 Adaptive Flexible Body Divide and Kurt Anderson Conquer Algorithm for the Efficient Modeling of Complex Systems 05:30 Discussions (all participants) and closing remarks From fabio.bonsignorio at gmail.com Fri Jun 6 09:33:03 2008 From: fabio.bonsignorio at gmail.com (Fabio Bonsignorio) Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:33:03 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Last Call for Papers: CLAWAR 2008 Special Session on Replication of Experiments and Benchmarking for clawar and mobile robots Message-ID: (apologies for multiple postings) Dear All, in CLAWAR 2008 http://www.isr.uc.pt/clawar2008/ there will be a special session on the Replication of Experiments and Benchmarking for clawar and mobile robots. Technical and position papers on climbing ans walking robots and other mobile robots are welcome. If you want to contribute you may still submit an (extended) abstract by email to the organizers by June 15th. Pls notice that several related workshop are being organized around the world (under the auspices of EURON Special Interest Group on Good Experimental Methodology and Benchmarking in Robotics) as the (puzzling?) issues of replicating research results and comparing and evaluating different approaches are raising a growing interest. There will be a similar one event, more industrial, at ISR 2008 in October (15-17) in Korea , www.isr08.org/ . While two related - with a broader scope, will be at RSS 08 , end of June zurich, http://www.roboticsconference.org/ , cfp and program coming soon, and IROS 2008, end of september in Nice, http://iros2008.inria.fr/, stay tuned for the call for papers. All the best Fabio Call for Papers Special Session on Replication of Experiments and Benchmarking for clawar and mobile robots As the complexity of current embodied mobile robot systems grows, it is more and more necessary to define proper experimental approaches and benchmarking procedures. Trustable benchmarks are needed to enable the comparison of the many research results in mobile robotics to make easier their potential application. Both replication and benchmarking are needed to foster a cumulative advancement of our knowledge of intelligent physical agents in general and clawar and mobile robots in particular and even to correctly appreciate disruptive innovation in the science and technology of robots. In this session will be collected a number of paper on experimental methodology and bechmarking of robotics systems focused on clawar and other mobile robots specific issues. Dates: June 15: Abstract due June 17: Acceptance notification June 30: Full paper due Organizers: Fabio P. Bonsignorio, Heron Robots s.r.l. Angel P. Del Pobil, University Jaume I Castellon John Hallam, South Denmark University -- Fabio P. Bonsignorio Ceo Heron Robots s.r.l. Via R.Ceccardi 1/18 I-16121 Genova Italy www.heronrobots.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://duerer.usc.edu/pipermail/robotics-worldwide/attachments/20080606/87800456/attachment.html From peter.corke at csiro.au Mon Jun 9 23:14:52 2008 From: peter.corke at csiro.au (Peter Corke) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:14:52 +1000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJRR Special issue on Robot Vision Message-ID: Special issue on Robot Vision Guest Editors: Francois Chaumette (INRIA, France), Peter Corke (CSIRO, Australia) and Paul Newman (University of Oxford, UK) Recent advances in computer vision are increasingly being applied to robots to augment, and even to replace, more traditional sensors such as odometry, laser rangefinders and GPS. Unlike laser rangefinders, computer vision is low-cost, small in size and passive, and unlike GPS it can operate in environments such as indoors, underground, underwater and space: Following on from the phenomenal success of the 2007 Special Issue on Vision & Robotics (joint special issue IJVC/IJRR) IJRR announces a Special Issue on Robot Vision. Original submissions are sought to present advances in vision theory and methods and its application to robotics including: *Visual odometry *Visual navigation *Integration or fusion of vision with other sensing modalities *Visual SLAM *Visual place recognition *Vision-based control *Robust vision techniques *Metrics for performance and robustness of vision systems *Novel visual sensors *Novel computational algorithms and architectures *Visual tracking *Robot vision applications Experimental results are particularly encouraged. Please note that the Journal has no page limit on papers and is a leader in archival publishing of data sets, code and videos with papers. Submission deadline: 1st October 2008 To submit go to: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijrr Please choose: ?Robot Vision? under manuscript type For full submission information contact Managing Editor, Jennet Batten: ijrr_man_editor at btinternet.com Publication: mid-2009 From info at isr09.com Tue Jun 10 02:23:42 2008 From: info at isr09.com (isr09) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:23:42 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 40th International Symposium on Robotics (ISR) in Barcelona Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, We are pleased to inform you that he Asociaci?n Espa?ola de Rob?tica y Automatizaci?n Tecnolog?as de la Producci?n (AER-ATP) organizes the 40th International Symposium on Robotics (ISR2009) that will be held on March 10-13, 2009 in Barcelona, Spain. ISR2009 will be a key event for the Robotics community, because it represents a meeting point for all scientific, technical and industrial topics related to robotics. One of the most relevant aims is that ISR 2009 creates an opportunity for old friends and colleagues to get together, and more important, to become acquainted with new peers from this field. The purpose of ISR2009 is to provide opportunities for researchers and engineers worldwide to present their pioneering works and to share ideas in the fields of Robotics. The Symposium will offer five kinds of sessions: scientific-technical, industrial, successful technology transfers, new product and research funds opportunities. Along these sessions the latest advances and discoveries, with the main reference figures and the most influential associations and companies, will be presented. Furthermore, ISR2009 will be held in parallel with Maquitec Fair, an important exhibition for all Industrial Metallurgy Sector that offers the latest trends and innovations, the largest international offer and the participation of the most important exhibitors and visitors with buying power. Also, Maquitec represents an open platform for professional debate, and it offers a wide programme of activities and technical workshops to reflect on the industry's present and future. On behalf of the Organizing Committee, we would like to warmly invite you to participate in the 40th ISR. You can find further information about the Symposium and the contribution submission process in the web: www.isr09.com The most important deadlines are: Deadline for contribution submission July 15, 2008 Notification of preliminary acceptance October 15, 2008 Deadline for final paper submission November 30, 2008 Notification of definitive acceptance December 30, 2008 Looking forward to seeing you in Barcelona. Mr. Juan Luis Elorriaga Prof. Luis Basa?ez General Chair of the 40th ISR Program Chair of the 40th ISR ISR'09 Rambla de Catalunya, 70 3?2? 08007 BARCELONA t. 34932155760 f. 34932152307 info @isr09.com www.isr09.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 4477 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://duerer.usc.edu/pipermail/robotics-worldwide/attachments/20080610/adc10c29/attachment.jpe From morri at cse.unsw.edu.au Tue Jun 10 07:05:02 2008 From: morri at cse.unsw.edu.au (Maurice Pagnucco) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:05:02 +1000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] REMINDER: Research Fellow/Senior Research Fellow in Autonomous Systems (Level B/C): closing June 13, 2008 In-Reply-To: References: <0FBC6473-3607-4BE3-AC6B-8A1161C2135E@cse.unsw.edu.au> <5.2.0.9.2.20080529084646.03704290@pop.usyd.edu.au> Message-ID: <99013099-5E5A-4AC8-850C-34781BF77D74@cse.unsw.edu.au> Research Fellow/Senior Research Fellow in Autonomous Systems (Level B/C) Faculty of Engineering School of Computer Science and Engineering REF. 5862NET The ARC Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems (CAS) at the University of New South Wales School of Computer Science and Engineering seeks to employ up to three research fellows to conduct high quality and innovative research in autonomous systems. The ARC Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems is an Australian Research Council funded research centre with nodes at UNSW, the University of Sydney and the University of Technology, Sydney. It is one of the leading centres of research in autonomous systems world-wide. The centre's current research themes are: persistent autonomy, multi-robot cooperation and human-machine interaction. Within these themes the UNSW node of CAS conducts research in robot learning, knowledge representation and planning, human robot interaction, urban search and rescue and tactile sensing. It has won awards in competitions including the RoboCup Four-Legged Robot Soccer League and in RoboCup Rescue. Successful candidates may work in any of three projects. CAS has been actively developing robots for urban search and rescue for several years. Research opportunities exist in perception and mapping in unstructured environments; machine learning to autonomously drive robots over rough terrain; and human-robot interaction. A humanoid torso has been constructed for the purpose of exploring human-robot interaction, including teaching by demonstration, speech and gesture interfaces. This project also includes the development of novel tactile sensors. The third major project focusses on multi-robot planning and co-operation. This follows approaches from Cognitive Robotics, Constrain Solving and Machine Learning. Candidates should have a PhD in Computer Science, Computer, Software, Electrical, Mechatronic Engineering or similar, as well as demonstrated ability to see your research integrated on real robotic systems. The successful candidate should combine strong theoretical knowledge with a background in building software and hardware systems. We particularly seek candidates with track records in Machine Learning, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Constraint Programming, Speech and Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision (including visual gesture recognition or face recognition). Positions are fixed term for 3 years. The salary range for Research Fellow is A$71,779 - A$84,618 and for Senior Research Fellow is A $87,182 - A$100,022 per year (plus up to 17% employer superannuation plus leave loading). Membership of a university approved superannuation scheme is a condition of employment. Level of appointment and responsibility will be commensurate with qualifications and experience Applicants should systematically address the selection criteria in their application. All applications must be completed online by visiting the University of New South Wales Human Resources web site: http://www.hr.unsw.edu.au/services/recruitment/application.html The Information Package can be found at:http://www.hr.unsw.edu.au/services/recruitment/jobs/info/pd16050805.pdf Enquiries maybe directed to Associate Professor Maurice Pagnucco, by telephone (61 2) 9385 6925 or email: morri at cse.unsw.edu.au For further information about the School, please visit: www.cse.unsw.edu.au Applications close : 13 June 2008 __ Maurice Pagnucco email: morri at cse.unsw.edu.au School of Computer Science and Engineering phone: +61-2-9385 6925 The University of New South Wales fax : +61-2-9385 5995 NSW 2052, AUSTRALIA WWW: http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~morri/ From Jean-Pierre.Merlet at sophia.inria.fr Tue Jun 10 08:26:24 2008 From: Jean-Pierre.Merlet at sophia.inria.fr (Jean-Pierre Merlet) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:26:24 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IROS 2008: final submission Message-ID: <484E9D20.10008@sophia.inria.fr> Final submission site and registration site for IROS 2008, 22-26 September 2008, Nice, are now open at: http://iros2008.inria.fr All authors should have received by now an acceptance or rejection email. Otherwise please consult the conference Secretariat. Note that a final check of the accepted papers with respect to the reviewers comments will be performed. Papers that fail this check will have to be re-uploaded. Hence we strongly advise you to submit the revised version and to register as soon as possible. IROS 2008 Organization Committee From abab-hadiashar at swin.edu.au Tue Jun 10 19:23:38 2008 From: abab-hadiashar at swin.edu.au (Ali Bab-Hadiashar) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:23:38 +1000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] JOB: Two professorial positions in Electrical Engineering and Robotics and Mechatronics Message-ID: <484F372A.103@swin.edu.au> Position: Professors in Electrical Engineering and Robotics and Mechatronics Institution: Swinburne University of Technology, Australia Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Sciences Engineering at Swinburne is being further strengthened by the appointment of two Professors to key leadership roles in the areas of: Electrical and Electronic Engineering Robotics and Mechatronics Our Professors will: * Contribute to the strategic direction of Engineering at Swinburne * Provide leadership and promote innovation and excellence in research, teaching and learning * Develop research within their discipline and in collaboration, both nationally and internationally Position Number: 25289 Appointment Duration: Full-Time, Ongoing Salary: Academic Level E, $124,453 plus 17% employer contribution to superannuation Applications Close: 23 June 2008 Further information is available at: http://swinburne.nga.net.au/mjs_customer_data/swinburne/job_files/1971/PD25289.pdf From alonzo at cmu.edu Tue Jun 10 12:34:58 2008 From: alonzo at cmu.edu (Alonzo Kelly) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:34:58 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Papers for FSR 2009 Message-ID: <484ED762.5040800@cmu.edu> CALL FOR PAPERS The 7th International Conference on Field and Service Robotics (FSR?09) July 14-16 2009 Cambridge Massachusetts, USA. http://www.rec.ri.cmu.edu/fsr09 IMPORTANT DATES 27 February 2009 Receipt of full length papers 18 May 2009 Acceptance and Invitation 15 June 2009 Submission of Camera Ready Manuscripts 14-16 July2009 Conference DESCRIPTION The 7th International Conference on Field and Service Robotics (FSR'09) will be held in Cambridge Massachusetts, USA on July 14-16 2009. The conference will provide a forum for researchers, professionals and manufacturers to exchange up-to-date technical knowledge and experience. In addition to the technical sessions, there will be plenary and invited sessions. We invite papers describing original work in a number of technical areas, including: ? Mining, Agriculture and Forestry Robotics ? Construction Robots ? Search and Rescue Robotics ? Cleaning, Floor and Lawn Care Robotics ? Security Robotics ? Medical and Health Care Robotics ? Entertainment Robotics ? Autonomous Vehicles for Land, Air and Sea ? Planetary Surface Exploration Robots ? Intelligent Automobiles We also invite papers on technologies related to the above applications. SELECTED PAPERS FOR JOURNAL PUBLICATION Selected papers will be considered for publications on the following journals: - Special issue of the International Journal of Robotics Research - Special issue of the Journal of Field Robotics In addition, a book version of the Conference Proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag in their STAR series. CONFERENCE LOCATION The conference will be held on the MIT campus in Cambridge. In addition to reserved blocks in nearby hotels, we expect to be able to offer campus accommodation as a lower cost alternative. SUBMISSION PROCEDURE Prospective authors should consult the conference web site for details of paper format and submission procedure. PROGRAM COMMITTEE Martin Beuhler: IRobot, USA Wolfram Burgard: U Freiburg, Germany Toshio Fukuda: Nagoya University, Japan Satoshi Kagami: AIST, Japan Simon Lacroix: LAAS, France David P Miller: U Oklahoma, USA Paul Newman: U Oxford, England, Liam Pedersen: NASA Ames, USA Miguel Angel Salichs: Univ. Carlos III, Spain Sanjiv Singh: Carnegie Mellon U, USA Gaurav S Sukhatme: U Southern California, USA Satoshi Tadokoro: Tohoku U, Japan Takashi Tsubouchi: U of Tsukuba, Japan Arto Visala: Helsinki U of Tech, Finland Uwe Zimmer: ANU, Australia INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM & ORGANIZING COMMITTEE Hajime Asama: U Tokyo, Japan Raja Chatila: LAAS/CNRS, France Henrik Christensen: Georgia Tech, USA Peter Corke: CSIRO, Australia Aarne Halm: Helsinki U of Tech, Finland John Hollerbach: U of Utah, USA Andrew Howard: JPL / Cal Tech, USA John Leonard: MIT, USA Oussama Khatib: Stanford U, USA Agostino Martinelli: INRIA, France Christian Laugier: INRIA, France Eduardo Nebot: U Sydney, Australia Erwin Prassler: U App Sci Bonn, Germany Jonathan Roberts: CSIRO, Australia Daniela Rus:, MIT, USA Roland Siegwart: ETH Zurich, Switzerland Salah Sukkarieh: U Sydney, Australia Chuck Thorpe: CMU, Qatar Sebastian Thrun: Stanford, USA David Wettergreen: CMU, USA Kazuya Yoshida: NAISY, Japan Shin?Ichi Yuta: U of Tsukuba, Japan Alex Zelinsky: CSIRO Australia ORGANIZERS AND CONTACT INFO Alonzo Kelly - CMU, USA (alonzo at cmu.edu) Karl Iagnemma - MIT, USA (kdi at MIT.EDU) Andrew Howard - JPL, USA (Andrew.B.Howard at jpl.nasa.gov) From liyi at cs.sfu.ca Tue Jun 10 11:52:23 2008 From: liyi at cs.sfu.ca (Yi Li) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:52:23 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IROS 2008 Half-Day Tutorial: Fast Marching Method Message-ID: <200806101852.m5AIqNJ6024950@rm-rstar.sfu.ca> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... 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Name: IROS 2008 Half-Day Tutorial on Fast Marching Method.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 60624 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://duerer.usc.edu/pipermail/robotics-worldwide/attachments/20080610/c1159293/attachment-0001.pdf From Olivier.Sigaud at lip6.fr Wed Jun 11 04:14:16 2008 From: Olivier.Sigaud at lip6.fr (Olivier Sigaud) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:14:16 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Deadline extension : *june 16* (IROS workshop "From motor to interaction learning in robots") Message-ID: <491e05c8a598ea41dc1f0186a8f517fa.squirrel@mailtwo.lip6.fr> Dear colleagues, Please note that the deadline has been extended up to next monday, june 16. >From motor to interaction learning in robots An IROS 2008 workshop September 26, 2008 Acropolis Convention Center, Nice, FRANCE Deadline for abstract submission *Monday, June 16* Organizers: * Olivier Sigaud ISIR, UPMC-Paris 6, Paris, France * Jan Peters Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tubingen, Germany * Sethu Vijayakumar University of Edinburgh, Scotland see : http://webia.lip6.fr/~sigaud/IROS2008workshop.html Objectives and topics: >From an engineering standpoint, in front of the increasing complexity of robotic systems and the increasing demand for more autonomous and more adaptive robots, the design of on-line, general purpose learning capabilities for their control becomes more and more mandatory. Furthermore, beyond autonomy and adaptation, in the case of humanoid robots in particular, the need for "natural" interaction capabilities with the human user(s) raises new challenges at the interface between interaction models and learning techniques. From neurophysiological studies of human subjects, it is more and more clear that there is much in common between motor learning processes and more cognitive learning and developmental processes, particularly dedicated to interaction. After the much celebrated discovery of the so called "mirror neurons" relating motor learning to imitation and language acquisition, several neurophysiological studies have revealed that brain areas generally considered as motor, such as the cerebellum, or dedicated to action selection, like the basal ganglia, are in fact implied in more general cognitive functions learning such as tool use, imitation, language and so forth. Taken together, these facts advocate for a hierarchical understanding of the brain architecture where motor learning and interaction learning are tightly coupled processes at the root of cognition. The complexity of the computational models resulting from this line of thinking raises the problem of their validation. Here, robotics plays a prominent role as a tool to evaluate the capability of these wide-scope models to give account of the phenomena they address. We particularly welcome papers on the following topics: * robotic implementation of computational or neuromimetic models of motor learning * robotic implementation of computational or neuromimetic models of interaction learning * robotic controllers combining motor learning and interaction learning * hierarchical models of mammal motor systems * computational principles underlying motor learning and/or interaction learning Intended audience: The goal of this workshop is to bring together researchers in "engineering sciences" (roboticists, machine learning experts) interested in motor learning and interaction learning to design better robots, and researchers in "life science" (computational neurosciences researchers, developmental psychologists) interested in robotic implementation of models of these processes in animals and humans, to get a more accurate picture of what both learning processes share, how they interact and how they can eventually be combined in the design of robot controllers. Call for abstracts: We invite submission of abstracts to be discussed or shown as posters during the workshop. Abstract submissions should be sent electronically via email in pdf format to: Olivier.Sigaud at isir.fr, indicating in the subject line "IROS2008 workshop submission". Submitted abstracts should have a maximal length of 4 pages (one page is OK) in 10pt, one-column format. Please use the LNCS Springer-Verlag style at http://www.springeronline.com/comp/lncs/authors.html. Abstracts will be reviewed for acceptance by the program committee and the organizers. We plan to get post-workshop proceedings published based on extended versions (around 20 pages) of your contributions, either as a book or as a special issue of an international journal. Important dates: Deadline for abstract submission June 16 Notification of acceptance July 1 Final version of abstract due July 10 Workshop September 26 Post-proceedings full paper submission Before December 2008 Confirmed speakers: Philippe Gaussier University of Cergy-Pontoise, France Auke Jan Ijspeert EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland Giorgio Metta University of Genova, Italy Stefano Nolfi ISTC, Roma, Italy Pierre-Yves Oudeyer INRIA, Bordeaux Sud-Ouest, France Jan Peters Max Planck Institute, Tubingen, Germany Olivier Sigaud UPMC-Paris 6, Paris, France Marc Toussaint University of Berlin, Germany Sethu Vijayakumar University of Edinburgh, Scotland Program committee: Philippe Gaussier University of Cergy-Pontoise, France Auke Jan Ijspeert EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland Giorgio Metta University of Genova, Italy Pierre-Yves Oudeyer INRIA, Bordeaux Sud-Ouest, France Jan Peters Max Planck Institute, Tubingen, Germany Olivier Sigaud UPMC-Paris 6, Paris, France Marc Toussaint University of Berlin, Germany Sethu Vijayakumar University of Edinburgh, Scotland Olivier Sigaud Institut des Syst?mes Intelligents et de Robotique Universit? Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6, CNRS FRE 2507 4 place Jussieu, F75252 Paris Cedex 05 http://animatlab.lip6.fr/~sigaud ------------------------------------------------- This message is displayed exclusively with recycled electrons Ce message est affich? exclusivement avec des ?lectrons recycl?s From denis at icmc.usp.br Wed Jun 11 05:44:21 2008 From: denis at icmc.usp.br (Denis Wolf) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:44:21 -0300 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for papers: ACM SAC 2009 - Robotics Track Message-ID: <484FC8A5.1070104@icmc.usp.br> ACM SAC 2009 - CALL FOR PAPERS Track: Intelligent Robotic Systems (ROBOT) http://www.icmc.usp.br/~lrm/sac09/ The 24th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SIGAPP) March 8 - 12, 2009, Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort & Spa Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA (http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2009/) For the past twenty-three years, the ACM Symposium on Applied Computing has been a primary gathering forum for applied computer scientists, computer engineers, software engineers, and application developers from around the world. For the second year, the ACM SAC will have a specific track on robotics. It aims to be a forum for researchers to share experiences, expose issues, and discuss about this exciting research field. Robotics is a multidisciplinary area of study that presents an enormous commercial and research potential. While industrial robotics covers the study, design, and use of robot systems for manufacturing, mobile robotics concerns about developing systems that are capable of making decisions and acting autonomously in real and unpredictable environments to accomplish determined tasks. In the last decade, technological advances made possible the development of very efficient sensors and electronic devices at affordable prices. This fact has great impact on robotics research, allowing the development of efficient and relatively cheap sensors and computing devices. It also allows robots to accomplish more complex tasks, posing new challenges to scientists and engineers. This track focuses on all aspects of robotics, including related areas and applications. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Rehabilitation Robotics Humanoid Robotics Underwater Robots Search and Rescue Robots Entertainment Robots Multi-robot Coordination Active Perception and Vision Coverage and Deployment Learning Autonomous systems Navigation Localization and Mapping Evolutionary Robotics Grasping Control Architectures and Programming Bio-Inspired Robots Aerial Robotics Contact Modeling and Touching Educational Robotics Smart Actuators Micro/nano robotics Embedded Systems architectures Reconfigurable robotic platforms Vision-based Systems Multi-robot systems Simulation Important Dates Aug. 16, 2008: Paper submissions Oct. 11, 2008: Author notification Oct. 25, 2008: Camera-Ready Copy From millfron at yonsei.ac.kr Wed Jun 11 23:33:53 2008 From: millfron at yonsei.ac.kr (Jung-Min Park) Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:33:53 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [CFP] Special Issue of IEEE Wireless Communications on "Wireless Communications in Networked Robotics" Message-ID: <000301c8cc56$48d791c0$da86b540$@ac.kr> [Apologies for possible multiple copies] =================================================== Call for Papers IEEE Wireless Communications Special Issue on: Wireless Communications in Networked Robotics http://www.comsoc.org/dl/pcm/cfpwcm0209.htm =================================================== Background: Wireless communication has been a key driving force in recent years both in academia and in industry. It has currently expanded to wireless multihop networks, which include ad hoc radio networks, sensor networks, wireless mesh networks and mobile multihop relay systems. With multihop capability, wireless communication can be combined with cooperative communications and network coding, which has attracted even more researchers to this field. In many wireless multihop networks, the merits of capacity enhancement as well as coverage exceed the delay caused by multihop relay. Still, however, there are unresolved issues that may not be necessarily technical; one question regards the real motivation of a relay node that allows packet relay for the other transmitting nodes by consuming its own energy. There is also a security issue in multihop communications, in the sense that one's own data transmission is received by someone else in close proximity. On the other hand, in the networked robotics area, researchers try to realize group behaviors found in small insects or animals, in order to control and coordinate a team of robots. Especially, real-time wireless communication can help dynamic resource management and self-organization for a team of cooperative robots. The multiple robots communicate with each other, sharing the same mission, naturally through wireless communications. In this respect, wireless communication is an excellent candidate for inter-robot information exchange. This special issue is an attempt to bridge these two dynamic areas. We welcome submissions on all aspects of these themes, which include (but are not limited to) the following topics: - Communication architecture for collaborative robot systems - Biologically inspired swarm robotics with networking functionality - Multiple robot networking with multihop- and cooperative communications - Network coding and wireless relay technologies for cooperative robotics - Applications of multi-robot network systems - Ad hoc robot networks - Cognitive communication technologies for inter-robot team work - Exploiting robot mobility in wireless relay networks - QoS support and resource management in networked robotics - Wireless networks under node mobility Manuscript Submission With regard to both the content and formatting style of the submissions, prospective contributors must follow the IEEE Wireless Communications guidelines at http://www.comsoc.org/pubs/pcm/sub_guidelines.html. Submitted papers must be original and must not be under current consideration for publication in other venues. Authors should submit a PDF format of their complete papers via EDAS at http://edas.info (direct link: http://edas.info/newPaper.php?c=6595&) Important Dates: - Paper submission deadline: July 31, 2008 - Notification of acceptance: October 15, 2008 - Final manuscript Due: November 15, 2008 - Publication date: February, 2009 Guest Editors: - Seong-Lyun Kim, Yonsei Univ., Korea (slkim AT yonsei.ac.kr) - Jean-Yves Le Boudec, EPFL, Switzerland (jean-yves.leboudec AT epfl.ch) - Wolfram Burgard, Univ. Freiburg, Germany (burgard AT informatik.uni-freiburg.de) - DaeEun Kim, Yonsei Univ., Korea (daeeun AT yonsei.ac.kr) From cetto at iri.upc.edu Fri Jun 13 02:30:24 2008 From: cetto at iri.upc.edu (Juan Andrade Cetto) Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:30:24 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PRE/POSTDOC AND ENGINEER POSITIONS OFFERED AT IRI IN BARCELONA Message-ID: <48523E30.9020703@iri.upc.edu> PRE/POSTDOC AND ENGINEER POSITIONS OFFERED AT IRI IN BARCELONA The Robotics Group at the Institut de Robotica i Informatica Industrial, CSIC-UPC, Barcelona, seeks qualified candidates for a predoctoral, postdoctoral, and research engineer positions in the field of mobile robotics. OFFER1. TECHNICAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPER Topic: Ubiquitous Robotics for Urban Areas Deadline: July 15, 2007 The position starts September 1, 2008 Duration: 1 year, renewable for 1 more year Nationality: Any. (Work Permit Required for Non-EU Residents). Positions available: 2 The applicants will work within the National Project project "Ubiquitous Robotics for Urban Areas", and the European Project ?Ubiquitous Robotics in Urban Settings? (http://www-iri.upc.es/urus), and will concentrate on developing software and hardware for cooperation between mobile robots and camera sensor networks, in order to help humans in urban tasks, specifically in the area of assistance and guidance of people. OFFER2. PHD RESEARCH ASSISTANTSHIP Topic: Human-robot Interaction Deadline: July 15, 2007 The position starts September 1, 2008 Duration: 4 years Nationality: Any. The applicant will work towards a PhD degree at IRI and the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya. She/he will perform research under the National Project "Multimodal Interaction in Pattern Recognition and Computer Vision." (http://miprcv.iti.upv.es/), and will have the opportunity to perform research on any topic related with computer vision, human-robot interaction, and pattern recognition. OFFER 3. POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP Topic: Multimodal Interaction in Pattern Recognition and Computer Vision Deadline: July 15, 2007 The position starts September 1, 2008 Duration: 1 year, renewable up to 4 years Nationality: Any. The applicant will perform both independent and collaborative state of the art research at IRI in mobile robotics, computer vision, human-robot interaction, pattern recognition, or a related field. She/he will perform research under the National Project "Multimodal Interaction in Pattern Recognition and Computer Vision." (http://miprcv.iti.upv.es/) The ideal candidates for positions 1 and 2 will hold a degree in computer science, computer or electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, mathematics, or related fields. She/he should have excellent programming skills in C, C++, and Matlab, and a good background in systems theory, linear algebra, and algorithms, is desirable. A good English level is required. In addition to these requisites, candidates for the postdoctoral appointment will hold a doctoral degree (or be near completion) in robotics, computer vision, or a related field; and a proven record of research excellence with journal and conference publications. Interested candidates can apply for theses position directly by contacting Alberto Sanfeliu at sanfeliu at iri.upc.edu, sending a letter of motivation, indicating the position of interest, a detailed CV and academic curricula, and the names of two references. -- Juan Andrade Cetto Institut de Rob?tica i Inform?tica Industrial CSIC-UPC Llorens i Artigas 4-6, 2a pl. 08028 Barcelona, Spain Tel. +34 934010775 Fax. +34 934015750 cetto at iri.upc.edu From jhoh at kaist.ac.kr Fri Jun 13 16:17:12 2008 From: jhoh at kaist.ac.kr (=?euc-kr?B?v8DB2Mij?=) Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 08:17:12 +0900 (KST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [Call for papers]IEEE international Conference on Humanoid Robot, 2008(Humanoids2008) Message-ID: <11991029.3811213399032743.JavaMail.kebi@webmail.kaist.ac.kr> Dear Colleagues, Title: Call for papers: IEEE international Conference on Humanoid Robot, 2008(Humanoids2008) Humanoid is the ultimate form of robot in the future. Even though there has been a great deal of research and development in this area last decade many people agree that the humanoid robot is still far behind to be social entities, agents or actors as a part of human?s life environment. Humanoids2008(www.humanoids2008.org), the 7th conference follows Pittsburg, USA(2007) and Genoa, Italy(2006), is IEEE Robot and Systems(RAS) sponsored conference focus on humanoid robot to share the experience and research activities to achieve our common goal, creation of humanoids. The conference will be held at Hotel Riviera(www.hotelriviera.co.kr) near KAIST, Daejon, Korea from 1st to 3rd December, 2008. The organizing committee of Humanoids2008 would like to invite submissions of research papers which report latest work exploring themes of humanoid robot and its related areas. Researches in humanoid robot are not restricted only in full body humanoid robots but they are spanned from basic biped walking, motion planning, software/hardware structures and advanced robot components to cognition, perception, human-robot interaction, social and ethical issues. Suggested topics of interest include: - Design and control of full-body humanoid robots - Motion planning - Cognition, perception and learning for humanoid robots - Advanced components for humanoid robots - Sub-parts, e.g. hands, arms, legs and etc., for humanoid robots - Humanoid robot platforms for applications - Anthropomorphism in humanoid robotics - Software and hardware architecture and system integration - Human-humanoid interaction - Planning, localization and navigation - Development tools for humanoid robots But the authors area not restricted in the topics listed above. The important dates involved are:- 1st July - Deadline for submission of full papers 20th September - Notification of acceptance + feedback of reviews 15th October - Deadline for camera ready copies 1st December - Workshop/Tutorial for Humanoids2008 2nd -3rd December - Humanoids2008 Submission of full papers should be made via internet. Please find the way for on-line paper submission at author area of http://www.humanoids2008.org. Best regards, Prof. Jun Ho Oh General chair of Humanoids2008 Director of Humanoid robot research center(Hubo Lab), KAIST Professor of Mechanical Engineering, KAIST www.humanoids2008.org From mb at tum.de Fri Jun 13 04:10:42 2008 From: mb at tum.de (Martin Buss) Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:10:42 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PhD / Research Assistant / PostDoc at Tech Univ Munich Message-ID: <485255B2.6090508@tum.de> *2nd call-for-applications* In the Institute of Automatic Control Engineering and Autonomous Systems www.lsr.ei.tum.de, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Muenchen, Germany, several PhD / research assistant / PostDoc positions need to be filled. While exceptionally strong candidates are considered anytime, our specific, current needs are in the direction of multi-robot and multi-agent systems. The positions are embedded into the DFG excellence research cluster "Cognition for Technical Systems - CoTeSys" www.cotesys.org. A group of excellent people with strong disciplinary background (control, mechanical or electrical engineering, communication, information theory, computer science) and interest to work in an interdisciplinary environment are desired. The positions are fully paid according to the German rules (formerly BAT-IIa). Requirements are a successful degree (master/diploma/doctoral/PhD) with excellent records. Please send your application including your complete CV, relevant certificates, and some of your publications by Email to office at lsr.ei.tum.de with the Keyword "PosCoTeSys". TUM is especially encouraging minorities and women to apply, because of its strong commitment to diversity in engineering education, research, and practice. Closing date is 30 June 2008. -- --------------------------------------------------------- Univ.-Professor Dr.-Ing./Univ. Tokio Martin Buss Ordinarius Lehrstuhl f?r Steuerungs- und Regelungstechnik Fakult?t f?r Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik Technische Universit?t M?nchen 80290 M?nchen -- RO-MAN 2008 in M?nchen -> http://www.ro-man2008.org 17th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication -- "Kognition f?r technische Systeme", http://www.cotesys.org Tel.: 089 289-28395, Fax: 089 289-28340 mailto:mb at tum.de (or mailto:M.Buss at ieee.org) WWW: http://www.lsr.ei.tum.de --------------------------------------------------------- Martin Buss Professor, Chair, and Director, Institute of Automatic Control Engineering (LSR) Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology Munich University of Technology D-80290 Munich, Germany -- RO-MAN 2008 in Munich -> http://www.ro-man2008.org 17th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication -- "Cognition for Technical Systems", http://www.cotesys.org http://www.dfg.de/en/research_funding/coordinated_programmes/excellence_initiative/index.html Tel.: +49 89 289-28395, Fax: +49 89 289-28340 mailto:mb at tum.de (or mailto:M.Buss at ieee.org) WWW: http://www.lsr.ei.tum.de From morales at icc.uji.es Fri Jun 13 06:38:16 2008 From: morales at icc.uji.es (Toni) Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:38:16 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IEEE/RSJ IROS 2008 Workshop on Robot Simulation - Call for papers Message-ID: <48527848.7040304@icc.uji.es> CALL FOR PAPERS WORKSHOP ON ROBOT SIMULATORS: AVAILABLE SOFTWARE, SCIENTIFIC APPLICATTIONS AND FUTURE http://www.robot.uji.es/research/events/iros08/ To be held at 2008 IEEE/RSJ INT. CONFERENCE ON INTELLIGENT ROBOTS AND SYSTEMS (IROS 2008) 26 September 2008, Nice, France http://iros2008.inria.fr/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SCOPE: The main goal of this workshop is to bootstrapping a discussion between researchers on the current state and potential uses of robot simulators in the scientific research on robotics. The workshop will be organized around two main aspects. The first one, a review of currently available simulator software. This will consider the software to solve the relevant parts of a simulation: physic engines, render engines, collision detection and contact modeling, and sensor simulation. The second aspect will rely on the presentation and description of innovative simulation uses in the robotics community. This part is intended to allow assistants to describe how they are using simulators in their research. There will also place to propose and discuss about future potential applications. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): - Robot simulators. - Simulators development - Sensor simulation applied to robotics. - Collision detection and contact modeling. - Simulation applied to robot grasping and manipulation. SUBMISSION Authors willing to participate and present their current work are invited to submit contributions. Initial submission can consist in a 2 pages abstract or in 8 pages full paper. Submission must be sent in PDF format to Antonio.Morales at uji.es. Detailed information about the format of the papers can be found at IROS site (http://iros2008.inria.fr). IMPORTANT DATES * Paper submission: June 27, 2008 * Notification : July 7, 2008 * Final submission: July 21, 2008 * Workshop: Sept. 26, 2008 ORGANIZERS Antonio Morales (University Jaume I, Spain) Tamim Asfour (University of Karlsruhe, Germany) More information in the workshop site: http://www.robot.uji.es/research/events/iros08/ From ppayeur at site.uOttawa.ca Fri Jun 13 19:02:28 2008 From: ppayeur at site.uOttawa.ca (Pierre Payeur) Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:02:28 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2nd CFP - ROSE 2008 - IEEE Intl Workshop on RObotic and Sensors Environments Message-ID: [Our apologies if you receive multiple copies of this announcement.] C A L L F O R P A P E R S - ROSE 2008 ***On-Line Manuscript Submission is now open for ROSE 2008*** ROSE 2008 - IEEE International Workshop on RObotic and Sensors Environments - Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 17-18 October 2008 http://www.site.uottawa.ca/ROSE2008 =============================================================== Important dates: PAPER SUBMISSION: 4 July 2008 Notification : 18 August 2008 Final manuscript: 5 September 2008 --------------------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS The focus of the ROSE conference series is on sensing and perception modalities, as well as their impact on autonomous robotics and intelligent systems development and applications. Papers are solicited on all aspects of Sensing Systems and Technologies for Robotics and Industrial Automation, Human-Robot Cooperation, Multimodal or Distributed Sensing, and Perception technologies. These include but are not limited to: sensor controlled system operation; collaborative manufacturing; automated failure handling; inspection and quality control; human and robot safety; robot teach-in; tele-operation; robot manipulation; stationary and mobile robots; emergent applications: rescue robots, swarm robotics, mems; robot sensors and vision; active environment perception; intelligent sensing; distributed sensor networks; multi-sensor surveillance systems; environment or workspace monitoring; machine vision and image processing; 3D sensing and modeling; signal processing and sensor fusion; and new sensor technologies. Submit your extended abstract (3-4 pages) or draft version of full paper electronically as a PDF-format file using the web submission form available at: http://www.site.uottawa.ca/ROSE2008 Accepted papers will be published in ROSE 2008 Proceedings and be included in IEEE Xplore. ROSE 2008 is organized by the following technical committees of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society: TC-15 Virtual Systems in Measurements TC-22 Intelligent Measurement Systems TC-27 Human-Computer Interface and Interaction TC-28 Instrumentation for Robotics and Automation TC-30 Security and Contraband Detection the Ottawa Chapter of the I&M Society General Chairs: Mel Siegel, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, USA Pierre Payeur, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada Technical Program Chairs: Victor Aitken, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada Emil Petriu, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada ROSE 2008 will be collocated with HAVE 2008, IEEE International Workshop on Haptic Audio Visual Environments and Their Applications ------------- Best regards, Pierre Payeur & Mel Siegel ROSE 2008 - General Chairs From mmoll at cs.rice.edu Sat Jun 14 10:42:44 2008 From: mmoll at cs.rice.edu (Mark Moll) Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 12:42:44 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IROS 2008 motion planning tutorial Message-ID: <0FBBD168-CD23-442F-9098-F2CD9D8330A0@cs.rice.edu> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- IROS 2008 Half-Day Tutorial Motion planning with the OOPSMP toolkit: A hands-on tutorial on using state-of-the-art motion planning algorithms -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Date: Friday, September 26, 2008 (morning session) * URL: http://www.kavrakilab.org/OOPSMPtutorial * Organizers: Mark Moll, Lydia E. Kavraki, Erion Plaku, Ioan Sucan, and Konstantinos Tsianos * Objectives and Topics The objective of this course is to provide a hands-on tutorial on using the Object-Oriented Programming System for Motion Planning (OOPSMP) software package. This software contains implementations of most state-of-the-art motion planning algorithms. It is designed to be highly modular and easily accessible. To use the existing motion planners in OOPSMP one only has to write simple XML ?les specifying the motion planning problem and the desired solver. The motion planning problem description includes a speci?cation of the environment and the robot(s). The solver description includes a high- level planner, a low-level local planner, and algorithm parameters. It is designed to be very accessible and no previous programming experience is required to use the existing functionality. However, OOPSMP is ?exible enough to be extended with other sampling- based motion planning algorithms. We will also cover what is needed to add one?s own algorithms. Many of the basic data structures used in motion planning algorithms are, of course, already implemented, so that trying out new ideas will be easy. The hands-on part of the tutorial is preceded with an overview of the current state-of-the-art motion planning algorithms. The emphasis will be more on the relative merits of each motion planning method rather than the details of each algorithm. This should allow an OOPSMP user to make an informed decision on choosing a particular motion planning algorithm and its parameters for a given problem. * Intended Audience OOPSMP is both a teaching tool as well as a research testbed for developing new motion planning algorithms. The tutorial is thus intended for those who teach robotics classes and researchers in the ?eld of motion planning. Mark Moll -- http://www.cs.rice.edu/~mmoll Rice University, MS 132, PO Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251 713-348-5934 (phone), 713-348-5930 (fax) From Rene.Mayorga at uregina.ca Sun Jun 15 12:13:59 2008 From: Rene.Mayorga at uregina.ca (Rene Mayorga) Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 13:13:59 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Biologically Inspired Robots --> jABB (2nd) Special Issue References: <483D85E7.238F.0089.0@uregina.ca> <483D8683.238F.0089.0@uregina.ca> <483D86B3.238F.0089.0@uregina.ca> <483D872D.238F.0089.0@uregina.ca> Message-ID: <48551597.238F.0089.0@uregina.ca> Dear Colleague I would greatly appreciate that you distribute this notice. Call for Papers 2nd Special Issue on "Biologically Inspired Robots" for the journal: Applied Bionics and Biomechanics http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/11762322.asp The deadline for Paper submissions is August 18, 2008. Please take notice that this is our 2nd Special Issue on "Biologically Inspired Robots". Due to a favorably response to our first Special Issue on this important topic; we have decided to publish a second issue on the same topic. If you are interested in contributing to this (2nd) Special Issue; I would greatly appreciate that you contact me soon. (Email address below). Also, please prepare your Paper contribution following the "Instuctions for Authors" guidelines at: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/tbobauth.asp Best regards. Dr. Rene V. Mayorga Editor in Chief Applied Bionics and Biomechanics Rene.Mayorga at uregina.ca From jan.albiez at dfki.de Mon Jun 16 01:06:39 2008 From: jan.albiez at dfki.de (Jan Christian Albiez) Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2008 10:06:39 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Several open Positions at DFKI Bremen Message-ID: <64652F1D-CD8A-48D3-B8AE-0A5359BA28EF@dfki.de> In the field of innovative software technologies, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) is the leading research institution in Germany, and in the international science community the DFKI ranks among the most important ?Centers of Excellence? worldwide. The Robotics Laboratory at the location in Bremen (Prof. Frank Kirchner) is seeking 2 Senior Researchers/Consultants ================================ for the research areas Space, Underwater, Security, and Production/ Logistics. The applicant should possess several years of experience in the management of externally-funded projects as well as in project acquisition and in the external presentation of main research areas. Practical experience in the following areas is desired: computer science, electrical engineering, mechatronics, and/or systems engineering. The prerequisites for these positions are a graduation, ideally a Ph.D. in one of the above areas, and several years of practical experience. 2 Researcher/Consultants ======================== for the research areas Space and Aviation Robotics. Strong programming skills (preferably C/C++), knowledge of systems design, GUI development (QT) and hardware design/implementation are mandatory for positions in the area of ?Aviation Robotics?. Good knowledge of control, Ad-Hoc networks, and aeronautical engineering is desired. Strong skills in hardware oriented programming (FPGAs, micro controllers) as well as in controller design and virtual prototyping (e.g., Matlab/Simulink, 20sim) are mandatory for positions in the area ?Space?. Good knowledge of modelling and simulation of mobile mechatronic systems (e.g., with Adams, NASTRAN) and CAD experience (e.g., Inventor, SolidWorks) is desired. The applicants should have a strong professional background in at least one of the following areas: computer science and/or electrical engineering, mechatronics and/or systems engineering, aeronautic and space technology. A graduation is obligatory. 1 Electrical Engineer ===================== The applicant will support the main research areas space, underwater, security, and production/logistics in the central laboratories. Strong skills in power electronics, Hf-Technique, E-motors (brushed/ brushless), Digital/Mixed-Mode Design, FPGA Design, microcontroller programming (C/C++), and VDL are mandatory, experience in PCB Design (Allegro/Eagle), production/supplying, and verification/testing is desired and helpful. Prerequisite is a graduation in electrical engineering or a relevant professional training; experience on the job is required. The DFKI Robotics Laboratory offers a competitive salary and the opportunity to work with a young, continuously growing team in an interesting research environment. The DFKI is an equal opportunity employer. Women are especially encouraged to apply. Handicapped applicants with equal qualification will be given preferential treatment. Electronic application will be preferred. Prof. Dr. Frank Kirchner DFKI Robotic Labor Frau R. Post-Gonz?lez Robert-Hooke-Str. 5, D-28359 Brmen Email: renate.post-gonzalez at dfki.de www.dfki.de/robotik -- Dr. Jan Christian Albiez --- Underwaterrobotics --- DFKI Bremen Robert-Hooke-Stra?e 5, 28359 Bremen, Germany Phone: +49 421 218-64118 Fax: +49 421 218-64150 Email: jan.albiez at dfki.de Further Information: http://www.dfki.de/robotics ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Deutsches Forschungszentrum fuer Kuenstliche Intelligenz GmbH Firmensitz: Trippstadter Stra?e 122, D-67663 Kaiserslautern Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Wolfgang Wahlster (Vorsitzender) Dr. Walter Olthoff Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: Prof. Dr. h.c. Hans A. Aukes Amtsgericht Kaiserslautern, HRB 2313 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk Mon Jun 16 02:28:43 2008 From: K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk (Kerstin Dautenhahn) Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2008 10:28:43 +0100 (BST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Special issue on Robots in the Wild: Exploring Human-Robot Interaction in Naturalistic Environments [Interaction Studies] Message-ID: Robots in the Wild: Exploring Human-Robot Interaction in Naturalistic Environments Special Issue of INTERACTION STUDIES published by John Benjamins Publishing Company Submission Deadline ***15 September 2008*** Interaction Studies is an interdisciplinary journal that publishes original, high-quality research on social behaviour and communication in biological and artificial systems. This special issue encourages submissions on original research findings involving situations where robots and people interact with each other socially 'in the wild', i.e. outside laboratory conditions. Such naturalistic environments may include: - robot assisted search and rescue (e.g. in urban or wilderness environments) - robots in museums and public spaces - robot assisted play for therapy or education - service robots and robot companions in real home settings - human-robot interaction in artistic contexts - human-robot interaction in hospitals, schools, nurseries etc. - others This special issue aims to report on the latest research findings in this field, as well as point out the key challenges (and possible ways to address some of these) that such naturalistic environments pose in terms of methodological, technical and other aspects. The submission of research not involving interactions between physical robots and people are discouraged. Authors should consider the interdisciplinary readership of IS and prepare their manuscripts accordingly. Authors may either submit full papers or short research reports. See the journal's homepage for guidelines on the suggested length and formatting of the manuscripts: http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_seriesview.cgi?series=IS Authors who intend to submit a manuscript are encouraged to contact K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk as soon as possible in order to ensure that the planned submission falls within the aims and scope of the special issue. Please submit the journal manuscripts by 15 September 2008 to K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk in PDF only. All articles will be peer-reviewed. ----------------------------------------------------- Prof. Dr. Kerstin Dautenhahn Professor of Artificial Intelligence Adaptive Systems Research Group The University of Hertfordshire, School of Computer Science College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, United Kingdom URL: http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~comqkd E-mail: K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk Fax: +44-1707-284-303 Tel: +44-1707-284-333 From gj at dfki.de Mon Jun 16 06:09:03 2008 From: gj at dfki.de (Geert-Jan Kruijff) Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:09:03 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Job Opening: machine learning for interactive cognitive robots In-Reply-To: <713B1DCF-9CF8-4CFD-9073-F748596B95FE@dfki.de> References: <713B1DCF-9CF8-4CFD-9073-F748596B95FE@dfki.de> Message-ID: <2E859E9C-E06C-43BC-9E71-D41C535A4FA6@dfki.de> apologies for multiple postings ------------------- JOB OPENING (deadline for applications: June 30 2008) The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH) is seeking for its Language Technology Lab a SENIOR RESEARCHER in the area of cognitive systems, for a research position (Post-Doc, or senior) in the EU FP7 IP "Cognitive Systems that Self-Understand and Self-Extend" (CogX). The CogX project is a European project in the area of cognitive systems and will run from May 2008 till the end of June 2012, [ http://cogx.eu ]. The project (which is a follow-up to the CoSy project, [http://www.cognitivesystems.org ] and [ http://cosy.dfki.de/ ] ) will have a strong emphasis on the theoretical and practical integration of capabilities in vision, manipulation, mobility, spatial cognition, planning, and dialogue processing. CogX will be focused on the dynamics of a system capable of actively extending itself to fulfill identified requirements: "Imagine a cognitive system that models not only the environment, but its own understanding of the environment and how this understanding changes under action. It identifies gaps in its own understanding and then plans how to fill those gaps so as to deal with novelty and uncertainty in task execution, gather information necessary to complete its tasks, and to extend its abilities and knowledge so as to perform future tasks more efficiently." In the cognitive systems we conceive of, a wide and heterogeneous set of learning problems can be identified. These scenarios typically Involve social contexts with a rich multimodal communication between human and robot. Across these potential learning problems, the appropriate representations, learning models and evaluation criteria differ widely. To create a unified theory that makes it possible for the robot to reason about its knowledge and lack thereof, and to communicate the essence of this reasoning, will most likely require insights from fields such as socially guided machine learning, traditional and novel forms of machine learning such as active learning, meta learning, human-robot interaction, and situated dialogue processing, We are looking for an experienced researcher with a PhD in computer science (or equivalent) to work on "interactive continuous learning of crossmodal concepts" in the CogX project. We need a person with * a strong background in machine learning, * preferably with experience in active learning, socially guided learning, interactive learning; * preferably with experience in robotics, artificial intelligence, computational linguistics. * strong analytical skills, * strong mathematical skills, * strong programming skills (e.g. C++, Java, Python), * experience in collaborative software development (our project software is usually developed across 6-7 international sites, with up to 15 developers) * a good command of English, spoken and written The person will work in an international team. Responsibilities will include leading the machine learning efforts in our group within the CogX project, theory development, implementation and evaluation of software in an integrated (robot) system. The person will be expected to write, or contribute to writing, scientific papers and articles set in the project context. Highly valued personal qualities include creativity, open-mindedness, team spirit, and a willingness to address novel challenges in unknown scientific territory. The applicant should have a completed PhD degree on commencing the job. The earliest starting date of the position is September 2008. The duration of the contract will probably be until the end of the project (June 2012). DFKI GmbH [ http://www.dfki.de ] is located on the campus of Saarland University in Saarbrucken, Germany. The university's research groups and curricula in the fields of Computational Linguistics and Computer Science are internationally renowned. The LT-Lab [ http://www.dfki.de/lt/ ] offers excellent working conditions in a well-established research group. The position provides opportunities to collaborate in a variety of international projects. The competitive salary is calculated according to qualifications based on DFKI GmbH scales. For more on our work at DFKI, see [ http://www.dfki.de/lt/ ]. and [ http://cosy.dfki.de ] Please send your electronic application (preferably in PDF format) to lt-jobs at dfki.de , referring to this job opening (No. 200820), not later than June 30, 2008. A meaningful application should include a cover letter, a CV, a brief summary of research interests, a statement of interest in the position offered, and contact information for three references. For questions concerning this job opening, please contact Dr.ir. Geert- Jan Kruijff gj at dfki.de [ http://www.dfki.de/~gj ] -- Dr.ir. Geert-Jan M. Kruijff Senior researcher/Project leader Language Technology Lab, DFKI GmbH, Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3, D-66123 Saarbruecken, Germany Email: gj at dfki.de Phone: +49.681.302.5153 Fax: +49.681.302.5338 Mobile: +49.179.479.5892 http://www.dfki.de/~gj/ http://www.dfki.de/cosy/ ----------------------------------------------------- Deutsches Forschungszentrum fuer Kuenstliche Intelligenz GmbH Firmensitz: Trippstadter Strasse 122, D-67663 Kaiserslautern Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Wolfgang Wahlster (Vorsitzender) Dr. Walter Olthoff Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: Prof. Dr. h.c. Hans A. Aukes Amtsgericht Kaiserslautern, HRB 2313 ----------------------------------------------------- From zhidwang at ieee.org Mon Jun 16 07:46:26 2008 From: zhidwang at ieee.org (Zhidong Wang) Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2008 23:46:26 +0900 (JST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [ROBIO 2008 CFP] 2008 IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Biomimetics Message-ID: <20080616234626.6A3C5918@it-chiba.ac.jp> Dear Colleague We would greatly appreciate that you distribute this Call for Paper and contribute papers to the conference. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Call for Papers 2008 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO 2008) December 14-17, 2008 Bangkok, Thailand http://www.robio.org/ The IEEE ROBIO 2008 conference will take place from December 14 to 17, 2008 at the Imperial Queen's Park Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. The theme of Robio 2008 is "Information Technology Enabled Robotics and Biomimetics", reflecting the ever growing interests in research, development and applications in the dynamic and exciting areas of robotics and biomimetics. Bangkok is an exciting and fast growing city with business, entertainment and shopping areas. ROBIO 2008 promises to be a great event for researchers and scholars in robotics and biomimetics areas, with attractive technical and social programs. The ROBIO 2008 conference invites high quality original research and development papers in all areas related to robotics, biomimetics and related topics. The TOPICS covered by the conference are but not limited to: # Robotics # Biomimetics # Mechatronics # Control # Vision # Automation # Signal Processing # Power Electronics # Sensing and Measurement # Computational Intelligence # Emerging Technologies Important Dates: July 21, 2008: Submission of original PDF full papers & video clips July 21, 2008: Submission of proposals for tutorials & workshops October 1, 2008: Notification of paper, video clip and T/W acceptance October 20, 2008: Submission of final IEEE PDF papers & video clips Contributed Papers: Original papers are solicited in all related areas of robotics and biomimetics. Full papers must be submitted in PDF format prepared strictly following the IEEE PDF Requirements for Creating PDF Documents for the IEEE XploreR. For detailed format information, please visit the conference web page. All accepted papers will be indexed by EI and included in IEEE XploreR. Oral and Poster Presentation: There are two categories of paper presentations: oral and poster. The desired category can be selected at submission but there is no difference in the review process and the inclusion in IEEE XploreR and EI. Posters will be presented during a specially designated session at the Conference. If a paper is selected to be presented in a poster session, an electronic file of the poster has to be submitted along with the final version of the manuscript. The Conference will provide printing services for all posters. Best Paper Competition: All submitted papers will be included in the evaluation for the Best Conference Paper and Best Student Paper Competitions. In addition, the Best Poster will also be awarded. Tutorials & Workshops: Proposals for tutorials and workshops addressing new topics in robotics and biomimetics are invited for submission to the T/W Chairs. Sponsors: IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Michigan State University Asian Institute of Technology Technical Co-Sponsors: Thai Robotics Society The Robotics Society of Japan The Society of Instrument and Control Engineers The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers The Robio Foundation National Electronics and Computer Technology Center Committees: Honorary Conference Chairs: Said Irandoust Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand Pansak Siriruchatapong NECTEC, Thailand Advisory Committee Chair: Tzyh-Jong Tarn Washington University, USA Advisory Committee Co-Chairs: Paolo Dario Scuola Superiore, Sant'Anna, Italy Toshio Fukuda Nagoya University, Japan Shigeo Hirose Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan Chih-Ming Ho University of California, Los Angeles, USA General Chair: Ning Xi Michigan State University, USA General Co-Chairs: William R. Hamel University of Tennessee, USA Worsak Kanoknukulchai Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand Kazuhiro Kosuge Tohoku University, Japan Ren Luo National Taiwan University, Taiwan Bruno Siciliano Universita di Napoli Federico II, Italy Program Chair: Toshio Fukuda Nagoya University, Japan Program Co-Chairs: Hajime Asama University of Tokyo, Japan Prabhas Chongstitvatana Chulalongkorn University, Thailand Djitt Laowattana King Mongkut's Univ. of Tech. Thonburi, Thailand Yangmin Li University of Macau, China Jackrit Suthakorn Mahidol University, Thailand Yuechao Wang CAS Shenyang Institute of Automation, China Jian-Wei Zhang University of Hamburg, Germany Organizing Committee Chairs: Manukid Parnichkun Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand Zhidong Wang Chiba Institute of Technology, Japan Special Foucs Area Chairs: Yasuhisa Hirata Tohoku University, Japan Huosheng Hu University of Essex, UK Suthee Phoojaruenchanachai NECTEC, Thailand Dong Sun City University of Hong Kong, China Kazuhito Yokoi AIST, Japan Invited Session Chairs: Yantao Shen University of Nevada, USA Shuxiang Guo Kagawa University, Japan Jason J. Gu Dalhousie University, Canada Jitkasame Ngarmnil Mahanakorn University of Technology, Thailand Tutorial & Workshop Chairs: Imad H. Elhajj American University of Beirut, Lebanon Mongkol Mongkolwongrojn King Mongkut's Inst. of Tech. Ladkrabang Dongbing Gu University of Essex, UK Zhiwei Luo Kobe University, Japan Industrial Sessions Chairs: Hiroki Murakami IHI, Japan Sutat Patomnuphong NECTEC, Thailand George Zhang ABB, USA Videos Chair: Hidenori Ishihara Kagawa University, Japan Qiang Huang Beijing Institute of Technology, China Sukon Puntunan Royal Thai Air Force Academy, Thailand Poster Session Chair: Nyesunthi Apiwattanalunggarn Kasetsart University, Thailand Xiaobo Tan Michigan State University, USA Yong Yu Kagoshima University, Japan Publicity Chairs: Li-Chen Fu National Taiwan University, Taiwan Antoine Ferreira University of Orleans, France Kin-Huat Low Nanyang Tech University, Singapore Thaweedej Sirithanapipat Kasetsart University, Thailand Satoshi Tadokoro Tohoku University, Japan Uche Wejinya University of Arkansas, USA Awards Committee Chairs: Max Meng Chinese University of Hong Kong, China Kontorn Chamniprasart Suranaree Univ. of Tech., Thailand Makoto Kaneko Osaka University, Japan Shigeki Sugano Waseda University, Japan Exhibitions Chair: Montri Karnchanadecha Pince of Songkhla University, Thailand Takanori Shibata AIST, Japan Jizhong Xiao City University of New York, USA Publications Chairs: Waree Kongprawechnon Sirindhorn International Inst. of Tech., Thailand Aiguo Ming University of Electro-Communications, Japan Technical Tour Chair: Nitin Afzulpurkar Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand Finance Adviser Xiaoping Yun Post Naval Graduate School, USA Finance Chair: Weihua Shen Oklahoma State University, USA Local Arrangement Chairs: Siripun Thongchai King Mongkut's Inst. of Tech. North Bangkok, Thailand Registration Chairs: Guangyong Li University of Pittsburgh, USA Peerayot Sanposh Kasetsart University, Thailand E-media Chairs: Jindong Tan Michigan Technological University, USA" Theerayuth Chatchanayuenyong Mahasarakam University, Thailand ------------------------------- Zhidong WANG, Ph.D, Professor Dept. of Advanced Robotics Chiba Institute of Technology, Japan Tel/Fax: +81-47-478-0142 From msh at aber.ac.uk Tue Jun 17 07:53:48 2008 From: msh at aber.ac.uk (Martin Huelse) Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:53:48 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] FINAL_CALL_WS_Current_Software_Frameworks_In_Cognitive_Robotics Message-ID: <4857CFFC.40403@aber.ac.uk> [Our apologies if you receive multiple copies of this announcement.] #################################################################### FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS & NEW DEADLINE Workshop on: Current software frameworks in cognitive robotics integrating different computational paradigms in conjunction with IROS 2008, Nice, France, September 22nd, 2008, http://users.aber.ac.uk/msh/WS08/ ##################################################################### NEW SUBMISSION DEADLINE JUNE 25th, 2008. SPECIAL ISSUE: Accepted papers will be considered for a planned special issue in the journal: ADVANCED ENGINEERING INFORMATICS published by ELSEVIER (former title: Artificial Intelligence in Engineering). For further details about this WS and an extended version of this call please visit our WS websites: http://users.aber.ac.uk/msh/WS08/ or follow the links on the official IROS 2008 websites: http://iros2008.inria.fr/workshops.php IMPORTANT DATES: paper submission (extended): Jun 25th, 2008 notification : Jun 30th, 2008 final submission: Jul 6th, 2008 WS : Sep 22nd, 2008 IROS 2008 : Sept 22-26, 2008 INVITED SPEAKERS: * Carle Cote, Canada * Fredrik Heintz, Sweden * Anthony Mallet, France * Nick Hawes, UK * Ben Mitchinson, UK * Monica Reggiani, Italy CONTACT Martin Huelse Email: msh -AT- aber ac uk Phone: +44 (1970) - 622441 Manfred Hild Email: hild -AT- informatik hu-berlin de Phone: +49 (30) 2093 3931 -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin Huelse, Dr. rer. nat. Intelligent Robotics Group email: msh at aber.ac.uk Department of Computer Science, web: aml.somebodyelse.de University of Wales, office: +44 (0)1970-62 2441 Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, SY23 3DB, lab: +44 (0)1970-62 2403 United Kingdom. fax: +44 (0)1970-62 8536 --------------------------------------------------------------------- From shen at ISI.EDU Tue Jun 17 12:28:08 2008 From: shen at ISI.EDU (Wei-Min Shen) Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:28:08 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Self-Reconfigurable Robots Workshop at IROS-2008. Message-ID: <6B645706-1184-49E9-8A7E-FF7DFA7D7B21@ISI.EDU> Dear Colleagues, Here is a friendly reminder for your submission to the IROS-2008 Workshop on "Self-Reconfigurable Robots." The deadline is July 1, 2008. ======================================================================== CALL FOR PAPERS AND PARTICIPATIONS IROS-2008 workshop on Self-Reconfigurable Robots and Applications Submission deadline: July 1, 2008. http://iros2008.inria.fr/ http://www.isi.edu/robots/iros08wksp ======================================================================== Self-reconfigurable modular robots is an exciting research area that attracts more and more attentions. This full-day workshop is to bring together all active researchers in this area and exchange the newest results, the latest ideas, and the coolest applications, even if they are only preliminary. A similar workshop was held in IROS-2007 in San Diego USA, and it had more than 40 participants and 14 presentations. We expect this will be another exciting event because many new research groups for self-reconfigurable robots are emerging around the world. Self-reconfigurable modular robots are metamorphic systems that can autonomously change their logical or physical configurations (such as shapes, sizes, or formations), as well as their locomotion and manipulation, based on the mission and the environment in hand. Because of their modularity, versatility, self-healing ability and low cost reproducibility, such robots provide a flexible approach for achieving complex tasks in unstructured and dynamic environments. They are well suited for applications such as search and rescue, reconnaissance, self-assembly, inspections in hazardous environments, and exploration in space and ocean. They also pose fundamental research challenges for robotics and other major branches of computer science, mechatronics and control theory. Research in self-reconfigurable robots have been active in academic for many years, but it is only recently that the results of these research are beginning to be used and applied to serious real-world applications such as sustainable space exploration, homeland security, and others. This workshop comes at the right time because many researchers are seeing the values of the field, and many companies are beginning to investigate their resources, and because it has become ever convincing that modularity and reconfiguration are the keys to construct large systems reliably and economically. Specific research challenges for self-reconfigurable robots include the dynamic topology of the network of modules, the limited resource (power, size, torque, precisions, etc.) of individual modules, the difficulties in global synchronization, the preclusion of centralized decision makers, and the unreliability of communication among modules. This workshop will present the recent progress in the research community for these challenging tasks and their real-world applications in space and other related fields. We will present and discuss the latest hardware progress, distributed control software, plug-and-play mechatronics, topology-triggered behaviors, and theories of self-reconfiguration. The outcome of the workshop will be a set of papers and a list of new hardware/software challenges for the future of this exciting research area. We welcome all participants from universities, research labs, industrial companies, and government agencies, who are interested in either research such as modular robots, embedded systems, distributed control, sensor networks, robot swarms, coupling mechanisms, and mechatronics, or applications such as space, underwater, or other complex and difficult environments. Interested parties please submit your papers before July 1 2008 and the length of the paper should be 4 pages or more. For more information please visit the workshop's website or email to Dr. Wei- Min Shen at shen at isi.edu. Sincerely yours, Wei-Min Shen, USC Information Sciences Institute, shen at isi.edu Hod Lipson, Cornell University, Hod.Lipson at cornell.edu Kasper Stoy, University of Southern Denmark, kaspers at mmmi.sdu.dk Mark Yim, University of Pennsylvania , yim at grasp.cis.upenn.edu Greg Chirikjian, John Hopkins University, gregc at jhu.edu Behnam Salemi, USC Information Sciences Institute, salemi at isi.edu = = = = = = = = ======================================================================== From oli at cs.umass.edu Tue Jun 17 14:41:55 2008 From: oli at cs.umass.edu (Oliver Brock) Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:41:55 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CRA/CCC Roadmapping Workshop: Domestic and Professional Service Robotics Message-ID: <2330F00E4A3C924AB7F7297AE42D353524020E@zor.ads.cs.umass.edu> ================================ REMINDER: Deadline June 20, 2008 ================================ Call for Participation CRA/CCC Roadmapping for Robotics Workshop: A Research Roadmap for Domestic and Professional Service Robotics San Francisco, CA August 7-8, 2008 Co-Chairs: Oliver Brock, University of Massachusetts Amherst Bill Thomasmeyer, Tech Collaborative Henrik Christensen, Georgia Tech To participate, please submit 2-page proposals by June 20, 2008. Expenses for approved participants will be covered by CCC/CRA. This two-day workshop will: 1) identify a focused set of major U.S. research goals for Domestic and Professional Service Robotics, and 2) develop a roadmap for achieving these research goals in the coming decade. The workshop will include leaders from the U.S.A. in academia, industry, and government. Even though the American robotics research community is highly diversified, analogous efforts in Europe and Japan to reach consensus and develop unified research roadmaps for their regions have been extremely successful in creating new partnerships and attracting major research funding. The results of this workshop will culminate in a report for the US Congress. This workshop one of four under the project: "From Internet to Robotics: The Next Transformative Technology", accepted by the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) with the goal of ensuring that basic research addresses the key problems that will allow American companies to have a leading role in the deployment of future generations of robots: http://www.us-robotics.us/ Rationale Already today the services sector makes up 80% of the US gross national product. The need for professional services will continue to grow as the economy becomes increasingly service-oriented in today's global market place. There will also be an growing need for domestic services caused by a growth of 50% in the elderly population over the next two decades. Robotics will provide the technological foundation to support the evolution in the domestic and professional service industry, thereby enabling substantial economic growth. The development of the necessary competencies in robotics therefore will become an important strategic national objective to ensure global competitiveness of the US economy. This workshop will bring together leading roboticists from industry and academia as well as government representatives to explore strategies of addressing the technological challenges associated with the emerging service economy. Format In focused plenary discussions and break-out sessions we will explore robotics for Domestic and Professional Service Robotics. The participants will identify (a) new application areas that will maximize socio-economic impact; (b) core competency areas for U.S. research and development; and (c) formulation of the roadmap. Travel, meals, and lodging expenses for up to 30 approved participants will be reimbursed by the CCC. We encourage interested experts from industry, government, and academia to submit short proposals via email by June 20, 2008. These proposal should contain 1) Name, affiliation, and contact info 2) promising application areas, critical research challenges, viable solution strategies Proposals must be under 2 pages in plain text or PDF format. Please put "Research Roadmap Proposal" in the subject line and email to service-ws at us-robotics.us. Applicants will be notified by July 7, 2008. Due to funding limitations, we can accept only 30 participants. Anyone who submits a proposal will receive a copy of the final workshop report and information on how they might participate in the CCC robotics effort. This workshop is being held as part of a group of CCC robotics workshops examining the areas of manufacturing, service, healthcare, and emerging topics in robotics. From bradley.nelson at iris.mavt.ethz.ch Wed Jun 18 00:37:09 2008 From: bradley.nelson at iris.mavt.ethz.ch (Nelson Bradley) Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:37:09 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] RSS2008 Workshop on Underwater Microrobotics Message-ID: <12DDB272B3619B49ACE8A185DEB6CD3473E7CD@EX6.d.ethz.ch> ====================================================================== CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Underwater Robotics ... at the Microscale http://rss2008-microswimmingworkshop.wikidot.com/ FULL-DAY WORKSHOP at ROBOTICS SCIENCE AND SYSTEMS CONFERENCE (RSS2008) Saturday 28 June 2008 starting at 8:30am ETH Zurich Main Building (Hauptgebauede HG) room to be announced Attendance is free ====================================================================== Abstract ============ Biological motors are engineering marvels capable of providing propulsion at micro and nano scales. A variety of molecular machines swim for cell division and intracellular transport and have recently been used to power and manipulate micro-/nanoscale components. Microrobotic swimmers have also been proposed as a key technology for dramatically changing many aspects of medicine by navigating bodily fluids to perform targeted diagnosis and therapy. Microrobots, like microorganisms, swim in a low-Reynolds-number regime, requiring swimming methods that differ from macroscale swimmers. Researchers have proposed numerous microrobotic swimming methods, many biomimetic, with the vast majority utilizing magnetic fields to wirelessly power and control the microrobot. The goal of this workshop is to understand how fundamental robotics research has benefited from biology, and how biologists and robotists might benefit from one another's approach. Organizers ============ Brad Nelson ETH Zurich Vijay Kumar UPenn Sylvain Martel Polytechnique Montreal Metin Sitti CMU Lixin Dong ETH Zurich Program (subject to modification) ============ Brad Nelson Why Underwater Microrobotics? 8:30 - 9:00 Takashi Ishikawa Overview of Eukaryotic Flagella from a Mechanistic Perspective 9:00 - 9:30 Howard C. Berg Resurrection of the flagellar rotary motor near zero load 9:30 - 10:00 Break 10:00-10:30 Sylvain Martel Bacterial propulsion and steering for nanorobots 10:30-11:00 Vijay Kumar Abstractions and Control of Swarming Bacteria with Applications to Manipulation 11:00-11:30 Li Zhang Fabricating Artificial Bacterial Flagella 11:30-12:00 Lunch Break 12:00 - 1:30 Antoine Ferreira Design and Interaction of Drug Delivery Nanorobots with Cells 1:30 - 2:00 Metin Sitti On-Board and Off-Board Micro-Robot Locomotion Under Water 2:00 - 2:30 Gabor Kosa Using flagellar motion to drive swimming micro robots for medical applications 2:30 - 3:00 Prof. Dr. Bradley Nelson Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich Professor of Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS) ETH Z?rich Institut f?r Robotik und Intelligente Systeme (IRIS) www.iris.ethz.ch Tannenstrasse 3, CLA H15.2 Tel: +41 44 632 55 29 CH-8092 Z?rich, Switzerland Fax: +41 44 632 10 78 Mob: +41 79 777 61 30 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://duerer.usc.edu/pipermail/robotics-worldwide/attachments/20080618/00be354c/attachment-0001.htm From e.ruffaldi at sssup.it Wed Jun 18 07:06:53 2008 From: e.ruffaldi at sssup.it (Emanuele Ruffaldi) Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:06:53 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] RSS2008 Tutorial on Skills Capture and Transfer, June 28: final schedule Message-ID: <4859167D.5020000@sssup.it> Skills Capture and Transfer Robotics: Science and Systems Tutorial Saturday, June 28, 2008 ORGANIZERS Carlo Alberto Avizzano, PERCRO, Scuola Superiore S. Anna, Italy Emanuele Ruffaldi, PERCRO, Scuola Superiore S. Anna, Italy MOTIVATION Multimodal systems integrate Robotic devices with other Virtual and Mixed Environment technologies to interact with Human beings. OBJECTIVES The proposed tutorial on Skills Capture and Transfer aims at analyzing the capture and transfer of the skilled component of human activities with the use of multimodal technologies. This topic ranges from the multimodal capture of a human task to the rendering of the skill using haptic interfaces and advanced visualization techniques. At the same time the data acquired in real time is processed by machine learning algorithms for the identification of performance, comparing the user with an existing database of skilled user, producing as an outcome the required stimuli for improving the user task.This tutorial introduces to the topic by presenting the state of the art in multimodal capturing technologies, the techniques for the analysis based on machine learning (dimensional reduction, HMM and Neural Networks) and the descriptors for the evaluation of a skilled performance. The practical part of the tutorial is supported by examples in MATLAB, Simulink and additional Python libraries. SPEAKERS Carlo Alberto Avizzano, PERCRO, Scuola Superiore S. Anna, Italy Emanuele Ruffaldi, PERCRO, Scuola Superiore S. Anna, Italy Luis Unzueta Irurtia, CEIT, Spain SCHEDULE Presentations will be posted on the tutorial website and be available to everyone after the tutorial. 08:45-09:15 Welcome and Introduction (30') - Introduction the SKILLS project and Skills analysis framework 09:15-09:35 Capture and Rendering Technologies (20') - Multimodal capturing; force and compliance capturing; biometric capturing; content capture 09:35-10:00 Human Motion Capture (25') - Introduction to the concepts of motion capture; marker based capture; vision based capture and inverse kinematics 10:00-10:20 Skills Rendering with Haptics (20') - Introduction to haptics; kinaesthetic feedback; teaching writing; virtual templates 10:20-10:45 Break (25') 10:45-11:15 Skills Analysis (30') - Gesture analysis techniques; Machine learning techniques; - Skill complexity analysis; MATLAB based examples from sport 11:15-11:35 Skills Representation and Encoding (20') - Multimodal data formats; descriptor identification; annotation systems 11:35-11:50 Skills Modelling (15') - Training and transfer: loops, methodologies, indicators. - Examples based on MATLAB and Simulink 11:50-12:10 Skills Storage (20') - Technologies for storage. - Multimodal databases, motion database, skills analysis platform; - Introduction to MPEG-7 - Examples based on a Python toolkit and MATLAB 12:10-12:30 Outlook and Discussion (20') REGISTRATION You can register for the tutorial through the main conference registration site at http://www.roboticsconference.org/registration.shtml More information about the work can be found at the tutorial website at: http://www.skills-ip.eu/events/rss08/ Emanuele Ruffaldi Assistant Professor in Applied Mechanics PERCRO Laboratory Scuola Superiore S.Anna From jose.millan at idiap.ch Wed Jun 18 06:19:14 2008 From: jose.millan at idiap.ch (Jose del R. Millan) Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:19:14 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Open PhD positions on Brain-Computer Interaction at IDIAP Message-ID: <48590B52.2050905@idiap.ch> The Idiap research institute (http://www.idiap.ch) seeks *several* PhD students in the field of brain-computer interfaces (BCI) to work in the team of Prof. Jos? del R. Mill?n (http://people.epfl.ch/jose.millan). The doctoral student will work in the framework of European and Swiss projects related to the development of noninvasive brain-actuated devices in areas ranging from communication to neuroprostheses, and from interaction to rehabilitation. Projects aim at developing practical BCI technology, but will also investigate basic questions such as online adaptation, cognitive processes, multimodal signal fusion, and brain-robot interaction. The successful candidate will hold a masters degree (or equivalent) in computer science, electrical engineering, biomedical engineering, or related fields. She or he should have good background in statistical machine learning, signal processing, EEG analysis, human-machine interaction, and/or intelligent/adaptive robotics. Excellent programming skills are a must. Selected candidates will become doctoral students at the EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, http://www.epfl.ch). The positions will remain open until suitable candidates are found. Starting date is November 1, 2008, or at the earliest convenience afterwards. Interested candidates should apply through the Idiap online recruitment system http://jobs.idiap.ch and send the requested material. *About Idiap* Idiap is an independent, non-profit research institute recognized and supported by the Swiss Government, and affiliated with the Ecole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne (EPFL). It is located in the town of Martigny in Valais, a scenic region in the south of Switzerland, surrounded by the highest mountains of Europe, and offering exciting recreational activities, including hiking, climbing and skiing, as well as varied cultural activities. It is within close proximity to Geneva and Lausanne. Although Idiap is located in the French part of Switzerland, English is the working language. Free French lessons are provided. Idiap offers competitive salaries and conditions at all levels in a young, dynamic, and multicultural environment. Idiap is an equal opportunity employer and is actively involved in the "Advancement of Women in Science" European initiative. The Institute seeks to maintain a principle of open competition (on the basis of merit) to appoint the best candidate, provides equal opportunity for all candidates, and equally encourage both genders to apply. -- Prof. Dr. Jos? del R. Mill?n Idiap Research Institute Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) Centre du Parc. Av. des Pr?s-Beudin 20. 1920 Martigny. Switzerland Tel: +41-27-7217.770 Fax: +41-27-7217.712 jose.millan at idiap.ch http://people.epfl.ch/jose.millan From oli at cs.umass.edu Wed Jun 18 13:31:18 2008 From: oli at cs.umass.edu (Oliver Brock) Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:31:18 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] RSS 2008 Preliminary Proceedings Online Message-ID: <2330F00E4A3C924AB7F7297AE42D353530AFDB@zor.ads.cs.umass.edu> The preliminary online proceedings of ---------------------------------- Robotics: Science and Systems 2008 ---------------------------------- are now available online: http://www.roboticsproceedings.org/ If you would like to join us on June 25 at ETH Zurich, there is a travel kit available: http://www.roboticsconference.org/doc/rss2008_travelkit.pdf We look forward to seeing you in Zurich! The RSS Organizers From deluca at dis.uniroma1.it Wed Jun 18 17:39:55 2008 From: deluca at dis.uniroma1.it (Alessandro De Luca) Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:39:55 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] TOC of IEEE Transactions on Robotics: June 2008 issue Message-ID: BEGIN================== IEEE Transactions on Robotics Volume: 24 Issue: 3 Date: June 2008 From the following link you have free access to the abstracts of all papers below, and can access the pdf files for free if you or your institution is subscribing to T-RO in IEEE Xplore: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?puNumber=8860 [IEEE Xplore, RSS feed available] Table of Contents Singularity-Free Dynamic Equations of Open-Chain Mechanisms With General Holonomic and Nonholonomic Joints Duindam, V.; Stramigioli, S. Page(s): 517-526 On the Synthesis of Haptic Textures Campion , G.; Hayward, V. Page(s): 527-536 A Fundamental Tradeoff Between Performance and Sensitivity Within Haptic Rendering Griffiths, P. G.; Gillespie, R. B.; Freudenberg, J. S. Page(s): 537-548 Development of Soft-Actuator-Based Wearable Tactile Display Koo, I.M.; Jung, K.; Koo, J.C.; Nam, J.-D.; Lee, Y.K.; Choi, H.R. Page(s): 549-558 (with Multimedia) Dynamic Performance of Mobile Haptic Interfaces Formaglio, A.; Prattichizzo, D.; Barbagli, F.; Giannitrapani, A. Page(s): 559-575 An Investigation of the Intrinsic Force Sensing Capabilities of Continuum Robots Xu, K.; Simaan , N. Page(s): 576-587 Analysis and Experiments on the Force Capabilities of Centripetal-Force-Actuated Microrobotic Platforms Vartholomeos, P.; Papadopoulos, E. Page(s): 588-599 A Relational Positioning Methodology for Robot Task Specification and Execution Rodriguez, A.; Basanez, L.; Celaya, E. Page(s): 600-611 Motion Planning Algorithms for a Rolling Sphere With Limited Contact Area Svinin, M.; Hosoe , S. Page(s): 612-625 A General Stance Stability Test Based on Stratified Morse Theory With Application to Quasi-Static Locomotion Planning Rimon, E.; Mason, R.; Burdick, J. W.; Or, Y. Page(s): 626-641 A Wire-Based Active Tracker Andrade-Cetto, J.; Thomas , F. Page(s): 642-651 Catadioptric Visual Servoing From 3-D Straight Lines Hadj-Abdelkader, H.; Mezouar, Y.; Martinet, P.; Chaumette, F. Page(s): 652-665 Dynamics of a High-Agility, Low-Power Imaging Payload Carpenter, M.D.; Peck , M.A. Page(s): 666-675 Modeling and Analysis of Skidding and Slipping in Wheeled Mobile Robots: Control Design Perspective Wang , D.; Low, C. B. Page(s): 676-687 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.921563 Secure Mobility and the Autonomous Driver McDowell, K.; Nunez, P.; Hutchins, S.; Metcalfe, J. S. Page(s): 688-697 Design and Development of the Lifting and Propulsion Mechanism for a Biologically Inspired Water Runner Robot Floyd , S.; Sitti, M. Page(s): 698-709 Decentralized Environmental Modeling by Mobile Sensor Networks Lynch, K. M.; Schwartz, I. B.; Yang, P.; Freeman, R. A. Page(s): 710-724 Analysis of Humanoid Appearances in Human-Robot Interaction Kanda, T.; Miyashita, T.; Osada, T.; Haikawa, Y.; Ishiguro, H. Page(s): 725-735 Optimization of Actuator Forces in Cable-Based Parallel Manipulators Using Convex Analysis Hassan, M.; Khajepour, A. Page(s): 736-740 Physical Path Planning Using a Pervasive Embedded Network O'Hara, K. J.; Walker, D. B.; Balch, T. R. Page(s): 741-746 Convergent Smoothing and Segmentation of Noisy Range Data in Multiscale Space Adams, M.; Fan, T.; Wijesoma, W. S.; Sok, C. Page(s): 746-753 A Globally Stable PD Controller for Bilateral Teleoperators Nuno, E.; Ortega, R.; Barabanov, N.; Basanez, L. Page(s): 753-758 A Robust Speech Recognition System for Communication Robots in Noisy Environments Ishi, C. T.; Matsuda, S.; Kanda, T.; Jitsuhiro, T.; Ishiguro, H.; Nakamura, S.; Hagita, N. Page(s): 759-763 From the following link you have free access to the abstracts of all papers above, and can access the pdf files for free if you or your institution is subscribing to T-RO in IEEE Xplore: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?puNumber=8860 These are the relevant links to the IEEE Transactions on Robotics: http://www.ieee-ras.org/tro [IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO) home page] http://ras.papercept.net/journals/tro [T-RO PaperCept submission page] ================== END -- Alessandro De Luca Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica "A. Ruberti" Universita' di Roma "La Sapienza" Via Ariosto 25 00185 Roma, Italy tel: +39 06 77274052 fax: +39 06 77274033 email: deluca at dis.uniroma1.it url: http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/labrob/people/deluca/deluca.html Editor-in-Chief IEEE Transactions on Robotics email: ieeetro at dis.uniroma1.it submission: http://ras.papercept.net/journals/tro url: http://www.ieee-ras.org/tro (new RAS T-RO site), http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/ieeetro (old T-RO site) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://duerer.usc.edu/pipermail/robotics-worldwide/attachments/20080619/066a4c4b/attachment.htm From bram.vanderborght at iit.it Thu Jun 19 02:52:26 2008 From: bram.vanderborght at iit.it (Vanderborght Bram) Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:52:26 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] invitation Workshop RSS2008: Variable Impedance Actuators (28.06.2008) Message-ID: <1ABB39A338F72D40A85026E592985B7E02D0A39B@EXCHANGE.netexchange.int.netscalibur.it> Researchers interested in the design, control and applications of Variable Impedance Actuators are kindly invited to attend the workshop at Robotics Science and Systems 2008 (RSS2008) --Design and Control of Variable Impedance Actuators for Physical Interaction of Robots with Humans and their Environment-- http://mech.vub.ac.be/RSS2008_VIA/Index.htm Saturday, June 28th, 2008, Zurich Schedule: 9:00 - 9:15 Opening, Introduction by organizers 9:15 - 10:15 3x20min Paper presentations ?? - Gill Pratt (Olin College) ?? - Oussama Khatib (Artificial Intelligence Laboratory - Stanford University) ?? - Michael van Damme (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) - Safe Control of a Pneumatic Muscle Powered System 10:15 - 10:25 Questions and discussions related to first three talks 10:25 - 10:35 Introduction of poster presentations by organizers 10:35 - 10:45 Coffee break 10:45 - 11:10 Poster presentations ?? - Ronald Van Ham (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) - MACCEPA: The Mechanically Adjustable Compliance and Controllable Equilibrium Position Actuator ?? - Nicola Vitiello (ARTS Lab, Polo Sant'Anna Valdera, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy)- The NEURARM bio-inspired antagonistic joint: preliminary results on the Equilibrium Point Hypothesis position and stiffness control ?? - Sebastian Wolf (DLR/Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics) ?? - Edwin C. Dertien (University of Twente) - Very Versatile Energy Efficient (V2E2) actuator: A concept for a new Energy Efficient Actuator 11:10 - 12:10 3x20min Paper presentations ?? - Koichi Koganezawa (Dep. of Mechanical Engineering, Tokai University) - ANLES (Actuator with Non-Linear Elastic System) and its application to multi-DOF joint ?? - Koh Hosoda (Osaka University) - Contribution of Variable Compliance to Dynamic Bipedal Locomotion ?? - Jae-Bok Song (Korea University, Korea) - Variable Stiffness Actuation based on Dual Actuators Connected in Series and Parallel 12:10 - 12: 20 Questions and discussions related to the last three talks 12:20 - 13:00 Discussion panel (Topics are proposed by the organizers and collected from the audience during the day) 13:00 - Lunch Organizers: ? - Alin Albu-Schaeffer (DLR/Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics) ? - Antonio Bicchi (Universit? di Pisa) ? - Bram Vanderborght (Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Italian Institute of Technology) Please contact us by email: via.rssworkshop at gmail.com Kind regards, Alin, Antonio and Bram From charlie.kemp at bme.gatech.edu Thu Jun 19 09:51:42 2008 From: charlie.kemp at bme.gatech.edu (Charlie Kemp) Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:51:42 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Workshops and Tutorials at RSS on Saturday, June 28th Message-ID: <485A8E9E.1090908@bme.gatech.edu> On Saturday, June 28th in Zurich at ETH, the 2008 Robotics: Science and Systems Conference ( http://roboticsconference.com ) will be hosting the following high-quality tutorials and workshops. We encourage you to attend. If you do plan to attend, we ask that you please contact one of the organizers for the workshop or tutorial. =========================== Tutorials: http://roboticsconference.com/tutorials.shtml Tutorial on Integration of Vision and Inertial Sensors http://paloma.isr.uc.pt/inervis/ Skills Capture and Transfer http://www.skills-ip.eu/events/rss08/ =========================== Workshops: http://roboticsconference.com/workshops.shtml Control of Locomotion: From Animals to Robots http://birg2.epfl.ch/rss2008 Underwater Robotics ... at the Microscale http://rss2008-microswimmingworkshop.wikidot.com/ Topology and Minimalism in Robotics and Sensor Networks http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~pappasg/RSS08.html Teaching with Robots http://www.tufts.edu/~crogers/RSS_Workshop.pdf Design and Control of Variable Impedance Actuators for Physical Interaction of Robots with Humans and their Environment http://mech.vub.ac.be/RSS2008_VIA/Index.htm Robot Manipulation: Intelligence in Human Environments http://www.robotic.de/190/ Interactive Robot Learning http://www.dfki.de/cosy/www/events/InteractiveRobotLearning2008/home.php Inside Data Association http://www.sfbtr8.spatial-cognition.de/insidedataassociation/ Quantitative Performance Evaluation of Navigation Solutions for Mobile Robots http://kaspar.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~rss/ Experimental Methodology and Benchmarking in Robotics Research http://www.heronrobots.com/EuronGEMSig/GEMSIGRSS08Program.html Advances in Simulation of Robot and Task Dynamics http://www.cs.memphis.edu/rss08-workshop/ Grand Challenges in Microrobotics and Microassembly http://beams.ulb.ac.be/beams/staff/perso/plambert/rss2008.html =========================== From gaurav at pollux.usc.edu Fri Jun 20 18:47:48 2008 From: gaurav at pollux.usc.edu (Gaurav Sukhatme) Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:47:48 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Two Postdoctoral Research Positions in Marine Robotics Message-ID: ------------------------------------------------------- Two Postdoctoral Research Positions in Marine Robotics ------------------------------------------------------- Robotic Embedded Systems Lab University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA http://robotics.usc.edu/resl Applications are invited for two postdoctoral positions in marine robotics at the Robotic Embedded Systems Lab (RESL) at the University of Southern California. The successful candidates will work as part of a research team composed of roboticists, marine biologists and oceanographers in the area of networked multi-robot coordination and control for aquatic robots (autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs)). The development of algorithms for networked aquatic robots with applications to environmental monitoring, marine biology and oceanography are central to the research mission of RESL as part of its broader research agenda in the area of networked robots and robotic sensor networks. Applicants to both positions are required to hold (or shortly receive) a PhD in a related area (e.g., computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, robotics). Prior field experience with AUVs and/or ASVs is highly desirable. While the two positions are closely related, the initial plan is that one will be filled by a candidate specializing in the sensing and control aspects of a single vehicle and the other will be filled by a candidate specializing in the coordination across multiple robots; however this distinction is not rigid and is likely to evolve. Both positions are initially for a one-year term with a possible extension to two years. Applications will be considered on an ongoing basis until both positions are filled. Early applications are encouraged - both positions are now open. To apply, please email Prof. Gaurav Sukhatme (gaurav at usc.edu) a current CV (PDF or plain text only please) and the names and email addresses of 2 people who can provide professional references. All questions regarding these positions should be directed to gaurav at usc.edu. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From J.L.Wyatt at cs.bham.ac.uk Fri Jun 20 10:41:21 2008 From: J.L.Wyatt at cs.bham.ac.uk (Jeremy L Wyatt) Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:41:21 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Permanent lectureship in Intelligent Robotics: University of Birmingham, UK In-Reply-To: <485BE906.3070908@cs.bham.ac.uk> References: <485BE906.3070908@cs.bham.ac.uk> Message-ID: <485BEBC1.5070404@cs.bham.ac.uk> UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM SCHOOL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE PERMANENT LECTURESHIP IN INTELLIGENT ROBOTICS Applications are invited for a lectureship in Intelligent Robotics in the School of Computer Science. The post-holder will be a member of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, a rapidly growing research group. The post holder will be expected to provide leadership in research and teaching in Intelligent Robotics and related areas. In particular the post holder will be expected to strengthen the already outstanding record of external research funding held by the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory. To complement the existing expertise in the lab the successful candidate will be sought primarily in one of the following areas: robot vision, mobile robotics, humanoid robotics, robot learning, the use of robots in modelling biological systems ? including, for example the connections between robotics and psychology, animal cognition and computational neuroscience ? robotic manipulation, developmental/epigenetic robotics, and autonomy in underwater or space robotics. Applicants with expertise in other areas of robotics are welcomed however, and will be seriously considered. Applicants should have an outstanding record of publication in leading international journals and conferences in their area, with evidence of significant impact on the research community. They will either already have a strong record of obtaining research funding, or demonstrate an exceptional potential to do so. Applicants should be exceptional communicators with demonstrably excellent skills in both teaching, and research presentation and management. The appointed person will be expected to contribute to both the research life of the lab and the school, and also teaching and administration in the school. The successful applicant will be expected to lead grant writing, as well as helping to set the research agenda for the future work of the group. The Intelligent Robotics Laboratory is a rapidly growing centre for research in robotics, cognition and machine learning in the UK. It is part of a much larger and internationally renowned AI and Cognitive Science group. Led by Dr Jeremy Wyatt, Dr Richard Dearden and Prof Aaron Sloman, the lab has 15 members, and holds over ?2.2m of research funding. Funding has come from the European Commission, EPSRC, NERC, the Leverhulme Trust, the Royal Society and the British Council among others. We collaborate with research groups across the UK and Europe, including groups in psychology, animal cognition, robotics, AI, cognitive science, and oceanography. Candidates with interdisciplinary interests are welcomed. Information on the Intelligent Robotics laboratory is available here: www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/robotics Further information on the post is available here: www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/groupings/robotics_and_cognitive_architectures/lect08/ Informal enquiries (preferably by email) to Dr Jeremy Wyatt, email: jeremy.l.wyatt at googlemail.com or J.L.Wyatt at cs.bham.ac.uk tel.: +44 121 414 4788, Dr Richard Dearden, email: R.W.Dearden at cs.bham.ac.uk tel.: +44 121 414 6687 or Prof Aaron Sloman, email: A.Sloman at cs.bham.ac.uk tel.: +44 121 414 4775. Enquiries may also be directed to the Head of School, Prof Uday Reddy, email hos at cs.bham.ac.uk tel:+44 121 414 2740. Starting salary in the range of ?34,793 to ?41,545 a year (potential progression on performance once in post to ?46,759) Closing date for applications: 29 August 2008 Ref: S43287 Details from +44 121 415 9000 or www.hr.bham.ac.uk/jobs HR, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT A University of Fairness and Diversity From jbsong at korea.ac.kr Sat Jun 21 19:28:03 2008 From: jbsong at korea.ac.kr (Jae-Bok Song) Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 11:28:03 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Papers for URAI2008 Message-ID: <000101c8d40f$99702280$cc506780$@ac.kr> Please post the following message. (Sender: Jae-Bok SONG, Subject: Call for Papers for URAI2008) 5th International Conf. on Ubiquitous Robots and Ambient Intelligence (URAI 2008) ==================================================== Location: Korea University, Seoul, Korea Dates: November 20-22, 2008 Website: http://www.robotweek.or.kr ==================================================== The 5th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots and Ambient Intelligence (URAI 2008), hosted by Korea Robotics Society (KRS) will be held on November 20-22, 2008 at the Hana Square at Korea University, Seoul, Korea. [Important Dates] * Submission of Full Papers or Organized Sessions: July 25, 2008 * Notification of Acceptance: September 15, 2008 * Submission of Camera-ready Papers: September 30, 2008 [Relevant Topics] * Division 1: Ubiquitous Robots ?- Network-based Robotics ?- Ambient Intelligence ?- Intelligent Space/Environment Technologies ?- Human-Robot Interaction ?- Robot Vision and Audition ?- Intelligence and Learning ?- Robotic Agents * Division 2: Robotic Mechanisms and Systems - Navigation / Localization ?- Robotic Mechanisms and Design ?- Humanoid Robots ?- Haptics / Teleoperation ?- Sensors and Actuators ?- Medical Robotics ?- Biorobotics ?- Control Architecture and Middleware [Sponsors] Korea Robotics Society (KROS) Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ) IEEE Robotics and Automation Society [Organizing Committee] * Honorary General Chair: Il-Hong Suh (Hanyang Univ., Korea) * General Chair: Jae-Bok Song (Korea Univ., Korea) * Program Chairs: Bum-Jae You (KIST, Korea), Hajime Asama (The University of Tokyo, Japan) * Publicity Chairs: Wonpil Yu (ETRI, Korea), Tatsuo Arai (Osaka Univ., Japan), Nak-Young Chong (JAIST, Japan), Dennis Hong (Virginia Tech., USA) * Finance Chairs: Shinsuk Park (Korea Univ., Korea), Sang-Moo Lee (KITECH, Korea) * Exhibition Chairs: Sooyong Lee (Hongik Univ., Korea), Paul Oh (Drexel Univ., U.S.A.) * Publication Chairs: Jong-Bae Lee (KETI, Korea), Jaeyeon Lee (ETRI, Korea) * Local Chairs: NakJu Lett Doh (Korea Univ., Korea), Sung-Chul Kang (KIST, Korea) * Secretariat: Woojin Chung (Korea Univ., Korea), Ki-Young Kim (Korea Robotics Society) For more details, please contact Prof. Jae-Bok SONG at jbsong at korea.ac.kr . From palindromoroz at yahoo.com Mon Jun 23 02:39:52 2008 From: palindromoroz at yahoo.com (Zoran Zivkovic) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 02:39:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: IROS 2008 Workshop: Network Robot Systems (Extended deadline 7-July) Message-ID: <759993.524.qm@web90405.mail.mud.yahoo.com> ----------------------------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS NRS - IEEE/RSJ IROS 2008 Workshop Network Robot Systems: Human concepts of space and activity, integration and applications September 26, 2008, Nice, France (Submission deadline extended to 7-July! ?in accordance to other IROS workshops) http://www.science.uva.nl/research/ias/FS2HSC/workshops/IROS2008/ ----------------------------------------------- This workshop combines the ninth 'Network Robot Systems' workshop with the third 'From Sensors to Human Concepts' workshop. Building on the success of our previous workshops, it will cover all aspects of the use of robots as apart of a sensor network (Network Robot Systems) for the co-existence of robots and humans in everyday environments. The workshop will place special emphasis on 'platform, integration, and application'. Five years have passed since the inception of many network robot system research projects, and we believe it is important to showcase the variety of successful network robot system applications which have been developed. People will be invited to share their firsthand experiences and lessons learned from these projects. The workshop will also focus on 'human concepts of space and activity'. The information obtained from the sensor network and robot sensors can be used to interact intelligently and naturally with a human-inhabited environment. The aim of the workshop is also to bring together researchers that work on representations appropriate for communicating with humans and on developing algorithms for relating the sensory network data to the human concepts. There will also be a session in which the results of field trials will be reported, including the human-robot interaction (HRI) aspect of network robot systems. In addition, as the field of network robot systems research grows, interpretations of the definition of "network(ed) robot" tend to diverge. Thus, it is important to coordinate this definition for the purpose of community building. We plan to extend previous discussions to bring together traditional robotics technology issues with user interaction considerations, a cross-disciplinary focus essential to the design of other user-oriented technologies such as software agents and mobile phones. Finally, we aim to discuss requirements for a common testbed for network robot systems, as well as benchmarks for evaluating several aspects of the performance of network robot systems, including human-robot interaction. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to the following areas: - sensor network and sensing devices for network robot systems - distributed networked environment sensing/actuation - representations of space and human activities from sensor networks - space and human activity representations appropriate for communicating with humans - comparison and/or combination of the different sensor modalities - socially situated sensor networks and robots - human's interaction with sensor network and networked robot system - coordination and cooperation among multiple types of robots - ubiquitous robotics - network robot platform - security for network robot systems - common testbed, common research platform, and performance metrics - applications of network robot systems Organisers: ----------------------------------------------- Dr. Norihiro Hagita (hagita at atr.jp) ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories, Japan ? Prof. Alberto Sanfeliu? (sanfeliu at iri.upc.es) Institute of Robotics, Technical University of Catalonia, Spain ? Dr. Young-Jo Cho (youngjo at etri.re.kr) Electronics and Telecommunication Research Institute (ETRI), Korea Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro (ishiguro at ams.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp) Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, Osaka University, Japan Ben Kr?se (krose at science.uva.nl) University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Zoran Zivkovic (zoran.zivkovic at nxp.com) NXP Semiconductors Research, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Hideki Hashimoto (hashimoto at iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp) Intelligent Control System Laboratory, University of Tokyo, Japan Dr. Takayuki Kanda (kanda at atr.jp) ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories, Japan Important dates: ----------------------------- Paper submission---- July? 7, 2008 Notification-------- July 17, 2008 Camera ready copy--- July 23, 2008 Preliminary list of invited speakers: ----------------------------------------------- Dr. Norihiro Hagita (ATR) Prof. Alberto Sanfeliu (Technical University of Catalonia) Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro (Osaka Univ.) Dr. Nobuto Matsuhira (JST, Toshiba Corporation) Dr. Young-Jo Cho (ETRI) Prof. Paolo Dario Prof. Tsutomu Hasegawa (Kyushu Univ.) Dr. Miwako Doi (Toshiba Corporation) Dr. Shuichi Nishio (ATR) Dr. Dieter Fox (University of Washington) Dr. Alessandro Saffiotti (?rebro University) From K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk Mon Jun 23 02:05:35 2008 From: K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk (Kerstin Dautenhahn) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:05:35 +0100 (BST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PhD studentship on Human-Robot Interaction Message-ID: Research Studentship Human-Robot Interaction: Learning and Adaptation for Robotic Companions as Assistive Technology University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, United Kingdom, Science and Technology Research Institute Applications are invited for a 3-year studenship in the area of Human-Robot Interaction in order to study learning and adaptation for robotic companions as assistive technology. Contact for informal inquiries: Prof. Kerstin Dautenhahn (E-mail: K. Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk) Description of Project: Human-Robot Interaction is a quickly growing research area with a number of applications in assistive technology. The research team at University of Hertfordshire led by Prof. Dautenhahn is involved in two European projects relevant to this studentship, namely IROMEC (where robots serve a assistive 'toys' for children with special needs, http://www.iromec.org/) and LIREC (where we study robots as long-term companions e.g. in the homes of elderly people http://www.lirec.org/). A key research issue relevant to both projects concerns the adaptation of the robot.s behaviour. A personalized robot companion needs to know its users, and be able to adapt in long-term interaction. The PhD project will focus of the topic of social learning and adaptation, i.e. will develop the robot.s ability to be taught by its user, and to learn socially by observing and analyzing the interaction. Such research is strongly inspired by biology and psychology concerning the way how humans and other animals learn from each other by observation, interaction and communication. Another area of inspiration comes from developmental psychology since infants learn many new skills in interaction with their caretakers. The group has a strong track record in the area of imitation, social learning and human-robot interaction. The PhD student will develop new social learning and adaptation algorithms, as well as participate in the preparation, implementation and analysis of human-robot interaction studies. The PhD student would be part of a larger interdisciplinary research team consisting of researchers working in the above mentioned European projects, as well as other research group members. Requirements: Applicants are required to have a strong first degree or Master.s degree in Computer Science, Robotics or a related area relevant to the project. An additional background in human-computer interaction, cognitive science or psychology is highly desirable. Excellent programming skills are an essential requirement, as well as general interest in interdisciplinary research and willingness to collaborate with researchers from other disciplines. The ideal candidate will be self-motivated with excellent writing and communication skills. The PhD project will be supervised by Prof. Kerstin Dautenhahn (K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk), whom interested candidates are invited to contact via email in the first instance. Successful candidates may be eligible for a research studentship award from the University (equivalent to 12940 GBP per annum bursary plus the payment of the standard UK student fees). The studentship offers the opportunity to work within the Adaptive Systems Research Group (http://adapsys.feis.herts.ac.uk/), a proactive, dynamic and interdisciplinary research team with an excellent international research profile and state-of-the-art facilities to conduct research into human-robot interaction. The University (http://www.herts.ac.uk/) is located in Hatfield with convenient access to London and nearby international airports. All formal applications must be made via the Research Office: For further information on the application process and an application form, contact Mrs Lorraine Nicholls Research Student Administrator STRI, Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences University of Hertfordshire College Lane, Hatfield, Herts, AL10 9AB, UK. Tel: ++ 44 (0) 1707 286083 Fax: ++44 (0) 1707 284185 or email: L.Nicholls at herts.ac.uk The short-listing process will begin on 25th July 2008. ----------------------------------------------------- Prof. Dr. Kerstin Dautenhahn Professor of Artificial Intelligence Adaptive Systems Research Group The University of Hertfordshire, School of Computer Science College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, United Kingdom URL: http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~comqkd E-mail: K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk Fax: +44-1707-284-303 Tel: +44-1707-284-333 From jneira at unizar.es Mon Jun 23 08:42:55 2008 From: jneira at unizar.es (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jos=E9_Neira?=) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:42:55 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Invitation to attend Workshop "Inside Data Association" at RSS08 Message-ID: <485FC47F.6050900@unizar.es> ************************************************************************ *** WORKSHOP: "Inside Data Association" *** *** =================================== *** *** at the *** *** ROBOTICS: SCIENCE AND SYSTEMS (RSS) 2008 *** *** *** *** ETH Zurich, Switzerland, 28. June 2008 *** *** *** ************************************************************************ URLs ==== Conference: http://www.robotics-conference.org Workshop homepage: http://www.sfbtr8.spatial-cognition.de/insidedataassociation/ Short Description ================= Data association is an important problem for many fields. In this workshop we want to take a deeper look at fundamental methods and problem analysis of the data association problem. Final Program ============= 9:00 - 9:10 Opening remarks 9:10 - 10:00 Invited talk: Appearance-Only SLAM and the FabMap Algorithm Mark Cummins, University of Oxford 10:00 - 10:30 Bayesian Formulation of Data Association and Markov Chain Monte Carlo Data Association Songhwai Oh, University of California 10:30 - 11:00 coffee break 11:00 - 11:30 Implicit Data Association from Spectrally Clustered Local Matches Edwin Olson, MIT 11:30 - 12:00 Active Matching Margarita Chli and Andrew J. Davison, Imperial College London 12:00 - 12:30 Learning to Associate with CRF-Matching F. Ramos, D. Fox, University of Sydney 12:30 - 13:30 lunch break 13:30 - 14:00 An overview of the benchmark data set 14:00 - 14:30 Vision SLAM needs appearance based methods O. Booij, et al., University of Amsterdam 14:30 - 15:00 Keypoint Design and Evaluation for Global Localization in 2D Lidar Maps Michael Bosse and Robert Zlot, CSIRO ICT Centre, Australia 15:00 - 15:30 A comparison of loop closing techniques in monocular SLAM Brian Williams, et al., University of Oxford 15:30 - 16:00 coffee break 16:00 - 17:00 Plenary discussion: The data-association problem -- Can we solve it? Can we circumvent it? 17:00 - 17:15 Closing remarks Inside Data Association ======================= Correctly associating sets of features is a core problem in many applications including robot self-localization and mapping (SLAM), visual tracking, and object recognition. Features usually need to be extracted from sensor data and extraction itself can be a difficult application-specific task in its own right. However, there are many common characteristics of data association problems which are worth studying. In this workshop we want to take a deeper look at the data-association problem and we explicitly encourage insightful contributions focussing on theoretical or empirical analysis, providing novel views on the problem, or even proposing a candidate for a gold-standard algorithm. To facilitate evaluation of data association methods, we particularly encourage using a SLAM data set which is available from the workshop homepage (see below). The data set is preprocessed to provide geometric features and ground-truth is also available. Please take a look at the video on the workshop homepage. Best Regards, the organizers: Jos? Neira Udo Frese Diedrich Wolter J?rg Kurlbaum -- Jose Neira ---------------------------------------------------- Departamento de Inform?tica e Ingenier?a de Sistemas Centro Polit?cnico Superior Universidad de Zaragoza Edificio Ada Byron Mar?a de Luna 1 E-50018 Zaragoza, Spain Fax: (34) 976 761 914; Voice: (34) 976 761 947; Office D.1.19 Email: jneira at unizar.es; URL: http://webdiis.unizar.es/~neira -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: message-footer.txt Url: http://duerer.usc.edu/pipermail/robotics-worldwide/attachments/20080623/0d59a69e/attachment.txt From rvoyles at du.edu Tue Jun 24 07:57:46 2008 From: rvoyles at du.edu (Richard Voyles) Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:57:46 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics (SSRR08) extended deadline approaching Message-ID: <003c01c8d60a$ab947770$226afd82@richardd620> Apologies for multiple messages and multiple postings. The submission deadline has been extended. The deadline for submission of papers for consideration for SSRR08 is approaching. Please submit full papers for review by June 30. (Under extenuating circumstances, we can accept full papers a little later, but we must have an extended abstract by June 30. All reviews will be full paper reviews. Contact a program chair for more details.) The 2008 IEEE International Workshop on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics (SSRR2008) is dedicated to identifying and solving the key issues necessary to field capable robots across a variety of challenging applications. This year it will be hosted at Tohoku University (October 21-24, 2008). This sixth workshop in the series will address both the research challenges posed by search and rescue scenarios and the design of deployable robotic systems that satisfy user-defined requirements. It will be co-located with NEDO Underground/Subway Surveillance Robot Demonstration to create a unique opportunity for development and exchange of research ideas and technical solutions. As always, emergency responders and other expected users will be involved in presentations and discussions to ensure the practical relevance of technology developments for actual usage. Please visit the website for more information: http://www.rm.is.tohoku.ac.jp/ssrr2008 _______________________________________________________ 2390 S. York Street? | (303) 871-2481 CMK 200??????????????| rvoyles at du.edu Denver, CO? 80208??? | www.du.edu/~rvoyles From silvia.coradeschi at oru.se Tue Jun 24 02:22:18 2008 From: silvia.coradeschi at oru.se (silvia.coradeschi at oru.se) Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:22:18 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] A Postdoc position and 3 PhD student positions Message-ID: <91e8f57e1782b.4860d8ea@oru.se> ******************************************************************** ** AASS Learning Systems Lab, ?rebro University: ** ** Postdoc Position, Pollution Monitoring with Mobile Gas Sensors ** ******************************************************************** This Postdoc position is immediately available at the AASS Learning Systems Lab, University of ?rebro, Sweden. Its runtime is initially limited to 18 months fully funded within the new EU project DHRS-CIM (Project Leader: Dr. Achim J. Lilienthal). The particular contributions expected in the DHRS-CIM project are to develop (1) 2D and 3D gas source tracking algorithms that are reliable and time-efficient under outdoor conditions and (2) advanced gas distribution models that aid prediction of gas propagation, sensor planning and gas source tracking. The project work might include a short research visit of one of our DHRS-CIM partners. The employed senior researcher will be part of the Mobile Robot Olfaction group at the AASS Research Centre, which currently consists of two senior researchers and two PhD candidates. Two further PhD positions related to Pollution Monitoring with Mobile Gas Sensors are currently announced within a second European project DIADEM and can be fixed from 1st of September 2008 on. Supervision of these PhD candidates will be a part of the duties in this position. This position does not include teaching duties. Topic: ------ "Pollution Monitoring with Mobile Gas Sensors" Location: --------- AASS Learning Systems Lab, ?rebro University, Sweden Closing Date: ------------- Applications can be sent immediately and will be considered until the position is filled. Contact: -------- Dr. Achim Lilienthal (e-mail: achim.lilienthal at tech.oru.se). Full Call: ---------- The full position announcement is available as a PDF under http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/announcements/Postdoc_Position-DHRS_CIM.pdf. The DHRS-CIM Project: --------------------- This is a Marie Curie IAPP (Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways) project funded by the European Union (Call: FP7 PEOPLE-2007-3-1-IAPP). The general objective is to combine forces of leading industrial and academic organizations in Europe in the field of "Disaster Management" in order to develop an intelligent decision support system for humans to manage chemical incidents. Prerequisites and Application Process: -------------------------------------- Interested candidates with a PhD in a relevant field can apply by sending a letter of motivation along with their documents (CV, copy of PhD diploma, documentation of the scientific skills, including a list of publications, key papers and at least two academic references) by e-mail to Achim Lilienthal (achim.lilienthal at tech.oru.se). It is not necessary to be familiar with the Swedish language but proficiency in written/spoken English is mandatory. For further information please contact Achim Lilienthal (achim.lilienthal at tech.oru.se). The Research Environment: ------------------------- The University of ?rebro (http://www.oru.se) is a young university currently enrolling more than 14000 students. It is located in ?rebro, a city with 100'000 inhabitants, which is situated in central Sweden at 59?16'N 15?13'E. More information about ?rebro can be found, for example, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/?rebro). The Centre for Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems (AASS Research Centre, http://aass.oru.se) carries out multi-disciplinary research at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, computer vision, computer science, and measurement technology. The research and human environment at AASS is young and enthusiastic. Researchers come from different countries and have different scientific and cultural backgrounds. AASS also frequently hosts international researchers and is involved in several international projects. This means that enrolled PhD students will have the opportunity to travel and to cooperate with people in other countries. The Learning Systems Lab is one of three research groups within AASS. Our research is recognized world-wide with its focus generally on the development of algorithms and robotic/sensor systems for real-world tasks. Major directions are Mobile Robot Olfaction, Robotic Map Learning, Safe Operation in Dynamic Shared Environments, and Dexterous Manipulation and Motion Learning. Further information can be found on this Web site. Currently, the staff of the Learning Systems Lab includes 6 PhD students, 5 postdocs and 3 professors. More Information: ----------------- Full Call: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/announcements/Postdoc_Position-DHRS_CIM.pdf Contact Person: Dr. Achim Lilienthal, e-mail: achim.lilienthal at tech.oru.se, Web page: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/amll.html) Learning Systems Lab: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/index.html AASS: www.aass.oru.se -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *********************************************************** ** AASS Learning Systems Lab, ?rebro University: ** ** PhD Opportunity, 3D Sensing for Autonomous Navigation ** *********************************************************** A new PhD position is immediately available at the AASS Learning Systems Lab, University of ?rebro, Sweden under the supervision of Dr. Achim J. Lilienthal. The major part of the PhD studies can be dedicated to research in the area of 3D Sensing for Autonomous Navigation. The aim is to investigate robot navigation based on 3D range sensing for the case of a single robot or a team of robots with or without the context of an environment that is equipped with stationary sensors in a wireless network (Ambient Intelligence). The enrolled PhD student will be involved in ongoing projects at the AASS Learning Systems Lab for which the results of the work are relevant. This includes the EU project DustBot (http://www.dustbot.org, http://www.aass.oru.se/~dustbot/), the recently started project MALTA (http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/malta/) and a pre-study on underwater navigation. Apart from working towards the PhD thesis, the enrolled PhD student will be involved in the project work of the mentioned projects, which is expected to include occasional research visits of our European partners. Topic: ------ "3D Sensing for Autonomous Navigation" Location: --------- AASS Learning Systems Lab, ?rebro University, Sweden Closing Date: ------------- Applications can be sent immediately and will be considered until the position is filled. Contact: -------- Dr. Achim Lilienthal (e-mail: achim.lilienthal at tech.oru.se). Full Call: ---------- The full position announcement including practical information about PhD studies in Sweden is available as a PDF under http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/announcements/PhD_Position-3D_Sensing_for_Navigation.pdf. DustBot Project: ---------------- The aim of the DustBot project is the development of a demonstration system for the management of urban hygiene using a network of autonomous and cooperating robots embedded in an Ambient Intelligence infrastructure. The robots will operate in partially unstructured environments (such as pedestrian areas) where they do vacuum-cleaning and transport small quantities of garbage. Further information can be found at http://www.dustbot.org. MALTA Project: -------------- MALTA (Multiple Autonomous Fork-Lift Trucks for Loading and Transportation Applications) is a collaborative project between the AASS Research Centre at ?rebro University, the Intelligent Systems Lab at Halmstad University and industrial partners from Danaher Motion, Stora Enso Logistics and Linde Material Handling. The purpose of the project is to develop a demonstrator platform for a fully autonomous fork-lift truck that handles heavy products in an industrial setting. The autonomous trucks should be able to work safely together with other autonomous trucks and with manually driven trucks. They should be able to pick up (load) products, unload them, store them in containers or train wagons and possibly even stack them. The trucks should be able to do this with a speed that is comparable to the speed of trucks driven by humans. The MALTA project is co-sponsored by the KK-foundation. Prerequisites and Application Process: -------------------------------------- Apart from interest in the topic, a strong theoretical background and solid programming skills, applicants should have the equivalent of a Masters degree in an appropriate field (for example: Physics, Applied Mathematics, Robotics, Computer Science). It is not necessary to be familiar with the Swedish language but proficiency in written/spoken English is mandatory. To apply for the position, please send a motivation letter along with an updated CV (including at least two academic references) by e-mail to Achim Lilienthal (achim.lilienthal at tech.oru.se). The Research Environment: ------------------------- The University of ?rebro (http://www.oru.se) is a young university currently enrolling more than 14000 students. It is located in ?rebro, a city with 100'000 inhabitants, which is situated in central Sweden at 59?16'N 15?13'E. More information about ?rebro can be found, for example, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/?rebro). The Centre for Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems (AASS Research Centre, http://aass.oru.se) carries out multi-disciplinary research at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, computer vision, computer science, and measurement technology. The research and human environment at AASS is young and enthusiastic. PhD students come from different countries and have different scientific and cultural backgrounds. AASS also frequently hosts international researchers and is involved in several international projects. This means that enrolled PhD students will have the opportunity to travel and to cooperate with people in other countries. The Learning Systems Lab is one of three research groups within AASS. Our research is recognized world-wide with its focus generally on the development of algorithms and robotic/sensor systems for real-world tasks. Major directions are Mobile Robot Olfaction, Robotic Map Learning, Safe Operation in Dynamic Shared Environments, and Dexterous Manipulation and Motion Learning. Further information can be found on this Web site. Currently, the staff of the Learning Systems Lab includes 6 PhD students, 5 postdocs and 3 professors. More Information: ----------------- Full Call: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/announcements/PhD_Position-3D_Sensing_for_Navigation.pdf Contact Person: Dr. Achim Lilienthal, e-mail: achim.lilienthal at tech.oru.se, Web page: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/amll.html) Learning Systems Lab: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/index.html AASS: www.aass.oru.se PhD studies at AASS: http://www.aass.oru.se/Positions/faq.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ********************************************************************* ** AASS Learning Systems Lab, ?rebro University: ** ** PhD Opportunities, Pollution Monitoring with Mobile Gas Sensors ** ********************************************************************* Two exciting new PhD positions will be available from 1st of September 2008. The 3-year PhD positions under the supervision of Dr. Achim J. Lilienthal are fully funded within new EU project on Distributed Information Acquisition and Decision-Making for Environmental Management. Topic: ------ "Pollution Monitoring with Mobile Gas Sensors" Location: --------- AASS Learning Systems Lab, ?rebro University, Sweden Closing Date: ------------- Applications can be sent immediately and will be considered until the position is filled. Contact: -------- Dr. Achim Lilienthal (e-mail: achim.lilienthal at tech.oru.se). Full Call: ---------- The full position announcement including practical information about PhD studies in Sweden is available as a PDF under http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/announcements/PhD_Positions-DIADEM.pdf. DIADEM Project: --------------- The objective of the DIADEM project (Distributed Information Acquisition and Decision-Making for Environmental Management) is to provide methods and tools that will support environmental management, particularly in industrial settings. This will be achieved by means of developing a system that supports seamless integration of efficient gas detection and gas monitoring with advanced decision support systems. The combination of rich domain expertise and relevant context information with advanced planning systems will contribute to prevent chemical air pollution and to mitigate consequences of catastrophic chemical incidents. The DIADEM consortium consists of 9 partners from 6 European countries (Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Romania, and Sweden), including four academic partners, three companies and two environmental protection agencies. PhD Studies: ------------ The major part of the work can be dedicated to research in the area of pollution monitoring with mobile gas sensors, particularly to develop (1) advanced gas distribution models that aid prediction of gas propagation, sensor planning and gas source tracking; (2) algorithms for sensor planning so as to use mobile gas sensors in an optimal way; and (3) distributed gas source tracking algorithms. Apart from working towards the PhD thesis, the enrolled PhD student will be involved in the project work, which is expected to include occasional research visits of our European partners. Prerequisites and Application Process: -------------------------------------- Apart from interest in the topic, a strong theoretical background and solid programming skills, applicants should have the equivalent of a Masters degree in an appropriate field (for example: Physics, Applied Mathematics, Robotics, Computer Science). It is not necessary to be familiar with the Swedish language but proficiency in written/spoken English is mandatory. To apply for the position, please send a motivation letter along with an updated CV (including at least two academic references) by e-mail to Achim Lilienthal (achim.lilienthal at tech.oru.se). Applications can be sent immediately and will be considered until the position is fixed. The Research Environment: ------------------------- The University of ?rebro (http://www.oru.se) is a young university currently enrolling more than 14000 students. It is located in ?rebro, a city with 100'000 inhabitants, which is situated in central Sweden at 59?16'N 15?13'E. More information about ?rebro can be found, for example, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/?rebro). The Centre for Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems (AASS Research Centre, http://aass.oru.se) carries out multi-disciplinary research at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, computer vision, computer science, and measurement technology. The research and human environment at AASS is young and enthusiastic. PhD students come from different countries and have different scientific and cultural backgrounds. AASS also frequently hosts international researchers and is involved in several international projects. This means that, particularly in the DIADEM project, enrolled PhD students will have the opportunity to travel and to cooperate with people in other countries. The Learning Systems Lab is one of three research groups within AASS. Our research is recognized world-wide with its focus generally on the development of algorithms and robotic/sensor systems for real-world tasks. Major directions are Mobile Robot Olfaction, Robotic Map Learning, Safe Operation in Dynamic Shared Environments, and Dexterous Manipulation and Motion Learning. Further information can be found on this Web site. Currently, the staff of the Learning Systems Lab includes 6 PhD students, 5 postdocs and 3 professors. More Information: ----------------- Full Call: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/announcements/PhD_Positions-DIADEM.pdf Contact Person: Dr. Achim Lilienthal, e-mail: achim.lilienthal at tech.oru.se, Web page: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/amll.html) Learning Systems Lab: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/index.html AASS: www.aass.oru.se PhD studies at AASS: http://www.aass.oru.se/Positions/faq.html From doetomo at unimelb.edu.au Tue Jun 24 16:59:49 2008 From: doetomo at unimelb.edu.au (Denny Oetomo) Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:59:49 +1000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Reminder: CFP: JFR Special Issue on Agricultural Robotics References: Message-ID: Dear all, Just a reminder on the deadline for the Journal of Field Robotics, Special Issue on Agricultural Robotics. The deadline of submisison is one month away, 25 July 2008. Looking forward to your participations. Best Regards, Denny Oetomo ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Journal of Field Robotics Special Issue: Advances in Agricultural Robotics -------------------------------------------------------------------- Guest Editors: John Billingsley, University of Southern Queensland John Reid, Intelligent Machine Systems, John Deere Denny Oetomo, University of Melbourne Automation is one of the most important reasons in the improvement of farming efficiency. The maturing technologies being developed by the robotics community are paving the way for the exciting deployments of robust robotic systems in the environment of large scale farming, one that is semi-structured. Not only does this have the potential to increase the productivity and the quality of agricultural facilities, it can also significantly alter the way in which the farming industry is modeled and conducted. The future vision of the emerging trend in autonomous farming is of great interest, not only to the robotics and agricultural communities, but also to the industries and wider community. Field of interest includes the broader area of agriculture such as forestry and aquaculture. Advances in agricultural efficiency provided by the robotics technology and automation greatly impact the sustainability of our natural resources in satisfying the demand of the growing world population. The Journal of Field Robotics (JFR) announces a special issue on the advances in agricultural robotics. High quality submissions are sought to present various state-of-the-arts applications of robotic techniques to the area of agricultural robotics and automation. Field experimentation results as well as conceptual ideas with potentials to define the future of agricultural automation are of great interest. Perspective from agricultural experts on robotics and automation is also of great interest. We invite papers that exhibit theory and methods applied to field of agricultural robotics, including but not limited to : * Examples of robust implementation of robotics technology deployed on the farm * Methods of sensing, identification, and localisation in the semi-structured farming environment * Modelling and control of autonomous systems in agricultural tasks * Mechanism analysis, design, as well as manipulation strategies specific to the tasks required in the agricultural processes * Techniques for reliable information sharing in an integrated farm automation framework * Strategies for effective human-machine coordination and cooperation in farming tasks * Algorithm for efficient interaction between the systems and the environment * Other novel ideas, concepts, applications that would be of significant contribution to the field of autonomous agriculture It is of great interest that papers for this special issue provide technical descriptions of systems as well as results and analysis of fielded experimentations. Lessons learned in development and operation are also pertinent. Contacts: For further information, please do not hesitate to contact Denny Oetomo (doetomo at unimelb.edu.au) For information on paper format and submission procedures, please refer to the JFR website: http://www.journalfieldrobotics.org/Home.html Submission of papers is done online: http://www.journalfieldrobotics.org/Submission.html Deadlines: July 25, 2008 - Submission of manuscripts September 25, 2008 - Complete reviews October 15, 2008 - Notification of acceptance December 15, 2008 - Final manuscripts due for publication -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://duerer.usc.edu/pipermail/robotics-worldwide/attachments/20080625/a9e86c78/attachment.htm From morales at icc.uji.es Wed Jun 25 07:33:15 2008 From: morales at icc.uji.es (Antonio Morales) Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:33:15 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IEEE/RSJ IROS 2008 Workshop on Robot Simulation - Call for papers (Extended deadline) Message-ID: <4862572B.3030308@icc.uji.es> >>Our apologies if you receive multiple copies of this call<< CALL FOR PAPERS WORKSHOP ON ROBOT SIMULATORS: AVAILABLE SOFTWARE, SCIENTIFIC APPLICATTIONS AND FUTURE http://www.robot.uji.es/research/events/iros08/ To be held at 2008 IEEE/RSJ INT. CONFERENCE ON INTELLIGENT ROBOTS AND SYSTEMS (IROS 2008) 26 September 2008, Nice, France http://iros2008.inria.fr/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SCOPE: The main goal of this workshop is to bootstrapping a discussion between researchers on the current state and potential uses of robot simulators in the scientific research on robotics. The workshop will be organized around two main aspects. The first one, a review of currently available simulator software. This will consider the software to solve the relevant parts of a simulation: physic engines, render engines, collision detection and contact modeling, and sensor simulation. The second aspect will rely on the presentation and description of innovative simulation uses in the robotics community. This part is intended to allow assistants to describe how they are using simulators in their research. There will also place to propose and discuss about future potential applications. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): - Robot simulators. - Simulators development - Sensor simulation applied to robotics. - Collision detection and contact modeling. - Simulation applied to robot grasping and manipulation. SUBMISSION Authors willing to participate and present their current work are invited to submit contributions. Initial submission can consist in a 2 pages abstract or in 8 pages full paper. Submission must be sent in PDF format to Antonio.Morales at uji.es. Detailed information about the format of the papers can be found at IROS site (http://iros2008.inria.fr). IMPORTANT DATES * Paper submission: July 7, 2008 * Notification : July 14, 2008 * Final submission: July 21, 2008 * Workshop: Sept. 26, 2008 ORGANIZERS Antonio Morales (University Jaume I, Spain) Tamim Asfour (University of Karlsruhe, Germany) R?diger Dillmann University of Karlsruhe, Germany) More information in the workshop site: http://www.robot.uji.es/research/events/iros08/ From edrumwri at gmail.com Wed Jun 25 11:22:42 2008 From: edrumwri at gmail.com (Evan Drumwright) Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:22:42 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Invitation to RSS 2008 Workshop on Advances in Simulation of Robot and Task Dynamics Message-ID: Would you like to learn how to make your simulations run faster and more robustly? Are you interested in where dynamic robotic simulation is heading? Please join us at the RSS 2008 Workshop on Advances in Simulation of Robot and Task Dynamics, where we'll address these questions and more. Advances in Simulation of Robot and Task Dynamics Robotics: Science and Systems 2008 Workshop Z?rich, Switzerland June, 28 2008 Detailed program: http://www.cs.memphis.edu/rss08-workshop/ Organizers: Evan Drumwright, University of Memphis, USA, edrmwrgh at memphis.edu Kurt Anderson, Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA, anderk5 at rpi.edu Roy Featherstone, Australian National University, Australia, roy.featherstone at anu.edu.au Motivation: Fast algorithms for simulating robot dynamics using multibody mechanics have existed for decades. However, simulated robots are typically restricted to performing free-space motion or locomotive tasks; only within the past few years has simulation of grasping been achieved. Roboticists have yet to simulate performance of tasks that theoretically should be capable of simulation with rigid body dynamics alone, like some part assembly tasks; rigid body dynamics by itself is inadequate to simulate many other tasks, like welding, driving screws, cutting, and drilling. The problems with the state-of-the-art are twofold. First, the numerous approximations employed- whether due to computational complexity requirements or modeling limitations- generally result in algorithms that are surprisingly brittle; significant parameter tuning is generally necessary to yield a stable simulation. Second, the predominant use of only rigid body dynamics strongly limits the types of tasks that can be simulated. Constraining the efforts to resolve these problems is hampered by the requirements to adhere to physical reality (as much as possible) and present low computational demands. Purpose: The purpose of this workshop is to inform roboticists of recent advances that permit dynamic simulation of robots performing tasks with greater robustness, accuracy, and speed than previously available. This workshop will also survey work from the fields of Mechanical Engineering, Computer Graphics, and Robotics toward simulation of a wide range of tasks by robots. Schedule: Time Talk title Speaker -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 02:00 Welcome and Organizers' Introduction TBA 02:15 Efficient Dynamics of Flexible Bodies Miguel A. Otaduy by Decoupling Global and Local Deformations 02:45 Aspects of Robot Dynamics Simulation Roy Featherstone 03:15 Iterative Numerical Methods to Solve Michael Moeller and Christoph Glocker Normal Cone Inclusions 03:45 Coffee Break 04:00 A Robust Algorithm for Modeling Evan Drumwright Contact in Dynamic Robotic Simulation 04:30 Humanoid Robot Whole-Body Dynamics and Control: a unified framework Oussama Khatib 05:00 Adaptive Flexible Body Divide and Kurt Anderson Conquer Algorithm for the Efficient Modeling of Complex Systems 05:30 Discussions (all participants) and closing remarks From auke.ijspeert at epfl.ch Wed Jun 25 11:53:12 2008 From: auke.ijspeert at epfl.ch (Auke Ijspeert) Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:53:12 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] RSS2008 WS on locomotion control, June 28: Call for participation and poster-abstracts Message-ID: <48629418.4010206@epfl.ch> Control of locomotion: from animals to robots Workshop at the "Robotics: Science and Systems" Conference */RSS2008/* , Zurich, Switzerland, Saturday, June 28, 2008. *Organizers*: *Auke Ijspeert *(EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland), *Paolo Dario * (SSSA, Italy), and *Sten Grillner * (Karolinska Institute, Sweden) Workshop website: http://birg2.epfl.ch/rss2008/ *Description*: The goal of the workshop is to discuss how inspiration from the animal kingdom can help improving locomotion skills in robots, and how robots can be used as scientific tools in animal motor control. All aspects of locomotion will be considered including materials, actuators, sensors, control, and learning. In particular, the workshop aims at exploring how these different aspects can collectively be designed to improve the locomotor skills of future robots. We will discuss possible roads to tackle the challenges related to having robots get out of the labs and move in unstructured and partially unknown terrains. While robotics has clearly something to gain from biological inspiration, we will also discuss how robotics can give something back to biology, namely how robots can be used as scientific tools in animal motor control. For instance, how robots can be used to test hypotheses about neural circuits and/or biomechanical principles in invertebrate and vertebrate animals. *Topics*: Neuro-mechanical coupling, central pattern generators, compliant robots, passive and dynamic walkers, gait transitions, motor learning, swimming robots, crawling robots, walking robots, jumping robots, /etc/. ** *Invited speakers:* ***Paolo Arena*, University of Catania, Italy* **Jonas Buchli*, University of Southern California, USA. * **Holk** Cruse*, University of Bielefeld, Germany* Paolo Dario*, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy.* Robert Full*, UC Berkeley, USA. * Sten** Grillner*, The Nobel Institute for Neurophysiology, Karolinska Institute, Sweden. * **Hiroshi Kimura*, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Japan. * Roger Quinn*, Case Western Reserve University, USA. * **Andre Seyfarth*, University of Jena, Germany. *Russ Tedrake*, MIT, USA. *Schedule: *http://birg2.epfl.ch/rss2008/ **** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://duerer.usc.edu/pipermail/robotics-worldwide/attachments/20080625/102d24a3/attachment.html From marco.morales at itam.mx Wed Jun 25 13:03:40 2008 From: marco.morales at itam.mx (Marco Morales Aguirre) Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:03:40 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] WAFR '08 submission deadline extended to July 15, 2008 Message-ID: <9303D7CD-CE47-4053-8BFF-2A2A0BF8733B@itam.mx> The submission deadline for the Eight International Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR 2008) to be held on December 7-9, 2008 in Guanajuato, M?xico has been extended to July 15, 2008. The Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR) is a single-track workshop on advances on algorithmic problems in robotics. Submissions on "fundamental" topics (such as complexity, completeness, and computational geometry), on applications (such as computational biology, virtual environments, sensor networks, manufacturing, and medical robotics), on algorithmic developments in "traditional" areas of robotics (such as motion planning, manipulation, sensing, and mobile robotics), as well as on newer areas (such as distributed robotics and simultaneous localization and mapping) are encouraged. Please see http://www.wafr.org for details Best Regards, Marco Morales (on behalf of the organizing committee) --------------------- Sistemas Digitales Instituto Tecnol?gico Aut?nomo de M?xico R?o Hondo No. 1, Col. Progreso Tizap?n, M?xico D.F. 01080, M?xico marco.morales at itam.mx http://allman.itam.mx/~marco.morales/ tel. +52 (55) 5628-4000 x. 3626 fax: +52 (55) 5490-4663 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://duerer.usc.edu/pipermail/robotics-worldwide/attachments/20080625/091c4783/attachment.htm From jmh at cs.utah.edu Wed Jun 25 12:45:14 2008 From: jmh at cs.utah.edu (John Hollerbach) Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:45:14 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJRR July 2008 Table of Contents Message-ID: <4862A04A.8030208@cs.utah.edu> The July 2008 issue of the International Journal of Robotics Research is now available online. The table of contents is at: http://ijr.sagepub.com/content/vol27/issue7/?etoc For this week, access to the whole of IJRR is open for a free trial. https://online.sagepub.com/cgi/register?registration=ENG08CONF Incremental Learning, Clustering and Hierarchy Formation of Whole Body Motion Patterns using Adaptive Hidden Markov Chains Dana Kulic, Wataru Takano, and Yoshihiko Nakamura The International Journal of Robotics Research 2008;27 761-784 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/7/761 Bilateral Symmetry Detection for Real-time Robotics Applications Wai Ho Li, Alan M. Zhang, and Lindsay Kleeman The International Journal of Robotics Research 2008;27 785-814 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/7/785 Robust and Efficient Covering of Unknown Continuous Domains with Simple, Ant-Like A(ge)nts Eliyahu Osherovich, Vladimir Yanovki, Israel A. Wagner, and Alfred M. Bruckstein The International Journal of Robotics Research 2008;27 815-831 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/7/815 Automatic Generation of High-level Contact State Space between 3D Curved Objects Peng Tang and Jing Xiao The International Journal of Robotics Research 2008;27 832-854 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/7/832 Self-Motions of General 3-RPR Planar Parallel Robots S?bastien Briot, Vigen Arakelian, Ilian A. Bonev, Damien Chablat, and Philippe Wenger The International Journal of Robotics Research 2008;27 855-866 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/7/855 From jakebeal at MIT.EDU Thu Jun 26 08:24:06 2008 From: jakebeal at MIT.EDU (Jacob S Beal) Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:24:06 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Reminder: Spatial Computing Workshop submissions due 7/5 Message-ID: <200806261524.m5QFO6s0026003@grumpy-fuzzball.mit.edu> This is a reminder that submissions to the Spatial Computing Workshop at IEEE SASO are due next week, on July 5th. The Call for Papers is attached below, and more information is available at: http://projects.csail.mit.edu/scw08/ Thanks, -Jake Beal (on behalf of the organizing committee) CALL FOR PAPERS Spatial Computing Workshop at IEEE SASO 2008 Many self-organizing or self-adaptive systems are "spatial computers" -- collections of local computational devices distributed through a physical space, in which: * the difficulty of moving information between any two devices is strongly dependent on the distance between them, and * the "functional goals" of the system are generally defined in terms of the system's spatial structure. Systems that can be viewed as spatial computers are abundant, both natural and man-made. For example, in wireless sensor networks and animal or robot swarms, inter-agent communication network topologies are determined by the distance between devices, while the agent collectives as a whole solve spatially-defined problems like "analyze and react to spatial temperature variance" or "surround and destroy an enemy." Similarly, in reconfigurable microchip platforms, moving data between adjacent logic blocks is much faster than moving it across the chip, which in turn favors problems with spatial structure like stream processing. In biological embryos, each developing cell's behavior is controlled only by its local chemical and physical environment, but the eventual structure of the organism is a global property of the cellular arrangement. Moreover, a variety of successful established techniques for self-organization and self-adaptation arise from explicitly spatial metaphors, e.g., self-healing gradients. On the other hand, not all spatially distributed systems are spatial computers. The Internet and peer-to-peer overlay networks may not in general best be considered as spatial computers, both because their communication graphs have little relation to the Euclidean geometry in which the participating devices are embedded, and because most applications for them are explicitly defined independent of network structure. Spatial computers, in contrast, tend to have more structure, with specific constraints and capabilities that can be used in the design and analysis of algorithms. The goal of this workshop is to explicitly identify the idea of "spatial computing" as a theme in self-organizing and self-adaptive systems, and further to develop the study of spatial computation as a subject in its own right. We believe that progress towards identifying common principles, techniques, and research directions -- and consolidating the substantial progress that is already being made -- will benefit all of the fields in which spatial computing takes place. And, as the impact of spatial computing is recognized in many areas, we hope to set up frameworks to ensure portability and cross-fertilization between solutions in the various domains. We are soliciting submissions on any aspect of spatial computing. Examples of topics of interest include, but are by no means limited to: * Languages for programming spatial computers and describing spatial tasks and patterns * Methods for compiling global programs to local rules that produce the desired global effect * Characterization of spatial self-organization phenomena as algorithmic building blocks * Characterization of error in spatial computers (e.g., error from approximating continuous space with networks of devices) * Analysis of tradeoffs between system parameters (e.g., communication radius vs. device memory consumption) * Studies of the relationship between time, propagation of information through the spatial computer, and computational complexity * Application of spatial computing principles to novel areas, or generalization of area-specific techniques * Device motion in spatial computing algorithms (e.g. the relationship between robot speed and gradient accuracy in multi-robot swarms) We encourage authors to submit papers in one of two formats: (1) Papers that develop "unifying" principles or techniques in spatial computing -- these papers should be suitable in format and quality for a conference track, but avoid incrementalism. (2) Papers that demonstrate how a technique or problem from a specific area of application can usefully be generalized -- these papers should be a combination of review paper and position paper, presenting the material from one area in a form comprehensible to researchers of another area, as well as a coherent technical argument generalizing the material to other areas. Although our interests are broad, we discourage authors from submitting reviews of particular application areas unless the paper explicitly connects the material to the larger technical issues of spatial computing. FORMAT AND SUBMISSION: Papers should be no longer than 10 pages in standard IEEE two-column format, but shorter papers are encouraged when possible. All manuscripts should be submitted in PDF form to scw08 at csail.mit.edu. Please direct all questions to scw08 at csail.mit.edu. IMPORTANT DATES: * July 5: Submission deadline * August 5: Notification of acceptance * October: Workshop held at IEEE SASO in Venice, Italy ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: * Dr. Jonathan Bachrach (MIT) * Dr. Jacob Beal (MIT) * Prof. Olivier Michel (University of Evry) * Dr. Justin Werfel (NECSI / Harvard Medical School) * Dr. Dan Yamins (Harvard) PROGRAM COMMITTEE: * Dr. William Butera (MERL) * Prof. Daniel Coore (University of West Indies, Mona) * Prof. Andre DeHon (U Penn) * Julius Degesys (Harvard) * Prof. Murat Demirbas (SUNY Buffalo) * Prof. David De Roure (University of Southampton) * Prof. Peter Dittrich (University Jena) * Dr. Simon Dobson (University College Dublin) * Dr. Rene Doursat (Institut des Systemes Complexes) * Prof. Chris Dwyer (Duke) * Dr. Seth Gilbert (EPFL) * Prof. Seth Copen Goldstein (CMU) * Prof. Frederic Gruau (University Paris Sud) * Dr. Sudha Krishnamurthy (Deutsche Telekom) * Dr. Marco Mamei (Universita di Modena e Reggio Emilia) * Prof. Radhika Nagpal (Harvard) * Prof. Gerald Jay Sussman (MIT) * Prof. Ron Weiss (Princeton) * Chih-Han Yu (Harvard) * Prof. Franco Zambonelli (Universita di Modena e Reggio Emilia) From skopp at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de Fri Jun 27 06:48:04 2008 From: skopp at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de (Stefan Kopp) Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:48:04 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Researcher/PhDs in Sociable Agents at Bielefeld University In-Reply-To: <6B81B79F-11A8-4F3A-A220-ECA3768E7482@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de> References: <6B81B79F-11A8-4F3A-A220-ECA3768E7482@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de> Message-ID: <1ABAC3B2-BF8F-4075-90FC-EAFA75429A3C@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de> *** Job Announcements - Sociable Agents/Robots - Bielefeld University *** The newly esctablished Center of Excellence ?Cognitive Interaction Technology? at Bielefeld University combines interdisciplinary efforts to elevate the command of technical systems to the level of cognitive interaction with humans. For more details, see www.cit-ec.de. In the Center of Excellence a new research group ?Sociable Agents? has been established. The group explores how embodied agents, i.e. robots or 3D virtual characters, can learn to better interact with people by taking social aspects of communication into account. In this context, we are inviting applications for the following positions, all available immediately: - 1 RESEARCHER (TV-L E13) for the duration until Oct. 2012 (ref. 1002) Candidates are expected to develop cognitive architectures for embodied agents that integrate models of multimodal dialogue with the sensorimotor grounding of social resonance. The researcher will be responsible for the realization and maintenance of technical prototype platforms. Teaching at undergraduate and graduate level is expected. - 2 PH.D. SCHOLARSHIPS for the duration of 3 years (ref. 1003) Candidates are expected to conduct technical and empirical research on machine capabilities for developing communicative skills through social learning, and for promoting and capitalizing on the evolvement of familiarity and companionship in long-term interaction, respectively. We are looking for applicants with an excellent degree in Computer Science and a strong background in A.I., human-machine interaction, social robotics, or interactive computer graphics. Knowledge in Computational Linguistics or Cognitive/Social Psychology is highly welcome. Practical programming skills are expected, good knowledge of English is required. For more information, please contact: Stefan Kopp (Tel: +49 521 1062921, skopp(at)techfak.uni-bielefeld.de We will consider applications until all positions have been ?lled. Applications arriving no later than 25.7.2008 will receive full consideration. Applications including relevant documents (cover letter with indication of research interests, CV, publication list) and specifying the reference number of the position shall be sent both electronically and as a hardcopy to: Exzellenzcluster Cognitive Interaction Technology Prof. Dr. Helge Ritter CITEC Gesch?ftsstelle Universit?tsstrasse 25, 33615 Bielefeld Germany Email: info at cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de From david.vanleeuwen at gmail.com Fri Jun 27 09:51:42 2008 From: david.vanleeuwen at gmail.com (David van Leeuwen) Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:51:42 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Participation MLMI 2008, Utrecht, The Netherlands Message-ID: (multiple apologies for multiple postings) Call for Participation: MLMI 2008 (5th Workshop on Machine Learning and Multimodal Interaction) Management summary: early registration is closing 1 July 2008, workshop programme is now available at http://www.mlmi.info/index.php?id=programme . 5th Joint Workshop on Machine Learning and Multimodal Interaction (MLMI 2008) 8-10 September 2008 Utrecht, The Netherlands http://www.mlmi.info The fifth MLMI workshop will be held in Utrecht, The Netherlands, following successful workshops in Martigny (2004), Edinburgh (2005), Washington (2006) and Brno (2007). The MLMI joint multi-disciplinary workshops bring together researchers from the different communities working on the common theme of advanced machine learning algorithms applied to multimodal human-human and human-computer interaction. MLMI 2008 will feature a special session on user requirements and evaluation of meeting browsers, and the AMI Career Day. ---david From K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk Fri Jun 27 12:04:18 2008 From: K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk (Kerstin Dautenhahn) Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:04:18 +0100 (BST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PhD Research Studentship: Computational Linguisitics of Human-Robot Interaction (Univ. Hertfordshire) Message-ID: Research Studentship in Computational Linguistics of Human-Robot Interaction Adaptive Systems Research Group, University of Hertfordshire Science and Technology Research Institute Applications are invited from candidates with good BSc/BA or MSc degrees in computer science, electronic engineering, physics, biology, linguistics, or other relevant disciplines to join projects as research students for a three year period in order to undertake and complete a PhD in the following area: Ref 4: Computational Linguistics of Human-Robot Interaction Contact for informal inquiries: Prof. Chrystopher L. Nehaniv (E-mail: C.L.Nehaniv at herts.ac.uk) Project and Requirements: The PhD studentship will support research to pursue recent fundamental advances in the investigation and deployment of new computational linguistics methods for use in studies on the emergence of the development of communicative competencies in embodied artificial intelligence systems. In particular, the candidate will explore how a robot can achieve the enactive creation of meaningful representation via grammatical constructions during the course of development and learning in a physical and social environment. The candidate's research will be carried out as part of a multidisciplinary team led by Prof. Nehaniv and will employ methods of construction grammar and social learning in human-robot interaction. Experimental platforms used for this work will include the KASPAR and iCub humanoid robots. This research will support work in the EU-funded project I-Talk (http://italkproject.org/) on the emergence of language using the feedback loop between social learning, individual learning and language acquisition. The ideal candidate will be self-motivated with good writing and communication skills, an excellent programmer, and with a very strong background in computational linguistics and natural/artificial language grammars. It also desirable that the candidate have exposure to one or more of: developmental psychology, human-computer interaction, pragmatics and language acquisition, interactive systems and autonomous robotics, artificial life, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and/or mathematical theory of communication (information theory), as well having some familiarity with sensors, networking, scripting, and multithreading. Successful candidates may be eligible for a research studentship award from the University (equivalent to 12,940 British pounds per annum bursary plus the payment of the standard UK student fees). The Adaptive Systems Research Group founded in 2000 by Prof. K. Dautenhahn and Prof. C. L. Nehaniv is an internationally leading group in Artificial Life and AI Social Robotics comprising over 30 research academic, postdocs, and other researchers. For further information and an application form, contact Mrs Lorraine Nicholls, Research Student Administrator, STRI, Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield, Herts, AL10 9AB, United Kingdom. Tel: +44-(0)1707 286083 Fax: +44-(0)1707 284185 or email: stri.admissions at herts.ac.uk. The short-listing process will begin on 25th July 2008. From jmh at cs.utah.edu Fri Jun 27 10:23:27 2008 From: jmh at cs.utah.edu (John Hollerbach) Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:23:27 -0600 (MDT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] World Haptics 2009 Message-ID: <20080627172327.56CE7B9C5D@veto.cs.utah.edu> This is an advance announcement for World Haptics 2009, which will take place from March 18-20, 2009, in Salt Lake City. www.worldhaptics2009.org World Haptics 2009 is the 3rd joint symposium between Eurohaptics and the Haptics Sympoisum, and is sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and the Technical Committee on Haptics. Its proceedings will be placed in IEEE Xplore. The due date for papers will be October 15, 2008. Please see the web page for future details about how to submit. I hope to see you in Salt Lake City. And remember to bring your skis. John Hollerbach, General Chair Steering Committee: Antonio Bicchi Manuel Ferre Matthias Harders Hiroo Iwata Gunter Niemeyer Allison Okamura Hong Tan Yasu Yokokohji Conference Editorial Board: Lynette Jones, Editor-in-Chief Matthias Harders, Editor Yasu Yokokohji, Editor Local Arrangements Chair: David Johnson Publications Chair: Mark Colton Publicity Chair: Antonio Frisoli Tours Chair: Will Provancher From mail at jan-peters.net Sat Jun 28 06:20:33 2008 From: mail at jan-peters.net (Jan Peters) Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:20:33 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call For Papers: Autonomous Robots - Special Issue on Robot Learning Message-ID: <122B352E-6CA4-4BE0-A72B-85B240A8F762@jan-peters.net> = = = ======================================================================== Call For Papers: Autonomous Robots - Special Issue on Robot Learning = = = ======================================================================== Quick Facts ========= Editors: Jan Peters, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Andrew Y. Ng, Stanford University Journal: Autonomous Robots Submission Deadline: November 8, 2008 Author Notification: March 1, 2009 Revised Manuscripts: June 1, 2009 Approximate Publication Date: 4th Quarter, 2009 Abstract ====== Creating autonomous robots that can learn to act in unpredictable environments has been a long standing goal of robotics, artificial intelligence, and the cognitive sciences. In contrast, current commercially available industrial and service robots mostly execute fixed tasks and exhibit little adaptability. To bridge this gap, machine learning offers a myriad set of methods some of which have already been applied with great success to robotics problems. Machine learning is also likely play an increasingly important role in robotics as we take robots out of research labs and factory floors, into the unstructured environments inhabited by humans and into other natural environments. To carry out increasingly difficult and diverse sets of tasks, future robots will need to make proper use of perceptual stimuli such as vision, lidar, proprioceptive sensing and tactile feedback, and translate these into appropriate motor commands. In order to close this complex loop from perception to action, machine learning will be needed in various stages such as scene understanding, sensory-based action generation, high-level plan generation, and torque level motor control. Among the important problems hidden in these steps are robotic perception, perceptuo-action coupling, imitation learning, movement decomposition, probabilistic planning, motor primitive learning, reinforcement learning, model learning, motor control, and many others. Driven by high-profile competitions such as RoboCup and the DARPA Challenges, as well as the growing number of robot learning research programs funded by governments around the world (e.g., FP7-ICT, the euCognition initiative, DARPA Legged Locomotion and LAGR programs), interest in robot learning has reached an unprecedented high point. The interest in machine learning and statistics within robotics has increased substantially; and, robot applications have also become important for motivating new algorithms and formalisms in the machine learning community. In this Autonomous Robots Special Issue on Robot Learning, we intend to outline recent successes in the application of domain-driven machine learning methods to robotics. Examples of topics of interest include, but are not limited to: ? learning models of robots, task or environments ? learning deep hierarchies or levels of representations from sensor & motor representations to task abstractions ? learning plans and control policies by imitation, apprenticeship and reinforcement learning ? finding low-dimensional embeddings of movement as implicit generative models ? integrating learning with control architectures ? methods for probabilistic inference from multi-modal sensory information (e.g., proprioceptive, tactile, vision) ? structured spatio-temporal representations designed for robot learning ? probabilistic inference in non-linear, non-Gaussian stochastic systems (e.g., for planning as well as for optimal or adaptive control) From several recent workshops, it has become apparent that there is a significant body of novel work on these topics. The special issue will only focus on high quality articles based on sound theoretical development as well as evaluations on real robot systems. Time Line ======== Submission Deadline: November 8, 2008 Author Notification: March 1, 2009 Revised Manuscripts: June 1, 2009 Approximate Publication Date: 4th Quarter, 2009 Editors ====== Inquiries on this special issue should be send to one of the editors listed below. Jan Peters (http://www.jan-peters.net/) Senior Research Scientist, Head of the Robot Learning Laboratory Department for Machine Learning and Empirical Inference, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tuebingen, Germany Andrew Y. Ng (http://ai.stanford.edu/~ang/) Assistant Professor Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, Palo Alto, USA From giorgio.cannata at unige.it Sun Jun 29 07:29:40 2008 From: giorgio.cannata at unige.it (Giorgio Cannata) Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:29:40 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Scholarships for the European Master on Advance Robotics (EMARO) Message-ID: <013101c8d9f4$b3ba0760$1b2e1620$%cannata@unige.it> Dear colleague I have the pleasure to inform you that the consorium of the Master EMARO European Master on Advanced Robotics offers 4 scholarships for European excellent students. Each scholarship is organized as follows: The first year (M1) must be spent in the University of Genova (Italy). The EU student will receive: - 100% tuition fee waiver (2000) - 3000 scolarship (to cover living costs) - TOTAL : 5000, The second year (M2) can be spent in Ecole Centrale de Nantes (France) or Warsaw University of Technology (Poland). The EU student will receive: - 100% tuition fee waiver (2000) - Erasmus syandard scholarship (aprox. 2000) - Additional Erasmus Mundus 3000 scholarship for the students who participate to a 3-months mobility program in one of the Asian Universities partners (Keio (Japan), AIT (Thailand), SJTU (Chine), - TOTAL : from 4 000 to 7 000 Please note that the closing date for EU application is 20 July 2008. EMARO European Master on Advanced Robotics is one of the an international progmams og the prestigious framework of the European project Erasmus- Mundus. The first promotion will start in the academic year 2008/2009 for European and third countries students. The following European institutions are involved in this project: - Ecole Centrale de Nantes, France - Warsaw University of Technology, Poland - University of Genova, Italy. The aim of this master is to promote a high-quality educational offer in the area of advanced and intelligent robotics. The student will spend the first year in one institution and then move to another institution for the second year. He will obtain the Masters degrees of these two institutions. I would be glad that some of your students can apply for this master. The application form and all the details on the master can be found on the website: http://emaro.irccyn.ec-nantes.fr < http://emaro.irccyn.ec-nantes.fr/> . Mandatory conditions are: - a very good practice of English language (the language of instruction of EMARO is English) - having the bachelor degree in a field related to Robotics such as: Automatic control, Electrical Engineering, Computer science, Mechanical Engineering,etc. The degree being awarded latest in July 2008. Do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, many thanks for your help. ********************************* Prof. Wisama KHALIL Ecole Centrale de Nantes IRCCyN (Institut de Recherche en Communication et Cyberntique de Nantes) B.P 92 101, 44321 Nantes cedex 03 France. Tel: +(33) 2 40 37 69 46, Fax: +(33) 2 40 37 69 30 E-mail : Wisama.Khalil at irccyn.ec-nantes.fr Web : http://www.irccyn.ec-nantes.fr < http://www.irccyn.ec-nantes.fr/> ********************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://duerer.usc.edu/pipermail/robotics-worldwide/attachments/20080629/7fa2de3a/attachment.htm From ota at robot.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp Mon Jun 30 01:48:51 2008 From: ota at robot.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp (Ota Jun) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:48:51 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Submission Deadline Extended: DARS 2008(Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems) Message-ID: <20080630084819.04034146BB@rose.arai.pe.u-tokyo.ac.jp> Due to many requests, the submission deadline of DARS 2008 symposium has been extended to 6:00 a.m. (Japan time) Monday, July 7, 2008. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Call for papers 9 th International Symposium on DISTRIBUTED AUTONOMOUS ROBOTIC SYSTEMS *** DARS 2008 *** Tsukuba , Ibaraki, Japan November 17-19, 2008 url: http://www.robot.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/DARS2008 Important Days Full paper submission: June 30, 2008 -> 6:00 a.m.(Japan time) Monday, July 7, 2008 Acceptance notification: August 31, 2008 Final paper submission: September 30, 2008 The Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems dealswith new methodologies, alogrithms, hardwares, system architectures to realize advanced distributed robotic systems. All interested researchers and engineers are invited to participate in DARS 2008 for presentation and discussion. Excellent papers of the conference will be published in a book, by Springer. The International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems successfully took place in 1992, 1994, and 1996 in Japan, in 1998 in Germany (Karlsruhe), in 2000 in USA (Knoxville, Tennessee), in 2002 in Japan (Fukuoka), in 2004 in France (Toulouse) and in 2006 in USA (St. Paul, Minnesota). DARS 2008 will be held in Japan. Topics include but are not limited to: Architectures for teams of robots Ambient Intelligence Biologically inspired systems Control issues in multi-robot systems Distributed decision making/problem solving Distributed/cooperative perception Distributed planning Distributed task execution Human and robot interaction Learning and adaptation in teams of robots Multi-robot applications in exploration, search and rescue, service, etc Mobiligence (Emergence of Intelligence through Mobility) Modular robotics Network robotics Performance metrics for robot teams Reconfigurable robots Robot societies Self-organizing robotic systems Sensor networks Swarm robotics Task allocation Advisory Committee Tamio Arai (Univ. of Tokyo, Japan) Hajime Asama (Univ. of Tokyo, Japan) Raja Chatila (LAAS, France) Ruediger Dillmann (Univ. of Karlsruhe, Germany) Toshio Fukuda (Nagoya Univ., Japan) Maria Gini (Univ. of Minnesota, USA) Tsutomu Hasegawa (Kyushu Univ., Japan) Lynne Parker (Univ. of Tennessee, USA) General Chair Haruhisa Kurokawa (AIST, Japan) Program Chair Jun Ota (Univ. of Tokyo, Japan) Program Co-Chair Kousuke Sekiyama (Nagoya Univ., Japan) Publication Chair Kuniaki Kawabata (RIKEN, Japan) Local Arrangement Comittee Chair Masao Sugi（Univ. of Tokyo, Japan)DARS Proceedings Program Committee members http://www.robot.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/DARS2008/pc_member.html From javier.ibanez-guzman at renault.com Mon Jun 30 10:05:21 2008 From: javier.ibanez-guzman at renault.com (IBANEZ-GUZMAN Javier) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:05:21 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PhD Studentship at a Major European Car Manufacturer (France) References: <018b01c8dace$29612690$1258dc0a@corp.noxiane.net> <6a68640f0806300934y49ca2bafkc809fbd15cd21963@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <01ce01c8dad3$7aad9510$1258dc0a@corp.noxiane.net> Cooperative vehicles potentially represent the new paradigm in road transportation. Vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) wireless communications links enable the sharing and aggregation of information and hence to extend the driver awareness horizon. A new PhD position is immediately available at a French vehicle manufacturer in conjunction with a national research institute to look into the area of "Distributed Data Fusion and Reasoning for Cooperative Vehicle Applications", within the context of the CIFRE type of studentships. The thesis should focus in the area of distributed data fusion under uncertainty and constraints for automobile related safety applications. We are seeking students interested in the area cooperative systems, in particular, data fusion, control, learning and perception. The position should provide the opportunity to develop the theoretical foundations at a leading laboratory and to validate ideas through experimentation using passenger vehicles as well as simulation. The enrolled student will benefit from ongoing work on cooperative vehicles as part of large European projects. To submit an application: Please include your curriculum vitae, an academic transcript and the names and contact details of two referees. Applications can be sent immediately and will be considered until the position is filled. Please Contact: Dr: J. Ibanez-Guzman, jibanez at ieee.org . Telephone + +33 1 768 57576