From ryad.benosman at upmc.fr Wed Apr 1 06:10:18 2009 From: ryad.benosman at upmc.fr (R.B Benosman) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 15:10:18 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] LANGRO'09: Symposium on Language and Robots Message-ID: <903DA10E-C8B5-437B-89DC-834BFA259191@upmc.fr> CALL FOR PAPERS =================================================================== 3rd Symposium on Language and Robots - LANGRO'2009 September 9-11, Paris, France http://isir.robot.jussieu.fr/langro09/ =================================================================== Aims and Scope and Topics ------------------------- This symposium, organized by the Distributed Language Group (DLG), aims to explore synergies and identify areas of collaboration between robotics and the language sciences. As starting point for the discussions, a perspective is proposed in which language is seen as a dynamic and distributed cognitive process. This edition will also enquire into and discuss links between language and neurons and the possible existence of a "neural theory of language" that can be applied to intelligent biorobotics. The origins, evolution and acquisition of language and its role in human societies have long been studied by philosophers, linguists, psychologists, neuroscientists and cognitive scientists. In recent years, a distributed view of cognition and language has emerged. Control of embodied action is seen as an emergent property of a distributed system composed of brain, body and environment. Language ceases to be a formal underlying system and, instead, becomes a heterogeneous set of culturally distributed processes. As a representation, language is a cultural product, perpetually open- ended and incomplete, and partly ambiguous. Language acquisition and evolution involve not only internal, but also cultural, social and affective processes. In this context, many research questions open up: How does language transform human cognitive processes? How is language grounded in perception and action? In what ways does human phenomenology depend on linguistic experience? Can a distributed perspective on language clarify the nature of silent rehearsal (internal thought processes)? How does this relate to consciousness? How is language used to achieve joint experience? What is the embodied basis of cognition and social semiosis? While the language sciences have, until now, focused on language in human societies, the robotics and artificial intelligence communities are becoming increasingly active in developing user-friendly robots. These machines are flexible, adaptable and easy to command and instruct. As artificial agents, they need to cognitively interpret perception and action, accumulate and manipulate semantic information for decision-making and interact with human subjects using natural language. The symposium will explore the following issues: * How can robots ground and use language for practical applications? * How can robots be used for empirical work in the language sciences? * How can robots engage with distributed language ? * What does robotics imply for the language sciences? * What questions do roboticists want to ask the language sciences? * How can the language sciences contribute to the theoretical and practical study of how humans interact with robots? * How can the language sciences evolve to address societies that include robots? With the growth of research in neuroscience, questions on the following issues are especially welcome: * Can a neural theory of language exist? If so, what would it look like? If not, how can linguistics be linked with neuroscience? * What is the possible basis of neural semantics? How can that connect to the interaction-based/distributed perspective on language? * How can the neuroscience of language inspire new developments in robotics robots? We invite papers that address these questions. To encourage interaction, we welcome speakers from a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds. Symposium format. ----------------- The symposium will be a 3 days event that gathers researchers from a wide range of backgrounds. The symposium format includes a number of Invited Speakers and a public call for papers. After the symposium, participants will be invited to submit a paper to a special issue of the journal "Adaptive Behavior". Important Dates --------------- Deadline for paper submission: June 12, 2009 Notification of paper acceptance: July 15, 2009 Deadline for final versions: August 1, 2009 Conference dates: September 12-15, 2009 Submission and Reviewing Process -------------------------------- Authors are invited to submit either an abstract or a full-length paper. Full papers can have a length of between 6 and 10 pages, abstracts can have a maximum length of 2 pages. Submitted abstracts and papers will be refereed and selected for half- hour oral presentations on the basis of quality and relevance to the issues the symposium is addressing. Submission should be sent to langro2009 (at isir.fr) in either MS Word or Adobe PDF format. All papers will be reviewed by, at least, three members of the Publication ----------- Accepted papers will be included in the proceedings and will be made accessible through the web. Copies of the proceedings will be available at the symposium. Papers of higher quality will be selected for publication in the special issue of Adaptive Behaviour Journal published by SAGE Publicatiion. Organizers ------------------------- Ryad Benosman, ryad.benosman at upmc.fr (University Pierre and Marie Curie) Remi Van Trijp, remi at csl.sony.fr, 5, (SONY CSL) Sio-Ho? Ieng, sio-hoi.ieng at upmc.fr, (University Pierre and Marie Curie) Angelo Arleo, angelo.arleo at upmc.fr, (University Pierre and Marie Curie) Program Committee ----------------- Lu?s Seabra Lopes, (Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal) Tony Belpaeme, (University of Plymouth, United Kingdom) Stephen Cowley, (University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom) Michael L. Anderson, (University of Maryland) Luc Steels, (SONY CSL) Ryad Benosman, (University Pierre and Marie Curie) Remi Van Trijp, (SONY CSL) Sio-Ho? Ieng, (University Pierre and Marie Curie) Angelo Arleo, (University Pierre and Marie Curie) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ R. Benosman Institut des Systemes Intelligents et Robotiques - UMR 7222 Groupe Syst?mes Intelligents Mobiles et Autonomes UPMC - Universite Paris 6 - 4 place jussieu, 75252 Paris cedex 05, France (Tel : 01 44 27 63 59 - Fax : 01 44 27 75 09) web : http://isir.robot.jussieu.fr/?op=view_profil&id=10&lang=fr ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Un bon ma?tre a ce souci constant : enseigner ? se passer de lui." Andr? Gide ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From kostas at cis.upenn.edu Wed Apr 1 07:24:05 2009 From: kostas at cis.upenn.edu (Kostas Daniilidis) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 10:24:05 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ROBOFEST on April 22, 2009, GRASP Laboratory and The Franklin Institute In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The GRASP Laboratory and The Franklin Institute cordially invites you to RoboFest: A Celebration of Robotics A Symposium honoring Ruzena Bajcsy ? Recipient of the 2009 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science Date: April 22, 2009 Location: University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science 210 South 33rd Street Berger Auditorium, Skirkanich Hall Schedule of Events: Time: 9AM-5:30PM Breakfast at 9AM GRASP Open House 11am1-pm Invited Speakers: Peter Allen ? Columbia University Allison Okamura ? Johns Hopkins Anthony Hoogs ? KitWare Henrik Christensen ? Georgia Tech Oussama Khatib ? Stanford University Pradeep Khosla ? Carnegie Mellon University Henry Fuchs ? University of North Carolina Ruzena Bajcsy ? UC, Berkeley External visitors (meaning non-current graspees) please register (free) at http://www.grasp.upenn.edu/events/robofest/ Please check the symposium website for updates http://www.cis.upenn.edu/departmental/events/franklin.inst.html Sponsors: The GRASP Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania and The Franklin Institute From srikanth.saripalli at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 12:10:12 2009 From: srikanth.saripalli at gmail.com (Srikanth Saripalli) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 12:10:12 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Posters: RSS 2009 Workshop on Autonomous Flying vehicles: Fundamentals and Applications Message-ID: CALL FOR POSTERS RSS 2009 Workshop on Autonomous Flying vehicles: Fundamentals and Applications Monday, June 29, 2009 in Seattle, WA As part of the Robotics: Science and Systems Conference 2009 (www.roboticsconference.org) http://robotics.asu.edu/rssuav/ Important Dates April 24, 2009 Poster Abstract Submission Deadline May 15, 2009 Notification of Acceptance June 29, 2009 Workshop Workshop Organizers Pieter Abbeel Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science University of California at Berkeley pabbeel at cs.berkeley.edu www.cs.berkeley.edu/~pabbeel Srikanth Saripalli School of Earth and Space Exploration Arizona State University srikanth.saripalli at asu.edu http://robotics.asu.edu/ Submission Guidelines Authors should submit a 1 page abstract of their posters (preferably pdf) by email to srikanth.saripalli at asu.edu, by April 24, 2009. Objectives Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) by nature are complex dynamical systems that present several challenges in estimation, guidance and control. UAV research involves the interdisciplinary synthesis of flight dynamics, estimation theory, real-time control and embedded system development. The proposed workshop is intended to better understand design, development, guidance and navigation of UAVs in complex, feature-rich environments. The workshop will include talks by a number of leading researchers in these fields, and a poster session in which especially students are encouraged to present their latest research. A key goal of the workshop is to provide a venue to allow discussion and cross-pollination of ideas coming from the control, robotics and learning communities. Topics: We invite posters from researchers working in the following areas: - Navigation - Collision avoidance - Multi-aircraft coordination - Novel sensing and state estimation methods - Applications: mapping, search and rescue, inspection, patrolling. Students are encouraged to submit their work to the workshop. From kostas at cis.upenn.edu Wed Apr 1 13:09:50 2009 From: kostas at cis.upenn.edu (Kostas Daniilidis) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 16:09:50 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Master's in Robotics at Penn: Application deadline June 1, 2009. Message-ID: The GRASP Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania is admitting its third class of students in the Master's of Science and Engineering in Robotics. This newly established multi-departmental, multi-disciplinary program provides the ideal preparation for careers in robotics, defense, aerospace, biomedical, and the automotive industries as well as government laboratories. This unique graduate program delivers the opportunity to enjoy the research atmosphere of a top laboratory while acquiring the skills to become a roboticist. Some features of the M.S.E. in Robotics program include: * Balanced curriculum with courses from Computer and Information Science (CIS), Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE), Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics (MEAM), and related areas. * Course advising, teaching, and optional MSE thesis supervision by world-renowned faculty. * Access to state-of-the-art experimental facilities. * Opportunities for research projects in robotics and related fields in the GRASP Lab. * Participation in exciting robot contests * Attendance of weekly GRASP seminars and participation in GRASP social events * Professional networking with peers in industry and academia We would greatly appreciate encouraging students in your institution or organization that are broadly interested in robotics and intelligent machines to consider this program. More details regarding the curriculum, the application process, and deadlines, can be found in http://www.grasp.upenn.edu/education/curriculum.html Application deadline is June 1, 2009. From solis at kurenai.waseda.jp Thu Apr 2 21:34:03 2009 From: solis at kurenai.waseda.jp (Jorge Solis) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 13:34:03 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Final Program of ICRA Workshop on RoboEthics In-Reply-To: <001101c9b414$cde43340$69ac99c0$@waseda.jp> References: <000f01c9b413$b49742c0$1dc5c840$@waseda.jp> <001001c9b414$3a2293e0$ae67bba0$@waseda.jp> <001101c9b414$cde43340$69ac99c0$@waseda.jp> Message-ID: <001201c9b415$6afd7c40$40f874c0$@waseda.jp> **************************************************************************** Final Program of ICRA Workshop on RoboEthics **************************************************************************** This full-day workshop will be held at ICRA 2009 in Kobe, on May 17th, 2009. For further details, please access the workshop home page at: http://www.roboethics.org/icra2009/ 9:00 - 9:30 INVITED SPEAKER: GEORGE BEKEY University of Southern California, USA Military Robotics: Technology, Risks and Ethical Issues 9:30 - 9:50 R.C. Arkin Operator Responsibility and Lethality in Autonomous Combat Robotic System 9:50 - 10:10 J. P. Sullins Roboethics and Telerobotic Weapons Systems 10:10 - 10:30 R. Murphy Safety-Oriented Alternatives to Asimovs Three Law of Robotics 10:30 - 10:50 COFFEE BREAK 10:50 - 11:10 M. Scheutz The Inherent Dangers of Unidirectional Emotional Bonds 11:10 - 11:30 S. Bringsjord, et. al Piagetian Roboethics via Category Theory: Moving Beyond Mere Formal Operations to Engineer Robots Whose Decisions are Guaranteed to be Ethically Correct 11:30 - 11:50 L. Hinman Robotic Companions 11:50 - 12:10 J. Solis, A. Takanishi New Challenges for the Implementation of RoboEthics Education in Japan 12:10 - 12:40 PANEL OF DISCUSSION I 12:40 - 13:40 LUNCH BREAK 13:40 - 14:10 INVITED SPEAKER: MASAKATSU G. FUJIE Waseda University, Japan Experiences on Ethical and Legal Issues on Medical/Welfare Robotics in Japan 14:10 - 14:30 G. Veruggio and F. Operto Ethical, Legal and Societal Issues in the European Strategic Research Agenda of the Coordination Action for Robotics in Europe 14:30 - 14:50 G. Dodig-Crnkovic Delegating Responsibilities to Intelligent Robots 14:50 - 15:10 A. Takanishi Some Issues on Social Acceptability of Humanoids in Japan 15:10 - 15:30 COFFEE BREAK 15.30 - 15:50 T. Kimura Perennial Questions in Technological Era: Cultural and Philosophical Framework of Roboethics 15:50 - 16:10 T. Nomura Who and under What Context Requires "Roboethics"? From Cross-Cultural Perspective on Assumptions about Robots 16:10 - 16:30 R.M. Geraci Religion and the Public Role of Robotics 16:30 - 17:00 PANEL OF DISCUSSION II Sincerely, ICRA'09 Workshop on RoboEthics Organization Committee Gianmarco Veruggio Ron Arkin Atsuo Takanishi Jorge Solis Fiorella Operto Matthias Scheutz From lpreis at fe.up.pt Fri Apr 3 01:38:24 2009 From: lpreis at fe.up.pt (Luis Paulo Reis) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:38:24 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Thematic Session on Computer Vision in Robotics - Porto (Extended Abstracts due April 6th) Message-ID: <20090403093824.42155jclj96332o8@webmail.fe.up.pt> (Apologies for cross-posting) International ECCOMAS Thematic Conference VipIMAGE 2009 - II ECCOMAS THEMATIC CONFERENCE ON COMPUTATIONAL VISION AND MEDICAL IMAGE PROCESSING, Thematic Session on Computer Vision in Robotics 14-16th October 2009, FEUP, Porto, Portugal http://paginas.fe.up.pt/~vipimage/Sessions/VipIMAGE2009_ThematicSession_CV_R obotics.pdf Abstract submission deadline extended to 6th April Proceedings book published by the Taylor & Francis Group, as happened with VipIMAGE 2007 (ISBN: 9780415457774) - Indexed by ISI Web of Knowledge. We would appreciate if you could distribute this information by your colleagues and co-workers. -------------------------------------------------------- Dear Colleague, We are pleased to announce the deadline for abstract submission to the Thematic Session on Computer Vision in Robotics to be held on the II ECCOMAS THEMATIC CONFERENCE ON COMPUTATIONAL VISION AND MEDICAL IMAGE PROCESSING (VipIMAGE 2009) to April 6 (http://paginas.fe.up.pt/~vipimage). Possible Topics (not limited to): - Autonomous robots - AI approaches to computer vision - Color vision for Robotics - Geometrical models of robotic scenes - Image analysis and scene understanding for robotics - 3D vision in robotics - Motion analysis, visual navigation and active vision in Robotics - Multi-camera sensing and Multi-target tracking applications in Robotics - Real-time vision systems - Robot perception and vision systems - Self-localization using vision - Sonar and acoustical imaging - Soccer robot's vision ---------------------------------------------------------- Publications: The proceedings book is going to be published by the Taylor & Francis Group, as happened with VipIMAGE 2007 (ISBN: 9780415457774). The organizers will encourage the submission of extended versions of the accepted papers to related International Journals; in particular for special issues dedicated to the conference. One possibility already confirmed is the International Journal for Computational Vision and Biomechanics (IJCV&B). As what happened with VipIMAGE 2007, the organizers are going to edit a book to be published by SPRINGER (ISBN: 978-1-4020-9085-1), under the Computational Methods in Applied Sciences series, with invited works from the most important ones presented in the conference. ---------------------------------------------------------- Awards: "best paper award" and "best student paper award" are going to be given to the author(s) of two papers presented at the conference, selected by the Organizing Committee based on the best combined marks from the Scientific Committee and Session Chairs. ---------------------------------------------------------- Important dates: - Submission of extended abstracts: April 6, 2009 (extended) - Lectures and Final Papers: June 15, 2009 We are looking forward to see you in Porto next October. Kind regards, Lu?s Paulo Reis Ant?nio J. R. Neves Armando J. Pinho Armando Sousa -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Luis Paulo Reis Homepage: Http://www.fe.up.pt/~lpreis ------------------------------------------------------------------ Member of the Directive Board of LIACC - Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science Lab. Professor at FEUP - Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal Tel. +351 225081829 / +351 919455251 / Fax. +351 225081443 ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Don't close your eyes unless you can dream. Don't open your eyes unless you can believe!" ------------------------------------------------------------------ From Laurel.Riek at cl.cam.ac.uk Fri Apr 3 02:50:28 2009 From: Laurel.Riek at cl.cam.ac.uk (Laurel D. Riek) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 05:50:28 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: Beyond Gray Droids: Domestic Robot Design for the 21st Century Message-ID: ** 1st Call For Papers ** (Apologies for cross-posting) -------------------------------------------------------------- Beyond Gray Droids: Domestic Robot Design for the 21st Century -------------------------------------------------------------- BCS HCI 2009 Workshop September 1, 2009 Cambridge, UK -------------------------------------------------------------- Web: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/conference/drd09/ -------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------ Workshop Scope and Aims: ------------------------ Each year, robots are entering domestic environments in increasing number. By 2012, it's estimated that 7.8 million robots will be in domestic settings. These robots are intended to help with household chores, act as home health aids, and serve as companions and entertainers for people. However, because the field of domestic robotics is birthed from industrial robotics, many of these robots in the home still look and behave like they belong in a factory. Their interactive styles are often not well-suited toward the wide variety of home users that exist. Domestic robots present unique design challenges that are very different from those of industrial robots. The first challenge is a lack of predictability - neither users' behavior nor the physical environment can be known before a robot is placed in a home. Thus, for mobile robots, safety can be a major concern, particularly for elderly or disabled users. For example, a robot vacuum cleaner that does not audibly announce its presence could cause an elderly user with vision loss to trip and fall. Another challenge is with regard to presenting appropriate, dynamic interaction modalities that are inclusive of all users. For example, physically disabled children may not enjoy a robotic pet that moves too quickly, whereas able-bodied children may be bored by one that does not. The design of interaction modalities should also consider a robot's ability to perceive and interpret a user's behavior (e.g., affective and affect-related expressions, intentions, etc.). A third design challenge is with regard to robot appearance. Vast cultural differences exist in how people think robots ought to look and behave, and certain types of appearance may be outside the realm of their comfort. For example, humanoid robots with large heads and no noses may be perfectly acceptable in Japan but may be off-putting to Westerners. Also, individual personality differences can greatly affect how people perceive robot appearance. In order to start address these design challenges, it may be helpful to engage in several steps: * Appropriately identifying likely domestic user groups * Understanding design constraints of these groups * Brainstorming dynamic interaction modalities for domestic robots * Articulating ways to incorporate cultural and personality differences into robot appearance and behavior * Creating new ways to evaluate HRI in domestic contexts ----------------- Workshop Topics: ----------------- This workshop aims to provide a forum for researchers interested in improving the design of domestic robots. By gathering in a friendly environment, the hope is that researchers can openly share their ideas and vision for the future of this field. Thus, we invite researchers who wish to participate in the workshop to submit position papers, works-in-progress, or completed research. Topics include: * Assistive Technology * Affective Computing * Affective Robotics * Domestic Design * Human-Centered Design * Human-Machine Interaction * Inclusive Design * Multi-cultural Design * Robot Design * Social Robotics ...as well as other relevant topics. ------------------------------- Submission Format and Procedure: ------------------------------- Papers may be up to 4 pages in length. Please format your paper using the ACM 2-column format. Please see the workshop website for detailed submission instructions: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/conference/drd09/ ---------------- Important Dates: ---------------- Paper submission deadline: 27 Apr 2009 Notification to authors: 12 May 2009 Camera-ready version: 10 Aug 2009 --------- Outcomes: --------- All accepted papers will be included in Volume 3 of the HCI 2009 proceedings. Workshop participants will also help contribute to a poster that will be presented at the main conference. ----------- Organizers: ----------- Laurel D. Riek (University of Cambridge, UK) Ginevra Castellano (Queen Mary University of London, UK) Lars Erik Holmquist (Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Sweden) ------------------ Program Committee: ------------------ Shazia Afzal (University of Cambridge, UK) Nadia Berthouze (UCL Interaction Centre, UK) Kerstin Dautenhahn (University of Hertfordshire, UK) Ylva Fernaeus (Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Sweden) Maria Hakansson (Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Sweden) Marcel Heerink (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands) Mattias Jacobsson (Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Sweden) Peter W. McOwan (Queen Mary University of London, UK) Bernt Meerbeek (Philips Research, Netherlands) Christopher Peters (Coventry University, UK) Kristin Stubbs (University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA) Mick Walters (Univ. of Hertfordshire, UK) Astrid Weiss (University of Salzburg, Austria) ---------- Questions: ---------- If you have any questions, please contact drd09-chairs at cl.cam.ac.uk. From Justus-bulk at Piater.name Fri Apr 3 01:18:43 2009 From: Justus-bulk at Piater.name (Justus-bulk at Piater.name) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:18:43 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICVS 2009 2nd CALL FOR PAPERS, WORKSHOPS and TUTORIALS Message-ID: ICVS 2009 2nd CALL FOR PAPERS, WORKSHOPS and TUTORIALS http://icvs2009.intelsig.be/ The 7th International Conference on Computer Vision Systems will take place October 12-15 2009 in Li?ge, the cultural and economic capital of Wallonia, Belgium, continuing the established series of conferences held so far in Europe and North America. While most computer vision conferences focus on either algorithms or applications, ICVS addresses issues arising in the design and deployment of computer vision *systems*. Its scope includes but is not limited to the following topics: - Building Vision Systems: paradigms, architectures, integration, control - Vision for the Real World: robustness, learning, adaptability, self-assessment, failure recovery - Vision for Action: robotics, human-computer interaction, perception-action loops - Vision in Context: knowledge representations, reasoning, goal specification, context awareness - Biological Systems: computer vision inspired by biology or psychology - Implementation Issues: embedded systems, nonstandard hardware, real-time systems - Performance Evaluation: benchmarks, methods and metrics ICVS brings together researchers and developers from academe and industry around the world. Due to its perspective on systems, it is a well-positioned platform for knowledge and technology transfer and for the identification of application-driven research questions. The conference proceedings will be published in the Springer series of Lecture Notes in Computer Science. KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Jay Yagnik Head of Computer Vision and Audio Understanding Research Google Inc. James J. DiCarlo, M.D., Ph.D. Associate Professor of Neuroscience McGovern Institute for Brain Research and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Massachusetts Institute of Technology WORKSHOPS and TUTORIALS We invite workshops and tutorials related to any area of computer vision systems. For submission information see the conference Web pages. IMPORTANT DATES Workshop/tutorial proposals: 4 May 2009 Paper submission: 4 May 2009 Notification of acceptance: 10 July 2009 Camera-ready paper: 3 August 2009 Conference: 12-15 October 2009 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE General Chair: Justus Piater, University of Li?ge, Belgium Program Chairs: Bernt Schiele, TU Darmstadt, Germany, and Mario Fritz, ICSI & UC Berkeley Tutorial and Workshop Chair: Markus Vincze, TU Vienna, Austria Conference Secretariat: Mich?le Delville and C?line Dizier, A.I.M., Belgium For more and up-to-date information, see http://icvs2009.intelsig.be/. -- Prof. Justus H. Piater, Ph.D. http://www.montefiore.ulg.ac.be/~piater/ on leave at MPI T?bingen Phone +49-7071/601-559, Fax -552 Dept. of Empirical Inference http://www.kyb.mpg.de/bs/ ICVS 2009 12-15 October in Li?ge, Belgium http://icvs2009.intelsig.be/ From bowling at cs.ualberta.ca Sat Apr 4 14:43:59 2009 From: bowling at cs.ualberta.ca (Michael Bowling) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 15:43:59 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] AI Video Awards at IJCAI Message-ID: <82AAEDB4-E78B-4F1F-AB37-622240CCC589@cs.ualberta.ca> Roboticists! Submit your best research video! This is the Oscars for AI research videos, with cash prizes and a big ceremony. Let's show the IJCAI people how much fun robotics is, and how robotics research will change the world. The deadline is May 17, see www.aivideo.org ------------------------------------ IJCAI-09 Video Competition ------------------------------------ IJCAI is pleased to announce the IJCAI-09 AI Video Competition. The goal of this competition is to show the world how much fun AI+robotics is by documenting exciting artificial intelligence advances in research, education, and application. The rules are simple: Compose a short video about an exciting AI/robotics project, and narrate it so that it is accessible to a broad online audience. Accepted videos will be screened in the IJCAI-09 registration area during the conference. After the Computers and Thought Award lecture on July 14 2009, we will hold a multi-media ceremony where the developers of the best videos will be formally presented with awards. We strongly encourage student participation. So: go ahead and make a cool online video about your AI project, and get a ton of attention! Video format: Either 1 minute (max) "short video" or a 5 minute (max) "long video", with narration in English (or English subtitles). Consider combining screen shots, interviews, and video of a system in action. Make the video self-contained, so that newcomers to AI can understand and learn from it. We encourage a good sense of humor, though we will only accept submissions with serious AI content. Your video might cover contemporary research, or document seminal AI research in the past. Creativity is encouraged! New for 2009: A Music Video track Submissions: Place your video at a publicly-accessible www site & notify the co-chairs: David Aha Michael Bowling Videos must not contain any copyrighted video, audio, or characters. Developers of accepted videos will be asked to sign release forms. Submissions are due May 17 2009. Accepted videos will be announced on the competition site by June 1, and will be screened at IJCAI-09. Awards will be presented in the following (tentative) categories: Best (Long), Best Short, Best Student, Most Informative, Best Educational, Most Innovative, and Best Narration. Award winners will be presented with a handsome trophy, named in honor of SRI's Shaky and its inspirational video. The complete Call for Video Submissions, including review criteria, is available at http://www.aivideo.org. We look forward to your participation in this exciting event! From brugali at unibg.it Fri Apr 3 13:44:55 2009 From: brugali at unibg.it (Davide Brugali) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:44:55 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Second CFP: Inaugural Issue of Journal of Software Engineering for Robotic Message-ID: <49D67547.8040708@unibg.it> ------------------------------------------------------------ Submission deadline for the inaugural issue : June 1, 2009 ------------------------------------------------------------ Dear colleague, this is the second call for paper for the inaugural issue of the new journal dedicated to robotic software development, the Journal of Software Engineering for Robotics (JOSER). JOSER is a peer-reviewed electronic journal that publishes both empirical research papers, where the effectiveness in the Robotics domain of existing Software Engineering approaches and methods is evaluated and demonstrated, as well as theoretical contributions that present new Robotic-specific software development results. The journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. For more information, please visit: http://www.joser.org or http://joser.unibg.it The Editorial Board of JOSER has a commitment to rigorous yet rapid reviewing. Authors receive first notification of the publication decision within six weeks upon paper submission. When the final version of a manuscript is accepted, it is immediately published electronically on the JOSER web portal as part of the Current Issue. You are cordially invited to submit your manuscript for the inaugural issue as soon as possible but no later that June 1, 2009. To submit a paper, you need to register with the journal, log in and begin the 5 step process. Yours sincerely, Davide Brugali -- Davide Brugali, PhD Chair IEEE RAS TCSOFT, http://robotics.unibg.it/tcsoft/ Associate Editor IEEE RAM, http://www.ieee-ras.org/ram/editors/ Editor-in-Chief, JOSER, http://www.joser.org/ Assistant Professor at University of Bergamo - DIIMM V.le Marconi, 5 - 24044 Dalmine, Italy Tel. ++39 035 2052-354 (008) Fax ++39 035 562779 From mtjspaan at isr.ist.utl.pt Fri Apr 3 08:33:05 2009 From: mtjspaan at isr.ist.utl.pt (Matthijs Spaan) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:33:05 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PostDoc position in Planning under Uncertainty Message-ID: <49D62C31.50901@isr.ist.utl.pt> A postdoctoral research grant is available at the Institute for Systems and Robotics (ISR) of the Instituto Superior T?cnico, Lisbon. The topic of the grant is Planning under Uncertainty for Multiagent/Multi-robot Systems. Due to restrictions in communication, centralized planning solutions are not always viable. Decentralized partially observable Markov decision processes (Dec-POMDPs) form a formal approach for multiagent planning. They handle uncertainty in acting and sensing in a principled way, and recent years have seen great progress in planning algorithms for Dec-POMDPs. In this grant, we intend to advance the state of the art in decentralized planning algorithms and their scalability. Apart from algorithmic contributions, we will be considering case studies to expand the applicability of Dec-POMDP planning, for instance in decentralized control of multi-robot teams or irrigation channels. More details can be found at http://decpucs.isr.ist.utl.pt/. ISR-Lisbon is a research institute of the Instituto Superior T?cnico, the oldest and largest engineering school in Portugal. ISR-Lisbon has a long standing tradition of research and development and offers a modern and enthusiastic research environment with strong interdisciplinary and international links. The grant has duration of (a maximum of) two years, and candidates should have obtained a relevant PhD degree (e.g., Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Electrical Engineering). The ideal candidate has expertise in Markov decision processes and decentralized control. Applications should include CV, a statement of research interests and two recommendation letters, and be sent to Dr. Matthijs Spaan at mtjspaan at isr.ist.utl.pt or fax: +351-21-8418291, who can also be contacted for more information. Application deadline is April 27, 2009. From rjwood at eecs.harvard.edu Fri Apr 3 13:16:23 2009 From: rjwood at eecs.harvard.edu (Rob Wood) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 16:16:23 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] postdoc position - Harvard Microrobotics Lab Message-ID: <35ABB4B1-5D5C-4FD9-9151-0E32F4CBF9EC@eecs.harvard.edu> The Harvard Microrobotics Lab is currently seeking applicants for a postdoc position pertaining to the development of artificial muscles for soft robotics applications. There is a new interest in compliant robots that move in novel ways and are capable of dramatic changes in body morphology. Such a device will require quantum advances in scalable, fast, efficient, compliant actuation. We anticipate that the high performance artificial muscles generated in this effort will be applicable to many existing platforms and also enable a new class of compliant robots. This is part of a highly visible research project and it is expected that the successful applicant will be a leader of a large multidisciplinary team of researchers. Applicants should have a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, or a related field. Experience with microfabrication techniques is essential. The position is open immediately (4/1/09) and is guaranteed for a year with a possible second year extension. Applicants should send a cover letter briefly describing their background and career plans, a CV, and the names and contact information for at least three references. These documents should be submitted as pdf attachments to Prof. Wood: rjwood at seas.harvard.edu Harvard University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer and applications from women and underrepresented minorities are strongly encouraged. ------------------------------ Robert Wood Assistant Professor School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Harvard University (617) 496-1341 The Harvard Microrobotics Lab http://micro.seas.harvard.edu (617) 384-7892 ------------------------------- From nts at ks.informatik.uni-kiel.de Sat Apr 4 05:23:34 2009 From: nts at ks.informatik.uni-kiel.de (Nils T Siebel) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 14:23:34 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 1st CFP: ERLARS 2009 @ RSS 2009: Evolutionary and Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Robot Systems Message-ID: [Apologies if you receive this more than once!] ************************************************************************ ERLARS 2009 2nd INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON EVOLUTIONARY AND REINFORCEMENT LEARNING FOR AUTONOMOUS ROBOT SYSTEMS Held in conjunction with RSS 2009 in Seattle, USA on June 19, 2009 Submission deadline: May 1, 2009 http://www.erlars.org/ ************************************************************************ CALL FOR PAPERS Objectives Learning is essential for an autonomous robot system. The range of unexpected situations it can handle while performing its task depends on its ability to adapt. Recent developments have taken autonomous robots beyond industrial settings, for example at home as toys and cleaners. However, production models usually interact with their environment following a fixed control strategy, which limits their range of application. More adaptable robots require control strategies that learn more and better from interactions with their environment. The ERLARS workshop addresses the challenge to develop efficient and versatile learning architectures for autonomous robot systems, with the main focus on adequate evolutionary and reinforcement learning algorithms. Relevant Topics Papers are invited on all aspects of learning methods for the control of autonomous robot systems, including, but not limited to: * Model-free visual servoing * Mobile robot navigation by means of reinforcement learning * Combining offline- and online learning methods for robot control * Reinforcement learning by evolutionary algorithms of neural network-based and other robot controllers * Hybrid systems that combine modelling and parameter estimation by reinforcement learning * Learning from scratch and cascaded learning architectures * Developmental and epigenetic robotics * Balancing exploration and exploitation of acquired knowledge * Simulated environments for autonomous robot learning scenarios Important Dates * May 1, 2009: Paper submission deadline * May 22, 2009: Notification of paper acceptance * June 6, 2009: Camera ready paper submission * June 29, 2009: Workshop takes place Workshop Chairs Nils T Siebel Cognitive Systems Group, Institute of Computer Science, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel Kiel, Germany Josef Pauli Intelligent Systems Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Duisburg-Essen Duisburg, Germany Programme Committee Andrew Barto (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA) Peter D?rr (EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland) Christian Igel (Ruhr-Universit?t Bochum, Germany) Yohannes Kassahun (DFKI Lab Bremen, University of Bremen, Germany) Takanori Koga (Yamaguchi University, Japan) Tim Kovacs (University of Bristol, UK) Jun Ota (University of Tokyo, Japan) Josef Pauli (University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany) Jan Peters (MPI for Biological Cybernetics, T?bingen, Germany) Daniel Polani (University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK) Marcello Restelli (Politecnico di Milano, Italy) Stefan Schiffer (RWTH Aachen University, Germany) Juergen Schmidhuber (Swiss AI Lab IDSIA, Lugano, Switzerland) Marc Toussaint (TU Berlin, Germany) Nils T Siebel (Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Germany) Jeremy Wyatt (University of Birmingham, UK) ************************************************************************ More information on the workshop website: http://www.erlars.org/ ************************************************************************ =*=*=*= Nils T Siebel Cognitive Systems Group Institute of Computer Science Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel Olshausenstr. 40 24098 Kiel, Germany. From rvoyles at du.edu Sun Apr 5 04:55:04 2009 From: rvoyles at du.edu (Richard Voyles) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 05:55:04 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: IEEE Safety, Security and Rescue Robots Workshop Message-ID: <659B75321CBF4C238312613AA2A6964E@richardd620> CALL FOR PAPERS 2009 IEEE International Workshop on Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics Hosted by the University of Denver November 3-6, 2009 Denver, Colorado, USA Paper submissions due: June 15, 2009 Decisions by: August 15, 2009 http://www.engr.du.edu/ssrr2009 The 2009 IEEE International Workshop on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics is dedicated to identifying and solving the key issues necessary to field capable robots across a variety of challenging applications. This seventh 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 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. Topics for papers and demonstrations include:
  • Robot performance requirements and technical solutions for applications of SSRR (urban search and rescue, CBRN hazard detection/mitigation, explosive ordinance disposal, physical security, surveillance, etc)
  • Locomotion for ground, aerial, aquatic, indoor, and collapsed structures
  • Perception for navigation, hazard detection, and victim identification
  • Mapping of complex environments (2-D, 3-D, GIS integration, etc)
  • Manipulation capabilities (hazards, payloads, obstacles, doors, etc)
  • Communications for reliable data transfer (tether management, radio, etc)
  • Intelligent behaviors to improve robot performance and survivability
  • Human-robot interfaces for improved remote situational awareness
  • Autonomous search and exploration
  • Multi-robot teams and mixed human-robot teams
  • Training methods and other personnel issues
  • Safety standards of robots and systems
  • Evaluation and performance metric of robotic systems
  • Emerging technologies (sensors, power sources, micro robots, etc)
  • Emergency management issues related to robotics
  • Mechanisms, Mechatronics, and Embedded Control Denver is situated on the edge of the Rocky Mountains, a major transportation hub separating the mountains from the Great Plains. Boulder, 30 km to the northwest, sits nearly on the intersection of the Continental Divide (the string of snow-capped 4300m peaks that divide the nation's watershed) and the front range foothills, creating idyllic mountain vistas and accessible, cosmopolitan living. Known for its natural beauty, excellent skiing, and world-class rock climbing, the Denver metro area is a destination for travelers the world over. _______________________________________________________ 2390 S. York Street | (303) 871-2481 CMK 200 | rvoyles at du.edu Denver, CO 80208 | www.du.edu/~rvoyles From tapus at usc.edu Sun Apr 5 09:05:17 2009 From: tapus at usc.edu (Adriana Tapus) Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 09:05:17 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2nd CFP: ISRIS Summer School Message-ID: Attention: Researchers interested in Assistive Robots and Systems for Healthcare and Rehabilitation (graduate students, postdocs, etc) International School in Robotics and Intelligent Systems, Iasi, Romania, July 22-26 www.isris.info/isris09.html (NEW round of applications will be evaluated on April 15.) Subject areas: Prosthetic Technologies, Recuperative Systems, Exoskeletons,Therapeutic/Surgery Robotics,Assistive and Caregiving Robotics, Bio-signal collection and information processing, Intelligence for robotics and prosthetic devices. Confirmed lecturers include: 1. Prof. Paolo Fiorini, University of Verona, Italy 2. Dr. Edward Tunstel, Applied Physics Lab, John Hopkins University, USA 3. Prof. Alberto Rovetta, Politechnico di Milano, Italy (Neuromotor rehabilitation with biorobotics device) 4. Prof Jos Vander Sloten, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, (Musculoskeletal biomechanics, Computer integrated surgery) 5. Prof Dirk Lefeber, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium (From Conventional to Bionic Prosthetics, Exoskeletons for gait rehabilitation, Compliant actuators for robots in direct contact with humans) 6. Dr. Fr?d?ric Colledani, CEA, France (Exoskeletons for rehabilitation and assistance of impaired people, Surgicobot: Surgeon assistance and guidance for avoiding critical regions, On the acquisition, interpretation, storing and transfer of surgeon skills) 7. Dr. Adriana Tapus, University of Southern California, USA (Human robot interaction, Socially assistive robotics) 8. Prof Paul Botez, MD, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Iasi,Romania (Orthopedic Surgery, Prosthetic arthroplasty of the hip, Prosthetic arthroplasty of the knee) 9. Prof Adrian Lobontiu, MD,Henri Mondor Hospital, Paris 12 University, France (Endoluminal Surgery, Robotic Surgery - cardiac, urology, general surgery and vascular surgery-, Tele-Surgery) 10. Prof Dragos Arotaritei, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Iasi, Romania (Soft computing,Robotics and nano manipulators, Optimization Techniques) 11. Prof Tughrul Arslan, University of Edinburgh,UK ( Microelectronics design of low-power high performance processing integrated systems, Micro and nano-systems: for medical devices: - Design aspects for a hearing aid, - Design aspects for an ingestible electronic pill for real time analytical measurements of the gastrointestinal tract) 12. Dr. Adrian Stoica, NASA-JPL (Roadmaping medical and healthcare robotic systems, Ethical aspects of medical and healthcare robotics, Collaborative projects) ____________________________________ ISRIS is held as part of the ATEQUAL (Advanced Technologies for Enhanced Quality of Life) Interdisciplinary Forum: (www.atequal.info/atequal09.html). This interdisciplinary meeting aims to bring together researchers in advanced technologies, from assistive robotics to breakthrough genetic therapies, that are revolutionizing healthcare, and that offer promises in assistance to elders, and cures for previously incurable diseases. The meeting will foster scientific exchange between technical scientists, life scientists and medical doctors who will share latest knowledge, present new techniques, and discuss future avenues in using technology to enhance quality of life. School Directors: Ioan Doroftei,Tech UnivIasi, Romania Ayanna Howard, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA Adrian Stoica, NASA-JPL, Caltech,USA Applicants should submit a CV and a short (up to one page) description of research interests to Adrian.stoica at jpl.nasa.gov, with subject ISRIS 2009 Application. Applications will be reviewed in the order received. The school will be limited to 40 students. Next round of applications will be evaluated on April 15th. To secure a place it is advised to apply early. The registration fee for ISRIS is 500 Euros __________________________________ Dr. Adriana Tapus Publicity Chair Email: tapus at usc.edu Webpage: http://www-robotics.usc.edu/~tapus From terry.huntsberger at jpl.nasa.gov Sun Apr 5 07:15:57 2009 From: terry.huntsberger at jpl.nasa.gov (Terry Huntsberger) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 07:15:57 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] LAB-RS 2009 Final CFP Message-ID: <6E18314E-9A82-4778-B672-4EAEFEB92056@jpl.nasa.gov> ***** FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS ******* 2nd ECSIS Symposium on Learning and Adaptive Behavior in Robotic Systems, July 22-24, 2009 Iasi, Romania http://www.labrs.info/labrs09.html Papers due (6- pages) April 9, 2009 Publication by IEEE Computer Society Press. The focus of the 2009 symposium is learning and adaptive behavior in robots working within environments in close proximity to other robots and humans. LAB-RS Topics Technologies * Robot learning * Dynamics of learning * Learning in real environments * Adaptive behaviors * Bio-inspired algorithms and technologies * Neural networks * Evolutionary algorithms * Adaptive information processing * Cooperative and collaborative robotics * Collaborative learning * Soft computing techniques * Dynamic and reinforcement learning * Legged locomotion * Flying robots * Hybrid and adaptive architectures * Adaptive multi-robot behaviors * Adaptive information processing * Socially adaptive robots * Sensory-control for learning/adaptive robots Application areas * Autonomous ground vehicles * Unmanned Aerial Vehicles * Unmanned Underwater Vehicles * Industrial Robots * Construction Robots * Humanoids and Actroids * Human-centric systems * Security robots * Training systems (modelling, simulation, virtual environments) * Cooperative and collaborative robotics * Entertainment robots * Educational robots * Agricultural robots * Medical robots, therapy and surgical applications * Space robotics Co-located events: ISRIS 2009 (July 22-26) http://www.isris.info/isris09.html International School in Robotics and Intelligent Systems ISRIS 2009 Focus theme: Assistive robots and systems for healthcare and rehabilitation and ARTIPED 2009 (July 24-26) http://www.artiped.info/artiped09.html International Symposium on Assistive and Recuperative Technologies for Injured, ill, Pregnant, Elderly and people with Disabilities ------------------------------------- Opinions are mine and may not reflect policy of NASA, Caltech or JPL ------------------------------------- Terry Huntsberger http://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Terrance_Huntsberger MS 198-219 Jet Propulsion Laboratory 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena, CA 91109 PH: (818) 354-5794 CELL: (818) 648-0645 FAX: (818) 393-5007 From fulvio.mastrogiovanni at unige.it Mon Apr 6 08:47:00 2009 From: fulvio.mastrogiovanni at unige.it (Fulvio Mastrogiovanni) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:47:00 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Papers: 1st International Workshop on Mobile Robots in Automated Building Systems Message-ID: <1239032820.49da23f4140b2@webmail.unige.it> CALL FOR PAPERS 1st International Workshop on Mobile Robots in Automated Building Systems Barcelona, Spain, July 19th, 2009 Co-located with: The 5th International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE'09) July 20-21, 2009. Background and Goals: During the past decade, many researchers and practitioners worldwide recognized the benefits introduced by the Ubiquitous Robotics paradigm. According to this vision, mobile robots are no longer considered autonomous, physically situated and embodied artefacts operating within environments tailored for humans: on the contrary, they are expected to cooperate with devices for building automation (environmental control, automation of doors and elevators, etc.) that are distributed throughout the environment, and to get across heterogeneous information by means of communication technologies. Information exchange, when coupled with (possibly simple) actuation capabilities, is meant to replace physical interaction between robots and their environment. Applications are not limited to domestic robots, but encompass more general scenarios, such as autonomous transportation and surveillance in wide indoor and outdoor areas (hospitals, airports, industrial plants, etc.). The Ubiquitous Robotics paradigm suggests a novel approach for designing "autonomous systems": building robots with reasonable and reliable sensing and actuating capabilities, but operating within environments well-suited for them. This option unavoidably leads to a dramatic shift in robot design principles: traditional mobile robots will benefit from an improved infrastructure, making them more reliable, cheaper and dependable. In literature, the stress has been more on feasibility studies and prototyping than on determining general guidelines for system design, development and integration. In order to carry out a principled discussion about the role of robots within smart environments, it is mandatory to consider the fundamental requirements to qualitatively classify current systems and to help in designing new ones. Topics: The Workshop will consider high quality contributions addressing the following topics, although not being limited to them, in an Ubiquitous Robotics' perspective: - Architectures and Infrastructure - Perception and representation of sensor data - Information fusion and localization - Context assessment and monitoring of robot activities - Reasoning and action planning - Safety and dependability issues - Application scenarios: transportation, surveillance, etc - Specific prototypes: interacting with elevators (including scheduling policies), docking stations for loading/unloading and recharging, etc. Important Dates: April 30, 2009: Deadline first submission. May 28, 2009: Notifications sent to authors. June 12, 2009: Final versions submitted. Submission: Authors wishing to participate as speakers in this event should format their papers following the same formatting guidelines (8 pages, etc.) of the main IE'09 conference. Instructions for online paper submission will be soon provided at: http://www.robotics.laboratorium.dist.unige.it/index.php?section=11 Publication: All papers accepted will be published in the proceedings of the event. Relevant post-Workshop publications will be pursued. Co-chairs: Antonio Sgorbissa (University of Genova), antonio.sgorbissa at unige.it. Fulvio Mastrogiovanni (University of Genova), fulvio.mastrogiovanni at unige.it. -- Fulvio Mastrogiovanni DIST|University of Genova|Italy Email: fulvio.mastrogiovanni at unige.it WWW: http://www.laboratorium.dist.unige.it/~fulvio/ Phone: (+39)0103532801 From tapus at usc.edu Sun Apr 5 09:06:26 2009 From: tapus at usc.edu (Adriana Tapus) Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 09:06:26 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2nd CFP: ARTIPED - International Symposium on Assistive and Recuperative Technologies for Injured, ill, Pregnant, Elderly and people with Disabilities Message-ID: Dear all, We invite you to submit papers with new results, overviews of on-going research or state-of-the art reviews for the interdisciplinary meeting: The International Symposium on Assistive and Recuperative Technologies for Injured, ill, Pregnant, Elderly and people with Disabilities ARTIPED www.artiped.info/artiped09.html to be held in Iasi, Romania, July 23-25, 2009 focus: technologies benefiting from the revolution in robotics and prosthetic devices. A special focus of the 2009 ARTIPED is on technologies benefiting from the revolution in robotics and prosthetic devices. Thus, special sessions will be organized on the following topics: * Therapeutic and surgery robots for minimally invasive and remote operation procedures; * Assistive and caregiving robotics and systems; * Endoprosthetic devices, technologies and procedures for restoring functionality * Exoprosthetic devices, technologies and procedures, exoskeletons and other systems for restoring mobility; * Prosthetic technologies for systems for coping with perception, control and communication impairments (hearing, speech, and vision assistive systems, brain-machine interfaces and control, neuro-robotics), * Robotics and automation in genetic/stem cell/tissue engineering, intelligent information processing in new devices and robots, Broader areas of interest in which submissions are also sought are the development and use of * new materials and structures, procedures, robotics and prosthetic devices, information technologies supporting diagnostic and intervention, computerized diagnostic, monitoring and therapy, organ/tissue/blood/marrow preservation /banks; * biotechnologies, managed healthcare, neuro-robotics, biofeedback devices, bioinformatics, human genetic engineering, genetic technologies for therapy and enhancement; * new techniques and technologies in neurosurgery, brain implants, neuro/brain-machine interfaces and control, stem cells engineering, tissue engineering, artificial and bio-artificial organs, novel medical devices and systems, etc. ARTIPED will take place immediately after the Second International Symposium on Learning and Adaptive Behaviours in Robotic Systems, LAB-RS 09, part of the ATEQUAL Conference, Advanced Technologies for Enhanced Quality of Life (www.atequal.info/atequal09.html). This interdisciplinary meeting will bring together researchers in advanced technologies, from assistive robotics to breakthrough genetic therapies, that are revolutionizing healthcare, and that offer promises in assistance to elders, and cures for previously incurable diseases. The meeting will foster scientific exchange within this confluence field, bringing together technical scientists, life scientists and medical doctors to share latest knowledge, present new techniques, and discuss future avenues in using technology to enhance quality of life. General Chairs Paul Botez Gr. T. Popa University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Ia?i, Romania Adrian Lobontiu, Henri-Mondor Hospital, France Paul Dan Sirbu, Gr. T. Popa University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Ia?i, Romania Program Chairs Adrian Stoica, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, USA Important dates Paper submission: 9 April 2009 Paper acceptance: 6 May 2009 Camera Ready: 27 May 2009 Early bird registration: 30 May 2009 ____________________________________ Dr. Adriana Tapus Publicity Chair Email: tapus at usc.edu Webpage: http://www-robotics.usc.edu/~tapus From kmlynch at northwestern.edu Mon Apr 6 09:34:32 2009 From: kmlynch at northwestern.edu (Kevin Lynch) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 11:34:32 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] postdoc position, Northwestern and Rehab Inst of Chicago Message-ID: <418c62f60904060934g60824dd5u5ebcbda8f3aca517@mail.gmail.com> Postdoctoral Position in Human Motor Control at Northwestern University and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and the Laboratory for Intelligent Mechanical Systems at Northwestern University are collaborating on an NIH-funded project to characterize human force control capabilities. This work will help establish baseline performance of unimpaired subjects, suggest robotic rehabilitation protocols for stroke patients, and further our research in the design of robots for physical human-robot interaction (pHRI). We are currently accepting applications for a postdoctoral position on this project. The successful applicant will have experience in dynamics, modeling, and control of robots; be comfortable designing experimental protocols for human studies; and be able to analyze experimental data. Familiarity with robot force control, impedance control, hybrid control, and the human motor control system are pluses. Applicants should have a Ph.D. in mechanical, electrical, or biomedical engineering, or a related area. The duration of the postdoctoral fellowship is expected to be two years, with other durations possible. The position is available immediately. The candidate will work with faculty in robotics at Northwestern University as well as researchers in the Sensory Motor Performance Program at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, the leading rehabilitation research facility in the country. Pay is competitive. To apply for the position, email a cover letter describing your professional interests and future goals, a CV, and contact information for three references to Prof. Kevin Lynch, kmlynch at northwestern.edu. All three documents should be in pdf format. _____________________________________________________ Kevin M. Lynch Dept. of Mechanical Engineering Northwestern University 2145 Sheridan Road Evanston, IL 60208-3111 http://lims.mech.northwestern.edu/~lynch kmlynch at northwestern.edu _____________________________________________________ From gerkey at willowgarage.com Mon Apr 6 10:40:56 2009 From: gerkey at willowgarage.com (Brian Gerkey) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 10:40:56 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: RSS Workshop on Mobile Manipulation Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS RSS 2009 Workshop: Mobile Manipulation in Human Environments When: Sunday, 28 June, 9.00am - 5.30pm Where: Robotics: Science and Systems Conference, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA. Website: http://www.willowgarage.com/rss09mm Submission deadline: 8 May 2009 The goal of this full-day workshop is to gather and discuss state of the art research in mobile manipulation. We emphasize mobile and manipulation: we will explore the problems that arise and the solutions that are developed when working with robots that move freely through, and manipulate objects in, human-centered environments. These problems must be solved to develop applications in real-world settings in health care, flexible factories, and domestic chores. We are especially interested in autonomous systems that integrate robust sensing and actuation to perform tasks in cluttered and uncertain environments, but we also welcome new ideas on teleoperation and mixed-mode systems. Empirical results showing integrated systems with physical hardware are preferred, even if preliminary. This workshop is the 5th installment in a series of manipulation-centered workshops at RSS. Previous RSS workshops were: * 2005: Humanoid Manipulation * 2006: Manipulation for Human Environments * 2007: Sensing and Adapting to the Real World * 2008: Robot Manipulation: Intelligence in Human Environments This workshop is also part of a broader movement of multiple communities toward mobile manipulation as a key interdisciplinary research topic. We encourage participation in other mobile manipulation meetings, such as the IJCAI 2009 Mobile Manipulation Challenge and the ICAPS 2009 Workshop on Bridging the Gap between Task and Motion Planning. Submissions: We solicit paper submissions, optionally accompanied by a video, both of which will be reviewed (not double-blind) by the program committee. The review criteria will be: technical quality, significance of system demonstration, and topicality. We aim to accept 9--12 papers for oral presentation at the meeting. Videos will be shown during an afternoon session open to the public. Accepted papers and videos will be assembled into proceedings and distributed in CD format at the workshop; they will also be archived at the Internet Archive. If there is sufficient interest, we will pursue publication of a special journal issue to include the best papers. Topics of interest include: * Integrated systems that can perform everyday tasks robustly * Visual or haptic feedback for manipulation * Task representation and planning for multi-step manipulation tasks * Integration of planning and control for complex manipulation tasks * Affordance identification and grasp planning * Semi-autonomous, human-in-the-loop control * Mobile manipulation with uncertain information * Manipulation of tools * Long-term autonomy for mobile manipulation systems * Safety and interaction with humans * Learning common manipulation capabilities * Object recognition and pose estimation Papers should be in PDF, conform to the IEEE Transactions style (same style used for RSS), and be maximum of 8 pages in length (shorter papers are welcome). Videos should be in the MPEG format, 3-5 minutes in length, and easily viewed with free video players (please try playing your video on a couple of different machines before submitting). Email submissions to: rss09mm at lists.willowgarage.com . Please do not attach video files to email; include a URL instead. Important Dates: * 8 May 2009: Submissions due * 22 May 2009: Notification of acceptance * 5 June 2009: Final papers due * 28 June 2009: Workshop Organizers: * Brian P. Gerkey, Willow Garage * Kurt Konolige, Willow Garage * Odest Chadwicke Jenkins, Brown University * Robert Platt, NASA Johnson Space Center * Neo Ee Sian, AIST Program Committee: * Sachin Chitta, Willow Garage * Matei Ciocarlie, Columbia University * Rod Grupen, UMass, Amherst * Sami Haddadin, DLR * Kaijen Hsiao, MIT * Charlie Kemp, Georgia Tech * Danica Kragic, KTH * James Kuffner, CMU * Francesco Nori, University of Genova * Morgan Quigley, Stanford University * Radu Rusu, Technical University of Munich * Siddhartha Srinivasa, CMU / Intel Research From stevehcollins at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 04:03:48 2009 From: stevehcollins at gmail.com (Steve Collins) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 13:03:48 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Dynamic Walking 2009 Non-presenting Attendees Message-ID: Presenters for Dynamic Walking 2009 have been chosen, and we have a very exciting lineup. The conference schedule will soon be available at www.dynamicwalking.org. Students and faculty who are new to Dynamic Walking are essential to the success of the conference, and we are seeking attendees who fit this description. Introducing the dynamic walking approach to those new to the field is a principal aim of the conference, facilitated by tutorials and open discussions. This year, we will have in-depth tutorials on limit cycle analysis and state estimation. New voices also enrich the experience for all attendees, bringing fresh ideas to the group during extensive open discussions and informal events. Space is very limited this year, so we?re requesting that those interested submit a very brief ?non-presenting attendee request?. These one-paragraph summaries will allow the conference organizers and reviewers to understand the reasons for desired participation and select students and faculty to fill the remaining space. Please submit your requests by April 15th using this webpage: http://www.dynamicwalking.org/dw2009/abstracts/npa.php. Max Donelan and Steve Collins Program Co-chairs, Dynamic Walking 2009 From nchopra at umd.edu Tue Apr 7 08:18:22 2009 From: nchopra at umd.edu (Nikhil Chopra) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 11:18:22 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP Elsevier Mechatronics Journal Special Issue: Design and Control Methodologies in Telerobotics Message-ID: **** Apologies for Multiple Posting**** Dear Colleagues, We invite manuscripts on Design and Control Methodologies in Telerobotics for the following special issue of Elsevier Mechatronics Journal. The deadline for the submission is June 30th, 2009. You can find more information below: Despite of the fact that telerobotics was one of the first applications of robotics, it still poses several challenges to the robotics community. A proper design of the whole telerobotic system has a big impact on its usability and also enhances the possibility of reproducing multi-modal feedback from the remote environment. A human-centered design of the system can exploit the user perception capabilities to maximize the feeling of telepresence in a telerobotic system. The problem of improving the design of telerobotic systems is still open and it represents an area of active research. Furthermore, the problem of controlling a telerobotic system is of paramount importance and a predominant strategy has not emerged yet. Varying environment and human operator impedance is only one of the challenges in this context. The possibility of using packet switched communication channels (e.g. the Internet) for joining master and slave devices increases the flexibility of telemanipulation systems, however the innate control problems associated with telerobotics become harder due to the unreliability (time delay and packet loss) of the communication medium. The purpose of this special issue is to publish the latest work about design and control methodologies in telerobotics. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: ? Design of telerobotic systems ? Control strategies for stabilizing bilateral teleoperators ? Conceptual frameworks for evaluating transparency in teleoperation ? Analysis and control of teleoperation systems over packet switched networks ? Human factors in design and control of teleoperation systems ? Control of multimodal teleoperation systems ? Experimental validation and comparison of control methodologies for teleoperation ? Control of semi-autonomous telerobotic systems Articles must be based on original research, although extended versions of conference papers may be acceptable if they contain new material. Complete articles should be submitted by the deadline of June 30th 2009. Papers will be subject to the full review process, with decisions expected by September 30th 2009. The tentative publication date is May, 2010. Submission Instructions Articles must be based on original research, although extended versions of conference papers may be acceptable if they contain new material. Complete articles should be submitted by the deadline of June 30th 2009. Papers will be subject to the full review process, with decisions expected by September 30th 2009. The tentative publication date is May, 2010. Guest Editors C. Secchi (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy), cristian.secchi at unimore.it N. Chopra (University of Maryland, USA), nchopra at umd.edu A. Peer (Technische Universit?t M?nchen), Angelika.Peer at tum.de Best Regards, Cristian Secchi, Angelika Peer and Nikhil Chopra From bravi at cs.washington.edu Tue Apr 7 10:31:13 2009 From: bravi at cs.washington.edu (Ravi Balasubramanian) Date: Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:31:13 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: RSS Workshop on Understanding Human Hand for Advancing Robotic Manipulation Message-ID: <49DB8DE1.1040700@cs.washington.edu> Please post to the mailing list. --------------------------------------------- CALL FOR ABSTRACTS RSS 2009 Workshop (Full Day) on Understanding the Human Hand for Advancing Robotic Manipulation Website: http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/bravi/rssws/ When: Sunday, June 28, 2009 8:30 AM to 6 PM Where: Robotics: Science and Systems Conference Seattle, WA. htp://www.roboticsconference.org Important Dates April 29, 2009: Abstract Submission Deadline May 18, 2009: Notification of Acceptance June 28, 2009: Workshop Workshop Introduction Recent advances in the human sciences have energized the field of robotics toward personal assistants and brain machine interface. There is an increased interest to solve the robotic manipulation question: Can we build robotic hands that can accomplish our daily manipulation tasks? The human hand is adept at many diverse tasks in varied contexts, including power and precision grasping, twisting, and tapping. But we still do not know what features of the human hand enable such capability. For example, do biomechanical features like the complex tendon-hood, synergistic muscle actuation, and bone shapes make the difference? Or is it the neural coding of movement? Importantly for robotics, we need to understand what features should be included in future robotic hands. This workshop is a forum for researchers to discuss manipulation viewed in light of the human hand?s features and hopes to push the state of the art of the robotic hand. We expect that the workshop will bring together researchers from diverse areas such as robotics, biomechanics, neuroscience, and anthropologists. Topics of Interest Topics addressed include but are NOT LIMITED to: -- human hand?s biomechanics, such as bones, tendon hood, and muscles structure and usage. -- neural control systems, learning, and representation of movement/action. -- sensory perception and feedback. -- robotic manipulation and haptics, such as grasping, dexterity analysis, sensitivity. -- evolution of the hand across species. -- human hand behavior/function measurements in different tasks. Abstract Submission Guidelines Authors should submit a 1-2 page abstract of their poster by email to bravi at cs.washington.edu by April 29, 2009. The accepted abstracts will be published as part of the workshop proceedings and be presented as posters at the workshop. Several eminent speakers have already been confirmed: Prof. Peter Allen (Columbia University) Prof. George Bekey (University of Southern California) Prof. Susan Lederman (Queen's University) Dr. Lynette Jones (MIT) Prof. Haruhisa Kawasaki (Gifu University) Prof. Gerry Loeb (University of Southern California) Prof. Marco Santello (Arizona State University) Prof. Veronica Santos (Arizona State University) Prof. Bruno Siciliano (Universit? degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) Dr. Mandayam Srinivasan (MIT) Workshop Organizers Ravi Balasubramanian Post-doctoral Research Associate University of Washington and Intel Research Seattle Yoky Matsuoka Associate Professor University of Washington From K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk Tue Apr 7 11:30:35 2009 From: K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk (Kerstin Dautenhahn) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 19:30:35 +0100 (BST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] job advert: research fellow/assistant in Robot Learning Message-ID: Adaptive Systems Research Group http://adapsys.feis.herts.ac.uk/ University of Hertfordshire, UK (www.herts.ac.uk) Research Assistant/Fellow in Robot Learning Salary per annum: 20,226 - 27,999 GBP (depending on qualifications and experience) A postgraduate/postdoctoral Research Assistant/Fellow post is available in the EU Framework VII funded project RoboSkin (Skin-Based Technologies and Capabilities for Safe, Autonomous and Interactive Robots). This full-time research post will allow the postholder to pursue research into robot learning and humanoid robotics as part of a European project. A postgraduate successful applicant will have the opportunity to pursue research towards a PhD. The RoboSkin consortium consists of several European partners in Italy, UK and Switzerland. The UH team is involved in the development of skin-recognition algorithms for detecting interaction patterns in human-robot interaction games. The development of software for artificial skin on a humanoid robot as well as learning and adaptation algorithms, based on previous research expertise by the project team, forms a central part in the research. The postholder will also have the opportunity to get involved in applications of this research in robot assisted play in educational settings. The postholder will be a member of the Adaptive Systems Research Group (http://adapsys.feis.herts.ac.uk/) at University of Hertfordshire in the School of Computer Science which includes 30 research staff members (postdocs and PhD students). The University of Hertfordshire ranks 27th in England for post-2008 RAE-funding in Computer Science and Informatics. The highly active and multidisciplinary research group has an excellent international research track record including research in human-robot interaction, social robotics and robot learning. Applicants for the post should have a strong postgraduate degree (MSc or PhD) in Computer Science or a related area as well as a strong mathematical background. Applicants are expected to have strong qualifications and experience in robot learning, machine learning, or related areas, as well as excellent research experience in robot programming. Experience in human-robot interaction is desirable. Applicants are expected to work independently, but under guidance of and in close collaboration with other team members at UH and other project partner institutions. The position is full-time. Work will be based at University of Hertfordshire and may include short stays at European partner institutions. The position is based on a fixed-term contract for up to 36 months. Starting date: 1 May 2009 (end date: 30th April 2012). All formal applications must be made via the Human Resources Department at University of Hertfordshire: http://web-apps.herts.ac.uk/uhweb/apps/hr/research-vacancies.cfm The above website will allow potential applications to find out more information about the post, including a detailed job and person specification. Please consult this website in order to evaluate your suitability for the post. For other informal inquiries related to the post please contact Prof. Kerstin Dautenhahn (K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk). Closing date: 28/04/2009 ----------------------------------------------------- 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 paulfitz at liralab.it Wed Apr 8 15:24:54 2009 From: paulfitz at liralab.it (Paul Fitzpatrick) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 18:24:54 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] VVV09: RobotCub Summer School Call for Participation Message-ID: <20090408222454.GA6214@csail.mit.edu> This is a call for participation for "Veni Vidi Vici 2009", the fourth RobotCub Summer School. Those who would like to participate should email their name, affiliation, and (if you are not already a RobotCub participant) a CV to: vvv09-admin at robotcub.org no later than: May 6th, 2009 Places are limited. Your application will be acknowledged within two business days, and notification of placement will be made on May 7th, 2009. If placed, you will be expected to formally register and pay by May 16th. The school website is available at: http://www.robotcub.org/summerschool Best regards, The VVV 2009 team ---------------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR PARTICIPATION ---------------------------------------------------------- VVV 2009, the Fourth RobotCub Summer School Aim: The RobotCub Summer School, "Veni Vidi Vici", serves to consolidate and disseminate skills in software engineering for humanoid robots. Our goal is to foster long-lived academic collaboration on robot software across the boundaries and lifetimes of individual projects. The school is hosted by the RobotCub consortium, a collection of institutions working towards an open platform for humanoid research. The RobotCub summer school is a peer-to-peer event; there are no lectures, and no strict division of instructors and students. All participants are expected to be competent C/C++ programmers with an interest in working with others (and an agenda of their own). The school schedule will be organized flexibly around informal tutorials from participants on modules they are working on or interested in. Format: The school is structured as a series of hands-on practical laboratory sessions, and informal talks. There will be real robots to work with (including at least two full humanoids). We will have a dedicated local network, with wireless. Participants are expected to bring their own laptop. Topics: Motor control, robot design, image processing, communication, software engineering, machine learning. Location: This year the school will be hosted at the Mediaterraneo Foundation in Sestri Levante, Liguria, Italy. See the school website for venue details. Comments on this venue from last year - Vincent: "Nice and creative people"+"Dedicated organizers"+ "Perfect location"+"Wonderful robot and software" = VVV08. Thanks for this well balanced summer school. Giacomo: Great experience! I really enjoyed accessing such advanced robots, and working together with great guys. The location was beautiful too. Alexis: Such an amazing time with such wonderful people! Interesting discussions, helpful and giving people and an awesome location. :) Thanks everyone! It was a good time living deeply and intensively, just what I needed! I hope to see you again soon. Pura vida! (for more, see school website) Timetable: We begin the school in the morning of Monday, July 20 2009, and finish in the evening of Wednesday, July 29 2009 (with people leaving during Thursday, July 30 2009). Sunday the 26th will be free. Cost: The summer school registration fee is 1250 euro. This fee includes the school itself, food, and accommodation. Rooms are shared between two people. A single room is 250 euro extra (and subject to availability). About RobotCub: RobotCub is a project to study cognition through robotics. Along the way, we are creating a completely open design for a humanoid robot - open hardware, open software, open mind. Our hardware designs and software are free and open source. The RobotCub consortium is composed of 16 partners, 11 from Europe, 3 from Japan and 2 from the USA. The coordinator is the LIRA-Lab at the University of Genoa, Italy From rsiegwart at ethz.ch Thu Apr 9 00:19:56 2009 From: rsiegwart at ethz.ch (Siegwart Roland) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 09:19:56 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ISRR 2009 - Deadline for Paper Submission: April 15 Message-ID: ISRR 2009 - Call for Paper 14th International Symposium on Robotics Research August 31 - September 3, 2009, Lucerne, Switzerland New Deadline for Paper Submission: April 15, 2009 --- http://www.isrr2009.ethz.ch/ --- =================================================== Objective: The goal of the ISRR Symposia is to bring together active leading robotics researchers and pioneers from academia, government, and industry to assess and share their views and ideas about the state of the art in robotics, and to discuss promising new avenues for future research. All participants are kindly asked to convey the single track and highly interactive spirit of ISRR and take part in all sessions so that a stimulating and dynamic discussion can be established. As the flagship symposium of the International Foundation of Robotics Research (IFRR), this 14th edition of ISRR follows up on a long history of extraordinary meetings. Symposium Format: The Symposium will be held in an informal setting with a limited number of participants to encourage close technical and personal interactions. During the four-day Symposium, approximately 45 papers will be presented. The meeting will be organized as a single track meeting, and contributions that cover all aspects of robotics research are solicited. Sessions will be organized in themes, and all sessions will provide ample opportunity for discussion. As in previous years, the proceedings of the Symposium will be published as a Springer STAR series book. Attendance will be limited. Priority is given to authors and invited participants. Venue: The symposium will be held in Lucerne, one of the most charming and picturesque cities in Switzerland at the boarder of the Lace of Lucerne. Lucerne is easy to reach by direct trains from Zurich Airport. Paper Solicitation: Papers representing authoritative reviews of established research areas as well as papers reporting on new areas and pioneering work are sought for presentation at the Symposium. In addition to the open call, a well selected number of leading researchers will be solicited to contribute by personal invitation. Each submission will be reviewed by members of the Symposium Program Committee. The quality of the papers and the related presentations are a central priority for ISRR. Authors new to ISRR are particularly encouraged to submit. Submission Procedure: Papers must be submitted in LaTeX format according to the template for the Springer STAR series proceedings downloadable from the submission webpage. Papers may not exceed 16 pages in this format. All papers must be submitted electronically in PDF format through the online submission system found on the symposium webpage. Important Dates: - April 15, 2009: Submission of papers - May 31, 2009: Notification of paper acceptance - July 15, 2009: Submission of final camera-ready papers - July 15, 2009: Deadline for early registration - August 31, 2009: Start Conference (Evening Reception) - September 3, 2009: End Conference (Lunch time) Main Sponsor: International Foundation of Robotics Research http://www.ifrr.org/ Committee: General Co-Chairs: Roland Siegwart, ETH Zurich Gerd Hirzinger, DLR Germany Program Co-Chairs: Tomomasa Sato (Asia/Oceania) Henrik Christensen (Americas) Raja Chatila (Europa/Africa) Publication Chair Cedric Pradalier Web Master Ralf K?stner Conference Office Cornelia Della Casa Luciana Borsatti International Foundation of Robotics Research http://www.ifrr.org/ President Oussama Khatib Executive Officers Hirochika Inoue Gerd Hirzinger Takeo Kanade Honorary Officers Ruzena Bajcsy Rod Brooks George Giralt Bernie Roth Officers Robert Bolles Herman Bruyninckx Raja Chatila Henrik Christensen Paolo Dario Rudiger Dillmann Shigeo Hirose John Hollerbach Ray Jarvis Makoto Kaneko Dan Koditschek Tomomasa Sato Yoshiaki Shirai Roland Siegwart _________________________ Prof. Dr. Roland Siegwart Autonomous Systems Lab Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems ETH Z?rich, CLA E 33 Tannenstrasse 3 CH-8092 Z?rich, Switzerland Office: +41 44 632 23 58 Fax: +41 86 079 214 49 27 Mobile: +41 79 214 49 27 E-Mail: rsiegwart at ethz.ch WWW: www.asl.ethz.ch From michael.jaentsch at in.tum.de Thu Apr 9 01:16:13 2009 From: michael.jaentsch at in.tum.de (=?UTF-8?B?TWljaGFlbCBKw6RudHNjaA==?=) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 10:16:13 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PhD position at TU Munich, Germany Message-ID: <49DDAECD.2000109@in.tum.de> For an EU project in the area of Robot Control, Robot Cognitive System Architectures and System Integration we are offering a position in computer science. We are now accepting applications for a 3?year PhD Scholarship at the Department of Informatics at TU Munich, Germany. Application deadline: April 15th 2009, the position will begin as soon as possible. The project ECCEROBOT (http://wwwknoll.in.tum.de/Main/ResearchEccerobot) is an EU?funded project to improve the design of a compliant robot system based on the original CRONOS robot (http://cswww.essex.ac.uk/staff/owen/machine/cronos.html). The goal is to investigate methods for its control, its sensor data processing and the autonomous development of its cognitive skills. Applicants should have an MSc degree in Computer Science or Electronic Engineering (or equivalent, from a well?known University). The scholarship will be generously supplemented with overseas travel grants and other additional allowances. The successful candidate should have experience in one or more of the following areas: (i) control systems design, (ii) sensor signal processing including computer vision and sensor data fusion, (iii) high?level AI techniques. TU M?nchen enjoys an excellent international reputation as an academic leader and has been consistently ranked as one of the three best universities in Germany. Interested applicants should submit a curriculum vitae, an academic transcript and two referees. A statement of the broad area of your research interest should also be included. For any enquiries or further information, send an E?mail to: Dr. Gerhard Schrott (schrott at in.tum.de ) or Amy Beth Buecherl (buecherl at in.tum.de ) or visit our web site at http://wwwknoll.in.tum.de. -- Technische Universit?t M?nchen Michael J?ntsch Fakult?t f?r Informatik Robotics and Embedded Systems Boltzmannstr. 3 85748 Garching bei M?nchen Tel: + 49.89.289.18102 Fax: + 49.89.289.18107 michael.jaentsch at in.tum.de www6.in.tum.de From raj.madhavan at nist.gov Mon Apr 13 09:53:19 2009 From: raj.madhavan at nist.gov (Raj Madhavan) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:53:19 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Papers: PerMIS'09 Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090413125305.0234c8f8@mailhub.mel.nist.gov> CALL FOR PAPERS 2009 Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems Workshop (PerMIS'09) September 21-23, 2009 http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/PerMIS_2009/ GENERAL CHAIR Elena Messina, NIST PROGRAM CHAIR Raj Madhavan, ORNL/NIST PUBLICITY CHAIR E. Tunstel, JHU-APL USA SPONSORS NIST, DARPA, ACM, IEEE (W/NV Robotics and Automation Chapter) The Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems workshop is the only one of its kind dedicated to defining measures and methodologies of evaluating performance of intelligent systems. Started in 2000, the PerMIS series focuses on applications of performance measures to practical problems in commercial, industrial, homeland security, and military applications. It has proved to be an excellent forum for discussions and partnerships, dissemination of ideas, and future collaborations between researchers, graduate students, and practitioners from industry, academia, and government agencies. The main theme of the ninth iteration of the workshop, PerMIS'09, seeks to address the question: "Does performance measurement accelerate the pace of advancement for intelligent systems?" In addition to the main theme, as in previous years, the workshop will focus on applications of performance measures to practical problems in commercial, industrial, homeland security, and military applications. Topic areas include, but are not limited to: * Defining and measuring aspects of a system: The level of autonomy Human-robot interaction Collaboration & coordination Taxonomies Biologically inspired models * Evaluating components within intelligent systems: Sensing and perception Knowledge representation, world models, ontologies Planning and control Learning and adapting Reasoning * Infrastructural support for performance evaluation: Testbeds and competitions for intercomparisons Instrumentation and other measurement tools Simulation and modeling support * Technology readiness measures for intelligent systems * Benchmarks and applied performance measures in various domains, e.g., Industrial and manufacturing systems Intelligent transportation systems Emergency response robots (e.g., search and rescue, bomb disposal) Homeland security systems Defense robotics Intelligent systems for hazardous environments (e.g., nuclear remediation) Smart grid Space robotics Medical robotics & assistive devices The Proceedings of PerMIS are indexed by INSPEC, Compendex, ACM Digital Library, and are released as a NIST Special Publication. Selected papers from past workshops have been published as special issues with the Journal of Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering (PerMIS'04) and the Journal of Field Robotics (PerMIS'06) and as a Springer Edited Book Volume (PerMIS'08). LOCATION Washington, D.C. (The workshop will be held at NIST, Gaithersburg MD 20899) SUBMISSION INFORMATION Prospective authors are requested to submit a draft paper (max. 8 pages) or an extended abstract (1-2 pages) for review. Invited session proposals can also be submitted as draft papers but should contain 1) a session title and a brief statement of purpose, 2) name and affiliation of the organizer(s), and 3) a preliminary list of speakers. All submissions must be written in English, starting with a succinct statement of the problem, the results achieved, their significance, and a comparison with previous work. Papers are to be submitted at http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/PerMIS_2009/submission.htm/ using the specified templates. IMPORTANT DATES Submission of full papers June 10, 2009 Proposal for invited sessions June 17, 2009 Notification of acceptance July 24, 2009 Final papers due August 21, 2009 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Raj Madhavan, Ph.D. Intelligent Systems Division National Institute of Standards and Technology 100 Bureau Drive, Mail Stop 8230 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8230. Tel: (301) 975-2865 Fax: (301) 990-9688 URL: http://aser.ornl.gov/madhavan/ From jminguez at unizar.es Mon Apr 13 11:11:22 2009 From: jminguez at unizar.es (Javier Minguez) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:11:22 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2009 ICRA Workshop: Brain Machine Interfaces for Neuroprostheses and Robot Control Message-ID: *ICRA 2009 Full-day Workshop (12h May)* *Title: Brain Machine Interfaces for Neuroprostheses and Robot Control* Abstract -- Brain-Machine Interfaces encompasses a growing and increasing community that merges researchers and industry with the objective of creating applications and solutions to ameliorate the quality of life of human beings. This challenging research area involves a tight cooperation among neuroscience, computer science, and biomedical engineering among others. With the understanding of the human brain and the rapid development in the instrumentation, signal processing and machine learning; the brain machine interfaces are reaching real rehabilitation applications that require robotics developments. The neurocontrol of devices is certainly an interesting and promising research area that is only at the begging of a scientific and practical exploration. In response to this growing interest in neurosignals actuated devices, several initiatives are starting to pave the path towards a full series of neurodevices. Researchers are investigating the neural correlates concerning the human perception and motion to create a direct interface between the brain and a prosthetic device, in virtually, the same way we human proceed. Other researches are applying brain machine learning technology to directly interact with autonomous mobile robots in applications like intelligent wheelchairs or the teleoperation between remote scenarios. Individuals with severe neuromuscular impairments and those involved in rehabilitation therapy are potential beneficiaries of assistive technology, not only for improved mobility but also for improved outcomes in recovery. In addition, this research is starting to find a new path in the amusement arena. *----- Time, Speakers and title of talk* 09:00*?Dr. Jun Morimoto (Prof. M. Kawato)*. Using Monkey's Brain Activity for Biped Walking Control of a Humanoid Robort. 09:45*?Dr. Jose M. Carmena*: Consolidation of Prosthetic Motor Skill in Primates, *10:45-- Coffee break/Posters exhibition* 11:00*?Prof. Fivos Panetsos*: Sensory and Motor interfaces between peripheral nerves and electronic systems and the plasticity of the CNS 11:45*?Dr. Reinhold Scherer (Prof. R. Rao): *From neuroprostheses to anatomically correct robotic systems: BCI research in Seattle. 12:30*?Prof. Alex Graeser*: Control of care giving robot FRIEND by BCI. System design, experience and future *01:15-- Lunch break* 02:15*?Dr. Ricardo Chavarriaga (Prof. Jose del R. Millan)*: Non-invasive Brain-Controlled Robots. 03:00*?Dr. Carmen Vidaurre (Prof. K. R. Muler)*: Non invasive BBCI and co-adaptive learning. *03:30-- Coffee break/Posters exhibition* 04:00*-- Ander Ramos (Prof. N. Birbaumer)*: Coupling BCI and Robotics for Stroke Rehabilitation. 04:30*?Dr. Javier Minguez*: Mental control of machines: application to wheelchairs and remote robot teleoperation. *----- Poster auhors and title* * * *Blatt R. et al*.: An autonomous Wheelchair Driven by Event Related Potentials *Escolano C. et al*.: Brain Actuated Teleoperation System *Iturrate I. et al*.: Synchronous EEG Brain-actuated Wheelchair with Automated Navigation. *Saulnier P. et al*.: Using brain-robot interfaces for controlling ambient social patterns *Bento V.F. et al*.: An Academic Brain Computer Interface- A multidisciplinary Tool for Knowledge *Castellini C. et al.*: Non-invasive Adaptive Hand Prosthetics *Menegatti E. et al*: Evaluation of a robot as embodied interface for Brain Computer Interface systems -- -- Javier Minguez Dpto de Infomatica e Ingenieria de Sistemas Universidad de Zaragoza Spain From peter.corke.ieee at gmail.com Tue Apr 14 04:42:55 2009 From: peter.corke.ieee at gmail.com (Peter Corke) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:42:55 +1000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Robotics Toolbox for Matlab and Python! Message-ID: <49E476BF.2040705@gmail.com> A new version of the venerable Robotics Toolbox for Matlab is out. This is release 8, and it is mostly a bug-fix release and bringing things up to date with documentation and following the evolution of Matlab. Simulink and integration with the Matlab help system changes of R2008a are supported. You can download this from: http://www.petercorke.com/robot and there is a Google group for discussion: http://groups.google.com.au/group/robotics-tool-box/web?hl=en There is also a port to Python that is quite complete, but anything that relies on 3D graphics is not there yet. However the rest came together very nicely and the syntax is quite familiar. It is based on NumPy which is pretty nice. You can get the Python port from: http://groups.google.com.au/group/robotics-tool-box/files?hl=en Please send any comments to the discussion group robotics-tool-box at googlegroups.com Thanks, and enjoy! peter. From f.rodriguez at imperial.ac.uk Tue Apr 14 04:46:20 2009 From: f.rodriguez at imperial.ac.uk (Rodriguez Y Baena, Ferdinando M) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:46:20 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdoctoral opportunity in the area of medical robotics - Imperial College, London, UK In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <15066393D620BC41B9B51238E2FB2F2A49C8996766@ICEXM5.ic.ac.uk> Dear all, I would like bring to your attention the following postdoctoral opportunity in the area or robotic surgery and biomimetics at Imperial College, London, UK: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/jobs/JV856/Research_Assistant_or_Associate_in_the_Medical_Engineering_Group/ The closing date is 7th of May 2009 and applications from candidates worldwide are welcome. Kind regards, Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lecturer in Medical Robotics Jointly: Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Institute of Biomedical Engineering Room 741, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College, London, SW7 2AZ, UK. Tel: +44(0)20 7594 7046 Fax: +44(0)20 7594 1472 e-mail: f.rodriguez at imperial.ac.uk ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From ecroft at mech.ubc.ca Tue Apr 14 15:11:40 2009 From: ecroft at mech.ubc.ca (Elizabeth Croft) Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:11:40 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdoctoral Fellowship Position in Human Robot Interaction, Vancouver, Canada Message-ID: <9DCFE15891AE4FD4AF196C5D8144F5BC@Mocha> Postdoctoral Fellowship Position Human Robot Interaction Applications are being sought for a 1-year (renewable) postdoctoral fellowship in the University of British Columbia Collaborative Advanced Robotics and Intelligent Systems Laboratory - www.mech.ubc.ca/~caris, in Vancouver, CANADA, commencing before June 1, 2009, or as soon as possible thereafter. The preferred candidate will have a hands-on background working with robotic manipulators, controllers and machine vision systems, with a Ph.D in any of Mechanical/Mechatronics Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Computer Science or similar. The successful candidate will join an ongoing research effort addressing safe and effective interaction with robot manipulators for both industrial and domestic environments. The successful candidate will be expected to take a leadership role in the lab, assist in the supervision of graduate and undergraduate students, and to develop further research opportunities. Applicants with excellent demonstrated oral and written communication skills, programming and instrumentation skills (both *nix and windows platforms), and strong interpersonal and leadership skills will be preferred. Please respond with a letter describing your research interests, a curriculum vitae, and a list of three references (with telephone numbers and postal and e-mail addresses) to: Professor Elizabeth Croft Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of British Columbia 6250 Applied Science Lane, Room 2054 Vancouver, Canada V6T 1Z4 tel. 604.822.6614 fax. 604.822.2403 email. ecroft at mech.ubc.ca web. www.mech.ubc.ca/~ecroft Emailed applications will be accepted but should have the subject line: PDF Human Robot Interaction. The University of British Columbia hires on the basis of merit and is committed to employment equity. All qualified persons are encouraged to apply. -------------------------------------------- Elizabeth Croft, Ph.D., P. Eng. Professor Associate Head, External Matters Mechanical Engineering, University of British Columbia 6250 Applied Science Lane, Room 2054 Vancouver, Canada V6T 1Z4 tel. 604.822.6614 fax. 604.822.2403 email. ecroft at mech.ubc.ca web. www.mech.ubc.ca/~ecroft lab. www.caris.mech.ubc.ca From an at ua.pt Wed Apr 15 04:32:21 2009 From: an at ua.pt (Antonio J. R. Neves) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:32:21 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IRobot 2009: 2nd Call for papers - extended deadline for paper submission Message-ID: <49E5C5C5.6090002@ua.pt> 2nd Call for papers: Extended deadline for paper submission =========================================================== IROBOT'2009 Thematic Track on Intelligent Robotics http://www.fe.up.pt/~irobot a track of EPIA'2009 - Portuguese Conference on Artificial Intelligence http://epia2009.appia.pt/ October 12-15, 2009 Aveiro, Portugal --------------------------- IROBOT'2009 is a thematic track dedicated to Intelligent Robotics, integrated in the 2009 Portuguese Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Its main purpose is to bring together researchers, engineers and other professionals interested in the application of AI techniques in real and simulated robotics, to discuss current work and future directions. The IRobot'2009 track will especially target the theme ?Cognitive versus Reactive approaches ? hybridization is the solution??. A related aspect will be explored, consisting on analyzing these models from the point of view of stringent applications of mobile robots, in particular in robotic competitions. ?Are the theoretical models of any use when real time competition is the goal?? These topics will be the subject of panel discussions led by well known researchers with vast experience in robotics and their different applications, in particular, mobile robot competitions. Nevertheless, other aspects will be addressed as well and a non exhaustive list of topics that may be addressed is suggested next. Topics of Interest ------------------------------ AI Planning for robotics Autonomous vehicles Cognitive Robotics Computer vision and object recognition Coordination in robotics Evolutionary robotics and reactive intelligence Human-robots interfaces Learning and adaptation in robotics Mobile robot performance measures Modelling and simulating complex robots Multi-Robot systems Field Robots Real-time reactivity Robot behaviour engineering Robot Expressiveness and Emotional Awareness Robotic surveillance Sensor fusion Simulation and virtual reality systems in robotics Important dates ------------------------------ * Deadline for paper submission: April 29, 2009 * Notification of paper acceptance: May 31, 2009 * Deadline for final versions: July 15, 2009 * Conference dates: October 12-15, 2009 Submission instructions ------------------------------- Submissions must follow the guidelines specified in the conference site (http://epia2009.web.ua.pt/cfp.asp). The Springer LNCS format must be used (instructions in http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html/). The length of submitted full papers must not exceed 12 pages. Authors must remove their names from the submitted papers, and should take reasonable care not to indirectly disclose their identity. Organizing Committee ------------------------------ Luis Paulo Reis - University of Oporto, Portugal Luis Correia - University of Lisbon, Portugal Antonio J.R. Neves - University of Aveiro, Portugal Program Committee ----------------------------- Ant?nio Jos? Neves - Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Ant?nio Paulo Moreira - Universidade do Porto, Portugal Armando J. Pinho - Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Armando Sousa - Universidade do Porto, Portugal Augusto Loureiro da Costa - UFBA, Salvador, Brazil Carlos Carreto - Instituto Polit?cnico da Guarda, Portugal Cesar Analide - Universidade do Minho, Portugal Eduardo Silva - Instituto Sup. Engenharia do Porto, Portugal Enrico Pagello - University of Padua, Italy Fernando Lobo Pereira - Universidade do Porto, Portugal Fernando Os?rio - Universidade S?o Paulo/SC, Brazil Fernando Ribeiro - Universidade do Minho, Portugal Flavio Tonidandel - Centro Univ. FEI, S?o Bernardo do Campo, Brazil Gabriella Sanniti Di Baja - Istituto di Cibernetica CNR, Italy Guy Theraulaz ? CRCA, University of Toulouse III: Paul Sabatier, France Hans-Dieter Burkhard - Humboldt-Universit?t, Germany Huosheng Hu - University of Essex, UK Jacky Baltes - University of Manitoba, Canada Jorge Dias - Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal Jose Miguel Sanchiz - University Jaume I, Spain Lu?s Correia - Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal Lu?s Paulo Reis - Universidade do Porto, Portugal Luis Seabra Lopes - Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Marco Dorigo - Universit? Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium Maria Isabel Ribeiro - Instituto Superior T?cnico, Portugal Martin Riedmiller - University of Osnabrueck, Germany Mikhail Prokopenko - CSIRO ICT Centre, Australia Nuno Lau - Universidade de Aveiro Paulo Gon?alves - Instituto Polit?cnico de Castelo Branco, Portugal Paulo Oliveira - Instituto Superior T?cnico, Portugal Paulo Urbano - Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal Reinaldo Bianchi - IIIA-CSIC, Barcelona, Spain Stephen Balakirsky - National Institute of Standards & Technology, USA Urbano Nunes - Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal Xiaoping Chen - University of Science and Technology, China ====================================================== -- Ant?nio J. R. Neves, Ph.D. Invited Auxiliary Professor Signal Processing Lab, DETI / IEETA University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal http://www.ieeta.pt/~an From mcgann at willowgarage.com Wed Apr 15 16:20:24 2009 From: mcgann at willowgarage.com (Conor McGann) Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:20:24 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CALL FOR PAPERS: ICAPS'09 Workshop on Bridging The Gap Between Task And Motion Planning Message-ID: <186f42840904151620p29ca5822ka97b05b8c2006875@mail.gmail.com> CALL FOR PAPERS: ICAPS'09 Workshop on Bridging The Gap Between Task And Motion Planning WHEN/WHERE: September 19/20, 2009 in Thessaloniki, Greece (co-located with 19th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling) DATES: June 23, 2009: Submission deadline for papers for all workshops July 22, 2009: Notification of accept/reject for workshop submissions September 19 or 20, 2009: Workshop ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Maxim Likhachev, University of Pennsylvania Bhaskara Marthi, Willow Garage Inc. Conor McGann, Willow Garage Inc. David E. Smith, NASA Ames Research Center ABSTRACT: It has been a longstanding goal of AI and robotics to build autonomous vehicles that can move around on land, in the sea, and in the air and interact with the physical world to achieve their goals. In recent years, the increasing availability of capable mobile platforms (ground vehicles, submersibles, small helicopters and small UAVs), manipulators, and high-precision sensors, coupled with advances in perception, localization and planning algorithms, have brought us much closer to achieving this goal. Robotic platforms have demonstrated autonomous navigation in large complex spaces for prolonged periods of time while robotic manipulators have demonstrated autonomous manipulation of objects in cluttered spaces. However, effective, task-oriented motion inevitably requires a principled approach to integrating task planning and motion planning that is capable of operating in real-time in dynamic and complex environments. Historically, general but discrete task planning has been considered extensively in the AI community while specialized continuous motion planning has been the focus in robotics. The goal of this workshop is to encourage the interaction of ideas between researchers in these fields, to make researchers in one community aware of the research issues faced by those in the other, to find synergy in the research approaches, and to establish promising directions for future research on task and motion planning integration. The topics of interest include (but are not limited to) the following: * Combining geometric, kinematic, and dynamic constraints with reasoning about tasks, time and resources * Integration of discrete and continuous representations * Efficient planning in high-dimensional continuous spaces * Hierarchical/multi-level planning architectures * Incremental techniques for online motion and task planning * Techniques for integrating task and manipulation planning * Planning with compliant motion * Planning for cooperative manipulation by multiple effectors * Planning for whole body control We encourage papers that demonstrate results for task achievement in either simulation or on real mobile platforms. PAPER SUBMISSION: Papers should conform to the AAAI style guide, with a maximum length of 10 pages (8 pages preferred). We also welcome the submission of 2-3 page position papers. TRAVEL FUNDING: Limited travel funding from Willow Garage will be available to presenters based on merit and need. PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Rachid Alami, LAAS/CRNS Michael Beetz, Technische Universitaet Muenchen Wolfram Burgard, University of Freiburg Sachin Chitta, Willow Garage Rosen Diankov, Carnegie Mellon University Minh Do, Xerox PARC Alberto Finzi, University di Roma ``La Sapienza'' Brian Gerkey, Willow Garage Kaijen Hsiao, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ari Jonsson, University of Reykyavik Lydia Kavraki, Rice University Sven Koenig, University of Southern California Jean-Claude Latombe, Stanford University Tomas Lozano Perez, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Nico Meuleau, NASA Roland Phillipsen, Stanford University Ioan Sucan, Rice University David Wettergreen, Carnegie Mellon University Jason Wolfe, University of California, Berkeley From jmh at cs.utah.edu Fri Apr 17 08:58:40 2009 From: jmh at cs.utah.edu (John Hollerbach) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:58:40 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJRR May 2009 Issue Message-ID: <49E8A730.1070707@cs.utah.edu> A new issue of The International Journal of Robotics Research is available online: 1 May 2009; Vol. 28, No. 5 With this issue, IJRR announces the advent of Data Papers. The below Table of Contents is available online at: http://ijr.sagepub.com/content/vol28/issue5/?etoc Editorial: Data Papers ? Peer Reviewed Publication of High Quality Data Sets Paul Newman and Peter Corke The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 587 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/28/5/587 COLD: The CoSy Localization Database A. Pronobis and B. Caputo The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 588-594 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/5/588 The New College Vision and Laser Data Set Mike Smith, Ian Baldwin, Winston Churchill, Rohan Paul, and Paul Newman The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 595-599 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/5/595 Simple and Efficient Algorithms for Computing Smooth, Collision-free Feedback Laws Over Given Cell Decompositions Stephen R. Lindemann and Steven M. LaValle The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 600-621 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/5/600 Comparative Study on Serial and Parallel Forward Dynamics Algorithms for Kinematic Chains Katsu Yamane and Yoshihiko Nakamura The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 622-629 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/5/622 Sensing, Acquisition, and Interactive Playback of Data-based Models for Elastic Deformable Objects Philip Fong The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 630-655 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/5/630 An Embodied Cognition Approach to Mindreading Skills for Socially Intelligent Robots Cynthia Breazeal, Jesse Gray, and Matt Berlin The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 656-680 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/5/656 From fulvio.mastrogiovanni at unige.it Fri Apr 17 09:43:54 2009 From: fulvio.mastrogiovanni at unige.it (Fulvio Mastrogiovanni) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:43:54 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CALL FOR PAPERS: 1st International Workshop on Mobile Robots in Automated Buildings Message-ID: <1239986634.49e8b1caa87da@webmail.unige.it> [Apologies if you receive this more than once] ============================================================== The web site for submissions is now open! ============================================================== CALL FOR PAPERS 1st International Workshop on Mobile Robots in Automated Buildings Barcelona, Spain, July 19th, 2009 http://www.robotics.laboratorium.dist.unige.it/index.php?section=11 Co-located with: The 5th International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE'09) July 20-21, 2009. http://intelligentenvironments.org/conferences/ie09 Background and Goals: During the past decade, many researchers and practitioners worldwide recognized the benefits introduced by the Ubiquitous Robotics paradigm. According to this vision, mobile robots are no longer considered autonomous, physically situated and embodied artefacts operating within environments tailored for humans: on the contrary, they are expected to cooperate with devices for building automation (environmental control, automation of doors and elevators, etc.) that are distributed throughout the environment, and to get across heterogeneous information by means of communication technologies. Information exchange, when coupled with (possibly simple) actuation capabilities, is meant to replace physical interaction between robots and their environment. Applications are not limited to domestic robots, but encompass more general scenarios, such as autonomous transportation and surveillance in wide indoor and outdoor areas (hospitals, airports, industrial plants, etc.). The Ubiquitous Robotics paradigm suggests a novel approach for designing "autonomous systems": building robots with reasonable and reliable sensing and actuating capabilities, but operating within environments well-suited for them. This option unavoidably leads to a dramatic shift in robot design principles: traditional mobile robots will benefit from an improved infrastructure, making them more reliable, cheaper and dependable. In literature, the stress has been more on feasibility studies and prototyping than on determining general guidelines for system design, development and integration. In order to carry out a principled discussion about the role of robots within smart environments, it is mandatory to consider the fundamental requirements to qualitatively classify current systems and to help in designing new ones. Topics: The Workshop will consider high quality contributions addressing the following topics, although not being limited to them, in an Ubiquitous Robotics' perspective: - Architectures and Infrastructure - Perception and representation of sensor data - Information fusion and localization - Context assessment and monitoring of robot activities - Reasoning and action planning - Safety and dependability issues - Application scenarios: transportation, surveillance, etc - Specific prototypes: interacting with elevators (including scheduling policies), docking stations for loading/unloading and recharging, etc. Important Dates: April 30, 2009: Deadline first submission. May 28, 2009: Notifications sent to authors. June 12, 2009: Final versions submitted. Submission: Authors wishing to participate as speakers in this event should format their papers following the same formatting guidelines (8 pages, etc.) of the main IE'09 conference. Submission via EasyChair: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mrabs09 Publication: All papers accepted will be published in the proceedings of the event. Relevant post-Workshop publications will be pursued. Co-chairs: Antonio Sgorbissa (University of Genova), antonio.sgorbissa at unige.it. Fulvio Mastrogiovanni (University of Genova), fulvio.mastrogiovanni at unige.it. Renato Zaccaria (University of Genova), renato.zaccaria at unige.it. -- Fulvio Mastrogiovanni DIST|University of Genova|Italy Email: fulvio.mastrogiovanni at unige.it WWW: http://www.laboratorium.dist.unige.it/~fulvio/ Phone: (+39)0103532801 "Chi ? abile nel sortire bizzarri stratagemmi ? inesauribile come il Cielo, la Terra e i grandi fiumi. Giunto al termine riparte, come il Sole e la Luna; dopo morto rinasce, come le quattro stagioni." From lhm at jpl.nasa.gov Fri Apr 17 10:46:35 2009 From: lhm at jpl.nasa.gov (Matthies, Larry H) Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:46:35 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] opening in JPL computer vision group Message-ID: The Computer Vision Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is seeking new research staff in object recognition, activity/behavior recognition, or related areas. Applications for full-time or post-doc positions will be considered. The group conducts research for variety of sponsors, including NASA and non-NASA agencies, on vision for autonomous navigation of land, sea, air, and space vehicles, as well as vision for surveillance, robot manipulation, and other tasks. A particular focus at present is autonomous navigation in dynamic, urban environments. Interested individuals should reply by email to Dr. Larry Matthies, lhm at jpl.nasa.gov, including a resume, list of references, and statement of research interests. From trink at cs.rpi.edu Sat Apr 18 07:20:23 2009 From: trink at cs.rpi.edu (jeff trinkle) Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2009 10:20:23 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] RSS 2009 Early Registration Now Open Message-ID: <4f5f4cd20904180720m276714dycfdc1284ca39e32a@mail.gmail.com> Dear Colleague, RSS 2009 (http://www.roboticsconference.org/index.html) is shaping up to be a great meeting in a great location. RSS is a highly selective, single track conference spanning a wide range of topics on the frontiers of robotics. RSS 2009 takes place in Seattle and features four invited presentations (http://www.roboticsconference.org/invited.html), one early career spotlight presentation, 39 accepted contributed papers, and eleven workshops (http://www.roboticsconference.org/workshops.html). Our many sponsors (http://www.roboticsconference.org/sponsors.html) have contributed funds to help make RSS affordable for everyone, and you can save an additional 20% - 25% if you register before the end of May (http://www.roboticsconference.org/registration.html). ?Some hotels are also offering special rates for RSS (http://www.roboticsconference.org/TravelKit.pdf). ?We hope some dorm rooms will be available at even lower rates. To make the conference even more affordable for students, they pay significantly reduced rates and US citizens can apply for partial reimbursement thanks to a grant provided by Alan Schultz of the Naval Research Laboratory (http://www.roboticsconference.org/students.html). We and the other organizers are looking forward to seeing you in Seattle at the end of June! Jeff Trinkle, General Chair Yoky Matsuoka, Program Chair Lydia Kavraki, Workshops Chair Dieter Fox and Rajesh Rao, Local Arrangements co-Chairs Devin Balkcom, Publicity Chair Jose A. Castellanos, Publications Chair S. Morris Rose, Web Master From jeedward at yahoo.com Sat Apr 18 09:33:55 2009 From: jeedward at yahoo.com (John Edward) Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2009 09:33:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Extended draft paper submission: ARCS-09 call for papers Message-ID: <248945.33628.qm@web45906.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Extended draft paper submission: ARCS-09 call for papers ? This Extended Call for Papers is for those who didn't get a chance to submit the papers for the earlier call for papers. The papers received and accepted in response to this extended call for papers will be included in the final version of the respective conference proceedings. These proceedings will be either ready by the time of the conference (i.e., they will be available during the conference) or soon after the conference (before the end of August 2009), based how fast the proceedings can be prepared. Note: If you have already submitted a paper (whether accepted or rejected or currently under review) for MULTICONF-09, please DO NOT submit that paper again to this extended call for papers. IMPORTANT DATES: Draft paper submission date: May 11, 2009 Acceptance/rejection decision: May 21, 2009 Camera ready paper and copyright and pre-registration due: May 28, 2009 Conference dates: July 13-16, 2009 ? ? ? The 2009 International Conference on Automation, Robotics and Control Systems (ARCS-09) (website: http://www.PromoteResearch.org ) is very close from now. The conference will be held during July 13-16 2009 in Orlando, FL, USA.. The conference will take place at the same time and venue where several other international conferences are taking place. The other conferences include: ????????? International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition (AIPR-09) ????????? International Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Genomics and Chemoinformatics (BCBGC-09) ????????? International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems and Web Technologies (EISWT-09) ????????? International Conference on High Performance Computing, Networking and Communication Systems (HPCNCS-09) ????????? International Conference on Information Security and Privacy (ISP-09) ????????? International Conference on Recent Advances in Information Technology and Applications (RAITA-09) ????????? International Conference on Software Engineering Theory and Practice (SETP-09) ????????? International Conference on Theory and Applications of Computational Science (TACS-09) ????????? International Conference on Theoretical and Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (TMFCS-09) ? The website http://www.PromoteResearch.org contains more details. ? Sincerely John Edward Publicity committee ? ? ? From silvio.sabatini at unige.it Sun Apr 19 03:54:18 2009 From: silvio.sabatini at unige.it (Silvio Sabatini) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2009 12:54:18 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Heterogeneous 3D Perception across Visual Fragments Message-ID: <49EB02DA.6030309@unige.it> For everyone interested in the cognitive aspects of active 3D perception, their neural correlates, and their implication for humanoid robotics, I am pleased to point out a link to the project EYESHOTS ?Heterogeneous 3D Perception across Visual Fragments? that recently ended its first year: http://www.eyeshots.it/ EYESHOTS is a three-year project funded by European Commission through its Cognitive Systems, Interaction, Robotics Unit (E5) under the Seventh Framework Programme (2007-2013). The consortium is composed of 7 research units of 5 research centers, which provide different expertise ranging from robotics, computer vision, neuroscience and experimental psychology: University of Genoa, Italy (coordinator) Westf?lische Wilhems-University M?nster, Germany University of Bologna, Italy University Jaume I, Castell?n, Spain Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium In general, there is a growing attention for moving the active vision perspective from systems in which just the effects of action influence the perception, to systems where the acting itself, and even its planning, operate in parallel with perception, thus really closing the loops and taking full advantage of a concurrent/anticipatory perception-action processing. From this perspective, recent progress in vision research, computer vision, robotics and experimental psychology closely relates to sensorimotor paradigms at different levels of integration, specifically suggesting advantages of a mutual calibration of the vision and the arm systems. From this perspective, EYESHOTS aims to develop a system capable of ?mastering? the 3D space at a reaching distance, by gaining a perceptual visuospatial awareness in head-centered coordinates for visually guided actions in the peripersonal. The underling assumption is that a complete and operative cognition of visual space can be achieved only through active exploration of it: the natural effectors of this cognition are the eyes and the arms. The cognitive valence of an ?early? perception-action embodiment in the visual system is specifically investigated. Contacts from similar projects, research programmes, as well as individual research activities are welcome for exchange of knowledge and specific synergies. Silvio P. Sabatini, University of Genoa ? Department of Biophysical and Electronic Engineering -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Silvio P. SABATINI - PSPC Research Group DIBE - University of Genova | e_mail: silvio.sabatini at unige.it Via Opera Pia, 11A | phone: +39 010 3532092/3532289 I-16145 Genova (ITALY) | fax: +39 010 3532289/3532777 URL: http://pspc.dibe.unige.it/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- From roeder at in.tum.de Sun Apr 19 10:57:06 2009 From: roeder at in.tum.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Thorsten_R=F6der?=) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2009 19:57:06 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PhD position at TU Munich, Germany Message-ID: <7189C722-C8D6-44D9-A618-0F52A685255D@in.tum.de> We are now accepting applications for a PhD position in the fields of computer vision and embedded platforms at the Department of Informatics at TU Muenchen, Germany. Application deadline: the position will be filled as soon as possible. The alliance project "AMIS" (engl.: Adaptive Microscope Control) is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) as a strategic project in the area of embedded systems and computer vision. Several German industry and academic partners are participating in this project. The Chair of Robotics and Embedded Systems is responsible for development of data reduction algorithms, segmentation and tracking of biological samples. These algorithms will be implemented on embedded hardware platforms in order to guarantee real-time constraints. Applicants should have a M.Sc. degree in Computer Science, Electronic Engineering, Mechatronics or equivalent, from a well known University. The successful candidate should have experience in one or more of the following areas: (i) computer vision algorithms, (ii) experience in programming DSP/FPGA processors, (iii) data reduction, and (iv) experience in C(++) programming. TU Muenchen enjoys an excellent international reputation as an academic leader and has been consistently ranked as one of the three best universities in Germany. Interested applicants should submit a curriculum vitae, an academic transcript and two referees. A statement of the broad area of your research interest should also be included. For any enquiries or further information, send an e-mail to: Thorsten Roeder (roeder at in.tum.de) or visit our web site at http://wwwknoll.in.tum.de/ . From aaron.dollar at yale.edu Sun Apr 19 15:28:54 2009 From: aaron.dollar at yale.edu (Aaron Dollar) Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2009 18:28:54 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdoc Position in Robot Grasping/Manipulation, Yale University Message-ID: <001201c9c13e$394a8d10$abdfa730$@dollar@yale.edu> I am seeking applicants for a Postdoctoral Researcher position in robotic grasping and manipulation at Yale University. The specific nature of the project will vary depending on the interests and background of the successful applicant, but substantial hardware and experimental experience is strongly preferred. Excellent written and spoken English skills are essential. The overall goal of the research avenue is to understand the fundamental role of compliance and adaptability in robot hand mechanics and to explore manipulators that promise improved performance and control in real-world unstructured environments. Work for the advertised position will involve some combination of theory, simulation, design, hardware development, and experiment. Results from previous work in this area have been implemented on robots by other researchers at MIT and Georgia Tech, and we are currently working with Honda to adapt our hands for the ASIMO humanoid robot platform. More information about recent work can be found at: http://www.eng.yale.edu/adollar/ I am deeply committed to a strong mentoring relationship with my lab group and creating a fun, exciting, and productive work environment. In addition to technical areas associated with the research project, successful applicants can expect to gain experience in grant writing, student supervision, and project management, as well as develop strong ties to the academic and industrial robotics community in the Northeast US. Within Yale, our lab has close interaction with the research group of Prof. John Morrell, a lead developer of the Segway Human Transporter whose research centers on Human-Machine Interaction. Interested applicants should send a CV describing their relevant background, skill set and career goals, along with three references and any other relevant information to Prof. Aaron Dollar (aaron.dollar at yale.edu). From dana at ynl.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp Mon Apr 20 06:02:57 2009 From: dana at ynl.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp (Dana Kulic) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2009 09:02:57 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] RSS Workshop on Bridging the Gap between high-level representation and low-level behaviors - Deadline Extended to April 23 Message-ID: FINAL CALL FOR POSTER SUBMISSIONS RSS 2009 Workshop on bridging the gap between high-level discrete representations and low-level continuous behaviors Official Workshop of the Technical Committee on Robot Learning http://learning-robots.de/TC/RSS2009 Sunday, June 28, 2009 in Seattle, WA As part of the Robotics: Science and Systems Conference (www.roboticsconference.org) Important Dates April 23, 2009 Poster Abstract Submission Deadline (NOTE: New Extended Deadline) May 15, 2009 Notification of Acceptance June 28, 2009 Workshop Introduction Recently, robotics researchers have been investigating the modeling of human and robot behavior in terms of motion primitives. This research direction, based on biological and neuroscience findings, posits that human behavior is composed of motor primitive units, which can be acquired by a robot through imitation learning or practice. Motion primitives offer an approach for discretizing continuous behavior, representing a "bottom-up" approach for organizing robot behavior. On the other hand, in AI and planning fields, there has been a longstanding area of research in planning and acting in the discrete domain, or through modeling changes in the world as an instantaneous change in discrete state. This approach can be thought of as a "top-down" approach for organizing robot behavior. In this workshop, we hope to bring together researchers from both areas to discuss approaches for "bridging the gap" and combining continuous domain approaches with discrete representations. Topics of Interest We invite poster submissions from researchers working on combining discrete representations with continuous behaviors for robotic systems. Specific topics of interest include: - motion primitive representations and task abstractions - learning and parsing sequences and plans of motion primitives - imitation learning and learning from observation based on motion primitives - hierarchical reinforcement learning - apprenticeship learning of composed tasks - hybrid task control - hierarchical organization of behaviors - learning operator conditions for primitives - plan recognition - plan generation and modification Submission Guidelines Authors should submit a 1-2 page abstract of their poster by email to postersubmissions at learning-robots.de, by April 20, 2009. Workshop Organizers Dana Kuli? Department of Mechano-Informatics University of Tokyo dana at learning-robots.de Pieter Abbeel Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science University of California at Berkeley pabbeel at cs.berkeley.edu Jan Peters Department for Empirical Inference and Machine Learning Max Planck Institute of Biological Cybernetics mail at jan-peters.net From fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com Mon Apr 20 11:23:35 2009 From: fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com (Fabio Bonsignorio) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:23:35 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Reminder: CFP: 2009 Robotics: Science and Systems Workshop on GOOD EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY IN ROBOTICS Message-ID: Apologies for multiple postings --------------------------------------------------------- Dear All, this is to remind you the cfp for the RSS2009 Workshop on GOOD EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY IN ROBOTICS. If you are interested to submit an abstract drop an email by the below dates to me or one of the other organizers All the best Fabio CALL FOR EXTENDED ABSTRACTS 2009 Robotics: Science and Systems Workshop on GOOD EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY IN ROBOTICS Full-day workshop to be held in conjuntion with the 2009 Robotics: Science and Systems Conference in Seattle, WA, USA ?on June 28. http://www.roboticsconference.org/index.html Important dates: - April 25 - Submission of a 1-2 page extended abstract - May 2 - Notification of acceptance - June 10 - Full papers due Rationale and goals ?As the complexity of current robotic and embodied intelligent systems grows, it is more and more necessary to define proper experimental approaches and benchmarking procedures. The Special interest group on Good Experimental Methodology was formed by EURON in response to a wide perception ? evidenced by some 90 responses to an email call for interest ? that roboticists could do much better at performing and, particularly, reporting experimental work. A major output of the Special Interest Group is a set of guidelines for good experimental (reporting) practice, which we believe supports the community?s wish to produce better experimental work. Equally significant is a series of workshops on Benchmarking and Good Experimental Methodology held at major Robotics conferences. Good experimental work is not novel in robotics: there are many good experimental scientists in our community. However, uniformly good experimental work and reporting has not yet been achieved. The evidence of community interest in the topic mentioned above suggests that the community is willing to take steps to improve in this area. Thus we propose to take the work of good experimental robotics groups and use it to illustrate high-quality experimental work and reporting The workshop will ?draw out the strengths (and weaknesses) of presented work and encourage sharing and adoption of good practices. It will mix invited and regular presentations and will encourage the discussion and interaction between the participants List of topics - Design of Experiments in Robotics - Execution of Experiments in Robotics - Reporting Experiments in Robotics - Examples of Good Practice - Evaluation of Experimental Robotics Work - Proposals for Promotion of Good Experimental Work Format: The workshop will consist of presentations interleaved with a significant amount of additional time for discussions between the presentations and at the end of the full day single track sessions. Proceedings: ?The workshop will generate proceedings; selected contributions may be invited to submit to a journal special issue on good experimental robotics. Previous workshops: Previous workshops on the related topic of Benchmarking have been organized successfully at IROS ?and RSS conferences. Workshop Organizers: Fabio Bonsignorio, Heron Robots, Italy, Angel P. del Pobil, Universitat ?Jaume I, Spain, John Hallam, University of Southern Denmark, -- Fabio P. Bonsignorio Ceo Heron Robots s.r.l. Via R.Ceccardi 1/18 I-16121 Genova Italy www.heronrobots.com From terry.huntsberger at jpl.nasa.gov Mon Apr 20 14:29:19 2009 From: terry.huntsberger at jpl.nasa.gov (Terry Huntsberger) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:29:19 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] LAB-RS 2009: Call for Late-Breaking Paper and Poster Abstracts Message-ID: <5B7B366C-538E-44CE-B9DA-CB68E226CC53@jpl.nasa.gov> ***** CALL FOR LATE-BREAKING and POSTERS ******* 2nd ECSIS Symposium on Learning and Adaptive Behavior in Robotic Systems (LAB-RS), July 22-24, 2009 Iasi, Romania http://www.labrs.info/labrs09.html LAB-RS 2009 is inviting late-breaking paper and poster abstracts by April 29, 2009 (hard deadline to make the IEEE Proceedings publication after review/corrections by May 8, 2009) Abstracts due (2 - pages) April 29, 2009 Publication by IEEE Computer Society Press. The focus of the 2009 symposium is learning and adaptive behavior in robots working within environments in close proximity to other robots and humans. LAB-RS Topics Technologies * Robot learning * Dynamics of learning * Learning in real environments * Adaptive behaviors * Bio-inspired algorithms and technologies * Neural networks * Evolutionary algorithms * Adaptive information processing * Cooperative and collaborative robotics * Collaborative learning * Soft computing techniques * Dynamic and reinforcement learning * Legged locomotion * Flying robots * Hybrid and adaptive architectures * Adaptive multi-robot behaviors * Adaptive information processing * Socially adaptive robots * Sensory-control for learning/adaptive robots Application areas * Autonomous ground vehicles * Unmanned Aerial Vehicles * Unmanned Underwater Vehicles * Industrial Robots * Construction Robots * Humanoids and Actroids * Human-centric systems * Security robots * Training systems (modelling, simulation, virtual environments) * Cooperative and collaborative robotics * Entertainment robots * Educational robots * Agricultural robots * Medical robots, therapy and surgical applications * Space robotics Co-located events: ISRIS 2009 (July 22-26) http://www.isris.info/isris09.html International School in Robotics and Intelligent Systems ISRIS 2009 Focus theme: Assistive robots and systems for healthcare and rehabilitation and ARTIPED 2009 (July 24-26) http://www.artiped.info/artiped09.html International Symposium on Assistive and Recuperative Technologies for Injured, ill, Pregnant, Elderly and people with Disabilities ------------------------------------- Opinions are mine and may not reflect policy of NASA, Caltech or JPL ------------------------------------- Terry Huntsberger http://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Terrance_Huntsberger MS 198-219 Jet Propulsion Laboratory 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena, CA 91109 PH: (818) 354-5794 CELL: (818) 648-0645 FAX: (818) 393-5007 From Laurel.Riek at cl.cam.ac.uk Mon Apr 20 14:40:23 2009 From: Laurel.Riek at cl.cam.ac.uk (Laurel D. Riek) Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:40:23 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2nd CFP: Beyond Gray Droids: Domestic Robot Design for the 21st Century Message-ID: ** 2nd Call For Papers ** (Apologies for cross-posting) -------------------------------------------------------------- Beyond Gray Droids: Domestic Robot Design for the 21st Century -------------------------------------------------------------- BCS HCI 2009 Workshop 1 Sept 2009 Cambridge, UK -------------------------------------------------------------- Web: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/conference/drd09/ -------------------------------------------------------------- ** Submission deadline: 27 April 2009 ** -------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------ Workshop Scope and Aims: ------------------------ Each year, robots are entering domestic environments in increasing number. By 2012, it's estimated that 7.8 million robots will be in domestic settings. These robots are intended to help with household chores, act as home health aids, and serve as companions and entertainers for people. However, because the field of domestic robotics is birthed from industrial robotics, many of these robots in the home still look and behave like they belong in a factory. Their interactive styles are often not well-suited toward the wide variety of home users that exist. Domestic robots present unique design challenges that are very different from those of industrial robots. The first challenge is a lack of predictability - neither users' behavior nor the physical environment can be known before a robot is placed in a home. Thus, for mobile robots, safety can be a major concern, particularly for elderly or disabled users. For example, a robot vacuum cleaner that does not audibly announce its presence could cause an elderly user with vision loss to trip and fall. Another challenge is with regard to presenting appropriate, dynamic interaction modalities that are inclusive of all users. For example, physically disabled children may not enjoy a robotic pet that moves too quickly, whereas able-bodied children may be bored by one that does not. The design of interaction modalities should also consider a robot's ability to perceive and interpret a user's behavior (e.g., affective and affect-related expressions, intentions, etc.). A third design challenge is with regard to robot appearance. Vast cultural differences exist in how people think robots ought to look and behave, and certain types of appearance may be outside the realm of their comfort. For example, humanoid robots with large heads and no noses may be perfectly acceptable in Japan but may be off-putting to Westerners. Also, individual personality differences can greatly affect how people perceive robot appearance. In order to start address these design challenges, it may be helpful to engage in several steps: * Appropriately identifying likely domestic user groups * Understanding design constraints of these groups * Brainstorming dynamic interaction modalities for domestic robots * Articulating ways to incorporate cultural and personality differences into robot appearance and behavior * Creating new ways to evaluate HRI in domestic contexts ----------------- Workshop Topics: ----------------- This workshop aims to provide a forum for researchers interested in improving the design of domestic robots. By gathering in a friendly environment, the hope is that researchers can openly share their ideas and vision for the future of this field. Thus, we invite researchers who wish to participate in the workshop to submit position papers, works-in-progress, or completed research. Topics include: * Assistive Technology * Affective Computing * Affective Robotics * Domestic Design * Human-Centered Design * Human-Machine Interaction * Inclusive Design * Multi-cultural Design * Robot Design * Social Robotics ...as well as other relevant topics. ------------------------------- Submission Format and Procedure: ------------------------------- Papers may be up to 4 pages in length. Please format your paper using the ACM 2-column format, and submit a pdf version via the link provided on the conference website: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/conference/drd09/ ---------------- Important Dates: ---------------- Paper submission deadline: 27 Apr 2009 Notification to authors: 12 May 2009 Camera-ready version: 10 Aug 2009 --------- Outcomes: --------- All accepted papers will be included in Volume 3 of the HCI 2009 proceedings. Workshop participants will also help contribute to a poster that will be presented at the main conference. ----------- Organizers: ----------- Laurel D. Riek (University of Cambridge, UK) Ginevra Castellano (Queen Mary University of London, UK) Lars Erik Holmquist (Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Sweden) ------------------ Program Committee: ------------------ Shazia Afzal (University of Cambridge, UK) Nadia Berthouze (UCL Interaction Centre, UK) Kerstin Dautenhahn (University of Hertfordshire, UK) Ylva Fernaeus (Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Sweden) Maria Hakansson (Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Sweden) Marcel Heerink (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands) Mattias Jacobsson (Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Sweden) Peter W. McOwan (Queen Mary University of London, UK) Bernt Meerbeek (Philips Research, Netherlands) Christopher Peters (Coventry University, UK) Kristin Stubbs (University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA) Mick Walters (Univ. of Hertfordshire, UK) Astrid Weiss (University of Salzburg, Austria) ---------- Questions: ---------- If you have any questions, please contact drd09-chairs at cl.cam.ac.uk From yunhui.liu at gmail.com Mon Apr 20 23:21:23 2009 From: yunhui.liu at gmail.com (Yunhui Liu) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:21:23 +0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Posdoc Fellow in Medical Robotics at CUHK Message-ID: Dear Sir, Would you please send the following email to people in the mailing list: I am looking for qualified applicants for two Postdoctoral researcher positions in medical robots and robot design at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The projects are to develop robotics technology for medical applications. The applicants should have substantial experiences in robot design, hardware and experiments as the work involves in mechanical design, hardware development, control algorithms design, and experiments The applicants should have good capability in written and oral English as well. Interested applicants should send a CV describing their background with 2-3 references to Prof. Yunhui Liu via yhliu at mae.cuhk.edu.hk. Yunhui Liu PhD, IEEE Fellow Professor Dept. of Mechanical and Automation Engineering Director, Centre for Robotics and Technology Education Faculty of Engineering The Chinese University of Hong Kong Shatin, NT, Hong Kong Tel: 26098340, Fax: 26036002 Email: yhliu at mae.cuhk.edu.hk From hirata at irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp Tue Apr 21 05:25:41 2009 From: hirata at irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp (Yasuhisa Hirata) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:25:41 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Advanced Robotics : Vol. 23, No. 4, 5 issue Message-ID: <49EDBB45.307@irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp> ************************************************************************ The Official International Journal of the Robotics Society of Japan Advanced Robotics Volume 23, Number 4, 2009 Cutting Edge of Robotics in Japan Volume 23, Number 5, 2009 Section Focused on Mobiligence (2) ************************************************************************ You have free access to the abstracts of all papers below from the following link, and can access the pdf files if you or your institution is subscribing to Advanced Robotics: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/vsp/arb/2009/00000023/00000004 http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/vsp/arb/2009/00000023/00000005 Table of Contents Vol. 23, No. 4, 2009 Cutting Edge of Robotics in Japan Preface pp. 385-385(1) Author: Yoshimi, Takashi Transporting an Object by a Passive Mobile Robot with Servo Brakes in Cooperation with a Human pp. 387-404(18) Authors: Hirata, Yasuhisa; Wang, Zhidong; Fukaya, Kenta; Kosuge, Kazuhiro Laser-Based Tracking of Human Position and Orientation Using Parametric Shape Modeling pp. 405-428(24) Authors: Glas, Dylan F.; Miyashita, Takahiro; Ishiguro, Hiroshi; Hagita, Norihiro Discriminative Data Visualization for Daily Behavior Modeling pp. 429-441(13) Authors: Shimosaka, Masamichi; Mori, Taketoshi; Fujii, Akinori; Sato, Tomomasa Cross-Cultural Studies on Subjective Evaluation of a Seal Robot pp. 443-458(16) Authors: Shibata, Takanori; Wada, Kazuyoshi; Ikeda, Yousuke; Sabanovic, Selma Integrating Recognition and Action Through Task-Relevant Knowledge for Daily Assistive Humanoids pp. 459-480(22) Authors: Okada, Kei; Kojima, Mitsuharu; Tokutsu, Satoru; Mori, Yuto; Maki, Toshiaki; Inaba, Masayuki Vol. 23, No. 5, 2009 Section Focused on Mobiligence (2) Preface pp. 481-482(2) Authors: Hosoda, Koh; Aonuma, Hitoshi Demonstration and Analysis of Quadrupedal Passive Dynamic Walking pp. 483-501(19) Authors: Nakatani, Kazuhiro; Sugimoto, Yasuhiro; Osuka, Koichi Feasibility Study on Stability of Gait Patterns with Changeable Body Stiffness Using Pneumatic Actuators in a Quadruped Robot pp. 503-520(18) Authors: Tsujita, Katsuyoshi; Kobayashi, Toshiya; Masuda, Tatsuya Stabilizing Function of the Musculoskeletal System for Periodic Motion pp. 521-534(14) Authors: Sugimoto, Yasuhiro; Aoi, Shinya; Ogihara, Naomichi; Tsuchiya, Kazuo Construction of a Gait Adaptation Model in Human Split-Belt Treadmill Walking Using a Two-Dimensional Biped Robot pp. 535-561(27) Authors: Otoda, Yuji; Kimura, Hiroshi; Takase, Kunikatsu Establishment of Social Status without Individual Discrimination in the Cricket pp. 563-578(16) Authors: Ashikaga, Masatoshi; Sakura, Midori; Kikuchi, Mika; Hiraguchi, Tetsutaro; Chiba, Ryosuke; Aonuma, Hitoshi; Ota, Jun Stereo Tracking and Servoing for Space Applications pp. 579-599(21) Authors: Dionnet, Fabien; Marchand, Eric Optimal Guidance for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Navigation within Undersea Areas of Current Disturbances pp. 601-628(28) Authors: Kim, Kangsoo; Ura, Tamaki These are the relevant links to Advanced Robotics: http://www.rsj.or.jp/AR/index_e.html [Advanced Robotics Home Page] http://www.rsj.or.jp/AR/Subscribe_e.html [How to Subscribe] http://www.rsj.or.jp/AR/Submit_e.html [Paper Submission] -- Shigeki Sugano (Waseda University, Japan) Editor-in-Chief, Advanced Robotics Takashi Yoshimi (Toshiba Corporation, Japan) Committee Chair of RSJ International Journal e-info at rsj.or.jp From msh at aber.ac.uk Tue Apr 21 05:42:33 2009 From: msh at aber.ac.uk (Martin Huelse) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:42:33 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Places_Still_Available::ResearchCampOnAutonomousIntelligentRobots Message-ID: <49EDBF39.3090702@aber.ac.uk> !!! A FEW PLACES STILL AVAILABLE !!! #################################################################### INTERNATIONAL SUMMER RESEARCH CAMP on AUTONOMOUS INTELLIGENT ROBOTS, (AIR 2009) Aberystwyth University, UK, June 23rd to 30th 2009 http://users.aber.ac.uk/msh/AIR/ #################################################################### A few places are still available in the listed projects below. We invite applications for participation in a one-week research camp on Autonomous Intelligent Robots, AIR 2009, at Aberystwyth University, UK, starting June 23rd 2009, ending June 30th. OBJECTIVES The Summer Research Camp is aimed at PhD students and young researchers in the fields of computer science, robotics, autonomous systems, machine vision, biologically inspired robotics, machine learning and engineering, but is open to interested students in biology, psychology and neuroscience etc. with a reasonable background and skills in robotics and programming. AIR is intended as a platform for work exchange, for meeting other students and learning from each other by working in small robotic related research projects of a maximum of five people. PROJECTS - Artificial Endocrine System - Embodied visual memory based on sensory-motor learning - RunBot: Learning to walk, to run and walk again INVITED SPEAKERS - Andrew Adamatzky, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. - Guido Bugmann, University of Plymouth, UK. - Jeremy Wyatt, University of Birmingham, UK. FEE - GBP 500.00 for students - GBP 650.00 for non-students Fee includes all accommodation and catering (breakfast, lunch, dinner) for the full week. Fees can be invoiced to university departments. MORE INFORMATION ... and details about the research camp in general as well as brief descriptions of the research projects and details about the application process can be found on our websites: http://users.aber.ac.uk/msh/AIR/ For further questions please contact: Martin Huelse Email: msh at aber.ac.uk Phone: (+441970) - 622441 ####################################################################### -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 macl at isr.ist.utl.pt Tue Apr 21 09:01:27 2009 From: macl at isr.ist.utl.pt (macl at isr.ist.utl.pt) Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:01:27 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] RLSS09: Robot Learning Summer School Message-ID: <20090421180127.39275f9z467i94ow@webmail.isr.ist.utl.pt> ________________________ FINAL Call for Participation ______________________________________________________ RLSS09: Robot Learning Summer School Dates: Mon 20 to Fri 24 July, 2009 Venue: Instituto Superior T?cnico, Lisboa, Portugal http://vislab.isr.ist.utl.pt/RLSS09/ APPLICATION DEADLINE: 24 April 2009 Overview During the last years learning robots have increasingly received more attention by the robotics community. There is an increasing interest in machine learning and statistics within the robotics community. At the same time, there has been a growth in the learning community in using robots as motivating applications for new algorithms and formalisms. Considerable evidence of this exists in the use of learning in high-profile competitions such as RoboCup and the DARPA Challenges, and the growing number of research programs funded by governments around the world. Additionally, the volume of research is increasing, as shown by the number of learning papers accepted to IROS and ICRA, and the corresponding number of learning sessions. This school is mainly designed for PhD students in learning robots who want to acquire a good understanding of current research and open challenges. At the same time, it may serve as a good introduction to those people with a different background who want to introduce themselves to this area. The school will allow the participants to get in touch with international experts in this field. More long term results will include exchange of students, joint publications and potential joint projects. Venue The summer school will be held at the Instituto Superior Tecnico (IST) in Lisbon, Portugal. IST has a long history in robotics research, machine learning and computer vision and is currently involved in several research projects in these areas. This Summer School is organized by Institute for Systems and Robotics in cooperation with the IEEE Technical Committee in Learning Robots and support from Funda??o para a Ci?ncia e Tecnologia. Topics The topics include: * Reinforcement learning in robots, * Planning with uncertainty, * Mobile robot learning and mapping * Machine learning for regression and classification * Relational learning, * Cognitive robots: learning robots as a link to neuroscience. See the webpage for further details: http://vislab.isr.ist.utl.pt/RLSS09/ Program committee * Jan Peters, Max Planck Institute * Nick Roy, MIT * Russ Tedrake, MIT * Jun Morimoto, ATR * Jose Santos-Victor, IST * Manuel Lopes, IST * Luis Montesano, IST Organizers * Manuel Lopes, IST * Luis Montesano, IST APPLICATION The school will be open to about 30 qualified, motivated and pre-selected candidates. The school is open to PhD. students, post-docs and researchers (both academic and industrial). To apply, PhD students should submit: a CV, one page describing their thesis topic and a poster submission. http://vislab.isr.ist.utl.pt/RLSS09/registration.html School fees are: 300 euros for Phd students and 400euros for others. Depending on sponsoring a limited number of travel grants will be available, check the web site. The expected daily lodging cost are: 40? for a double room in a standard hotel or about 80? single in a 4 star hotel. The fee include, all courses, handling material, coffee breaks, welcome cocktail, WiFi Internet Connection, social events. The application at RLSS09 should be done before 24 April 2009. Applicants will receive notification of acceptance by 30 April 2009. Manuel Lopes -- ISR/IST - Torre Norte, 7? - Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa. Portugal Tel. (+351)218418299, Fax. (+351)218418291, Web: www.isr.ist.utl.pt/~macl ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From oli at cs.umass.edu Tue Apr 21 23:25:38 2009 From: oli at cs.umass.edu (Oliver Brock) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 02:25:38 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Robotics - Post-doc and PhD positions at TU Berlin Message-ID: <2330F00E4A3C924AB7F7297AE42D353546013B@zor.ads.cs.umass.edu> The Robotics and Biology Laboratory in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Technische Universit?t Berlin has several openings for - Ph.D. students - Post-doctoral researchers About the Research The Robotics and Biology Laboratory conducts cutting-edge research in the area of autonomous mobile manipulation, including work on manipulation, interactive perception, grasping, computer vision, motion generation, motion planning, and robotic cognition. Our work is motivated by the desire to create robotic systems that perform dexterous manipulation tasks in everyday environments with a level of competency rivaling that of humans. We strive to demonstrate our research on real-world robotic systems in everyday environments. This requires the tight integration of autonomous capabilities in manipulation, perception, planning, control, machine learning, and reasoning. Researchers in our lab work at the intersection of at least two of these areas, creating innovative solutions to long-standing research challenges in robotics and artificial intelligence. Research projects will be tailored to the preferences, skills, and experience of the successful applicant. Desired Skills The successful applicant has completed a Masters degree (Ph.D. degree for post-doctoral researchers) in computer science or a closely related discipline. He or she should possess excellent skills and practical experience in one or more of the following research areas: robotics, computer vision, AI, machine learning, control, planning, and reasoning. Experience at the intersection of one or more of these areas is desirable. Experience with programming and operating real-world robots and with the development of large integrated software is a plus. Proficiency in written and spoken English is required. Knowledge of German is useful but not required. About the Robotics and Biology Laboratory The Robotics and Biology Laboratory is an international leader in the field of autonomous mobile manipulation. The lab is generously funded through the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt-Professorship by the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation. It has large, newly renovated laboratory and office space on the campus of the TU Berlin in the middle of Berlin. The lab home to top-notch, state-of-the-art mobile manipulators and robots; it is equipped with all the toys and bells and whistles that a roboticist might desire. The lab maintains close research ties to top universities in Germany, Europe, and the USA. The Robotics and Biology Laboratory provides an ideal environment for launching a successful career in academia or industry. About Berlin Berlin is a thriving center for science, culture, politics, and media right in the middle of Europe. Berlin is the most populous city in Germany, but through its many parks, forests, and lakes within the city limits, it provides a quality of life that is quite unique among large cities in the world. At the same time, the cost of living is very low. Berlin is home to three high-quality universities and many academic, governmental, and industrial research organizations. Wikipedia about Berlin: "The metropolis is home to world-renowned universities, research institutes, sporting events, orchestras, museums and personalities. Berlin's urban landscape and historical legacy has made it a popular setting for international film productions. The city is recognized for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts and a high quality of living. Berlin has evolved into a global focal point for young individuals and artists attracted by a liberal lifestyle and modern zeitgeist." How to Apply International applications are encouraged to apply and will receive logistic support with visa issues. Applications will be evaluated on an ongoing basis until the positions are filled. Please email your application, including cover letter, CV, and the contact information for at least two references as a single PDF file with either "Application Robotics PhD" or "Application Robotics Post-Doc" in the subject line to pdvrob at cs.tu-berlin.de . If you have questions regarding the position, please contact Mrs Gudrun Pourshirazi Tel. +49 30 314-73 110 Fax +49 30 314-21 116 pdvrob at cs.tu-berlin.de TU Berlin, Fakult?t IV Robotics, EN 10 Einsteinufer 17 10587 Berlin Germany http://www.robotics.tu-berlin.de/menue/stellenangebote/robotik/ From oli at cs.umass.edu Tue Apr 21 23:25:40 2009 From: oli at cs.umass.edu (Oliver Brock) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 02:25:40 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Computational Biology - Post-doc and PhD positions at TU Berlin Message-ID: <2330F00E4A3C924AB7F7297AE42D353546013C@zor.ads.cs.umass.edu> The Robotics and Biology Laboratory in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Technische Universit?t Berlin has several openings for - Ph.D. students - Post-doctoral researchers About the Research The Robotics and Biology Laboratory conducts innovative research in protein structure prediction, protein docking, and protein flexibility. Inspired by the representational similarities between robots at the macro-scale and proteins at the micro-scale, we are advancing computational structural biology by leveraging insights, algorithms, and techniques from robotics, robot motion planning, and AI in the biological domain. We demonstrated the success and potential impact of our strategies and methods in the most recent community-wide experiment on the critical assessment of techniques for protein structure prediction (CASP). Our research has already caught the attention of top researchers in computational biology. Several innovative research projects are under way, all of which with the potential for substantial and lasting impact on computational biology. The successful applicant will play an important role in these projects. The specifics of the projects will be tailored to the preferences, skills, and experience of the applicant. Our lab is ideal for computer scientists who want to apply their expertise to the field of computational biology and for the computational biologist who wants to learn and apply a new set of innovative computational tools and perspectives for conducting cutting-edge research in computational biology. Desired Skills The successful applicant has completed a Masters degree (Ph.D. degree for post-doctoral researchers) in computer science, computational biology, bioinformatics, or a closely related discipline. He or she should possess excellent skills and practical experience in one or more of the following research areas: robotics, AI, protein structure prediction, protein docking, protein flexibility. We do not expect applicants to be experts in computer science and biology at the same time but instead will provide training for the skills required for the research. Proficiency in written and spoken English is required. Knowledge of German is useful but not required. About the Robotics and Biology Laboratory The Robotics and Biology Laboratory is one of the few laboratories world-wide performing research at the intersection of robotics and computational biology. The lab is generously funded through the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt-Professorship by the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation. It has large, newly renovated laboratory and office space on the campus of the TU Berlin in the middle of Berlin. The lab is equipped with a large dedicated compute cluster. The lab maintains close research ties to top universities in Germany, Europe, and the USA. The Robotics and Biology Laboratory provides an ideal environment for launching a successful career in academia or industry. About Berlin Berlin is a thriving center for science, culture, politics, and media right in the middle of Europe. Berlin is the most populous city in Germany, but through its many parks, forests, and lakes within the city limits, it provides a quality of life that is quite unique among large cities in the world. At the same time, the cost of living is very low. Berlin is home to three high-quality universities and many academic, governmental, and industrial research organizations. Wikipedia about Berlin: "The metropolis is home to world-renowned universities, research institutes, sporting events, orchestras, museums and personalities. Berlin's urban landscape and historical legacy has made it a popular setting for international film productions. The city is recognized for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts and a high quality of living. Berlin has evolved into a global focal point for young individuals and artists attracted by a liberal lifestyle and modern zeitgeist." How to Apply International applications are encouraged to apply and will receive logistic support with visa issues. Applications will be evaluated on an ongoing basis until the positions are filled. Please email your application, including cover letter, CV, and the contact information for at least two references as a single PDF file with either "Application Biology PhD" or "Application Biology Post-Doc" in the subject line to pdvrob at cs.tu-berlin.de . If you have questions regarding the position, please contact Mrs Gudrun Pourshirazi Tel. +49 30 314-73 110 Fax +49 30 314-21 116 pdvrob at cs.tu-berlin.de TU Berlin, Fakult?t IV Robotics, EN 10 Einsteinufer 17 10587 Berlin Germany http://www.robotics.tu-berlin.de/menue/stellenangebote/computational_biology/ From sylvain.calinon at iit.it Wed Apr 22 08:47:12 2009 From: sylvain.calinon at iit.it (Calinon Sylvain) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:47:12 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdoc position in robot learning by imitation at the Italian Institute of Technology Message-ID: <5B2D6D6DDD42414A91B85B082D7C5FC4484F11@EDEN-CLU.netexchange.int.netscalibur.it> The Italian Institute of Technology (an English language research institute) has openings for: Post-Doctoral Researcher: Robot learning by imitation The Advanced Robotics Department at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) is seeking to appoint a postdoctoral research fellow with experience/interest in topics related to robot programming by demonstration, applied machine learning, adaptive control or human-robot interaction. Robotics research at IIT concentrates on a multidisciplinary approach to "humanoid technologies" encompassing machine learning and artificial cognition, leading to technologies and systems with human-like features and performance. The successful applicant will join and help to develop a team studying novel approaches in robot programming by demonstration to endow the humanoid platform iCub with adaptive and flexible controllers for learning manipulatory tasks in dynamic environment. By taking inspiration from the way humans learn new tasks by imitation, research will be conducted to provide robots with the capability to develop skills through human guidance and to collaborate safely with users through compliant kinaesthetic interaction. The candidates are expected to have an Engineering BSc/MSc degree (EE, CS or Physics/Maths) and a PhD degree in Robotics/Computer Science (not necessarily in human-robot interaction) with a strong background in machine learning and/or adaptive motor control. Strong programming skills in C, C++, MATLAB or equivalent are also required. Applicants demonstrating excellence in other related areas are encouraged to apply. International applications are encouraged and will receive logistic support with visa issues. Salaries will be dependent on experience and will be in the range 30k-40k Euros per year excluding additional pension, health, etc benefits. Contracts are for up to 4 years with possible future career options on successful completion. For further information contact Sylvain.Calinon at iit.it or Darwin.Caldwell at iit.it Applications, including cover letter, CV, and the contact information for at least two references should be emailed to Floriana.Sardi at iit.it (+39 010 71781 407) by the 15 May 2009. Additional information: Italian Institute of Technology (IIT): http://www.iit.it/en Humanoid robot iCub: http://www.iCub.org Sylvain Calinon's website on robot programming by demonstration: http://www.programming-by-demonstration.org From edb at gdl.cinvestav.mx Wed Apr 22 11:31:43 2009 From: edb at gdl.cinvestav.mx (Eduardo Bayro) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:31:43 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] =?windows-1252?q?Third_Call_for_Papers_for_t?= =?windows-1252?q?he__14th_Iberoamerican_Congress_on_Pattern_Recognition__?= =?windows-1252?q?CIARP_2009____Guadalajara=2C_M=E9xico_=28includes_topics?= =?windows-1252?q?=3A__robotics=2C_robot_vision=2C_humanoids__and__an_acco?= =?windows-1252?q?mpanying_workshop_on_Humanoid_Robotics=29?= Message-ID: <49EF628F.8090102@gdl.cinvestav.mx> Note: Conference include several topics in the conference that are interesting for the robotics community --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Third Call for Papers 14th Iberoamerican Congress on Pattern Recognition CIARP 2009 Chairs Eduardo Bayro Corrochano CINVESTAV, Mexico Jan Olof Ecklundh KTH, Sweden http://www.gdl.cinvestav.mx/ciarp2009/ November 15th-18th 2009, Guadalajara, M?xico Venue: Hotel Misi?n Carlton Proceedigs LNCS, Springer Verlag Selected Papers for a Special Issue in Journal Pattern Recognition Letters Topics of interests ? Artificial Intelligence Techniques in PR ? Bioinformatics ? Clustering ? Computer Vision ? Data Mining ? DB, Knowledge Bases and Linguistic PR-Tools ? Discrete Geometry ? Clifford Algebra Applications in Perception Action ? Document Processing and Recognition ? Fuzzy and Hybrid Techniques in PR ? Image Coding, Processing and Analysis ? Kernel Machines ? Logical Combinatorial Pattern Recognition ? Mathematical Morphology ? Mathematical Theory of Pattern Recognition ? Natural Language Processing and Recognition ? Neural Networks for Pattern Recognition ? Parallel and Distributed Pattern Recognition ? Pattern Recognition Principles ? Robotics and humanoids ? Remote Sensing Applications of PR ? Satellite Image processing and radar ? Gognitive Humanoid Vision ? Shape and Texture Analysis ? Signal Processing and Analysis ? Special Hardware Architectures ? Statistical Pattern Recognition ? Syntactical and Structural Pattern Recognition ? Voice and Speech Recognition Workshops * CASI'2009 Workshop on Computational Advances of Intelligent Processing of Remote Satellite Imagery ,IEEE GRSS Technically Co-Sponsored/. General-Chair: Prof. Yuri Shkvarko, CINVESTAV, Unidad Guadalajara./ * Workshop on Humanoid Robotics, RAS M?xico Endorsed. Chairs: Prof. Vicente Parra, CINVESTAV. Unidad Saltillo, Robotics and Advanced Manufacturing, M?xico.Prof. Alfredo Wetzenfeld, ITAM, Robotica, Mexico Paper Submission Submission page it is now open!. Prospective authors are invited to contribute to the conference and workshops by electronically submitting a full paper in English of no more than 8 pages including illustrations, results and references, and must be presented at the conference in English. The papers should be submitted electronically before June 7th, 2009, through the CIARP 2008 webpage (http://www.gdl.cinvestav.mx/ciarp2009). The papers should be prepared following the instructions from Springer LNCS series. At least one of the authors must have registered for the paper to be published Important Dates Submission of papers before June 7th, 2009 Notification of acceptance August 1th, 2009 Camera-ready August 21th, 2009 Registration IAPR Members Non-IAPR Before August 21th, 2008 400 USD 450 USD After August 21th, 2008 450 USD 500 USD Extra Conference Dinner 50 USD Registration fee includes: Proceedings, Ice-break Party, Coffee Breaks, Lunches, Conference Dinner, Tutorials and Cultural Program (1. tour colonial area by night, 2. Latin dance night, 3. folkloric dance spectacle, mariachi traditional concert with superb banquet in colonial romantic garden). Extra: organized tours to Puerto. Vallarta Tequila, archeological places, artisans markets, museums and traditional colonial churches and towns. Contact: ciarp09 at gdl.cinvestav.mx http://www.gdl.cinvestav.mx/ciarp2009/ From aokamura at jhu.edu Wed Apr 22 13:32:36 2009 From: aokamura at jhu.edu (Allison Okamura) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:32:36 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Post-doc Position: Steering Flexible Needles in Soft Tissues (Johns Hopkins University) Message-ID: Post-doc Position: Steering Flexible Needles in Soft Tissues A Post-doctoral position is available for a medical robotics project sponsored by the US National Institutes of Health. Investigators: Allison Okamura (PI), Gregory Chirikjian, Noah Cowan (Johns Hopkins University) Ken Goldberg (University of California at Berkeley) Gabor Fichtinger (JHU/Queen's University) This is a collaborative project between The Johns Hopkins University and The University of California at Berkeley to design, prototype, and evaluate a working system that will steer flexible needles through deformable tissue and around internal obstacles to precisely reach specified 3D targets. The project website is http://lcsr.jhu.edu/needlesteering . We are seeking a postdoc with experience and interest in computer- integrated surgery, kinematics, robot design, medical imaging, and clinical engineering. This postdoc will develop robotic devices and methods for real-time image-guided control to steer needles to specified 3D targets based on preoperative plans. He or she will develop a complete, interactive surgeon-assistance system for needle steering and implement it with phantom tissues, cadavers, and in vivo. Requirements: Solid knowledge and experience with C++, robotic system integration, hardware and/or control design. Experience with medical imaging and animal experiments is also desirable. The position is open immediately and will last for 2 years. Review of applications will begin on May 1, 2009. Some interviews may be conducted at the ICRA conference in Kobe, Japan. If interested and qualified, email the following items to Allison Okamura (akamura at jhu.edu) in a single pdf file: 1. One paragraph summary of qualifications and relevant experience 2. Expected graduation date (or available start date) 3. Name and email addresses of three references 4. Dissertation title and abstract 5. CV Send to: aokamura at jhu.edu Please put NEEDLE STEERING POSTDOC on the Subject line. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Allison M. Okamura, Associate Professor The Johns Hopkins University Department of Mechanical Engineering 125 CSEB, 3400 N. Charles St. Baltimore, MD 21218 Tel: 410-516-7266 Fax: 410-516-7254 Email: aokamura at jhu.edu http://haptics.lcsr.jhu.edu/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From bravi at cs.washington.edu Wed Apr 22 13:37:33 2009 From: bravi at cs.washington.edu (Ravi Balasubramanian) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:37:33 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: RSS Workshop on Understanding Human Hand for Advancing Robotic Manipulation Message-ID: <49EF800D.1010202@cs.washington.edu> Please post to the mailing list. --------------------------------------------- CALL FOR ABSTRACTS RSS 2009 Workshop (Full Day) on Understanding the Human Hand for Advancing Robotic Manipulation Website: http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/bravi/rssws/ When: Sunday, June 28, 2009 8:30 AM to 6 PM Where: Robotics: Science and Systems Conference Seattle, WA. htp://www.roboticsconference.org Important Dates April 29, 2009: Abstract Submission Deadline May 18, 2009: Notification of Acceptance June 28, 2009: Workshop Workshop Introduction Recent advances in the human sciences have energized the field of robotics toward personal assistants and brain machine interface. There is an increased interest to solve the robotic manipulation question: Can we build robotic hands that can accomplish our daily manipulation tasks? The human hand is adept at many diverse tasks in varied contexts, including power and precision grasping, twisting, and tapping. But we still do not know what features of the human hand enable such capability. For example, do biomechanical features like the complex tendon-hood, synergistic muscle actuation, and bone shapes make the difference? Or is it the neural coding of movement? Importantly for robotics, we need to understand what features should be included in future robotic hands. This workshop is a forum for researchers to discuss manipulation viewed in light of the human hand?s features and hopes to push the state of the art of the robotic hand. We expect that the workshop will bring together researchers from diverse areas such as robotics, biomechanics, neuroscience, and anthropologists. Topics of Interest Topics addressed include but are NOT LIMITED to: -- human hand?s biomechanics, such as bones, tendon hood, and muscles structure and usage. -- neural control systems, learning, and representation of movement/action. -- sensory perception and feedback. -- robotic manipulation and haptics, such as grasping, dexterity analysis, sensitivity. -- evolution of the hand across species. -- human hand behavior/function measurements in different tasks. Abstract Submission Guidelines Authors should submit a 1-2 page abstract of their poster by email to bravi at cs.washington.edu by April 29, 2009. The accepted abstracts will be published as part of the workshop proceedings and be presented as posters at the workshop. Several eminent speakers have already been confirmed: Prof. Peter Allen (Columbia University) Prof. George Bekey (University of Southern California) Prof. Susan Lederman (Queen's University) Dr. Lynette Jones (MIT) Prof. Haruhisa Kawasaki (Gifu University) Prof. Gerry Loeb (University of Southern California) Prof. Marco Santello (Arizona State University) Prof. Veronica Santos (Arizona State University) Prof. Bruno Siciliano (Universit? degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) Dr. Mandayam Srinivasan (MIT) Workshop Organizers Ravi Balasubramanian Post-doctoral Research Associate University of Washington and Intel Research Seattle Yoky Matsuoka Associate Professor University of Washington From plagemann at stanford.edu Wed Apr 22 16:44:20 2009 From: plagemann at stanford.edu (Christian Plagemann) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:44:20 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Abstracts: RSS/PASCAL2 Workshop on Regression in Robotics Message-ID: --------------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR POSTER ABSTRACTS Workshop on Regression in Robotics -- Approaches and Applications June 28, 2009, Seattle, WA, USA Co-located with Robotics: Science & Systems Sponsored by PASCAL2 network of excellence http://www.robreg.org -------------------------------------------------------- Dates: May 1, 2009: Submission of poster abstracts May 12, 2009: Notification of acceptances June 28, 2009: Workshop Call: Please send an extended abstract (1 or 2 pages incl. figures) for a poster presentation to submission at robreg.org Partial travel funding for students is available through the generous support of PASCAL2. Please indicate your interest in the submission email. As a core PASCAL 2 event, the workshop will feature videotaped proceedings. Authors of selected poster presentations will be invited to submit a full length paper for an edited book to be potentially published by Cambridge University Press. Description: Function approximation from noisy data is a central task in robot learning. Relevant problems include sensor modeling, manipulation, control, and many others. A large number of regression methods have been proposed from statistics, machine learning and control system theory to address robotics-related issues such as online updates, active sampling, high dimensionality, non-homogeneous noise and missing features. However, with minimal communication and collaboration between communities, work is sometimes reproduced or re-discovered, making research progress challenging. Our goal is to draw researchers from the different communities of robotics, control systems theory and machine learning into a discussion of the relevant problems in function approximation to be learned in robotics. We would like to develop a common understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of different regression approaches and to derive practical guidelines for selecting a suitable approach to a given problem. In addition, we would like to discuss two key points of criticism in current robot learning research. First, data-driven machine learning methods do, in fact, not necessarily outperform models designed by human experts and we would like to explore what regression problems in robotics really have to be learned. Second, regression methods are typically evaluated using different metrics and data sets, making standardized comparisons challenging. Goal & Topics: We invite abstract submissions from researchers working on machine learning, robotics and/or control theory with a general interest in regression and function approximation. Ideally, submissions should contribute to one or several of the following topics: *** Approaches: Which learning approaches have been applied successfully to solve regression problems in robotics or have a high potential for doing so? *** Problem settings: Which robot learning problems contain regression or function approximation as a central component? What are the specific aspects that make the problem challenging? *** Theoretical foundations: How can challenging requirements such as online updates, active sampling, high dimensionality, non-homogeneous noise and missing features be addressed? *** Benchmarking and evaluation: What are suitable methods for evaluation of regression methods? What metrics are being used and, subsequently, which should be used? Which benchmark data sets are available and which are missing? Workshop Organizers: Christian Plagemann Stanford University plagemann at stanford.edu Jo-Anne Ting University of Edinburgh jting at ed.ac.uk Sethu Vijayakumar University of Edinburgh sethu.vijayakumar at ed.ac.uk From m.witkowski at imperial.ac.uk Thu Apr 23 06:11:26 2009 From: m.witkowski at imperial.ac.uk (Witkowski, Mark) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:11:26 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2nd CFP Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems (TAROS-2009): Deadline 15 May 09 Message-ID: <70DC1B6F54D9184D90F31EC995B7A3731106FF@icexm6.ic.ac.uk> TAROS 2009 - Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems Second call for papers - deadline 15 May 2009 August 31st - September 2nd, 2009 University of Ulster, Derry www.taros.org.uk TAROS-09 is a platform for robot researchers with a wide range of interests from the U.K., Europe and worldwide. TAROS welcomes paper submissions on a wide range of topics related to the principles and practice of robotics. Submissions of papers are invited in any of the following or related areas: * Advanced applications of autonomous robots (industrial and research) * Advanced materials * Advanced medical robotics, robots for surgery * Analysis of robot-environment interaction * Autonomous assembly robotics * Biologically inspired robotics * Cognitive robotics * Collective robots * Developmental robotics * Hardware issues, devices and techniques, advanced sensor and actuator hardware * Learning and adaptation * Modelling and analysis of robot models * Navigation, localization, map building and path planning * Personal robotics and human-robot interface * Robot autonomy * Robot vision, sensing and perception * Robot control architectures * Robots in education, the arts and entertainment * Space and planetary robotics TAROS-09 welcomes submissions from senior researchers and research students alike, and will specifically provide opportunities for research students and young research scientists to present their work to the scientific community. TAROS-09 will be held at the University of Ulster, Derry, August 31st - September 2nd, 2009. On campus accommodation will be available. Registration will include a guided tour of historic Derry City Wall and a civic reception by the Mayor in the Guildhall. An optional excursion to the Giant?s Causeway and Bushmills distillery will be available on Thursday, September 3rd. TAROS-09 keynote speakers are: Nobel Laureate Prof. Dr. Bert Sakmann (Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Munich and University of Ulster) ?Mechanisms of decision making and sensory initiated behaviour in the cerebral cortex?, Prof. Roger Hubbold (University of Manchester) ?Creating 3D Computer Models from Images?, and Prof. Raymond Tallis (University of Manchester) ?Myth-Information. A Critique of the Computational Theory of Mind?. The deadline for the submission of papers is 15th May 2009. Refereed papers from the conference will be published in a proceedings volume, and be made available on the WWW. Submission instructions may be found on the conference website: www.taros.org.uk. From ppayeur at site.uOttawa.ca Thu Apr 23 08:21:14 2009 From: ppayeur at site.uOttawa.ca (Pierre Payeur) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:21:14 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP - ROSE 2009 - 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 2009 ***On-Line Manuscript Submission is now open for ROSE 2009*** ROSE 2009 - IEEE International Workshop on RObotic and Sensors Environments - Lecco (Lake Como), Italy, 6-7 November 2009 http://rose.ieee-ims.org =============================================================== Important dates: PAPER SUBMISSION: 3 July 2009 Notification : 21 August 2009 Final manuscript: 11 September 2009 --------------------------------------------------------------- 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; inspection and quality control; human and robot interaction; robot teach-in; tele-operation; robot manipulation; mobile robotics; emergent applications; rescue robots; swarm robotics; robot sensors and vision; environment monitoring; intelligent sensing; machine vision and image processing; 3D sensing and modeling; signal processing and sensor fusion; new sensor technologies, distributed or wireless sensor networks. Submit your extended abstract (4-6 pages) or draft version of full paper electronically as a PDF-format file using the web submission form available at: http://rose.ieee-ims.org Accepted papers will be published in ROSE 2009 Proceedings and be included in IEEE Xplore. Authors of accepted papers will also be eligible to submit a significantly extended version of their manuscript for publication in an archival journal. ROSE 2009 is sponsored by the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society, and organized by the following technical committees: 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 General Chairs: Cesare Alippi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy Pierre Payeur, University of Ottawa, Canada Technical Program Chairs: Andrea Bonarini, Politecnico di Milano, Italy Pinhas Ben-Tzvi, The George Washington University, USA ------------- Best regards, Pierre Payeur & Cesare Alippi ROSE 2009 - General Chairs From lpreis1970 at gmail.com Thu Apr 23 11:01:54 2009 From: lpreis1970 at gmail.com (Luis Paulo Reis) Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:01:54 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IRobot 2009: Extended deadline for paper submission approaching (Apr 29) Message-ID: <9313fc130904231101h12542foe6a249b35b4c801b@mail.gmail.com> Call for papers: Extended deadline for paper submission =========================================================== IROBOT'2009 Thematic Track on Intelligent Robotics http://www.fe.up.pt/~irobot a track of EPIA'2009 - Portuguese Conference on Artificial Intelligence http://epia2009.appia.pt/ October 12-15, 2009 Aveiro, Portugal (Proceedings published by Springer LNCS) --------------------------- IROBOT'2009 is a thematic track dedicated to Intelligent Robotics, integrated in the 2009 Portuguese Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Its main purpose is to bring together researchers, engineers and other professionals interested in the application of AI techniques in real and simulated robotics, to discuss current work and future directions. The IRobot'2009 track will especially target the theme ?Cognitive versus Reactive approaches ? hybridization is the solution??. A related aspect will be explored, consisting on analyzing these models from the point of view of stringent applications of mobile robots, in particular in robotic competitions. ?Are the theoretical models of any use when real time competition is the goal?? These topics will be the subject of panel discussions led by well known researchers with vast experience in robotics and their different applications, in particular, mobile robot competitions. Nevertheless, other aspects will be addressed as well and a non exhaustive list of topics that may be addressed is suggested next. Topics of Interest ------------------------------ AI Planning for robotics Autonomous vehicles Cognitive Robotics Computer vision and object recognition Coordination in robotics Evolutionary robotics and reactive intelligence Human-robots interfaces Learning and adaptation in robotics Mobile robot performance measures Modelling and simulating complex robots Multi-Robot systems Field Robots Real-time reactivity Robot behaviour engineering Robot Expressiveness and Emotional Awareness Robotic surveillance Sensor fusion Simulation and virtual reality systems in robotics Important dates ------------------------------ * Deadline for paper submission: April 29, 2009 * Notification of paper acceptance: May 31, 2009 * Deadline for final versions: July 15, 2009 * Conference dates: October 12-15, 2009 Submission instructions ------------------------------- Submissions must follow the guidelines specified in the conference site (http://epia2009.web.ua.pt/cfp.asp). The Springer LNCS format must be used (instructions in http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html/). The length of submitted full papers must not exceed 12 pages. Authors must remove their names from the submitted papers, and should take reasonable care not to indirectly disclose their identity. Organizing Committee ------------------------------ Luis Paulo Reis - University of Oporto, Portugal Luis Correia - University of Lisbon, Portugal Antonio J.R. Neves - University of Aveiro, Portugal Program Committee ----------------------------- Ant?nio Jos? Neves - Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Ant?nio Paulo Moreira - Universidade do Porto, Portugal Armando J. Pinho - Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Armando Sousa - Universidade do Porto, Portugal Augusto Loureiro da Costa - UFBA, Salvador, Brazil Carlos Carreto - Instituto Polit?cnico da Guarda, Portugal Cesar Analide - Universidade do Minho, Portugal Eduardo Silva - Instituto Sup. Engenharia do Porto, Portugal Enrico Pagello - University of Padua, Italy Fernando Lobo Pereira - Universidade do Porto, Portugal Fernando Os?rio - Universidade S?o Paulo/SC, Brazil Fernando Ribeiro - Universidade do Minho, Portugal Flavio Tonidandel - Centro Univ. FEI, S?o Bernardo do Campo, Brazil Gabriella Sanniti Di Baja - Istituto di Cibernetica CNR, Italy Guy Theraulaz ? CRCA, University of Toulouse III: Paul Sabatier, France Hans-Dieter Burkhard - Humboldt-Universit?t, Germany Huosheng Hu - University of Essex, UK Jacky Baltes - University of Manitoba, Canada Jorge Dias - Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal Jose Miguel Sanchiz - University Jaume I, Spain Lu?s Correia - Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal Lu?s Paulo Reis - Universidade do Porto, Portugal Luis Seabra Lopes - Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Marco Dorigo - Universit? Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium Maria Isabel Ribeiro - Instituto Superior T?cnico, Portugal Martin Riedmiller - University of Osnabrueck, Germany Mikhail Prokopenko - CSIRO ICT Centre, Australia Nuno Lau - Universidade de Aveiro Paulo Gon?alves - Instituto Polit?cnico de Castelo Branco, Portugal Paulo Oliveira - Instituto Superior T?cnico, Portugal Paulo Urbano - Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal Reinaldo Bianchi - IIIA-CSIC, Barcelona, Spain Stephen Balakirsky - National Institute of Standards & Technology, USA Urbano Nunes - Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal Xiaoping Chen - University of Science and Technology, China ====================================================== - ------------------------------------------------------------------ Luis Paulo Reis Homepage: Http://www.fe.up.pt/~lpreis ------------------------------------------------------------------ Member of the Directive Board of LIACC - Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science Lab. Professor at FEUP - Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal Tel. +351 225081829 / +351 919455251 / Fax. +351 225081443 ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Don't close your eyes unless you can dream. Don't open your eyes unless you can believe!" ------------------------------------------------------------------ From solis at kurenai.waseda.jp Thu Apr 23 20:22:16 2009 From: solis at kurenai.waseda.jp (Jorge SOLIS) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:22:16 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CfP IROS2009 Workshop on Biologically-Inspired Robots Message-ID: <003c01c9c48b$de730d30$9b592790$@waseda.jp> Dear Colleagues, In the framework of the coming IROS 2009 conference (St. Louis, Japan, October 11-15 2009) a full-day workshop on "Biologically-Inspired Robots" is being organized. The call for contributions is now open. Details on the objectives, audience, etc. are now available at: www.bio.waseda.ac.jp/IROS_Workshop/index.htm Looking forward to received your paper contributions ! ************************************************* IEEE/RSJ IROS 2009 Workshop St. Louis (USA), October 2009 Full-Day Workshop on Biologically-Inspired Robots FIRST CALL FOR PARTICIPATION (www.bio.waseda.ac.jp/IROS_Workshop/index.htm) ************************************************* Abstract: In recent years, the benefits of "biologically inspired" approaches have become increasingly clear in engineering design. Living organisms are complex systems exhibiting a range of desirable engineering characteristics that have proved difficult to realize using traditional engineering methodologies. Research in this field has successfully fused techniques from sensor development, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, simulation/modeling, and robotics. The goal of this workshop is to provide a forum for the examination of the interplay between biological and artificial (autonomous or semi-autonomous) systems, and present biology as a learning tool for novel robotic paradigms. Contributions are welcome on the following topics, but are by no means limited to: - Biologically-Inspired Robot Architectures - Biomimetic Perception, Action, and Behavior - Learning and Adaptation; - Evolutionary Robotics; - Neuromechanical Systems. The workshop will be of particular interest to robotic engineers and researchers that work in the general areas of Biologically-Inspired Robotics. The state-of-art will be analyzed and discussed from a perspective that could be interesting and useful for researchers developing new robotic machines, in their different forms. Submission Deadline: - July 14, 2009: Extended Abstact (or Paper) Submission deadline - July 21, 2009: Notification of Acceptance/Rejection - August 25, 2009: Camera-Ready Submission Deadline Contact information: solis at kurenai dot waseda dot jp Organizers: Kin-Huat Low (Nanyang Technology University, SINGAPORE) Jorge Solis (Waseda University, JAPAN) Xinyan Deng (University of Delaware, USA) Ravi Vaidyanathan (University of Bristol, UK) From Philippe.MARTINET at lasmea.univ-bpclermont.fr Sat Apr 25 05:48:15 2009 From: Philippe.MARTINET at lasmea.univ-bpclermont.fr (Philippe MARTINET) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2009 14:48:15 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for participation to ICRA09 Workshop on Safe navigation in open and dynamic environments Application to autonomous vehicles, Room 406, may 12th, TW-F11 Message-ID: <1240663695.49f3068f6b38f@wmail.univ-bpclermont.fr> ICRA09 Workshop on Safe navigation in open and dynamic environments Application to autonomous vehicles Full Day Workshop May 12th 2009, Kobe, Japan Contact : Professor Philippe Martinet http://wwwlasmea.univ-bpclermont.fr/Control/workshopICRA09/SafeNavigation.htm Organizers ********** Research Director Christian Laugier, INRIA, Emotion project, INRIA Rh?ne-Alpes, 655 Avenue de l'Europe, 38334 Saint Ismier Cedex, France, Phone: +33 4 7661 5222, Fax : +33 4 7661 5477, Email: Christian.Laugier at inrialpes.fr, Home page: http://emotion.inrialpes.fr/laugier Professor Philippe Martinet, LASMEA-CNRS Laboratory, Blaise Pascal University, Campus des Cezeaux, 63177 Aubiere, Cedex, France, Phone: +33 473 407 653, Sec : +33 473 407 261, Fax : +33 473 407 262, Email: martinet at lasmea.univ-bpclermont.fr, Home page: http://isrc.skku.edu/~martinet Professor Urbano Nunes, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of University of Coimbra, 3030-290 Coimbra, Portugal, GABINETE 3A.10, Phone: +351 239 796 287, Fax: +351 239 406 672, Email: urbano at deec.uc.pt, Home page: http://www.isr.uc.pt/~urbano General Scope ************* The purpose of this workshop is to discuss topics related to the challenging problems of autonomous navigation 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. Several research questions located on the cutting edge of the state of the art will be addressed. Among the many application areas that robotics is addressing, transportation of people and goods seem to be a domain that will dramatically benefit from intelligent automation. Such new technologies can also be efficiently applied to other application field such as unmanned vehicles, intelligent wheelchair, service robots, or more generally to human assistance. Technical contributions related to this area, such as autonomous outdoor vehicles, achievements, challenges and open questions will be presented and discussed. Five technical areas, with a focus to their instantiation to dynamic environments, will particularly be addressed: Vision-Based Perception, Multi-sensors Perception & Localisation, SLAM & 3D Reconstruction, Path Planning & Navigation Systems, Human-Robot Interaction. Main Topics *********** # Object detection, tracking and classification # Collision prediction and avoidance # Environment perception, vehicle localization and autonomous navigation # Real-time perception and sensor fusion # SLAM in dynamic environments # Real-time motion planning in dynamic environments # 3D Modelling and reconstruction # Human-Robot Interaction # Behavior modeling and learning # Robust sensor-based 3D reconstruction International Program Committee ******************************* # Alberto Broggi (VisLab, Parma University, Italy) # Roland Chapuis (Blaise Pascal University, France) # Fran?ois Chaumette (Lagadic, IRISA, France) # Javier Ibanez-Guzman (Renault, France) # Christian Laugier (Emotion, INRIA, France) # Sukhan Lee (ISRC, Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea) # Philippe Martinet (Blaise Pascal University, France) # Urbano Nunes (Coimbra University, Portugal), # Cedric Pradalier, (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) # Cyril Stachniss (AIS, University of Freiburg, Germany) # Roland Siegwart (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) # Ljubo Vlacic (Griffith University, Australia) Final program ************* ***************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************** Session I: Motion planning 9:00-10:30 Chairman: Alonzo Kelly and Christian Laugier * Title: Fast and Feasible Deliberative Motion Planner for Dynamic Environments (invited paper) Authors: Mihail Pivtoraiko and Alonzo Kelly * Title: ICS-AVOID, a Collision Avoidance Scheme for Dynamic Environments Authors: Luis Martinez-Gomez and Thierry Fraichard * Title: Mapping Obstacles to Collision States for On-line Motion Planning in Dynamic Environments Authors: Oren Gal and Zvi Shiller * Title: Probabilistic Rapidly-exploring Random Trees for autonomous navigation among moving pedestrians Authors: Chiara Fulgenzi, Anne Spalanzani, and Christian Laugier ***************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************** Session II: Multi-sensor perception & navigation 10:50-12:50 Chairman: Anna Petrovskaya and Martin Rufli * Title: Multi-Sensor Perception and Dynamic Path Planning in City Environments (invited paper) Authors: Martin Rufli Luciano Spinello Roland Siegwart * Title: Camera and Laser Radar Co-detection of Pedestrians Authors: Hao LI, Ming YANG, Huijia QIAN * Title: Model Based Vehicle Tracking in Urban Environments (invited paper) Authors: Anna Petrovskaya and Sebastian Thrun * Title: Connexity based fronto-parallel plane detection for stereovision obstacle segmentation Authors: Thomas Veit * Title: Safe and Dependable Operation of a Large Industrial Autonomous Forklift Authors: Ashley Tews ***************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************** Session III: Vision based perception & Visual SLAM 14:00-15:30 Chairman: Fran?ois Chaumette and Philippe Martinet * Title: Comparing appearance-based controllers for nonholonomic navigation from a visual memory (invited paper) Authors: Andrea Cherubini, Manuel Colafrancesco, Giuseppe Oriolo, Luigi Freda and Fran?ois Chaumette * Title: A generic framework for topological navigation of urban vehicle Authors: Jonathan Courbon, Youcef Mezouar, Laurent Eck, Philippe Martinet * Title: Use a Single Camera for Simultaneous Localization And Mapping with Mobile Object Tracking in dynamic environments Authors: Davide Migliore, Roberto Rigamonti, Daniele Marzorati, Matteo Matteucci, Domenico G. Sorrenti * Title: Optimal Metric SLAM for Autonomous Navigation Assistance Authors: P.F. Alcantarilla, I. Parra, L.M. Bergasa ***************************************************************************** ***************************************************************************** Session IV: SLAM, Localization, Reconstruction 15:50-17:50 Chairman: Martin Adams and Sukhan Lee * Title: Detection Likelihoods for Safer Occupancy Mapping (invited paper) Authors: John Mullane, Martin Adams, Wijerupage Sardha Wijesoma * Title: Experimental Comparison of Bayesian Outdoor Vehicle Localization Filters Authors: Alexandre N. Ndjeng, Dominique Gruyer, Alain Lambert, S?bastien Glaser, Benjamin Mourllion * Title: Predictive Lane Detection for Simultaneous Road Geometry Estimation and Vehicle Localization Authors: Chenhao Wang, Zhencheng Hu, Tomoki Maeda, Naoko Hamada, and Keiichi Uchimura * Title: Cognitive Localization of 3D Objects Symbolically Given Navigational Cues (invited paper) Authors: Sukhan Lee, Hyunjun Kim, Zhaojin Lu, and Harry Hung * Title: Laser scaner based SLAM in real road and traffic environment Authors: Olivier Garcia-Favrot, Michel Parent From ltapia at cs.tamu.edu Sat Apr 25 11:11:06 2009 From: ltapia at cs.tamu.edu (Lydia Tapia) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2009 13:11:06 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CALL FOR PARTICIPATION AND POSTERS: RSS 2009 Workshop (Half Day) on Protein Structure, Kinematics, and Motion Planning Message-ID: CALL FOR PARTICIPATION AND POSTERS RSS 2009 Workshop (Half Day) on Protein Structure, Kinematics, and Motion Planning http://parasol.tamu.edu/rss09workshop/ In conjunction with the Robotics: Systems and Sciences Conference (RSS) Monday 29 June 2009, 8:30am-12:30pm Seattle WA We welcome participation from experts, non-experts, researchers, students, and industry and will encourage lively discussion and posters of current research from all participants. Our goal is to explore the many connections between robotics and protein modeling and will feature speakers who work in robotics and computational structural biology. Proteins play an essential role in many biochemical processes including: catalyzing biochemical reactions, having structural or mechanical functions, and undergoing critical conformational changes that affect their functionality. We will focus on three concepts vital to the simulation of proteins: structure, kinematics, and motions. Speakers from robotics and computational structural biology will talk about their current research. They will ensure that the biological topics can be well understood, even by non-experts. Confirmed Speakers: David Baker (U. Washington) Topic- High resolution protein structure prediction Greg Chirikjian (JHU) Topic- Mathematical models of folded and unfolded protein ensembles David Hsu (NUS) Lydia Kavraki (Rice Univ.) Lydia Tapia (TAMU) Topic- From robots to proteins: randomized motion planning for high-dimensional problems Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: -Protein Structure -Models -Energy Functions -Structure Prediction -Protein Kinematics -Stochastic and Deterministic Methods -Relationship with Robotics -Protein Motion Planning -Protein Folding -The Application of Robotic Motion Planning The key points for discussion include, but are not limited to: -The future research directions of protein-based research topics that merge biology and robotics. -The background required to delve into protein-based research problems. -The current state of the art in combined biological and robotics protein-based problems. We welcome workshop attendees to bring posters related to the workshop topics. If you are planning on bringing a poster and would like your information posted on the workshop website, please email the workshop organizers (rss09workshop at cse.tamu.edu) the following information about the poster: * Title * Author(s) * Presenter's Name * Abstract * Bio * Links to any relevant papers/references Details on the workshop can be found online: http://parasol.tamu.edu/rss09workshop/ For more information please contact the organizers, Nancy Amato (Texas A&M Univ.), Mark Moll (Rice Univ.), Lydia Tapia (Texas A&M Univ.), at: rss09workshop at cse.tamu.edu From pnewman at robots.ox.ac.uk Sun Apr 26 13:47:07 2009 From: pnewman at robots.ox.ac.uk (Paul Newman) Date: Sun, 26 Apr 2009 21:47:07 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJRR announces a new category of paper - the "Data Paper" Message-ID: From the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Robotics Research, The International Journal of Robotics Research announces a new genre of paper ? the data paper ? for significant and peer reviewed archival data sets. Data papers build on the success of archival multimedia content for papers, another IJRR innovation that was introduced in July 2001. Our goal in creating data papers is to facilitate and encourage the release of high quality, peer reviewed data sets to the robotics community. We believe that the widespread availability of large data sets (order of Gbytes) will overcome a significant entry barrier in robotics which currently slows algorithmic development. Benefits will come from eliminating the effort and expertise required to collect these very large experimental data sets, and from facilitating direct comparison to previously published work. Further details are available in the editorial at http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/28/5/587 The IJRR Editor John Hollerbach, Multimedia Editors Paul Newman and Peter Corke, Managing Editor Jennet Batten, and Publishing Editor Wendy Truran, will all be at ICRA 2009 and will be happy to discuss any aspects of data papers with potential authors. Paul Newman Peter Corke MM Editors International Journal of Robotics Research From pabbeel at cs.berkeley.edu Mon Apr 27 00:49:05 2009 From: pabbeel at cs.berkeley.edu (Pieter Abbeel) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:49:05 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Posters: RSS 2009 Workshop on Autonomous Flying vehicles: Fundamentals and Applications Message-ID: CALL FOR POSTERS RSS 2009 Workshop on Autonomous Flying vehicles: Fundamentals and Applications Monday, June 29, 2009 in Seattle, WA As part of the Robotics: Science and Systems Conference 2009 (www.roboticsconference.org) http://robotics.asu.edu/rssuav/ Important Dates April 30, 2009 Poster Abstract Submission Deadline May 15, 2009 Notification of Acceptance June 29, 2009 Workshop Workshop Organizers Pieter Abbeel Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science University of California at Berkeley pabbeel at cs.berkeley.edu www.cs.berkeley.edu/~pabbeel Srikanth Saripalli School of Earth and Space Exploration Arizona State University srikanth.saripalli at asu.edu http://robotics.asu.edu/ Submission Guidelines Authors should submit a 1 page abstract of their posters (preferably pdf) by email to srikanth.saripalli at asu.edu, by April 30, 2009. Objectives Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) by nature are complex dynamical systems that present several challenges in estimation, guidance and control. UAV research involves the interdisciplinary synthesis of flight dynamics, estimation theory, real-time control and embedded system development. The proposed workshop is intended to better understand design, development, guidance and navigation of UAVs in complex, feature-rich environments. The workshop will include talks by a number of leading researchers in these fields, and a poster session in which especially students are encouraged to present their latest research. A key goal of the workshop is to provide a venue to allow discussion and cross-pollination of ideas coming from the control, robotics and learning communities. Topics: We invite posters from researchers working in the following areas: - Navigation - Collision avoidance - Multi-aircraft coordination - Novel sensing and state estimation methods - Applications: mapping, search and rescue, inspection, patrolling. Students are especially encouraged to submit their work to the workshop. From shibata-takanori at aist.go.jp Mon Apr 27 00:14:06 2009 From: shibata-takanori at aist.go.jp (Takanori Shibata) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:14:06 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP IEEE ARSO2009 in Tokyo, Japan Message-ID: <200904270714.n3R7E768014102@aist.go.jp> Call for Papers ARSO2009 The 2009 IEEE Workshop on Advanced Robotics and its Social Impacts http://www.arso2009.org/index.html ARSO2009 will be held on November 23-25, 2009 at Tokyo Big Sight, Tokyo, Japan. The workshop series started in Nagoya in year 2005, and traveled through Beijing (2006), Hsinchu (2007), and Taipei (2008), and will bring the spirits to Tokyo. The 5th workshop is overlapping with The 2009 International Robot Exhibition scheduled from November 25 to November 28, 2009 at the same place. http://www.nikkan.co.jp/eve/irex/english/index.html ARSO2009 aims at discussing advanced robotics R&D and its implications to economic and social systems. Participants will be world class robotic researchers, investors, economists, and representatives of industry and government. The workshop consists of single session with discussions on cutting edge technologies, business opportunities and the social impact to societies. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: - Service Robot - Security Robot - Surgical Robot - Entertainment and Amusement Robot - Education Robot - Assistive and Rehabilitation Robot - Foresight and Prospect - New Business Models - New Initiatives and Strategies for New Industries - Socio-economic Impacts - Culture Creation - Education and Skill Transfer - Traceability and Safety ************************************************************* Important Deadlines: June 1, 2009 Proposals for Organized Sessions: July 1, 2009 Submission of full-length papers Notification of Organized sessions Acceptance Sep. 1, 2009 Notification of Paper Acceptance Oct. 1, 2009 Submission of final camera-ready papers ************************************************************** Contributed Papers: All papers must be submitted electronically in PDF format by July 1, 2009. The maximum number of pages is limited to six, including figures. Detailed instructions for paper submissions and format can be found on the conference web site. Organized Sessions: Organized Sessions are welcome. Five or six papers should be submitted for an organized session. Prospective organizers should submit a brief statement of purpose for the sessions and the titles of the papers electronically in PDF format by June 1, 2009. Detailed instructions of submissions can be found on the conference web site. ********************* Organizing Committee ********************** Honorary Chair: Fumio Harashima, Japan Founding Chair: Toshio Fukuda, Japan General Co-Chairs: Shigeki Sugano, Waseda Univ., Japan Kazuhito Yokoi, AIST, Japan Program Chair: Hajime Asama, Univ. of Tokyo, Japan Program Co-Chairs: Ren C. Luo, National Taiwan Univ., Taiwan Rudiger Dillmann, Univ. of Karlsruhe, Germany Publications Chair: Tetsuo Kotoku, AIST, Japan Publicity Chairs: Takanori Shibata, AIST, Japan Ju-Jang Lee, KAIST, Korea Cecilia Laschi, SSSA, Italy Kevin Lynch, Northwestern Univ., USA E-media Chair: Kenji Suzuki, Univ. of Tsukuba, Japan Finance Chair: Hiromi Mochiyama, Univ. of Tsukuba, Japan Local Arrangements Co-Chairs: Hiroyasu Miwa, AIST, Japan Seiichi Miyakoshi, AIST, Japan Conference Secretariat: Hiroyasu Iwata, Waseda Univ., Japan Kanako Mirura, AIST, Japan Email: info at arso2009.org ********************************* International Advisory Committee ********************************* International Advisory Committee Chair: Tzyh-Jong Tarn, USA International Advisory Committee Members: Kazuhiro Kosuge (Japan) Satoshi Tadokoro (Japan) Shinsuke Sakakibara (Japan) Hideki Hashimoto (Japan) Katsu Ikeuchi (Japan) Tatsuo Arai (Japan) Makoto Kaneko (Japan) Sang-Rok Oh (South Korea) Hong Qiao (China) Li-Chen Fu (Taiwan) Max Meng (Hong Kong) Christian Laugier (France) Raja Chatila (France) Bruno Siciliano (Italy) Paolo Fiorini (Italy) Alicia Casals (Spain) Aude Billard (Switzerland) Gregory Dudek (Canada) Peter Allen (USA) Rajiv Dubey (USA) Ken Goldberg (USA) Cynthia Breazeal (USA) Ronald Arkin (USA) Shu Ishiguro (Japan) Ren C. Luo (Taiwan) (Tentative) ------------- Takanori Shibata, Ph.D. AIST From asfour at ira.uka.de Mon Apr 27 14:14:54 2009 From: asfour at ira.uka.de (Asfour, Tamim) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 23:14:54 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Humanoids 2009: Call for Contributions Message-ID: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2009 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids09) Paris, France - December 7-10, 2009 www.humanoids2009.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The 9th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots will take place on December 7-10, 2009 in the historical and living "Quartier Latin" of Paris, France. The conference will start at the Paris 6 University, take a walk to the ?cole de M?decine and end with a special day at the prestigious historical Coll?ge de France. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Scope: Humanoid Robotics is an increasing research topic stimulated both by the perspective of highly challenging applications in servicing robotics and by renewing fundamental research topics in Robotics at large such as Mechatronics, Control, Decision Making and Human-Robot Interaction. More than that Humanoid Robotics opens synergetic researches towards Life and Human Science. Such openness will constitute the special theme of Humanoids09. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Topics: Papers as well as suggestions for tutorials and workshops from academic and industrial communities and government agencies are solicited in all areas of humanoid robots. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: . Design and control of humanoid robots . Humanoid robot platforms for applications . Software and hardware architecture, system integration . Whole-body motion planning and control . Stability and dynamics for humanoid robots . Perception, action and cognition for humanoid robots . Learning strategies for humanoid robots . Humanoid grasping and manipulation . Human motion imitation by humanoids . Human-humanoid interaction . Planning, localization and navigation . Human body and behavior modeling . Neuro-robotics and humanoids Contributed papers will be presented either at the single track oral session or during the poster sessions. All contributed papers will appear without distinction in the proceedings of the conference. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Special day: A special day will be organized in the prestigious historical Coll?ge de France. It will be dedicated to a set of invited keynote lectures focusing on the openness of Humanoid Robotics research towards Life and Human Sciences. Lecturers will include the following speakers: . Alain Berthoz, Coll?ge de France, Paris . Olivier Faugeras, Ecole Normale Sup?rieure, Paris . Francesco Lacquaniti, Universit? degli Studi di Roma "Tor Vergata" . Yoshi Nakamura, The University of Tokyo . Stephan Schaal, University of Southern California, Los Angeles ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Important Dates . June 1st, 2009 - Proposals for Tutorials/Workshops . June 24th, 2009 - Submission of full-length papers . September 1st, 2009 - Notification of Paper Acceptance . October 1st, 2009 - Submission of final camera-ready papers . December 7th, 2009 - Workshop and tutorials at Paris 6 University . December 8-9th, 2009 - Conference at ?cole de M?decine . December 10th, 2009 - Keynote lectures --- Coll?ge de France ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Paper Submission: Submitted papers MUST BE in Portable Document Format (PDF). Papers must be written in English. Six (6) camera-ready pages, including figures and references, are allowed for each paper. Up to two (2) additional pages are allowed for a charge of 80 EUROS for each additional page. Papers over 8 pages will NOT be reviewed/accepted. Detailed instructions for paper submissions and format can be found at: http://www.humanoids2009.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Program committee General Conference Chair Jean-Paul Laumond - LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France Keynote Lecture Chair Alain Berthoz - Coll?ge de France, Paris, France Program Chair Kazuhito Yokoi - AIST, Tsukuba, Japan Program co-Chairs Tamim Asfour - Karlsruhe University, Germany George Lee - Purdue University, USA Workshop and Tutorial Chairs Fethi Ben Ouezdou --- LISV, Versailles, France Dennis Hong --- Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, USA Award Chair Oussama Khatib --- Stanford University, USA Local Chair Philippe Bidaud --- ISIR, Paris, France Financial Chair Nicolas Mansard --- LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France Webmaster and Publication Chair Anthony Mallet --- LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France Conference Secretary Eiichi Yoshida --- AIST, Tsukuba, Japan ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Looking forward to seeing you in Paris ! Tamim Asfour (On behalf of the program committee) From fulvio.mastrogiovanni at unige.it Tue Apr 28 01:00:46 2009 From: fulvio.mastrogiovanni at unige.it (Fulvio Mastrogiovanni) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 10:00:46 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Deadline Extended: 1st International Workshop on Mobile Robots in Automated Buildings Message-ID: <1240905646.49f6b7aef3143@webmail.unige.it> [Apologies if you receive this more than once] ============================================================== Deadline extended: May 11, 2009 ============================================================== CALL FOR PAPERS 1st International Workshop on Mobile Robots in Automated Buildings Barcelona, Spain, July 19th, 2009 http://www.robotics.laboratorium.dist.unige.it/index.php?section=11 Co-located with: The 5th International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE'09) July 20-21, 2009. http://intelligentenvironments.org/conferences/ie09 Background and Goals: During the past decade, many researchers and practitioners worldwide recognized the benefits introduced by the Ubiquitous Robotics paradigm. According to this vision, mobile robots are no longer considered autonomous, physically situated and embodied artefacts operating within environments tailored for humans: on the contrary, they are expected to cooperate with devices for building automation (environmental control, automation of doors and elevators, etc.) that are distributed throughout the environment, and to get across heterogeneous information by means of communication technologies. Information exchange, when coupled with (possibly simple) actuation capabilities, is meant to replace physical interaction between robots and their environment. Applications are not limited to domestic robots, but encompass more general scenarios, such as autonomous transportation and surveillance in wide indoor and outdoor areas (hospitals, airports, industrial plants, etc.). The Ubiquitous Robotics paradigm suggests a novel approach for designing "autonomous systems": building robots with reasonable and reliable sensing and actuating capabilities, but operating within environments well-suited for them. This option unavoidably leads to a dramatic shift in robot design principles: traditional mobile robots will benefit from an improved infrastructure, making them more reliable, cheaper and dependable. In literature, the stress has been more on feasibility studies and prototyping than on determining general guidelines for system design, development and integration. In order to carry out a principled discussion about the role of robots within smart environments, it is mandatory to consider the fundamental requirements to qualitatively classify current systems and to help in designing new ones. Topics: The Workshop will consider high quality contributions addressing the following topics, although not being limited to them, in an Ubiquitous Robotics' perspective: - Architectures and Infrastructure - Perception and representation of sensor data - Information fusion and localization - Context assessment and monitoring of robot activities - Reasoning and action planning - Safety and dependability issues - Application scenarios: transportation, surveillance, etc - Specific prototypes: interacting with elevators (including scheduling policies), docking stations for loading/unloading and recharging, etc. Important Dates: May 11, 2009: Deadline first submission. May 28, 2009: Notifications sent to authors. June 12, 2009: Final versions submitted. Submission: Authors wishing to participate as speakers in this event should format their papers following the same formatting guidelines (8 pages, etc.) of the main IE'09 conference. Submission via EasyChair: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=mrabs09 Publication: All papers accepted will be published in the proceedings of the event. Relevant post-Workshop publications will be pursued. Co-chairs: Antonio Sgorbissa (University of Genova), antonio.sgorbissa at unige.it. Fulvio Mastrogiovanni (University of Genova), fulvio.mastrogiovanni at unige.it. Renato Zaccaria (University of Genova), renato.zaccaria at unige.it. -- Fulvio Mastrogiovanni DIST|University of Genova|Italy Email: fulvio.mastrogiovanni at unige.it WWW: http://www.laboratorium.dist.unige.it/~fulvio/ Phone: (+39)0103532801 "Chi ? abile nel sortire bizzarri stratagemmi ? inesauribile come il Cielo, la Terra e i grandi fiumi. Giunto al termine riparte, come il Sole e la Luna; dopo morto rinasce, come le quattro stagioni." From David.Cappelleri at stevens.edu Mon Apr 27 12:39:24 2009 From: David.Cappelleri at stevens.edu (Dave Cappelleri) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:39:24 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2009 ASME M&R Student Mechanism and Robot Design Competition In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I didn't realize that the list does not allow attachments therefore I have modified my original post request. Thanks, Dave --------------------------------------- Dear Colleagues We have extended the deadline for submitting a letter of intent to May 8th, 2009 for submitting an entry to this year's ASME Student Mechanism and Robot Design Competition to be held at the 2009 ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences in San Diego, CA from August 30-September 2, 2009. This competition is organized by the ASME Mechanisms and Robotics Committee. The ASME Student Mechanism and Robot Design Competition is an excellent opportunity for both undergraduate and graduate students to showcase their abilities in designing mechanisms and robots. This competition consists of two rounds: in round one, student(s) send a report on their design, and in round two, a few selected teams from round one are invited to the conference to present their design. Winners of the competition will be recognized during the Mechanisms and Robotics luncheon at the conference venue, and presented with awards which in the past have included both cash and software prizes. Additionally, an effort will be made to allocate some travel funds to be evenly divided among the finalists. The details on how to participate can be found at http://personal.stevens.edu/~dcappell/MechanismRobotDesignCompetition/ We would appreciate if you can distribute this email to your colleagues working in the mechanisms and robotics area, and post it on the department bulletin board for further dissemination. Thank you. Sincerely, David Cappelleri, Stevens Institute of Technology, Contest Coordinator Anurag Purwar, Stony Brook University, Contest Coordinator Brian Trease (trease at asme.org), Mechanisms-Undergraduate Division Coordinator Hong Zhou (hong.zhou at tamuk.edu), Mechanisms-Graduate Division Coordinator Yu Zhou (yuzhou at notes.cc.sunysb.edu), Robots Division Coordinator On behalf of ASME Student Mechanism and Robots Design Competition Organizing team of the ASME Mechanisms and Robotics Committee -- David J. Cappelleri, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering EAS Building, Room 208 Stevens Institute of Technology 1 Castle Point on the Hudson Hoboken, NJ 07030 David.Cappelleri at stevens.edu TEL: 201-216-5072 FAX: 201-216-8315 From n.berthouze at ucl.ac.uk Tue Apr 28 07:36:55 2009 From: n.berthouze at ucl.ac.uk (Nadia Berthouze) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:36:55 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] EpiRob 2009: call for paper (deadline 8 June 2009) Message-ID: <49F71487.1040008@ucl.ac.uk> ---------------------------------------------------------- Apologies if you receive this announcement more than once Please distribute as appropriate -- thanks! ---------------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS EpiRob 2009 NINTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON EPIGENETIC ROBOTICS: Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems Centro Culturale Don Orione Artigianelli Venice, Italy, November 12-14, 2009 http://www.epigenetic-robotics.org ** Submission Deadline: June 8, 2009 ** Epigenetic systems, whether natural or artificial, share a prolonged developmental process through which varied and complex cognitive and perceptual structures emerge as a result of the interaction of an embodied system with a physical and social environment. Epigenetic robotics has the twofold goal of understanding biological systems by the interdisciplinary integration between social/life and engineering sciences and, simultaneously, that of enabling robots and other artificial systems to autonomously develop skills for any particular environment (instead of programming them to solve particular goals for a specific environment). Interdisciplinary theory and empirical evidence are used to inform epigenetic robotic models, and these models can be used as theoretical tools to make experimental predictions in developmental psychology and other disciplines studying cognitive development in living systems. This year's edition of Epigenetic Robotics will have a special focus on emotional and social development, particularly addressed by keynote speakers and special discussion and working groups. However, submissions are welcome regarding all aspects of the study of cognitive development. Submissions are welcome regarding all aspects of the study of cognitive development, including (but not limited to): - The roles of and interactions among motivation, emotion, and value systems in development - The development of emotional competencies and systems - The development of "social skills", such as imitation, synchrony processing, intersubjectivity, joint attention, intentionality, non-verbal and verbal communication, sensorimotor schemata, shared meaning and symbolic reference, social learning, social relationships, social cognition ("mind reading", "theory of mind") - The role of play in emotional, social, and cognitive development - The development of verbal and non-verbal communication - Links between (the development of) expression and communication - Architectures for autonomous development - Dynamical systems models of emotional, social, and cognitive development - The scope and limits of maturation, the mechanisms of open-ended development - The mechanisms of stage formation and stage transitions - Interaction between innate structure, ongoing developing structure, and experience - The interplay between embodiment, learning biases and environment - Algorithms for self-supervision, autonomous exploration, representation making, and methods for evolving new representations during ontogeny - Philosophical and social issues of development - The epistemological foundations of using robots to study development - The use of robots as theoretical tools (e.g., to make predictions) in the study of development in biological systems - The use of robots in applied settings (e.g., autism therapy) to study development in biological systems Robots that can undergo morphological changes and how they can be used to study interplays among social, emotional, cognitive and morphological development SUBMISSION INFORMATION: ----------------------------------------- EpiRob09 will accept submissions in two categories: long papers (presenting more mature research ideas and results) or short abstracts (presenting more preliminary / ongoing work). Manuscripts submitted as long papers should have a maximum length of 8 pages using the usual EpiRob format (former SAB template modified for A4 paper). Manuscripts submitted as abstracts should have a maximum length of 2 pages using the usual EpiRob format. The style files for LaTex are available in zip format and in tar format on the EpiRob'09 website, where you can also find a Word style file. All submissions must be in PDF format. Accepted long papers will have oral presentations at the conference. Accepted abstracts will be presented as posters. Authors of accepted abstracts will also have the opportunity to make a brief oral presentation during a Poster Spotlight session. All submissions and camera-ready papers and abstracts should be sent as email attachments in PDF format (only) to: epirob09 at epigenetic-robotics.org. IMPORTANT DATES: ----------------------------- June 8, 2009: Papers and abstracts submission deadline. July 20, 2009: Acceptance notification. September 8, 2009: Camera-ready versions of accepted papers and abstracts due in electronic format. November 12-14, 2009: Conference dates. ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: -------------------------------------- Lola Ca?amero - General and Program Chair; Pierre-Yves Oudeyer - Program Co-chair; Hideki Kozima - Publicity Co-chair; Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze - Publicity Co-chair; Christian Balkenius - Publications Chair -- Dr Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze UCL Interaction Centre (UCLIC) Malet Place Engineering Building, 8th floor University College London Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT Tel. +44 (0) 20 7679 0690 (30690) http://www.uclic.ucl.ac.uk/people/n.berthouze/ From roehrbei at informatik.uni-bremen.de Tue Apr 28 07:39:28 2009 From: roehrbei at informatik.uni-bremen.de (roehrbei at informatik.uni-bremen.de) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:39:28 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: 3rd Semantic Robot Vision Challenge 2009 Message-ID: <20090428163928.aee3ug9qock80cc8@webmail.informatik.uni-bremen.de> Call for Participation for the THIRD SEMANTIC ROBOT VISION CHALLENGE - A Special Track of the ISVC 2009 http://www.semantic-robot-vision-challenge.org The Semantic Robot Vision Challenge (SRVC) is a research competition that is designed to advance the state of the art in embodied vision, active scene understanding, and automatic acquisition of knowledge from the Internet. This competition is an indoor robotic photo scavenger hunt. Teams will be required to demonstrate a robot that has the ability to: 1. Read and parse a textual list of generic or specific objects to be found in the environment. Examples from 2008 include ?frying pan?, ?upright vacuum cleaner? and ?Ritz Crackers?. 2. Autonomously connect to the Internet and build an object classification database from images or other information related to the listed objects, in a set amount of time. 3. Autonomously navigate and search the unknown environment with the task of taking snapshots of the listed objects using the data acquired from the Internet. 4. Return an image of each object type containing a single bounding box around the pictured object. Unlike with computer vision competitions, participants must address many issues of embodied vision. Robots must recognize objects in lighting conditions and configurations that can give them very unusual appearance, but can use navigation to look at objects from angles that are close to the canonical views used in Internet images. Also, as in the real world, scene context can be used to guide the search for objects to areas which make the most sense for them to be found (e.g. a stapler is usually found on a desk rather than on the floor or on a wall). In this competition, objects in the scene will be placed in a way that should improve recognition results for robots that take advantage of scene context understanding. Teams can choose to participate in one of two different leagues: A. Robot league: Teams bring their own robot to participate in the event. B. Software league: Teams bring only a computer to run their software. The visual data is collected immediately before the event by a robot run by the organizers. We encourage anyone in these research fields to participate and help us to advance the state of the art in embodied vision and scene understanding. At the end of the competition, we will hold a workshop so that the specific technical aspects of each entry can be presented and discussed. The competition will be held at the 5th International Symposium on Visual Computing (ISVC), which takes place in Las Vegas, Nevada, from November 30th to December 2nd. For details see: http://www.isvc.net/ IMPORTANT DATES Qualification Material Submission Deadline: September 14, 2009 Acceptance Notification: September 28, 2009 ISVC09 Symposium: November 30 - December 2, 2009 Competition Date: December 1, 2009 See http://www.semantic-robot-vision-challenge.org for more details on participation and qualification. If interested, subscribe to our email list! Please send an email to Paul Rybski and Daniel DeMenthon if you would like to participate. Organizing committee: Paul E. Rybski (prybski at cs.cmu.edu), Carnegie Mellon University, USA Daniel DeMenthon (Daniel.DeMenthon at jhuapl.edu), Johns Hopkins University, USA Cornelia Fermuller (fer at umiacs.umd.edu), University of Maryland, USA Pooyan Fazli (pooyanf at cs.ubc.ca), University of British Columbia, Canada Ajay Mishra (mishraka at umiacs.umd.edu), University of Maryland, USA Luis Seabra Lopes (lsl at ua.pt), Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Florian Roehrbein (roehrbei at informatik.uni-bremen.de), Universitaet Bremen, Germany David Gustafson (dag at ksu.edu), Kansas State University, USA ----------------------------------------- Dr. Florian R?hrbein Universit?t Bremen FB 3 Informatik und Mathematik Kognitive Neuroinformatik Postfach 330 440 28334 Bremen, Germany e-mail: roehrbei at informatik.uni-bremen.de phone: +49.421.218-6423 From fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com Tue Apr 28 10:57:46 2009 From: fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com (Fabio Bonsignorio) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:57:46 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Presentations at the Workshop on GEM and Benchmarking during Euron AGM - Leuven 6 April 2009 Message-ID: Dear All, (most of the) presentations at the Workshop on GOOD EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY AND BENCHMARKING IN ROBOTICS RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS --- GEMBENCH09 during the Euron Annual General Meeting 2009 in Leuven, Belgium, April 6-7, 2009 are ONLINE here: http://www.heronrobots.com/EuronGEMSig/GEMBENCH09Workshop.html All the best Fabio, Angel and John Workshop organizers From rainer.konietschke at dlr.de Wed Apr 29 02:41:41 2009 From: rainer.konietschke at dlr.de (Rainer Konietschke) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:41:41 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Please post: Call for Participation to 2009 ICRA Workshop: Advanced Sensing and Sensor Integration in Medical Robotics Message-ID: <49F820D5.8020708@dlr.de> 8<------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------* * * **ICRA 2009 Half-day Workshop (Wednesday, May 13, 8:30-12:30) * *Title: Advanced Sensing and Sensor Integration in Medical Robotics** * Abstract -- This half day workshop will focus on sensing and sensor integration in medical robotics. It is intended to cover current research on new sensor designs, sensor data fusion and modeling as well as the integration of sensors into new challenging medical applications. In medical robotics, one usually operates in a constantly changing environment that contains objects of differing mobility and stiffness, ranging from bony skeletal structures to soft tissue. Most of the applications require high accuracy. In industrial robotics, high positioning accuracy is usually achieved by a stiff and heavy design. However, the physical space and safety considerations of an operating room demand light weight robots with a compact design, but with resultant lower stiffness and absolute accuracy. Advanced robot control that includes additional end effector sensing and/or display modalities is a common method to achieve the necessary accuracy. Redundancy and corresponding safety issues are additionally addressed by the appropriate selection of sensors (external as well as on robots). A large variety of sensors are in use within the research community, including such as computer vision, ultrasound, MRI/CT, and time of flight cameras or IMUs to name a few. The workshop will support an exchange of experiences with these modalities. Also robotically assisted teleoperation will be discussed, since, in this case, advanced sensing modalities are crucial to improve the immersion of the surgeon into the remote operation site. The design and implementation of force sensing and force feedback as well as of tactile feedback functionality will be presented. Workshop URL: http://robvis01.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/icra_workshop_2009/ *----- Time, Speakers and title of talk* 08:30 - 08:40 *? Welcome from the organizers*. 08:40 - 09:00* ? M.Vitrani, P. Mozer, et al.: *Ultrasound images as a reference for localization and positioning 09:00 - 09:20* ? A. Krupa, G. Fichtinger, et al.: *Rigid motion compensation with a robotized 2D ultrasound probe using speckle information and visual servoing 09:20 - 09:40* ? O. Garcia, J. Civera, et al.: *Real-time 3D Modeling from Endoscope Image Sequences 09:40 - 10:00* ? O. Ruepp, and D. Burschka: *HybridScope: An Approach for 3D Image Enhancement in Endoscopic Images /10:00 - 10:10 -- Coffee break / 10:10 - 10:30 *? U. Seibold, B. Kuebler, et al.**:* Endoscopic 3 DoF-Instrument with 7 DoF Force/Torque Feedback 10:30 - 10:50 *? R. Haslinger, G. Passig, et al.**: *Fiberoptic 6-DOF Force-Torque-Sensing for Haptic Feedback in Minimally Invasive Robotic Surgery 10:50 - 11:10 *? B. Willaert, D. Reynaerts, et al.**: *Extracorporeal force measurement system for robot assisted MIS with 3D force feedback 11:10 - 11:30 *? P. Poignet and R. Cortesao**:* Force control issues for telerobotic surgery 11:30 - 11:45 *? M. Mahvash, P. Dupont**:* Cartesian Control of Flexible Surgical Robots Using Tip Sensors 11:45 - 12:00 *? K. Hauser, R. Alterovitz, et al.**: *Feedback control for steering needles in 3D deformable tissue 12:00 - 12:15 *? T. Haidegger, Z. Benyo, et al.**:* Sensor fusion for patient motion compensation /12:15 - 12:30 -- Discussion / / /*Organizers: *Darius Burschka, Gregory D. Hager, Rainer Konietschke, Allison M. Okamura * * 8<------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- ------------------------------------------------------------- Dr.-Ing. Rainer Konietschke, DLR, D-82234 Wessling, Germany Phone : +49 / 8153 / 28-2498 Fax : +49 / 8153 / 28-1134 Email : Rainer.Konietschke at dlr.de Web : http://www.robotic.dlr.de/Rainer.Konietschke/ ------------------------------------------------------------- DLR (German Aerospace Center) Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics P.O. Box 11 16 82230 Wessling / Germany http://www.robotic.dlr.de ------------------------------------------------------------- From fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com Wed Apr 29 04:46:14 2009 From: fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com (Fabio Bonsignorio) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:46:14 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Presentations at the Workshop on NEW AI IN ROBOTICS, CYBERPHYSICAL SYSTEMS SCIENCE AND EMBODIED COGNITION during Euron AGM - Leuven 6 April 2009 Message-ID: apologies for the wrong title in previous email ----- Dear All, the presentations at the Workshop on NEW AI IN ROBOTICS, CYBERPHYSICAL SYSTEMS SCIENCE AND EMBODIED COGNITION during the Euron Annual General Meeting 2009 in Leuven, Belgium, April 6-7, 2009 are ONLINE here: http://www.heronrobots.com/NewRobotics/ All the best Fabio Workshop Organizer From magnus at ece.gatech.edu Wed Apr 29 12:14:50 2009 From: magnus at ece.gatech.edu (magnus at ece.gatech.edu) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:14:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Summer School on Cyber Physical Systems Message-ID: <50690.128.61.24.178.1241032490.squirrel@secure2.ece.gatech.edu> Call for Participation: Georgia Tech Summer School on Cyber-Physical Systems June 22-26, 2009 - Georgia Tech Atlanta Campus http://www.ece.gatech.edu/~magnus/CPSschool.html Deadline for early registration: June 1, 2009 Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) are systems that rely on a tight integration of computation, communication, and controls, for their operation and interaction with the physical environment in which they are deployed. Such systems must be able to operate safely, dependably, securely, efficiently and in real-time, in potentially highly uncertain or unstructured environments. CPS are expected to have great technical, economic and societal impacts in the near future. The Georgia Tech Summer School on Cyber-Physical Systems aims at bringing together researchers from industry and academia. The format of the Summer School will be a five-day meeting, organized around different aspects of Cyber Physical Systems. The topical areas to be covered are: - Formal Methods - Distributed, Embedded Systems - Networked Control Systems - Embedded Software - Scheduling - Platforms - Applications Speakers - Rajiv Alur (UPenn) - Nikil Dutt (UC Irvine) - Magnus Egerstedt (Geiorgia Tech) - Eric Feron (Georgia Tech) - Bonnie Heck Ferri (Georgia Tech) - Phil Koopman (CMU) - Bruce Krogh (CMU) - Insup Lee (UPenn) - Raj Rajkumar (CMU) - John A Stankovic (University of Virginia) - Paulo Tabuada (UCLA) - Wayne Wolf (Georgia Tech) - Fumin Zhang (Georgia Tech) Registration Attendance to the CPS Summer School is FREE! However, you will need to register your attendance, using the instructions on the website. The dealine for registration is June 1, 2009. Scholarships It is expected that scholarships will be available to help pay for the accommodations. Organizers: - Magnus Egerstedt (magnus at ece.gatech.edu) - Wayne Wolf (wolf at ece.gatech.edu) From Beth_Travers at brown.edu Wed Apr 29 12:30:33 2009 From: Beth_Travers at brown.edu (Beth Travers) Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:30:33 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdoc position, Brown, MGH, Providence VAMC Message-ID: Postdoctoral Research Associates in Neuroengineering Brown University ? Massachusetts General Hospital ? Providence VAMC Neural Interface Systems Research Team As part of our ongoing pilot clinical trials of an intracortically-based neural interface system (BrainGate), we seek highly motivated individuals with expertise in motor cortical neurophysiology, neuroeningeering, and/or neurorobotics to join our research team. The goal of our multi-faceted research effort is to develop powerful restorative neural interfaces for people with paralysis or limb loss. The work is highly collaborative and multidisciplinary, including regular interaction with neuroscientists, engineers, computer scientists, and clinicians. Opportunities are available to interact directly with clinical trial participants. Research projects include, but are not limited to: * The analysis of neuronal ensemble activity (including how kinematics and dynamics of intended movement are inherently embedded in single units, multi-unit activity, and local field potentials from motor cortex) toward the development of neuroprosthetics for use by persons with tetraplegia. * Developing real-time, multi-state adaptive decoding approaches to decode intended, multi- dimensional movement from persons with tetraplegia. * Developing the interfaces for intracortically controlled prosthetic limbs and robotic arms for use by persons with limb loss or tetraplegia, and converting cortical neuronal activity into the real-time movement of a multi-articulated prosthetic limb or robotic limb/assistive device. Highly advanced prosthetic and robotic limbs will be available for use. * Harnessing intracortical signals for the development of communication interfaces for persons with locked-in syndrome. Candidates should have strong neuroscientific, mathematical, and/or computational skills. Preferred educational background is a Ph.D. in neuroscience, bioengineering, electrical engineering, computer science, robotics, or applied mathematics. Depending upon research interests, previous experience with adaptive filter design, signal processing and statistical analysis or modeling of neuronal action potential and local field potential data, as well as proficiency in Matlab, in addition to C, C++, or Simulink, are required. Inquiries should be directed to the laboratories of Leigh R. Hochberg, M.D., Ph.D. and John P. Donoghue, Ph.D., c/o Ms. Beth Travers (Beth_Travers at brown.edu). From kanda at atr.jp Wed Apr 29 19:56:19 2009 From: kanda at atr.jp (Takayuki Kanda) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:56:19 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Post-doc positions at ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Labs. Message-ID: <000501c9c93f$3cc92e70$b65b8b50$@jp> The ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communications Laboratory is recruiting outstanding young (post-doctoral) researchers. Our laboratory is unique in the world in its strong focus on conducting human-robot interaction field trials in real-world environments, and we have deployed robots to interact with people in locations such as elementary schools, science museums, train stations, and shopping malls. We are seeking applications from researchers with special interest in social human-robot interaction, elderly care applications, and related topics. Candidates with specific expertise in the following domains are particularly welcome: - Social human-robot interaction - Assistive (health & elderly care) robotics - Teleoperation interfaces (e.g. situation awareness, adjustable autonomy) - Machine perception of human activity (e.g. gestures, emotions, nonverbal communication) - Modeling human motion and behavior - Robot motion control for gesture and communication - Navigation, SLAM, and object tracking - Ambient intelligence, network robot systems, and ubiquitous robotics Our laboratory conducts a variety of social robotics research projects, and within these projects, researchers in our team will have some flexibility in terms of their own research focus. The expected duration of these projects is 4 to 5 years; the initial term for employment is one year, and contracts will be extended until the end of each project based on evaluations each year. Further employment as a researcher will be considered based on evaluation during the project. ATR is located in the Keihanna Science City research park in Kyoto, Japan. We are conveniently located a short train ride from the rich historical sites of Kyoto and Nara, as well as the modern urban center of Osaka. We'd like to talk informally with applicants during the ICRA '09 conference in order to determine compatibility of interests. Please feel free to ask me (kanda at atr.jp) about details, and feel free to talk with Dr. Hagita, Prof. Ishiguro, and me during the ICRA '09 conference. For candidates who cannot participate in the conference, please feel free to send us your CV. ---------------------------------------------- Dr. Takayuki Kanda ATR Intelligent robotics and communication labs. 2-2-2 Hikaridai Seikacho Sorakugun 619-0288 Kyoto Japan E-mail address: kanda at atr.jp From arieta at ifi.uzh.ch Thu Apr 30 02:41:50 2009 From: arieta at ifi.uzh.ch (arieta) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:41:50 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for participation on the robotics summer school at the University of Zurich (Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) Message-ID: <8c95825a1515bd461ee2bbeaf779e591@ifi.uzh.ch> Dear colleagues, We would like to invite you for the summer school "Multimedia and cognitive systems" organized by the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Visualization and MultiMedia Laboratory by that will take place in the University of Zurich from 08. - 12. June 2009. The deadline for registration is May 15th, 2009. The purpose of the summer school is to disseminate the state of the art on embodied robotics, morphological computation, and dynamic locomotion (robots that can adapt to their environment). Together with the presentations from internationally reputed scientists, we will have lectures for PhD students regarding scientific methodology, advance statistics (dimensionality reduction methods) and physics based simulation. More detailed information on the school can be found at our website: http://ailab.ifi.uzh.ch/ailab/summer-school-2009. Thank you very much for your consideration. Best regards, -- Dr. Alejandro Hernandez Arieta Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Dept. of Informatics University of Zurich Andreasstrasse 15 ch-8050, Zurich Phone:+41 44 635 4563 From hiro.hirukawa at aist.go.jp Thu Apr 30 02:47:57 2009 From: hiro.hirukawa at aist.go.jp (=?ISO-2022-JP?B?GyRCSGZOMUBuGyhCIBskQkduNVcbKEI=?=) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:47:57 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [CFP] ICRA Workshop on Open Source Software in Robotics Message-ID: <79274C8A-35C3-43A3-B570-528E4428D57B@aist.go.jp> Call for Participations ICRA 2009 Workshop on Open Source Software in Robotics 1. Organizers 1. Dr. Hirohisa Hirukawa, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan. 2. Prof. Dr. Alois Knoll, Technische Universit?t M?nchen, Germany. 2. Abstract ? Open source software in robotics is an important platform on which future complex robotic systems, e.g., humanoid robots with many degrees of freedom or mobile manipulators, can be built with less effort than previously possible. This workshop will (i) present a synopsis of the open source software in robotics that has been distributed in the robotics community in recent years and (ii) will explore potential ways to build a common/standard software platform. The scope of this open source software may range from middleware to applications, including programming environments, dynamics simulators, navigation modules, and motion planners. The workshop will start with an overview of the actual state of affairs in open software for robots, including the statistics of the distributions, will continue to discuss individual new approaches and will conclude by discussing the (potential) interoperability between them. 3. Motivation and objectives ? Open source software has played a major role in computer science, but its role has been much less significant in robotics. As a result, robotic scientists have had to build software from scratch when they developed robotic systems, which is extremely inefficient and wasted developers? time and effort. With hindsight, it has slowed down the development in the field considerably. The reason for this is that researchers need to change not only parameters, but the whole behaviour and structure of robot control programs frequently during the development ? which is only possible if they have open access to virtually all layers of the software they are using. Fortunately for roboticists, several new kinds of open source software have been distributed recently, albeit with limited resonance in the community up to now. The objective of the workshop is ,hence, to make these developments known to a broader public, show the power of available open source software including middleware and programming environments, and to discuss the possibilities of unifying what is already available ? to eventually create a common software platform for robotics. 4. Program Session I Software Platform I 9:00- 9:25 ?Robotics Technology Framework, Alois Knoll (TU M?nichen) 9:25- 9:50 ROS: an open-source robot operating system, Morgan Quigley (Stanford Univ) 9:50-10:15 OpenRT Platform: An Open software Platform for Robotics Technology,?Isao Hara (AIST) Session II Software Platform II 10:45-11:10 Open Source Hardware and Software for Robotics, Giorgio Metta(IIT, Italy) 11:10-11:25 Development of an Open Software Platform for Robotics Service in Korea, Hong Seong Park (Kangwon National Univ.) 11:35-12:00 Can open source ever make an impact in robotics? , Herman Bruyninchx (Univ. of Leuven, Belgium) Session III Applications 13:20-13:45 Use of OpenCV in robotics, Gary Bradski (Willow Garage) 13:45-14:10 The Open Source Controller in COMAU Robotics, Gian Paolo Gerio(Comau) & Stefano Chiaverini(Univ. of Casino) 14:10-14:35 An Object-Oriented Programming System for Motion Planning, Lydia Kavraki (Rice Univ.) 14:35-15:00 Building Software for Consumer Robotics ? One Component at a Time, Mario Munich (Evolution Robotics) Session IV Future Perspective 15:30-17:00 Panel Discussion From aude.billard at epfl.ch Thu Apr 30 06:36:43 2009 From: aude.billard at epfl.ch (Aude Billard) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:36:43 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 1st Call: 5th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2010) Message-ID: ************************************************************************ Call For Papers, Videos, Tutorials/Workshops 5th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2010) http://hri2010.org March 2-5, 2010, Osaka, Japan ************************************************************************ As we move to create our future with robots, hard problems in human-robot interaction (HRI) exist, both technically and socially. The Fifth Annual Conference on HRI seeks to take up grand technical and social challenges in the field - and speak to their integration. HRI is a single-track, highly selective annual conference that seeks to showcase the very best research in human-robot interaction with roots in robotics, psychology, cognitive science, HCI, human factors, artificial intelligence, organizational behavior, anthropology, and many other fields. We invite broad participation. Important Dates 27 September 2009: Submission of Full paper & workshop/tutorial proposal 16-22 November 2009: Rebuttal 7 December 2009: Notification of Full paper 15 December 2009: Submission of video & late-breaking short papers 4 January 2010: Notification of video & short paper, and Camera ready due 2-5 March 2010: Conference Full and Short Paper Submission Authors are invited to submit all manuscripts in PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format. Accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings, archived in the IEEE XPlore digital Library, and assigned for either oral or full poster presentation. Authors are also encouraged to submit their late-breaking results for short papers (two pages) which will not appear in the digital library but which will be stored in the CD-ROM proceedings and presented in a special poster session. Detailed instructions are available on the conference web site: http://www.hri2010.org. Topics of interest include: a.. Socially intelligent robots b.. Lifelike robots c.. Personal and entertainment robots d.. Robot companions e.. Long-term interaction f.. Learning and adaptation with humans g.. Assistive (health & personal care) robotics h.. Non-verbal and Multi-modal interaction i.. Mixed initiative interaction j.. Situation awareness in teleoperation k.. Task allocation and coordination l.. Autonomy and trust m.. Robot-team coordination n.. User studies of HRI o.. Experiments on HRI p.. Ethnography and field studies q.. HRI software architectures r.. HRI design s.. HRI foundations t.. Metrics for teamwork u.. HRI group dynamics v.. Individual vs. group HRI w.. Robot intermediaries x.. Risks such as privacy and safety y.. Ethical issues and social responsibility z.. Organizational/societal impact Video Submission We invite videos related to all aspects of HRI. Besides the importance of the lessons learned and the novelty of the situation, the entertainment value will be judged. The video itself must be self-explanatory for the audience. The videos will be published in the conference proceedings and archived in the IEEE XPlore Digital Library. Tutorials and Workshops Proposals are sought from those wishing to organize a Tutorial or a Workshop on a HRI-related theme. Tutorials and Workshops will be held on March 2 2010, one day before the main technical sessions. General Co-Chairs Pamela Hinds, Stanford University Hiroshi Ishiguro, Osaka University Program Co-Chairs Takayuki Kanda, ATR Peter Kahn, Univ of Washington Publicity Co-Chairs Dong-Soo Kwon, KAIST Greg Trafton, NRL Aude Billard, EPFL Dikai Liu, Univ. of Tech. Sydney From kai at nurobot.com Thu Apr 30 09:52:15 2009 From: kai at nurobot.com (Kai Oliver Arras) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:52:15 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Final Program: ICRA 2009 Workshop on People Detection and Tracking Message-ID: ----------------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR PARTICIPATION IEEE ICRA'09 Workshop on People Detection and Tracking ----------------------------------------------------------- The full-day workshop "People Detection and Tracking" will be held during the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Kobe, Japan, on May 12, 2009. FINAL PROGRAM ------------- Invited talks: - Situation Models: A Tool for Observing and Understanding Activity, James L. Crowley, Patrick Reignier, Remi Barranquand, INRIA Grenoble Research Center - Visual People Detection: Different Models, Comparison and Discussion Bernt Schiele, Mykhaylo Andriluka, Nikodem Majer, Stefan Roth, Christian Wojek, University of Darmstadt - A Trained System for Multimodal Perception in Urban Environments, Luciano Spinello, Rudolph Triebel, Roland Siegwart, ETH Zurich - Multi-target Tracking on a Large Scale: Experiences from Football Player Tracking, Josephine Sullivan, Peter Nillius, Stefan Carlsson, KTH Stockholm Talks: - Results from a Real-time Stereo-based Pedestrian Detection System on a Moving Vehicle, Max Bajracharya, Baback Moghaddam, Andrew Howard, Shane Brennan, Larry H. Matthies, JPL, Caltech - Motion Planning for People Tracking in Uncertain and Dynamic Environments, Tirthankar Bandyopadhyay, Nan Rong, Marcelo Ang, David Hsu, Wee Sun Lee, SMART Centre, University of Singapore - Improved Multi-Person Tracking with Active Occlusion Handling, Andreas Ess, Konrad Schindler, Bastian Leibe, Luc Van Gool, RWTH Aachen University, ETH Zurich - Visual Person Tracking Using a Cognitive Observation Model, Simone Frintrop, Achim Koenigs, Frank Hoeller, Dirk Schulz, University of Bonn, FKIE Wachtberg - Multi-model Hypothesis Group Tracking and Group Size Estimation, Boris Lau, Kai O. Arras, Wolfram Burgard, University of Freiburg - Spatially Grounded Multi-hypothesis Tracking of People, Matthias Luber, Gian Diego Tipaldi, Kai O. Arras, University of Freiburg - Multi-Layer People Detection using 2D Range Data, Oscar Martinez Mozos, Ryo Kurazume, Tsutomu Hasegawa, University of Zaragoza, University of Kyushu Posters: - Visual Receding Horizon Estimation for Human Presence Detection, Damien Brulin, Estelle Courtial, Guillaume Allibert, Ecole Nat, Sup, d'Ingenieurs de Bourges, Universite d'Orleans - Multiple People Detection from a Mobile Robot using Double Layered Laser Range Finders, Alexander Carballo, Akihisa Ohya, Shin'ichi Yuta, University of Tsukuba - Estimation of Pedestrian Distribution in Indoor Environments using Multiple Pedestrian Tracking, Muhammad Emaduddinand, Dylan A. Shell, University of Southern California - Improved Human Detection using Image Fusion, Erwin T. Gilmore, Preston Frazier, and Mohamed Chouikha, Howard University in Washington - Real-Time Object Tracking and Classification Using a Static Camera, Swantje Johnsen, Ashley Tews, Hamburg University of Technology, CSIRO Australia - A Dioptric Stereo System for Robust Real-time People Tracking, Ester Martinez, Angel P. del Pobil, Jaume-I University Castellon - Experimental Evaluation of a People Detection Algorithm in Dynamic Environments, Dario Lodi Rizzini, Stefano Caselli, University of Parma - Robust Stereo-Based Person Detection and Tracking for a Person Following Robot, Junji Satake, Jun Miura, Toyohashi University of Technology - Stream Field Based People Searching and Tracking Conditioned on SLAM Kuo-Shih Tseng, Angela Chih-Wei Tang, ITRI Hsinchu, National Central University Taiwan WORKSHOP HOMEPAGE ----------------- http://srl.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/conferences/icra09ws ORGANIZERS ---------- * Kai O. Arras, University of Freiburg, Germany * Oscar Martinez Mozos, University of Zaragoza, Spain INVITED SPEAKERS ---------------- * James L. Crowley, INRIA Grenoble Research Center, France * Bernt Schiele, University of Darmstadt, Germany * Josephine Sullivan, KTH Stockholm, Sweden * Luciano Spinello, ETH Zuerich, Switzerland PROGRAM COMMITTEE ----------------- * Wael Abd-Almageed, University of Maryland, USA * Wolfram Burgard, University of Freiburg, Germany * Henrik Christensen, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA * James L. Crowley, INRIA Grenoble Research Center, France * Tsutomu Hasegawa, Kyushu University, Japan * Patric Jensfelt, KTH Stockholm, Sweden * Ryo Kurazume, Kyushu University, Japan * Bastian Leibe, RWTH Aachen University, Germany * Ales Leonardis, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia * Larry Matthies, NASA, USA * Bernt Schiele, University of Darmstadt, Germany * Roland Siegwart, ETH Zurich, Switzerland * Luciano Spinello, ETH Zurich, Switzerland * Josephine Sullivan, KTH Stockholm, Sweden GOAL AND SCOPE -------------- As robots enter more domains in which they interact and cooperate closely with humans, the capacity of machines to detect and track humans is becoming a key technology for many areas in robotics. Socially interact with people, understanding their activities, tracking pedestrians in public or semi-public spaces or detecting intruders in a surveillance scenario are examples of tasks that rely on the ability to robustly detect and track people. Recent advances in estimation theory, data association, new techniques from machine learning as well as progress in sensor technology have enabled us to design people detection and tracking systems with decent classification rates. However, there is great demand for even more robust systems, especially over a wider range of conditions, and an increasing interest from industry for intelligent cars or surveillance of public areas. This workshop brings together key researchers in the domain of people detection and tracking with an emphasis to unite people from the vision community and the community that has mostly worked with range finders. The goal is to provide a representative survey of the state-of-the-art and to transfer knowledge within and across the communities. We will focus primarily on theoretical aspects (see list of topics) but are also interested in practical questions, e.g., pedestrian detection from mobile platforms or applications. TOPICS ------ Examples of topics of interest include, but are not limited to: * People detection and tracking with vision, laser and/or other sensors * Tracking of groups of people and/or interacting targets * Learning and model-based approaches * Probabilistic frameworks for simultaneous segmentation, detection and tracking * Multi-sensor fusion/integration approaches * Advanced target tracking and data association methods * Advanced handling of occlusion, fragmentation, and merging * Multi-hypothesis model selection methods * Distributed sensors for people detection/tracking * Performance metrics and evaluation of people tracking systems * Practical applications: human-robot interaction, activity understanding, intelligent cars, surveillance etc. PROCEEDINGS AND SPECIAL ISSUE ----------------------------- The workshop proceedings will be published electronically as a pdf file. There will be a special issue on people detection and tracking in the Springer "International Journal of Social Robotics" in connection with this workshop. We will issue an open call after the workshop, submissions will go through a separate peer review process. From matthew.deans at nasa.gov Thu Apr 30 14:27:23 2009 From: matthew.deans at nasa.gov (Matthew Deans) Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:27:23 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] OSEWG 2009 Workshop on Robots Supporting Human Science and Exploration Message-ID: <49FA17BB.3090907@nasa.gov> OSEWG 2009 Workshop on Robots Supporting Human Science and Exploration Date: August 5-6, 2009 Location: Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) Universities Space Research Association (USRA) 3600 Bay Area Boulevard Houston, Texas, 77058. Description: The Optimizing Science and Exploration Working Group (OSEWG) is conducting a workshop on Robots Supporting Human Science and Exploration. This workshop will investigate how robotics might best be used to support a sustainable program of human exploration and science on the Moon. The objective is to identify areas where high-priority lunar science needs can be met with space robotics capabilities, while fostering improved understanding and communication between the communities. The workshop will engage the Lunar Science and Space Robotics communities to include expertise from both domains. We are not soliciting submissions. This will be a working meeting. For more information: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/osewg2009/osewg20091st.shtml -- Dr. Matthew Deans Advanced Capabilities Division, ESMD NASA Headquarters 300 E Street, SW, Room 7Y35 Washington, DC 20546 202-358-1136 (ofc) matthew.deans at nasa.gov -- Dr. Matthew Deans Advanced Capabilities Division, ESMD NASA Headquarters 300 E Street, SW, Room 7Y35 Washington, DC 20546 202-358-1136 (ofc) matthew.deans at nasa.gov From MEDSUN at cityu.edu.hk Thu Apr 30 23:42:09 2009 From: MEDSUN at cityu.edu.hk (Dong Sun) Date: Fri, 01 May 2009 14:42:09 +0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP of ROBIO 2009 Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20090501143451.02ac65e0@mail.cityu.edu.hk> Many thanks for sending the following conference information to robotics-worldwide list. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Call for paper 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO 2009) The 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO) will be held in December 18-22, 2009, Guilin, Guangxi, China. The conference is to provide a forum for researchers in the interdisciplinary areas of robotics and biomimetics to disseminate their latest research results. The theme of 2009 ROBIO is Robot-assisted bioengineering to serve humans. Guilin is a famous tourism city in China. It is located in the northeast of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on the west bank of the Li River. Its name means "forest of Sweet Osmanthus", owing to the large number of fragrant Sweet Osmanthus trees located in the city. The city has long been renowned for its unique scenery. The 2009 ROBIO will provide the participants an opportunity to enjoy the fantastic scenic spots and the unique culture of the minority nations of Guangxi in addition to technical programs. 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 Xplore. For detailed format information, please visit the conference website. All accepted papers will be indexed by EI and included in IEEE Xplore. Proposals for tutorials and workshops addressing new topics in robotics and biomimetics are invited for submission to the T/W chairs. Important Dates are: July 15, 2009 Submission of full papers August 31, 2009 Proposals of workshops/tutorials September 30, 2009 Paper acceptance October 15, 2009 Final Paper Submission For the most up to date information, please visit the conference website www.robio.org General Chair: Yunhui Liu (Chinese University of Hong Kong) Program Chair: Dong Sun (City University of Hong Kong) Conference Secretariats Pat Chan, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Keju Peng, National University of Defense Technology, China Tel: (852)-2696-1381, Fax: (852) 2603-6002 Email: pchan at mae.cuhk.edu.hk