From rvelazquez at ags.up.mx Fri Jan 2 12:06:03 2009 From: rvelazquez at ags.up.mx (Ramiro Velazquez) Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:06:03 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] =?windows-1252?q?=5BCfP=5D_2009_IEEE_AFRICON?= =?windows-1252?q?_=96_Kenya?= Message-ID: <11958530901021206o47c00597i2ff02758f414b0be@mail.gmail.com> ====================================== FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS ====================================== 2009 IEEE Conference in Africa (AFRICON) Nairobi, Kenya, 23-25 September, 2009 http://www.africon2009.org/ Dear colleague, You are kindly invited to submit your work and to participate in the 9th IEEE Conference in Africa (AFRICON) to be held in Nairobi, Kenya next September. AFRICON, the top-event of IEEE in Africa, is a forum for professionals, academia and industry to exchange ideas, present their newest research findings and to network. In particular, topics of interest include, but are not limited to: - Control and Automation - Robotics and Mechatronics - Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) - Instrumentation and Measurement - Modeling and Simulation - Computer, Information Systems and Software Engineering - Computational Methods and Applications - Computational Semiotics - Communication and Signal Processing - Electromagnetics and Antennas - Engineering Applications and Health - Electron Devices and Circuits - Education and Engineering Skills development - Energy and ICT for rural areas - Engineering Management - Energy and Power Systems Prospective authors are invited to electronically submit full papers of their work in English (6 pages, ~4500 words, in pdf format), following the instructions available on the web page. Accepted papers will be published in an IEEE proceedings volume that will be indexed by EI and IEEExplore, and will be available at the time of the conference. IMPORTANT DEADLINES Submissions due: 31 March, 2009 Notification of acceptance: 31 May 2009 Early Registration deadline: 30 June, 2009 Late Registration deadline: 23 August, 2009 Conference: July 23-26, 2007 Best regards -- Ramiro Vel?zquez ================================================= Assistant Professor Mecatr?nica y Control de Sistemas Universidad Panamericana - Escuela de Ingenier?a Fracc. R?sticos Calpulli. C.P. 20290 Aguascalientes, Ags., MEXICO Tel: (52-449) 910-6200 ext. 7304 Web: www.up.edu.mx Homepage: www.robotica-up.org/~ramiro.html ================================================= From jjb at alum.mit.edu Fri Jan 2 06:55:34 2009 From: jjb at alum.mit.edu (Joanna J Bryson) Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:55:34 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: International Journal of Synthetic Emotions, IJSE Message-ID: ********************* CALL FOR PAPERS ********************* International Journal of Synthetic Emotions, IJSE Official publication of the Information Resources Management Association http://www.igi-global.com/IJSE Published: Quarterly (both in Print and Electronic form) Editor-in-Chief: Jordi Vallverd?, UAB, Catalonia. Co-Editors: Dylan Evans, University College Cork, UK. Eva Hudlicka, Psychometrix, USA. David Casacuberta, UAB, Catalonia. Shuji Hashimoto, Waseda University, Japan. International Editorial Review Board Elizabeth Andre, Universit?t Augsburg, Germany. Paulo Baggia, Loquendo, Italy. Axel Barcel?, UNAM, Mexico. Joanna Bryson, University of Bath, UK. Felix Burkhardt, Deutsche Telekom AG, Laboratories, Germany. Antonio Camurri, University of Genova, Italy. Cecile Crutzen, Open University of the Netherlands, The Netherlands. Claudius Gros, Universit?t Frankfurt Am Main, Germany. Pilar Herrero, Universidad Polit?cnica de Madrid, Spain. Bill Jarrold, SRI International, USA. Kostas Karpouzis, Institute of Communication and Computer System, Greece. Catherine Pelachaud, CNRS - TELECOM, ParisTech, France. Sarantos Psycharis, Aegean University, Greece. Huma Shah, The University of Reading, UK. Matthias Scheutz, Indiana University, USA. Bj?rn Schuller, Technische Universit?t M?nchen, Germany. Jianhua Tao, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China. Ian Wilson, Emotion AI Limited, UK. MISSION OF IJSE: The International Journal of Synthetic Emotions (IJSE) approaches the field of synthetic emotions, offering a unique interdisciplinary platform for all international researchers on this topic. The journal presents a new common space of richest and best ideas about synthetic emotions. Also, discussed is a thinking frame that enables the conceptual synergy and symbiosis between computer scientists, cognitive scientists, robot and synthetic agent designers, as well as psychologists, neuroscientists, and philosophers. The primary mission of the journal is to provide a forum for the advancement of knowledge and methods necessary for the creation of artificial devices with emotions. RECOMMENDED TOPICS: Topics to be discussed in this journal include (but are not limited to) the following: ? Affective computing ? Cognition for ambient intelligence ? Cognitive science ? Diffusive emotional controls ? Emotion-based control systems ? Evolutionary approaches to the mind ? Neuroethics ? Sociable robotics ? Synthetic emotions (SE) in agents, robots, systems, and devices ? Theories of emotions ? Modelling artificial emotions ? Emotional architectures ? Emotional interfaces ? Warm and fuzzy logic for building artificial emotions ? Emotional computing ? Emotional languages programming ? Online emotional avatars ? Humanoid robotics ? Emotional design ? Engineering approaches to emotions ? Emotions recognition ? Grounding emotions in adaptive systems ? Language and emotions ? Electronic art approaches to emotions ? Feeling or showing emotions differences SUBMITTING TO IJSE: Prospective authors should note that only original and previously unpublished articles will be considered. INTERESTED AUTHORS MUST CONSULT THE JOURNAL'S GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSIONS at: http://www.igi-global.com/development/author_info/guidelines submission.pdf, PRIOR TO SUBMISSION. All article submissions will be forwarded to at least 3 members of the Editorial Review Board of the journal for double-blind, peer review. Final decision regarding acceptance/revision/rejection will be based on the reviews received from the reviewers. All submissions must be forwarded electronically to jordi.vallverdu at uab.cat . PUBLISHER: The IJSE is published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), publisher of the "Information Science Reference" (formerly Idea Group Reference) and "Medical Information Science Reference" imprints. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit www.igi-global.com. All inquiries and submissions should be should be directed to the attention of: Jordi Vallverd? Editor-in-Chief International Journal of Synthetic Emotions E-mail: jordi.vallverdu at uab.cat www.igi-global.com/IJSE -- Joanna Bryson http://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/~jjb/ From Kanna.Rajan at mbari.org Sun Jan 4 22:14:40 2009 From: Kanna.Rajan at mbari.org (Kanna Rajan) Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:14:40 -0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2009 Underwater Robotics/Planning & Execution Summer Internship, Monterey Bay California Message-ID: <784DD919-DB5A-4B58-87A4-EAEAEFDE7436@mbari.org> [Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this announcement] The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI http:// www.mbari.org) is a private non-profit oceanographic research institute which has engaged in inter-disciplinary research in the ocean sciences and technology for over 20 years. The institute does advanced work in Robotics, Genetics, Micro-Biology and Ocean Exploration and Observing with 3 ocean going ships, 2 Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV's) and 3 Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV's) in addition to state-of-the-art science and technology facilities. MBARI's 2009 Internship applications are now open with details at: http://www.mbari.org/education/internship/09interns/09announce.htm MBARI's Autonomous Systems group is engaged in research efforts to use advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to enable Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) to be more adaptive and self aware of their resource and goal commitments. Our onboard deliberative system T-REX (http://www.mbari.org/autonomy/TREX/ ) being used on AUV platform (http://www.mbari.org/auv/), is based on the sense-deliberate-act paradigm synthesizing new mission plans in response to environmental conditions. T-REX uses a state-of-the-art temporal constraint-based planner (EUROPA) developed originally at NASA and flown on a number of space missions including ground-based control of the ongoing Mars Exploration Rovers (MER). Potential internship opportunities include (but not limited to) working on: 1. PlanWorks debugging tool for EUROPA which allows us to leverage work done in visualization of constraint networks, token networks and timelines. The internship primarily be focused on developing PlanWorks to provide diagnostic information for T-REX. 2. Expanding the simulation capability currently available within T- REX, including monte-carlo simulation for model and and agent validation. The internship will focus on augmenting and adding new features for shore-side T-REX validation. 3. Extend the NDDL domain modeling language within the EUROPA planner to natively support arithmetic constraints and propagate them efficiently. Highly motivated graduate or undergraduate students with substantial + Java programming skills + Excellent C++ programming skills + AI Planning and a background in Constraint Satisfaction are encouraged to apply. Women and Minorities are particularly encouraged to apply. From Benjamin.Schrauwen at ugent.be Tue Jan 6 06:01:05 2009 From: Benjamin.Schrauwen at ugent.be (Benjamin Schrauwen) Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:01:05 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Several PhD positions at Ghent University Message-ID: <76FED09A-587E-4B9D-A934-02EAF23E70EC@ugent.be> Several fully funded Ph.D. positions in machine learning, speech recognition, handwriting recognition and robotics are available at the Reservoir Lab (http://reslab.elis.ugent.be) and the Speech Lab (http://speech.elis.ugent.be ), both part of the Electronics and Information Systems Department, faculty of Engineering of the Ghent University, Belgium (http:// ugent.be). Project Current state-of-the-art speech & handwriting recognition systems still perform much worse than human beings who can effortlessly decode the speech or handwriting of most people, even in fairly adverse conditions (e.g. the presence of noise in case of speech recognition). The fact that the human brain works so efficiently is owed to its self- organizing capacity, its deeply hierarchical approach, its adoption of unsupervised and supervised learning strategies, its capacity to adapt almost instantly to new circumstances, etc. Why not try to build an automatic speech recognizer and handwriting recognition engine that incorporates the same principles? This is exactly what we will do in two recently approved projects: * ?Self-organized Recurrent Neural Learning for Language Processing? (ORGANIC), funded by the European Commission within the 7th Framework Program. Details about the project can be found at the preliminary reservoir computing website (http://reservoir- computing.org). * ?Reservoir Computing for auditory pattern recognition? (RECAP), funded by the Research Program of the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO). The research concerns the investigation of architectures and algorithms for the efficient learning of large recurrent neural networks based on the Reservoir Computing concept (where only a linear readout layer is learned in a supervised way whereas the recurrent connections are fixed or trained in an unsupervised way). Important research topics are the unsupervised learning of a large hierarchy of recurrent sub-layers, and the integration of various adaptation techniques. The application domains are off-line handwriting recognition, speech recognition and various aspects of robotics (such as robot localization, motion control, ...). So far we were able to demonstrate that reservoirs can give rise to the robust recognition of digits spoken or written in isolation, but now we want to demonstrate that they can also yield robust recognition of continuous speech and handwriting (large vocabulary). Requirements Candidates should have a Masters degree in Electrical, Computer or Physics Engineering; or in Physics, Mathematics or Computer Science. A good knowledge of English is essential. No professional background is required, but the ideal candidates have some acquaintance with Machine Learning, programming (Python, Matlab, ...), statistics, signal processing, speech recognition, control engineering, or robotics. What we offer We offer an opportunity to perform at least three years of research in a new promising domain, and to get a doctoral degree in this domain. There will be ample opportunities for establishing international contacts (stays at partner universities, participation to international conferences). As an employee of the university you will receive a competitive salary (starting with a net monthly salary of approximately 1.600?) as well as excellent secondary benefits (holiday allowance, etc.). Belgium was ranked first on the ?Best Countries for Academic Research? worldwide list (The Scientist, 2007), and Ghent University was appointed second place on the ?Best Places to Work in Academia? non-US list (The Scientist, 2006). Application and timing If you are interested in one of the Ph.D. vacancies, please send in electronic format to Benjamin Schrauwen (Benjamin ?dot? Schrauwen ?at? UGent ?dot? be): a detailed curriculum vitae, a motivation letter, your course program, your grades, two letters of recommendation and, if applicable, a publication list and selected publications. Do also mention your topics of preferences within the projects (e.g. robotics, speech, no preference, etc.). Some positions start on April 1, 2009, others in September 2009, meaning that persons who expect to graduate in July 2009 are welcome to apply. Applications which are received before February 1, 2009 get priority. With kind regards, Benjamin Schrauwen and Jean-Pierre Martens From jiang at gradschool.uni-luebeck.de Tue Jan 6 09:22:43 2009 From: jiang at gradschool.uni-luebeck.de (Chaoqun Jiang) Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:22:43 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Germany: PhD Scholarships for Computing in Medicine and Life Sciences, Graduate School Luebeck Message-ID: <49639363.9050105@gradschool.uni-luebeck.de> The Graduate School of Computing in Medicine and Life Sciences (funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG, and the German Government within the German university excellence program) at the University of Luebeck is now offering Ph.D. scholarships for the following 14 projects: Brach I: Neuroengineering, Robotics and Navigation I 1b - Correction of Susceptibility caused Distortions in Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging I 1c - Endoscopic Optical Coherence Tomography in the Deep Brain I 1e - Transcranial sonography (TCS) in monogenic forms of Parkinsonism I 2a - Stroke Rehabilitation Robot I 2b - Parallel mode of action control: from human studies to intelligent robotic interfaces I 2d - Cardiac pacemaker localisation I 3b - Brain Modelling I 4c - Robot assisted navagation guided OCT operating microscope I 5a - Definition of cortical networlks for the control of eye and hand movements I 5c - 3-dimensional kinematic principles of eye, head and limb movements I 6a - Interfaces based on EEG, ECoG and DBS Brach II: Computing in Structural and Cell Biology II 3b - Efficient Methods of Exact Solutions of Complex Problems in Molecular Biology II 3c - Synaptic Plasticity: Regulatory Mechanisms in Receptor Trafficking II 5 - Computational analysis of RNA structure Please visit our website www.gradschool.uni-luebeck.de for more detailed descriptions of the projects and admission requirements. Ph.D. scholarships amounts to 1250 ? per month. Students with a master's degree in computer science, mathematics or engineering are invited to apply for admission. The application deadline is January 15, 2009. Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions via email: management at gradschool.uni-luebeck.de before sending your application. -- Chaoqun Jiang Secretary ================================================================ Graduate School for Computing in Medicine and Life Sciences ---------------------------------------------------------------- Universit?t zu L?beck Ratzeburger Allee 160 D-23538 L?beck Germany Tel: +49 451 500 5670 Fax: +49 451 500 5202 Email: jiang at gradschool.uni-luebeck.de http://www.gradschool.uni-luebeck.de ================================================================ From jmh at cs.utah.edu Tue Jan 6 08:53:52 2009 From: jmh at cs.utah.edu (John Hollerbach) Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:53:52 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJRR January 2009 issue Message-ID: <49638CA0.2030705@cs.utah.edu> A new issue of The International Journal of Robotics Research is available online: 1 January 2009; Vol. 28, No. 1 The below Table of Contents is available online at: http://ijr.sagepub.com/content/vol28/issue1/?etoc Effective Multi-Model Motion Tracking using Action Models Yang Gu and Manuela Veloso The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 3-19 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/3 Experimental Analysis of Sample-Based Maps for Long-Term SLAM Peter Biber and Tom Duckett The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 20-33 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/20 Real-time Bounded-error State Estimation for Vehicle Tracking E. Seignez, M. Kieffer, A. Lambert, E. Walter, and T. Maurin The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 34-48 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/34 Backing-Up Maneuvers of Autonomous Tractor-Trailer Vehicles using the Qualitative Theory of Nonlinear Dynamical Systems A. Gonz?lez-Cantos and A. Ollero The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 49-65 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/49 Minimum Wheel-Rotation Paths for Differential-Drive Mobile Robots Hamidreza Chitsaz, Steven M. LaValle, Devin J. Balkcom, and Matthew T. Mason The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 66-80 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/66 High-grip Stair Climber with Powder-filled Belts Kan Yoneda, Yusuke Ota, and Shigeo Hirose The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 81-89 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/81 Comparison of Mechanical Design and Energy Consumption of Adaptable, Passive-compliant Actuators Bram Vanderborght, Ronald Van Ham, Dirk Lefeber, Thomas G. Sugar, and Kevin W. Hollander The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 90-103 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/90 A Hybrid Approach to Intricate Motion, Manipulation and Task Planning St?phane Cambon, Rachid Alami, and Fabien Gravot The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 104-126 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/104 Application of Grassmann?Cayley Algebra to Geometrical Interpretation of Parallel Robot Singularities Patricia Ben-Horin and Moshe Shoham The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 127-141 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/1/127 From raj.madhavan at nist.gov Tue Jan 6 08:27:47 2009 From: raj.madhavan at nist.gov (Raj Madhavan) Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:27:47 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [APPROACHING DEADLINE] CFP Autonomous Robots Journal Special Issue: Characterizing Mobile Robot Localization and Mapping Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090106112709.02270f40@mailhub.mel.nist.gov> [Call for Papers] Autonomous Robots Journal Special Issue: Characterizing Mobile Robot Localization and Mapping Editors: Raj Madhavan, Chris Scrapper, and Alexander Kleiner IMPORTANT DATES * Paper submission deadline: February 1, 2009 * Notification to authors: May 1, 2009 * Camera ready papers: August 1, 2009 Stable navigation solutions are critical for mobile robots intended to operate in dynamic and unstructured environments. In the context of this special issue, stable navigation solution is taken to mean the ability of a robotic system "to sense and create internal representations of its environment and estimate pose (where pose consists of position and orientation) with respect to a fixed coordinate frame". Such competency, usually termed localization and mapping, will enable mobile robots to identify obstacles and hazards present in the environment, and maintain an estimate of where they are and where they have been. A myriad of approaches have been proposed and implemented, some with greater success than others. Since the capabilities and limitations of these approaches vary significantly depending on the requirements of the end user, the operational domain, and onboard sensor suite limitations, it is essential for developers of robotic systems to understand the performance characteristics of methodologies employed to produce a stable navigation solution. Currently, there is no way to quantitatively measure the performance of a robot or a team of robots against user-defined requirements. Additionally, there exists no consensus on what objective evaluation procedures need to be followed to deduce the performance of various robots operating in a variety of domains. Lack of reproducible and repeatable test methods have precluded researchers working towards a common goal from exchanging and communicating results, inter-comparing robot performance, and leveraging previous work that could otherwise avoid duplication and expedite technology transfer from the "drawing board" to the field. For instance, currently, the evaluation of robotic maps is based on qualitative analysis (i.e. visual inspection). This approach does not allow for better understanding of what errors specific systems are prone to and what systems meet the needs. It has become common practice in the literature to compare newly developed mapping algorithms with former methods by presenting images of generated maps. This procedure turns out to be suboptimal, particularly when applied to large-scale maps. The absence of standardized methods for evaluating emerging robotic technologies has caused segmentation in the research and development communities. This lack of cohesion hinders the attainment of robust mobile robot navigation, in turn slowing progress in many domains, such as manufacturing, service, health care, and security. Providing the research community access to standardized tools, reference data sets, and an open-source library of navigation solutions, researchers and consumers of mobile robot technologies will be able to evaluate the cost and benefits associated with various navigation solutions. The primary focus of this special issue is to bring together what is so far an amorphous research community to define standardized methods for the quantitative evaluation of robot localization algorithms and/or robot-generated maps. The performance characteristics of several approaches will be documented towards developing a stable navigation solution by detailing the capabilities and limitations of each approach and by the inter-comparison of experimental results, as well as the underlying mechanisms used to formulate these solutions. Through this effort, we seek to start the process, which will compile the results of these evaluations into a reference guide that documents lessons learned and the performance characteristics of various navigation solutions. This will enable end users to select the "best" possible method that meets their needs and will also lead to the development of the adaptive systems that are more technically capable and at the same time are safe thus permitting collaborative operations of man and machine. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): * Characterizing navigation in complex unstructured domains & requirements imposed by dynamic nature of operating domains * Evaluation frameworks and adaptive approaches to developing stable navigation solutions * Probabilistic methodologies with particular attention to uncertainty in assessing robot-generated maps * Visualization tools for assessing localization and mapping * Methods for ground truth generation from public map sources * Multi-robot localization and mapping * Testing in various domains of interest ranging from manufacturing floors to urban search and rescue * Applications with demonstrated success or lessons learnt from failures The above topics are by no means exhaustive but are only meant to be a representative list. We particularly encourage submissions related to mobile robot field deployments, challenges encountered, and lessons learnt during such implementations. Theoretical investigations into assessing performance of robot localization and mapping algorithms are also welcome. Please contact the guest editors if you are not sure if a particular topic fits the special issue. SUBMISSION INFORMATION See journal webiste at http://www.springer.com/10514 Manuscripts should be submitted to: http://AURO.edmgr.com This online system offers easy and straightforward log-in and submission procedures, and supports a wide range of submission file formats. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 antonelli at unicas.it Wed Jan 7 01:02:50 2009 From: antonelli at unicas.it (Gianluca Antonelli) Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:02:50 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IEEE ICRA 2009 Workshop on Marine Robotics Message-ID: <49646FBA.8040507@unicas.it> Apologize for multiple posting. ----------------------------------------------------------- WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT IEEE ICRA'09 Workshop on Recent Developments in Marine Robotics ----------------------------------------------------------- The half-day workshop "Recent Developments in Marine Robotics" will be held during the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Kobe, Japan, on May 17, 2009. WORKSHOP HOMEPAGE ----------------- http://webuser.unicas.it/MarineRoboticsTC/workshop_web.htm GOAL AND SCOPE -------------- This workshop is aimed at presenting recent developments in marine robotics collecting keynote talks from experts of the main research institutions. Research presentations and discussions will complete the agenda. The scope of the workshop is intentionally broad with talks concerning single AUVs, multiple, coordinate marine robots, sensor networks, cooperative adaptive sampling, Underwater Vehicle-Manipulator Systems and biomimetic underwater robotics. An interesting overview with fruitful discussion and ideas for research directions are the expected outcomes of the workshop. Following the creation of a new IEEE RAS Technical Committe in Marine Robotics (http://webuser.unicas.it/MarineRoboticsTC), the objective of the workshop is to bring together several experts in different disciplines interested in marine robotics, but who normally do not interact with each other. This will reinforce the community of roboticists interested in marine theory and applications. Several topics are of interest, from homing to coordinated AUVs, coordinated control of multiple marine vehicles up to underwater intervention with AUVs equipped with a manipulator. This workshop will feature keynote talks, research presentations and discussions in these areas to report on the state-of-the-art in different related areas and to identify new directions for research. INVITED SPEAKERS ---------------- Joseph Ayers, Northeastern University, U.S.A. Andreas Birk, Jacobs University, Germany Giuseppe Casalino, University of Genova, Italy Peter Drewes, Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Lab., U.S.A. Matthew Dunbabin, CSIRO ICT Centre, Australia Franz Hover, MIT, U.S.A. Kazuo Ishii, Kyutech, Japan Hayato Kondo, Tokyo Univ. of Marine Science & Technology, Japan Giacomo Marani, University of Hawaii, U.S.A. Vera Moffitt, Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Lab., U.S.A. Kristin Y. Pettersen, NTNU, Norway Fumin Zhang, Georgia Institute of Technology, U.S.A. From Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at Wed Jan 7 02:20:51 2009 From: Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at (Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at) Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:20:51 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: Workshop on "Societal Impact: How Socially Accepted Robots Can be Integrated in our Society" - HRI2009 Message-ID: REMINDER: CfP Deadline 15th January 2009! Workshop on "Societal Impact: How Socially Accepted Robots Can be Integrated in our Society" http://workshops.icts.sbg.ac.at/hri2009societal/ at ? 4th ACM/IEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction 2009 http://hri2009.org/ 10th of March ?2008 San Diego, CA ?????????????????????? Call for Papers (apologies for multiple postings): ? The workshop on "Societal Impact: How Socially Accepted Robots Can be Integrated in our Society" will be held in San Diego, CA at the ACM/IEEE HRI2009 conference. This half-day workshop will discuss possible methodological approaches to evaluate social acceptance and societal impact of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) with a special focus on collaboration with robots. This workshop will be held as * Follow-up to the workshop "Robots as Social Actors: Evaluating Social Acceptance and Societal Impact of Robotic Agents" http://workshops.icts.sbg.ac.at/roman2008social/ which was held during IEEE Ro-Man 2008 and * In conjunction with the Workshop "Social Responsibility in HRI: Conducting our Research, Changing the World" http://www.rpi.edu/%7Efreien/hri2009workshop which will be held beforehand at this year's HRI conference. *Important dates* ? Submission of informal position papers (between 1 and max 4 pages):Sunday, 15th January 2009 Feedback to authors: Saturday, 28th February 2009 ? ? *Workshop topics* ? Submissions are invited addressing one or more of the following questions: 1. What kind of metrics already exist in the field of HRI for measuring social acceptance, like physiological measurements, behaviour observations, surveys etc.? 2. What are the pros and cons of existing evaluation methods and what are the innovations potentials toward other methods? 3. Do existing evaluation methods address needs for introducing robotic agents into "real life"? 4. How to support acceptance in Human-Robot Collaboration? 5. Which interdisciplinary approaches are used in HRI to address social acceptance and societal impact? 6. Which ethical issues should be concerned in the development of robotic agents, like legal aspects, psychological aspects etc. 7. How can the development of robotic agents be sustainable? 8. Which cultural differences exist in terms of societal impact on future Western and Asian societies? ? *Guidelines for submission* Workshop candidates should send a position paper (no longer than 4 A4 pages) before 15.01.2009 about a research or study they have been involved with (related to the topics described above) to astrid.weiss at sbg.ac.at. All position papers must be submitted in PDF format! *Organizing Committee* ? * Astrid Weiss, ICT&S Center - University of Salzburg, * Manfred Tscheligi, ICT&S Center - University of Salzburg, * Aude Billard, LASA Laboratory - EPFL Lausanne, From Philippe.Martinet at lasmea.univ-bpclermont.fr Wed Jan 7 05:31:17 2009 From: Philippe.Martinet at lasmea.univ-bpclermont.fr (Philippe Martinet) Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:31:17 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: ICRA09 workshop on Safe navigation in open and dynamic environments: Application to autonomous vehicles Message-ID: <4964AEA5.6@lasmea.univ-bpclermont.fr> Call for papers for ICRA09 International Workshop on "Safe navigation in open and dynamic environments Application to autonomous vehicles" Kobe, Japan, May 12-17th. http://wwwlasmea.univ-bpclermont.fr/Control/workshopICRA09/SafeNavigation.htm If you intend to submit a paper, please note the following constraint: Before january 15th : send the following informations to martinet at lasmea.univ-bpclermont.fr * Title of the paper (4 to 6 pages according ICRA09 format http://www.icra2009.org/contributions/author.html ) * Authors (Name, Institution, email, Personal home page) * Abstract (If you have time, give us one abstractless than 200 words) Before february 2nd Send the paper to martinet at lasmea.univ-bpclermont.fr You will be informed about acceptation, and then final version of paper will have to be sent to martinet at lasmea.univ-bpclermont.fr before march 1st. We will appreciate your answer as quick as you can. Best regards and Happy new year 2009 Philippe Martinet, Christian Laugier, Urbano nunes ***************************************************** ***************************************************** Workshop on Safe navigation in open and dynamic environments Application to autonomous vehicles Organizers * Christian Laugier (INRIA, France), http://emotion.inrialpes.fr/laugier, christian.laugier at inrialpes.fr * Philippe Martinet (Blaise Pascal University, France), http://wwwlasmea.univ-bpclermont.fr/Personnel/Philippe.Martinet/Welcome.html, Philippe.Martinet at lasmea.univ-bpclermont.fr * Urbano Nunes (Coimbra University, Portugal), http://www.isr.uc.pt/~urbano, urbano at isr.uc.pt Contact Philippe Martinet, Philippe.Martinet at lasmea.univ-bpclermont.fr Abstract 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 Keynotes The workshop proceedings will be published electronically as a pdf file. Selected papers will be considered for a special issue in an International Journal. in connection with this workshop. We will issue an open call after the workshop, submissions will go through a separate peer review process. From hager at cs.jhu.edu Wed Jan 7 18:35:10 2009 From: hager at cs.jhu.edu (Greg Hager) Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:35:10 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICRA'09 Workshop on Advanced Sensing and Sensor Integration in Medical Robotics Message-ID: <43D8DD1B-CEF5-47C4-BF97-16093B10D7DE@cs.jhu.edu> ----------------------------------------------------------- WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT IEEE ICRA'09 Workshop on Advanced Sensing and Sensor Integration in Medical Robotics ----------------------------------------------------------- The half-day workshop " Advanced Sensing and Sensor Integration in Medical Robotics" will be held during the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Kobe, Japan, on May 13, 2009 WORKSHOP HOMEPAGE ----------------- http://robvis01.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/icra_workshop/ 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. Abstract submission ------------------- Extended Abstracts should be submitted by email to burschka at cs.tum.edu by January 15, 2009. The abstract submission should include: * Title * List of authors and affiliations * Abstract of 500-800 words * References to your own related work * relevant web links * Figure captions * Figures should be submitted as attachment to the email A maximum of 2 figures is accepted. The figures (in jpeg, gif, or png formats) should be an attachment to the email. Submissions will be accepted for an oral or poster presentation based on relevance to the workshop, quality, and available space. The abstracts of accepted contributions will be published on the workshop web site. A journal special issue is being planned for papers written based on abstracts submitted to the workshop. GOAL AND SCOPE -------------- The main objective of the workshop is to bring together researchers working on sensing and robotics in medicine. We aim to promote a better understanding of current state of the art in sensing in the medical domain and to discuss the potential for future joint efforts to increase the robustness and accuracy of the resulting robotic systems. The workshop will also cover the fusion of the diverse information sources available in the medical robots today with the aim to bring together researchers from various disciplines in the robotics and to learn about the current state-of-the-art in sensing. Contributions are welcome in a wide range of sensing modalities present on current medical robots: 1. Endoscopy * stereo systems * coded light * shape from shading * multiple-port endoscopic stereo systems * special sensors 2. Ultrasound * 2D ultrasound * 3D ultrasound * elastography * motion tracking from speckle 3. MRI and CT 4. Haptic Sensing * force sensors in tools * tactile sensors 5. Other Sensing Modalities * time of flight sensors * infrared * capsule cameras * IMUs We encourage submission of approaches that integrate sensors in systems in a closed loop operation with robotic hardware. Contributions describing : 1. Sensor Data Fusion 2. Sensor Integration in the Closed Loop Architectures 3. Generic Sensor Models are welcome as well. Organizers * Darius Burschka, Lab for Robotics and Embedded Systems, Technische Universit??t M??nchen, Germany * Gregory D. Hager, Dept. of Computer Science, The Johns Hopkins University, USA * Rainer Konietschke, Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, DLR, Germany * Allison M. Okamura,Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University, USA Gregory D. Hager Professor of Computer Science Johns Hopkins University Office: 121 CSEB Phone: 410 516 5521 WWW: http://cs.jhu.edu/~hager From stefan.wermter at sunderland.ac.uk Wed Jan 7 07:46:45 2009 From: stefan.wermter at sunderland.ac.uk (Stefan Wermter) Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:46:45 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Natural Computing Forum on Intelligent Neural Robotics Message-ID: <4964CE65.20804@sunderland.ac.uk> CALL FOR PARTICIPATION ================================== The Natural Computing Applications Forum Meeting on Intelligent Neural Robotics NCAF 2009 Date and Location: January 21-22, 2009, Sunderland, UK The forthcoming NCAF meeting will be held in Sunderland on the 21/22nd January, hosted by the Hybrid Intelligent Systems (HIS) group based at the University of Sunderland. This event will be set along the banks of the River Wear at the award winning Sir Tom Cowie Campus at St.Peter?s and a special evening event at Sunderland?s National Glass Centre. Programme summary: ? Stefan Wermter - Hybrid Intelligent Systems for Cognitive Robotics ? Jindong Liu - Mobile Robot Broadband Sound Localisation using a Biologically Inspired Spiking Neural Network ? Matthew Casey - Modelling the Sensory Hierarchy: From Gaze Shifts to Emotions ? Heidi Christenson - POPeye: Real-Time, Binaural Sound Source Localisation on an Audio-Visual Robot-Head ? Aneesh Chauhan - A Robotic Arm with Language Acquisition Capabilities ? Mark Ebden - Decentralized Predictive Sensor Allocation ? Harry Erwin - An Approach to Developing a Library of Voltage-Gated Channels ? Mark Elshaw - Recurrent Self-Organising Memory Model for Speech Signal and Semantic Feature Association for Emergent Speech Representation ? John Murray - Towards Emotional Robots: Interaction Preference between Robot and Human ? Mike Knowles - Reinforcement Learning and Perceptual Symbol Systems for supporting Human Robot Interaction ? Heidi Christenson - Simultaneous Tracking of Perceiver Movements and Speaker Changes Using Head-Centered, Binaural Data If you would like to participate / register or find out more information on the event, please visit either http://www.his.sunderland.ac.uk/ncaf09/ or http://www.ncaf.org.uk/ best wishes Stefan *************************************** Professor Stefan Wermter Centre for Hybrid Intelligent Systems Department of Computing and Technology, FAS University of Sunderland St Peters Way Sunderland SR6 0DD United Kingdom phone: +44 191 515 3279 fax: +44 191 515 3553 email: stefan.wermter AT sunderland.ac.uk http://www.his.sunderland.ac.uk/~cs0stw/ http://www.his.sunderland.ac.uk/ **************************************** From info at ibai-institut.de Wed Jan 7 04:30:11 2009 From: info at ibai-institut.de (info at ibai-institut.de) Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:30:11 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Extende Deadline ICDM 2009 Message-ID: <1231327811.286cfdb4c128b618eac1a91c6e562908@xa7450.xa7.serverdomain.org> Extended Deadline ICDM 2009 Dear Colleagues, We wish you a Happy New Year and many success for 2009. Due to several requests we have extended the deadline for the Industrial Conference on Data Mining, ICDM 2009 (www.data-mining-forum.de). The new deadline is now February, 10 th. We are looking forward to your submissions. Kind regards, Ingrid Neuhaeuser Conference Managment Mi, 7.Jan.2009 From Veronica.Santos at asu.edu Wed Jan 7 23:35:38 2009 From: Veronica.Santos at asu.edu (Veronica Santos) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:35:38 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Tenure-Track Faculty Position in Mech. and Aero. Engin. at Arizona State University Message-ID: <3DE64A7E8BFE3342A86191626891E90D035ECE67@EX01.asurite.ad.asu.edu> Hello, Please post the ad below for a Tenure-Track Faculty Position in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Arizona State University. Thank you for your time, Veronica ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Veronica J. Santos, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Arizona State University Bldg ERC, Rm 359 (office); P.O. Box 876106 (mailing) Tempe, AZ 85287-6106 Office: (480) 965-3207; Fax: (480) 965-1384 Website: http://www.public.asu.edu/~vjsantos/ Tenure-Track Faculty Position in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Arizona State University invites applications and nominations for a tenure-track/tenured faculty position. The appointment will be commensurate with the candidate's experience and accomplishments and can be at the assistant, associate or full professor rank, beginning August 2009. At the time of appointment, candidates must have an earned doctorate in engineering or a related field. Specific duties include the development of an internationally recognized and externally funded research program, graduate and undergraduate teaching and advisement, and service activities. The Department is particularly interested in candidates who work in the areas of, ? Biomechanics/biomedical robotics with emphases in human sensory-control systems, robust mobility and manipulation, kinematics and dynamics. ? Computational mechanics with emphases in multi-scale or multi-physics coupling, biological systems, or nanomechanics. ? Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with emphases in flight dynamics and control, propulsion, sensing, structural mechanics/dynamics, and/or flow control. The open position leverages investments by the University promoting interdisciplinary teaching and research, including the Biodesign Institute (http://www.biodesign.asu.edu ), Global Institute of Sustainability (http://sustainability.asu.edu/gios), High Performance Computing Initiative (http://hpc.asu.edu ), and School of Earth and Space Exploration (http://sese.asu.edu ). Required qualifications include having an earned doctorate in Engineering or related field and demonstrated evidence of research capability and commitment to teaching excellence as appropriate to the candidate's rank. Desired qualifications include ability to collaborate on multidisciplinary research initiatives. Review of applications begins February 2, 2009 and will continue weekly until the search is closed. Candidates should send via email to mae at asu.edu a cover letter, detailed r?sum?, brief statement of research and teaching interests, and contact information (name, address and telephone number) for three professional references. A background check is required for employment. More information about the department and the positions can be found at http://mae.fulton.asu.edu Arizona State University encourages and supports diversity among applicants and employees and is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action employer. From pasa at liralab.it Thu Jan 8 03:26:14 2009 From: pasa at liralab.it (Giorgio Metta) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2009 12:26:14 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Research Fellows on "Neuromorphic Sensors for Humanoid Robots" Message-ID: <095801c97183$eac91170$c05b3450$@it> Research Fellows on "Neuromorphic Sensors for Humanoid Robots" (eMorph project) at - Italian Institute of Technology -- Department of Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences (prof. Giulio Sandini) http://www.iit.it/robotics_brain_and_cognitive_sciences and - University of Genova -- LiraLab (prof. Giorgio Metta) http://www.lira.dist.unige.it/ We are looking to appoint few full-time researchers (PhD students and Post-Docs) to work on the EU funded project "Event-Driven Morphological Computation for Embodied Systems" (eMorph), with experience in the field of: 1. Computer Science, 2. Machine Vision, 3. Neuromorphic Engineering. The goal of the eMorph project is to introduce the principles of biological sensory systems design in the field of robotic vision. Specifically, we aim at combining the design of novel data-driven biologically inspired sensory devices with the development of unconventional asynchronous event-driven computational paradigms, with structure and morphology that are matched to the requirements of the robot's application domain. The work will be based on the humanoid platform "iCub" http://www.robotcub.org/. The work comprises diverse areas of expertise that will be covered by the opened positions: - design and testing of asynchronous vision sensors with non-uniform distribution of photosensitive elements, using analog real-time low-power VLSI neuromorphic circuits, - realization of supporting data-driven asynchronous computational paradigms for machine-vision methodologies that are radically different from conventional ones, - integration, testing and validation of the developed vision system on advanced humanoid robotic platforms. The successful applicant will join and help to develop a team studying the evolution of next generation humanoid platforms with human-like abilities and materials. As the work involves diverse disciplines, the ability of team-working and a true interest in multidisciplinary research is essential. Applicants should have a strong interest in bio-inspired approach to engineering. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ A successful *PhD* applicant should have one or more of the following: - Good skills in programming C/C++ and/or Matlab; - Fundamental notions of microelectronics; - Background in neuroscience. The selected PhD students will join the "PhD School in Humanoid Technologies" http://www.iit.it/courses_unige . ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ For *Post-Doc* applicants, experience of research into the specific fields is important and evidence of top quality research in the form of published papers and/or patents will be a definite advantage. The salary will be commensurate to qualification and experience. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ To apply please send a cover letter outlining experience and qualifications for the position and CV to Prof. Giorgio Metta (pasa at liralab.it, cell:+39.320.421.8836) and Dr. Chiara Bartolozzi (chiara.bartolozzi at iit.it). Giorgio Metta Assistant Professor LIRA-Lab, DIST University of Genova Viale Causa, 13 16145 Genova, Italy Ph: +39 010 353-2946 Fax: +39 010 353-2948 URL: http://pasa.liralab.it From asfour at ira.uka.de Thu Jan 8 06:28:18 2009 From: asfour at ira.uka.de (Asfour, Tamim) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:28:18 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICRA'09 Workshop on "Approaches to Sensorimotor Learning on Humanoid Robots" Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, Happy New Year and many success for 2009. =============================================================== Call for papers for ICRA Workshop on "Approaches to Sensorimotor Learning on Humanoid Robots" Kobe, Japan, May 17th http://www.ijs.si/~aude/icra_workshop/ =============================================================== The workshop will be held at ICRA 2009 in Kobe, on May 17th to gather researchers contributing to the field of sensorimotor learning on humanoid robots. Prospective speakers are required to submit a two page abstract in standard ICRA paper. For details please see the workshop home page. Topics: - Model-based learning - Developmental approaches to sensorimotor learning - Imitation learning - Statistical learning - Interactive sensorimotor learning - Acquisition of closed-loop sensorimotor skills - Refinement of sensorimotor skills through practicing - Practical systems for sensorimotor learning on humanoid robots Important dates: - February 1st, 2009 Deadline for submission of two-page abstracts - February 13th, 2009 Notification of acceptance - February 26th, 2009 Deadline for submission of final contributions - May 17th, 2009 Workshop We are looking forward to receiving your contribution and an opportunity to create a successful event together with you. Best regards, Ales Ude, Tamim Asfour, Jan Peters, Jun Morimoto and Stefan Schaal Workshop organizers ----------------------------------------------- Tamim Asfour University of Karlsruhe (TH) Computer Science Department (IAIM, Prof. Dillmann) Haid-und-Neu-Str. 7, 2. OG, Room 313.1 D-76131 Karlsruhe, Germany wwwiaim.ira.uka.de/users/asfour From glyang at SIMTech.a-star.edu.sg Thu Jan 8 04:34:58 2009 From: glyang at SIMTech.a-star.edu.sg (Yang Guilin, Dr) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:34:58 +0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2009 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM 2009): Paper Submission Deadline Extented to 31 Jan 2009 Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, Due to numerous requests, the paper submission deadline of 2009 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM 2009) is now extended to 31 Jan 2009. We would appreciate if you could help us forward the following Call for Papers to those who might be interested. The 2009 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics will be held on July 14-17, 2009 in Suntec International Convention and Exhibition Center, Singapore. The theme of the conference is "Mechatronics for Everyday Lives". AIM 2009 conference invites submissions of high quality research papers describing original work on abstractions, algorithms, theories, methodologies, and case studies on the following topics: Actuators, Automotive Systems, Bioengineering, Data Storage Systems, Electronic Packaging, Fault Diagnosis, Human-Machine Interfaces, Industry Applications, Information Technology, Intelligent Systems, Machine Vision, Manufacturing, Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems, Micro/Nano Technology, Modeling and Design, Motion Vibration and Noise Control, Neural and Fuzzy Control, Opto-Electronic Systems, Prototyping, Real-Time and Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation, Robotics, Sensors, System Integration, Transportation Systems, and other fields of mechatronics. Contributed Papers: Original full papers must be submitted in PDF format prepared strictly following the IEEE PDF Requirements for Creating PDF Documents for the IEEE Xplore(r). For detailed format information, please visit the conference website: http://www.aim2009.org. Accepted and presented papers will be indexed by EI and included in IEEE Xplore(r). Best Paper Award: All submitted papers will be included in the evaluation for the Best Conference Paper Award. Tutorials & Workshops: Proposals for half day or full day tutorials and workshops addressing new topics in intelligent mechatronics are invited for submission to the T/W Chairs. Proposals must include (1) statement of objectives, (2) intended audiences, (3) list of speakers, and (4) list of topics. Organized Sessions: Organized session proposers should submit to the Organized Session Chairs a brief statement of purpose for the session as well as the abstract of the papers to be included. A typical organized session consists of 4 to 5 related papers. Technical Tours: In parallel to the technical sessions, the conference organizers will provide a number of technical tours to the participants to the major industrial companies, research institutions, and universities in Singapore. Details of the industrial tours will be posted on the conference website. Important Dates: Submission of Full Paper & Organized session papers January 31, 2009 Submission of Tutorials/Workshops proposals January 31, 2009 Notification of Paper Status April 1, 2009 Submission of Final Paper April 30, 2009 Advanced Registration April 30, 2009 With best regards, Dr Guilin Yang Publicity Co-Chair, AIM 2009 From wamageed at umiacs.umd.edu Thu Jan 8 09:23:10 2009 From: wamageed at umiacs.umd.edu (Wael Abd-Almageed) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2009 12:23:10 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2nd CFP: Human Detection from Mobile Platforms 2009 -- ICRA 2009 Message-ID: 2nd IEEE Workshop on Human Detection from Mobile Platforms (IEEE HDMP 2009) in conjunction with IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Kobe, Japan, 12?17 May, 2009. Workshop Website: http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/conferences/hdmp/ Workshop Theme: The robot's ability to detect, identify and interact with surrounding humans is of unequivocal importance in many applications. When interaction with humans is imminent, safety and reliability are critical conditions before robots can be widely deployed in livable societies. For example, in health/elderly care communities, where robots interact with humans with less-thanperfect health conditions, reliable performance cannot be tolerated. Also, safe operation is major barrier before large-scale deployment of smart vehicles. Human detection, tracking and identification have been focus areas for many computer/robot vision researchers. However, many practical aspects of these problems have yet to be addressed in order to create robots capable of seamlessly interacting in livable societies, mainly because the nature of such applications requires high accuracy at very high processing rates. Computer vision and robotics researchers are invited to submit original contributions in related topics such as, but not limited to: ? Human detection in bad weather conditions ? Night-time human detection ? Multimodal human detection ? Detecting humans in non-upright postures ? Exploiting GPUs and FPGAs in human detection systems ? Recognizing dynamic human gestures ? Human tracking from mobile platforms Important Dates: Submission deadline 11:59 PST January 15th, 2009 Notification of Acceptance/Rejection 11:59 PST February 15th, 2009 Camera-ready version 11:59 PST March 1st, 2009 Workshop date May 17th, 2009 Workshop Chairs: ? Dr. Wael Abd-Almageed, University of Maryland at College Park, USA ? Dr. Larry Matthies, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA From yoky at cs.washington.edu Thu Jan 8 20:54:17 2009 From: yoky at cs.washington.edu (Yoky Matsuoka) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:54:17 -0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] RSS 2009: FINAL Call for Papers Message-ID: <4966D879.2090106@cs.washington.edu> Robotics: Science and Systems 2009 (RSS 2009) http://www.roboticsconference.org/ University of Washington, Seattle, June 28 - July 1, 2009 RSS 2009 paper submission is due in one week (January 15th, 11:59pm PST firm). This year, we will give two best paper awards: The Springer Best Student Paper ($2,500) and the iRobot Best Paper ($2,500 + special gifts). Author Instructions http://www.roboticsconference.org/authors.html Paper deadline: January 15, 2009 23:59:59 PST (firm) Call for Papers http://www.roboticsconference.org/papercall.html Call for Workshops and Tutorials http://www.roboticsconference.org/workshopcall.html We look forward to your contribution. Sincerely, Jeff Trinkle, General Chair Yoky Matsuoka, Program Chair From asfour at ira.uka.de Fri Jan 9 03:27:39 2009 From: asfour at ira.uka.de (Asfour, Tamim) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:27:39 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICRA'09 Workshop on "Approaches to Sensorimotor Learning on Humanoid Robots" Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, Happy New Year and many success for 2009. =============================================================== Call for papers for ICRA Workshop on "Approaches to Sensorimotor Learning on Humanoid Robots" Kobe, Japan, May 17th http://www.ijs.si/~aude/icra_workshop/ =============================================================== The workshop will be held at ICRA 2009 in Kobe, on May 17th to gather researchers contributing to the field of sensorimotor learning on humanoid robots. Prospective speakers are required to submit a two page abstract in standard ICRA paper. For details please see the workshop home page. Topics: - Model-based learning - Developmental approaches to sensorimotor learning - Imitation learning - Statistical learning - Interactive sensorimotor learning - Acquisition of closed-loop sensorimotor skills - Refinement of sensorimotor skills through practicing - Practical systems for sensorimotor learning on humanoid robots Important dates: - February 1st, 2009 Deadline for submission of two-page abstracts - February 13th, 2009 Notification of acceptance - February 26th, 2009 Deadline for submission of final contributions - May 17th, 2009 Workshop We are looking forward to receiving your contribution and an opportunity to create a successful event together with you. Best regards, Ales Ude, Tamim Asfour, Jan Peters, Jun Morimoto and Stefan Schaal Workshop organizers ----------------------------------------------- Tamim Asfour University of Karlsruhe (TH) Computer Science Department (IAIM, Prof. Dillmann) Haid-und-Neu-Str. 7, 2. OG, Room 313.1 D-76131 Karlsruhe, Germany wwwiaim.ira.uka.de/users/asfour From devin at cs.dartmouth.edu Fri Jan 9 10:45:28 2009 From: devin at cs.dartmouth.edu (Devin Balkcom) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:45:28 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] RSS 2009: Now open for paper submissions Message-ID: <95E1794E-C3ED-445C-ACEA-5F2F6EABDB0F@cs.dartmouth.edu> Robotics: Science and Systems 2009 (RSS 2009) http://www.roboticsconference.org/ University of Washington, Seattle, June 28 - July 1, 2009 RSS 2009 is now accepting high quality technical papers. The deadline is January 15, next week! This year, we will give two best paper awards: The Springer Best Student Paper ($2,500) and the iRobot Best Paper ($2,500 + special gifts). Author Instructions http://www.roboticsconference.org/authors.html Paper deadline: January 15, 2009 23:59:59 PST (firm) Call for Papers http://www.roboticsconference.org/papercall.html Call for Workshops and Tutorials http://www.roboticsconference.org/workshopcall.html We look forward to your contribution. Sincerely, Jeff Trinkle, General Chair Yoky Matsuoka, Program Chair Devin Balkcom, Publicity Chair From terry.huntsberger at jpl.nasa.gov Sat Jan 10 11:29:05 2009 From: terry.huntsberger at jpl.nasa.gov (Terry Huntsberger) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 11:29:05 -0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP LAB-RS'09 Message-ID: First call for papers ************************************************************************ ************ 2nd ECSIS Symposium on Learning and Adaptive Behavior in Robotic Systems LAB-RS 2009 Iasi, Romania July 22-24, 2009. ************************************************************************ ************ The Proceedings will be published by the IEEE Computer Society Press. This Symposium is being held in conjunction with: --ARTIPED (July 25-27, 2009), The Exploratory Workshop on Assistive and Recuperative Technologies for Injured, ill, Pregnant, Elderly and people with Disabilities, and --ISRIS (July 22-27, 2009), The International School on Robotics and Intelligent Systems with the theme: Assistive robots and systems for healthcare and rehabilitation. A short description of LAB-RS 2009: Aim and scope: Learning and adaptive behaviors are key to robotics system operation in real world environments. While there have been important developments at the theoretical level and in simulations or laboratory environments, the transfer of these methods onto real-world platforms has been limited. This symposium aims to provide a forum for advancement of learning and adaptation in robotics systems to high capability levels comparable to those of biological systems. It seeks reports on new concepts, laboratory demonstrations, and fielded robotic systems that exhibit learning and adaptive behaviors. The focus of the 2009 Symposium is learning and adaptation in robots working within environments in close proximity to other robots and humans. LAB-RS 2009 will take place in Iasi, Romania. The capital of the medieval principality of Moldavia, Iasi is a city immersed in history and culture, yet trendy and vibrant due to the tens of thousands of university students that live in Romania?s oldest and second largest university city. The social program will include a tour to the famous painted monasteries of Northern Moldavia and Iasi sightseeing. LAB-RS 2008 took place in Edinburgh, Scotland and included keynotes, presentations, demonstrations and a video competition. The proceedings were published by IEEE. The awards (each accompanied by a $1000 cash prize) included the Homayoun Seraji Award,for best paper, won by R. Felix Reinhart and Jochen J. Steil, from Bielefeld University, Germany, for the paper "Recurrent neural autoassociative learning of forward and inverse kinematics for movement generation of the redundant PA-10 robot," and Best Video Award, to T. Noda, S. Ikemoto, D. Quevedo, T. Shimizu, H. Sumioka, H. Ishihara, Y. Sasamoto, Y. Yoshikawa, T. Minato, Hiroshi Ishiguro and Minoru Asada from JST ERATO Project, Osaka University, Japan for the video titled "CB2: Child Robot with Biomimetic Body" LAB-RS 2009 Topics: Technologies * Robot learning * Dynamics of learning * Learning in real environments * Adaptive behaviours * 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 Papers We invite 6-page original submissions, to be uploaded on the website (not yet active). Papers will be published by IEEE Computer Society and will be available on IEEE Xplore within 3 Months after the LAB-RS 2009 Symposium. Important Dates: Proposals for special sessions: February 20, 2009 Deadline for papers: March 9, 2009 Author notification: April 6, 2009 Camera ready: April 27, 2009 Author/Early registration: May 30, 2009 Symposium Chair Terry Huntsberger, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA Symposium Co-Chairs Eddie Tunstel, Applied Physics Laboratory, John Hopkins University, USA Tughrul Arslan, University of Edinburgh, UK Program Chair Adrian Stoica, NASA JPL and U Edinburgh Video Competition Track Chair Didier Keymeulen, NASA/JPL, USA Local Organizing Committee Ioan Doroftei, TUI, Romania Mircea Slanina, ECSIS, Romania Ionut Olaru, CNRS -LIRMM, France and ECSIS Ahmed El-Rayis, University of Edinburgh, UK The website for the last year's LAB-RS 2008 Symposium is at: http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/labrs08 Please pass this call on to any of your colleagues who may be interested in proposing a special session, submitting a paper, or attending LAB- RS'09 and I hope that you can submit a paper as well. ------------------------------------- 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 samir.bouabdallah at mavt.ethz.ch Sat Jan 10 19:32:28 2009 From: samir.bouabdallah at mavt.ethz.ch (Bouabdallah Samir) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 04:32:28 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Update on: UAV'09 - INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES - June 8-10, 2009 - RENO, NEVADA, USA Message-ID: <20B3DFB65FB4244A869D91798B18FC9002AECDA9@EX2.d.ethz.ch> Dear colleagues, Regarding UAV'09, the web and the CFP were updated with the final info. FYI, subsets of selected papers will also appear in an Edited Book Volume on Unmanned Aircraft Systems, published by Springer; or in a special Issue Volume of the Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems (JINT). Please find the CFP of the UAV'09 in: http://www.uavconferences.com/UAV09_CFP.pdf INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES, June 8-10, 2009 - RENO, NEVADA, USA. IMPORTANT DATES: February 15, 2009: Full papers, due. April 5, 2009: Notification of acceptance / rejection. April 30, 2009: Final paper and power point presentation, due. WEBSITE: http://www.uavconferences.com Best regards, __________________________ Dr. Samir Bouabdallah Autonomous Systems Lab Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems ETH Zentrum, Tannenstrasse 3 Office: CLA E 16.2 CH-8092 Z?rich, e-mail: samir.bouabdallah at ieee.org Phone: +41 44 632 89 06 Fax: +41 44 632 11 81 ___________________________ Project Leader of: http://www.mufly.org Co-chair of IEEE TC on Aerial Robotics: http://www.flyingrobots.org/ Spin-off: http://www.skybotix.com From kanda at atr.jp Sat Jan 10 19:17:13 2009 From: kanda at atr.jp (Takayuki Kanda) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009 12:17:13 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Papers: RO-MAN2009 Message-ID: <003101c9739b$1f3b39b0$5db1ad10$@jp> *** Call for Papers *** 18th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN2009) Toyama, Japan, Sep. 27 - Oct. 2, 2009 "Interaction Design based on Robotics for Our Society" RO-MAN 2009 will be held in Toyama, Japan, during Sep. 27 to Oct.2, 2009. RO-MAN addresses fundamental issues in coexistence of robots and humans from psychological and philosophical aspects over interaction and communication mechanisms to technological systems and architectures. Authors will have choice of ordinary "oral session" or "interactive oral session" that requires 1 min. of plenary talk, poster and exhibition of robots/systems. Toyama city is located in the center of Japan, and surrounded by beautiful nature such as the Japan Sea and Alps. One can travel to the three big cities, Tokyo, Osaka, or Nagoya in only a few hours by JR train. There are international flights to Seoul, Vladivostok, Dalian and Shanghai. Please visit the website http://ro-man2009.org for the detailed information. ** Important Dates ** Feb. 15 '09 Proposals for special sessions and workshops/tutorials Feb. 28'09 Notification of special sessions and workshops/tutorials Mar. 15'09 Submission of full-length paper and/or video Jun. 15'09 Notification of paper acceptance Jul. 15'09 Submission of camera-ready final papers *** Robot Week in Toyama, Japan *** - Japan Robot Festival: Sep. 25-27, 2009 - IEEE RO-MAN: Sep. 27-Oct. 2, 2009 ** Relevant Topics ** Fundamental Interaction Components - Auditory cognition: cognition/interpretation of voice, sound, or language - Brain Machine Interface - Haptic interaction - Motion planning and navigation in the vicinity of humans - Novel interfaces and interaction modalities - Robot software architecture and development tool - Visual sensing and cognition: gesture, posture, face, facial expression Intelligence and Emotion - Context awareness and intention understanding - Intelligent Space - Knowledge and inference processing - Machine learning and adaptation in human-robot interaction - Motivations and emotions in robots Social/Ethical/Aesthetic Issues - Evaluation methods and new methodologies - Human factors and ergonomics in human-robot interaction - Innovative robot designs for human-robot interaction - Sociality/personality of robots or virtual characters Case Studies and Applications - Androids and other applications - Assistive robotics for supporting the elderly or people with special needs - Robotic companions and social robots - Robots in art, education and entertainment - Virtual and augmented tele-presence applications From jminguez at unizar.es Sat Jan 10 01:55:21 2009 From: jminguez at unizar.es (Javier Minguez) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 10:55:21 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICRA'09 Workshop on "Brain Machine Interfaces for Neuroprostheses and Robot Control" Message-ID: WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT (CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS) IEEE ICRA'09 Brain Machine Interfaces for Neuroprostheses and Robot Control The full-day workshop will be held at ICRA 2009 in Kobe (Japan), on May 12thwithin the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation May 12-17th . The workshop has already a list of confirmed speakers (see below) and this call for extended abstracts and participation will be used to add new speakers to the list and to organize a poster session. WEBPAGE: http://webdiis.unizar.es/~jminguez/webICRA09/ ---------------------------------------------------------- GOAL AND SCOPE Brain-Machine Interfaces encompass 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 of neuroscience, computer science, and biomedical engineering among others. With the understanding of the human brain and the rapid development of the instrumentation, signal processing and machine learning; 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 beginning of scientific and practical exploration. In response to this growing interest in neurosignal actuated devices, several initiatives are starting to pave the path toward 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 that we humans proceed. Other researches are applying brain machine learning technology to directly interact with autonomous mobile robots in applications like intelligent wheelchairs or teleoperation between remote scenarios. The objective of this workshop is two-folded. On the one hand, the intention is to gather researchers working in different areas of brain computer interfaces in order to give a broad panorama of the recent technological advances. On the other hand, the workshop will address researchers working in applications of brain machine control relevant for the robotics community. More precisely, the aims of this workshop include: ? To bring together researchers from multidisciplinary fields, so as to focus on the different aspects of the brain computer interfaces and their applications to robotics, and therefore being novel and complimentary to previous related workshops, which had a broader scope. ? To give a panorama to the robotics community of the basic technologies on brain computer interfaces. ? To discuss novel applications of neurocontrol such as neuroprostheses, brain actuated wheelchairs and brain teleoperated robots with the brain computer interface community to seek for fundamental solutions. ? To evaluate different experimental designs for brain-robot interaction in the assistive context. ? To provide a general overview of the critical issues and key points in building brain-machine devices and assistive applications and providing indications for further directions and developments in the field, based on the current diverse expertise of the participants. ---------------------------------------------------------- LIST OF CONFIRMED SPEAKERS - Prof. Jos? del R. Mill?n, PhD. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. - Prof. Christa Neuper, PhD. TU-Graz. Austria. - Carmen Vidaurre, PhD. TU-Berlin. Germany. - Reinhold Scherer, PhD. University of Washington. USA - Gernot M?ller-Putz, PhD. TU-Graz. Austria. - Silvestro Micera, PhD. Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna. Italy - Prof. Fivos Panetsos, PhD. Universidad Complutense Madrid. Spain - Jos? Carmena, PhD. Universidad de Berkeley. USA - Prof. Andy Schwartz, PhD. U. Pittsburg. USA - Jun Morimoto, PhD (Prof. Dr. Mitsuo Kawato, PhD). ATR Japan. - Ander Ramos, MSc. Fatronik and University of Tubingen. Germany. - Prof. Axel Gr?ser, PhD. U. Bremen. Germany. - Prof. John Donogue, PhD. Cyberkinetics. USA - Javier Minguez, PhD. University of Zaragoza. Spain - Rajesh P. N. Rao, PhD. University of Washington. USA ---------------------------------------------------------- ABSTRACT SUBMISSION Extended Abstracts should be submitted by email to jminguez at unizar.es . The abstract submission should include: * Title * List of authors and affiliations * Abstract of 500-800 words * References to your own related work * Relevant web links Important dates: - February 7st, 2009 Deadline for submission extended abstract, - February 14th, 2009 Notification of type of acceptance (talk of poster) - February 26th, 2009 Deadline for submission of final contributions - May 12th, 2009 Workshop ---------------------------------------------------------- ORGANIZERS: Javier Minguez, PhD. Universidad Zaragoza. Spain Carmen Vidaurre, PhD. TU-Berlin. Germany Ander Ramos, MSc. University of Tubing?en. Germany; Fatronik, Spain Prof. Jos? del R. Mill?n, PhD . Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. Prof. Klaus Robert M?ller, PhD. TU-Berlin. Germany Prof. Niels Birbaumer, PhD. University of Tubing?en. Germnay -- -- Javier Minguez Dpto de Infomatica e Ingenieria de Sistemas Universidad de Zaragoza Spain From emotionalhumanoidrobotics at gmail.com Mon Jan 12 22:01:22 2009 From: emotionalhumanoidrobotics at gmail.com (icra 2009) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:01:22 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [ICRA09] Call for papers: Workshop on "Current Challenges and Future Perspectives of Emotional Humanoid Robotics" Message-ID: ----------------------------------------------------------- WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT IEEE ICRA'09 Current Challenges and Future Perspectives of Emotional Humanoid Robotics ----------------------------------------------------------- The full-day workshop "Current Challenges and Future Perspectives of Emotional Humanoid Robotics" will be held during the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Kobe, Japan, on May 17, 2009 (Sunday) ----------------------------------------------------------- WORKSHOP HOMEPAGE ----------------------------------------------------------- http://www.robocasa.net/workshop/2009icra ----------------------------------------------------------- GOAL AND SCOPE ----------------------------------------------------------- This full day workshop will address the current challenges and the future perspectives of emotional humanoid robotics, from perception to expression, including modeling and understanding. It will also address the creation of mental and interaction models, and evaluation metrics for the interaction. This workshop will offer a unique opportunity of interaction among leading international researchers from a wide range of disciplines, and will provide to those interested in the field of emotional robotics the possibility to spend a full-immersion day with experts and colleagues, to learn and to discuss personally and interactively. ----------------------------------------------------------- List of topics ----------------------------------------------------------- This workshop will cover both the basis of robotic technology (such as mechanical engineering, control engineering, materials engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, information engineering, and ergonomics) and many other disciplines, including medicine, physiology, psychology, and neuroscience, as well as sociology, law, and ethics. In particular: * Human emotions & emotional humanoid robots; * Understanding the human motor control and human perception, and their relationship with emotions; * Novel paradigms of collaboration and interaction between robots and humans * Trends in neuroscience and neuroscientific models relevant to the design of new emotional robotic systems * Robotic platforms usable for validating and investigating neuroscientific models of emotions; * Biologically-inspired sensory-motor co-ordination The program will be selected to span both academic and industrial research. ----------------------------------------------------------- Important Dates ----------------------------------------------------------- Jan 31, 2009 (Sat) Deadline for submission of two-page abstracts Feb 13, 2009 (Fri) Notification of acceptance/rejection Feb 26, 2009 (Thu) Deadline for submission of final contributions --------------------------------------------------------- Abstract submission --------------------------------------------------------- Prospective authors should submit their contributions electronically in PDF format to the address emotionalhumanoidrobotics at gmail.com by January 31, 2009. The abstract submission should include: * Title * List of authors and affiliations * Abstract of 500-800 words * References to your own related work relevant web links * Figure captions * Figures should be submitted as attachment to the email A maximum of 2 figures is accepted. The figures (in jpeg, gif, or png formats) should be an attachment to the email. The abstracts of accepted contributions will be published on the workshop web site. A journal special issue is being planned for papers written based on abstracts submitted to the workshop. --------------------------------------------------------- Organizers --------------------------------------------------------- * Atsuo TAKANISHI Department of Mechanical Engineering Waseda University * Massimiliano ZECCA, Consolidated Research Institute for Advanced Science and Medical Care Waseda University ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Massimiliano ZECCA, Ph.D. Research Associate ASMeW - http://www.waseda.jp/scoe/ Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Consolidated Research Institute for Advanced Science and Medical Care Waseda University Takanishi Lab - http://www.takanishi.mech.waseda.ac.jp/ RoboCasa - http://www.robocasa.net ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From molfino at dimec.unige.it Mon Jan 12 22:52:22 2009 From: molfino at dimec.unige.it (Rezia Molfino) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 07:52:22 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Summer School -- Screw-Theory based methods and their application in robotics Message-ID: <496C3A26.6000904@dimec.unige.it> Dear colleague, This is the first call for participants in the International Summer School on Screw-Theory Based Methods in Robotics 22-30 August 2009 University of Genoa, Italy http://www.dimec.unige.it/PMAR/summer_screws_09/ Summer Screws '09, as we call it informally, will gather five experts in the robotics applications of screw-theory and up to 30 participants at the University of Genoa and the Italian Institute of Technology during the last week of August. The summer school will teach attendees how to apply existing methods and empower them to develop new ones in their own research. The basic theoretical notions will be introduced in a rigorous manner, with emphasis on examples, applications, and exercises. The main topics will be: 1. Basic vector-space properties of twists and wrenches: physical interpretation of the linear operations; linear dependence and independence, subspaces; bases and coordinates. (Lecturer: Dimiter Zlatanov) 2. Scalar products, dual spaces, reciprocity. Constraint and freedom in mechanisms. Constraint analysis, type synthesis of single loop mechanisms, type synthesis of parallel manipulators. (Lecturers: Xianwen Kong and Dimiter Zlatanov) 3. Velocity and singularity analysis of parallel and interconnected-chain mechanisms. Derivation of input-output velocity equations and singularity conditions. (Lecturers: Matteo Zoppi and Dimiter Zlatanov) 4. Mappings between screw spaces, stiffness and inertia. Structure of robot compliance. Eigenvalue problems and eigenscrews. Synthesis with springs. (Lecturer: Harvey Lipkin) 5. 6D formulation of the dynamics of individual rigid bodies and rigid-body systems. Equations of motion. Dynamics algorithms.(Lecturer: Roy Featherstone) Up to 30 registrations are available at the price of 300 euro, no later than 30 May, 2009. Summer Screws '09 is organized by the PMARlab Robotics Group, Department of Mechanics and Machine Design (DIMEC), University of Genoa, with the support of the Italian Instititute of Technology (IIT) and the endorsement of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and the Italian Robotics and Automation Association (SIRI). For more information visit the school's web page: http://www.dimec.unige.it/PMAR/summer_screws_09/ Please accept our best wishes for the holiday season. Sincerely yours, Rezia Molfino, Matteo Zoppi, Dimiter Zlatanov From kamal at iiit.ac.in Mon Jan 12 06:26:53 2009 From: kamal at iiit.ac.in (Kamal Karlapalem) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:56:53 +0530 (IST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] RoboCup 2009 Rescue Agent and Infrastructure Competition - Call for Participation Message-ID: <1128.71.65.237.81.1231770413.squirrel@mail.iiit.ac.in> ================================================================== Call for Intention: RoboCup Rescue Agent and Infrastructure Competitions 2009 ----- To be held in conjunction with Robocup 2009 in Graz, Austria (http://www.robocup2009.org/) ================================================================== http://roborescue.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/roborescue/robocup2008data/SourceCodes/ Please submit your intention to participate by the **26th of January 2009** (only affiliation information required-see below) The RobocupRescue Agent Simulation Competition is divided two main sub-leagues: the Agent competition and the Infrastructure competition. * Agent Competition: The Agent competition involves scoring competing agent coordination algorithms on different maps of the RobocupRescue simulation platform. The challenge in this case involves developing coordination algorithms that will enable teams of Ambulances, Police forces, and Fire Brigades to save as many civilians as possible and extinguish fires in a city where an earthquake has just happened. The following general issues have to be dealt with: 1. New scoring schemes for ranking the teams. 2. Large number of new maps for the competition. 3. Scenarios wherein agents can lose communication. 4. Scheduling 5. Data fusion 6. Distributed constraints optimisation problems Teams have to individually achieve a score on chosen maps which represent different situations (e.g., civilians and fires, major fire in one corner of a city, blocked roads to refuges, damaged platoon agents, fire maps, civilian maps where only fires need to be extinguished or civilians need be saved respectively) and this will determine how they compare with other teams. The best teams on each map are then selected to move up the various rounds of the tournament. The information on scoring is detailed in the ScoreVector Manual included with the CFP. The participants shall be updated with any minor software level changes made to the ScoreVector as is the case with the Rescue server. * Infrastructure Competition: The Infrastructure competition involves evaluating tools and simulators for simulating disaster management problems in general. Here, the intent is, (but not limited to), to build up realistic simulators and tools that could be used to enhance the basic RobocupRescue simulator and expand upon it. The best tools and simulators will be evaluated by a panel and a winner chosen accordingly. The best tools will be selected for further integration with the simulation platform. While the general goal of the competition is to develop tools for disaster management, it also provides a playground to try out tools and techniques developed by Multi-Agent Systems and Artificial Intelligence research communities. Procedure to enter the competitions: ---------------------------------------------------- We require that groups intent on participating in the competitions should send the following information to kamal at iiit.ac.in: Team Name: Affiliation: Leader: Contact email: Website: For each team member: Email: Address: Previous participation in RoboCupRescue: The deadline for pre-registration is the **26th of January 2009**. This does not require submitting any code or detailed explanation of your strategy/simulator. New-comers ------------------ We understand that not all groups are familiar with the RobocupRescue platform. However, new teams can either choose to code their own algorithms for the Agent competition or use algorithms developed by other teams in previous years. While the basic robocuprescue package comes with dummy agents pre-intalled, there are a number of JAVA-based and C++-based code that are open source and will be soon available for download here. Last years top 3 teams' codes will be directly downloadable from this page in the coming weeks. Note: It is important that new teams improve upon and acknowledge previous teams' codes. Otherwise, they may be disqualified. Important Dates: ------------------------ January 26th, 2009: Deadline for pre-registration. January 26th, 2009: Rules of the game and tentative package released. February 23rd, 2009: Teams submit their qualification material. March 9th, 2009: Acceptance notification to participating teams. July 2009: Competition takes place in conjunction with Robocup 2009. Technical and Organising Committee (TOC) Kamal Karlapalem (India) Nobuhiro Ito (Japan) Sarvapali Ramchurn (UK) Soheil Hassas Yeganeh (Iran) Omid AmirGhiasvand (Iran) Local Organizing Chair (LOC) Alexander Kleiner (Germany) Committee to evaluate TDPs (along with TOC & LOC) H. Levent Akin (Turkey) Cameron Skinner (New Zealand) Tomoichi Takahashi (Japan) Jiang Fu (China) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the new SourceForge.net Marketplace. It is the best place to buy or sell services for just about anything Open Source. http://p.sf.net/sfu/Xq1LFB _______________________________________________ Roborescue-committee mailing list Roborescue-committee at lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/roborescue-committee From akin at boun.edu.tr Thu Jan 15 07:06:02 2009 From: akin at boun.edu.tr (H. Levent AKIN) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:06:02 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP CLAWAR 2009 Message-ID: <496F50DA.7010106@boun.edu.tr> Apologies for multiple copies. ----------------------------- CLAWAR?2009 12th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots and the Support Technologies for Mobile Machines 09 ? 11 September, 2009, Istanbul, Turkey http://www.clawar2009.org/ Announcement and Call for Papers -------------------------------- Robotics is an exciting field in engineering and natural sciences. Robotics has already made important widespread contributions and impact in industrial robots for tasks such as assembly, welding, painting, and material handling. In parallel, we have also witnessed the emergence of special service robots which perform valuable jobs, in new environments such as search and rescue, surveillance, exploration and security missions as well as provide assistance to a variety of users. The emergence of mobile machines, such as the climbing and walking robots, for these missions in un-structured environments, has significantly broadened challenges that must be considered by robotics research. The purpose of the 12th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots and the Support Technologies for Mobile Machines (CLAWAR?2009) is to provide a venue where researchers, scientists, engineers and practitioners throughout the world can come together to present and discuss the latest achievements, future challenges and exciting applications for mobile service machines in general, and climbing and walking robots in particular. In order to benefit all participants, and also to maximize the interaction, the technical program of this conference is intentionally tailored to having relatively few parallel tracks. Each track will accommodate peer-reviewed articles, comprising regular and special sessions, dealing with theoretical, experimental and application works. Moreover, the conference will include several keynote lectures and poster sessions. Topics of Interest (non-exhaustive list): ---------------------------------------- RESEARCH ? Autonomous robots ? Tele-operated robots ? Biologically-inspired systems and solutions ? Innovative design of CLAWAR ? Modelling and simulation of CLAWAR ? Planning and control ? Co-operative robot systems ? Intelligence and learning for CLAWAR ? HMI ? Innovative actuators and power supplies ? Innovative sensors and sensor networks ? Positioning & localization ? Perception and sensor fusion ? Guidance and navigation ? Manipulation and gripping ? Legged locomotion ? Wheeled locomotion ? Hybrid locomotion ? Micro and nano robots ? Tele-presence and virtual reality ? Service robot standards and standardization ? SME robotics APPLICATION ? Planetary exploration ? Security ? Emergence rescue operations ? Surveillance ? Reconnaissance ? Education ? Biomedical robots ? Rehabilitation and function restoration ? Petrochemical applications ? Inspection ? Construction ? Entertainment ? Helping the elderly and the disabled ? Manufacturing ? Performing and creative arts robots ? Personal robots ? Robots for domestic environments ? Service robots ? Space robots ? Assistive robots ? Sport and exercise robots Important Dates: ---------------- February 1, 2009 Proposals for Special Sessions March 1, 2009 Submission of Extended Abstracts April 15, 2009 Notification of Acceptance May 15, 2009 Submission of Final (accepted) Papers June 1, 2009 Early Bird Registration June 1, 2009 Author Registration July 1, 2009 Preliminary Program September 9-11, 2009 Conference General Co-Chairs: Oguz Tosun, Turkey H. Levent Akin, Turkey Program Chair: M. Osman Tokhi, UK International Advisory Committee: Gurvinder S. Virk, New Zealand (Chair) M Armada, Spain Y Baudoin, Belgium K Berns, Germany P Bidaud, France B Bridge, UK A T de Almeida, Portugal K Kozlowski, Poland G Muscato, Italy L Seneviratne, UK M Xie, Singapore International Program Committee: M N Ahmadabadi, Iran F M Aldbrez, UK K Althoefer, UK A K M Azad, USA R Arkin, USA C Balaguer, Spain D Barnes, UK J Billingsley, Australia F Bonsignorio, Italy C Bostater, USA K Bouazza-Marouf, UK M Buehler, Canada G Bugmann, UK S Cameron, UK C Cardeira, Portugal C Chevallerau, France C-M Chew, Singapore P Corke, Australia H Cruse, Germany S Cubero, Australia J Dai, UK B Davies, UK P G de Santos, Spain R Dillmann, Germany T J Dodd, UK S Dubowsky, USA M Dunbabin, Australia E Dupuis, Canada M S Dutra, Brazil A Dutta, India J-G Fontaine, Italy L Fortuna, Italy Y Fu, China H Fujimoto, Japan T Fukuda, Japan E Garcia, Spain S S Ge, Singapore Z Gong, China V Gradetsky, Russia A Halme, Finland E Herrera, Colombia N Heyes, UK S Hirose, Japan M. A. Hossain, UK D Howard, UK L Huang, NZ R Jarvis, Australia S F Jatsun, Russia E E Kadar, UK O Kaynak, Turkey P Kiriazov, Bulgaria P Kopacek, Austria K Kosuge, Japan V Larin, Ukrain S Lee, Korea D Lefeber, Belgium M A Lewis, USA J Lopez-Coronado, Spain H Ma, China J T Machado, Portugal L Marques, Portugal R Molfino, Italy S Moon, Korea T Pipe, UK H R Pota, Australia D K Pratihar, India L Preucil, Czech Republic J Qian, China W-Y Qiang, China R Quinn, USA M Rachkov, Russia M Ribeiro, Portugal J Sa da Costa, Portugal J M A Salichs, Spain V Santos, Portugal T P Sattar, UK K Schilling, Germany M H Shaheed, UK M A Shamsuddin, Malaysia M N H Siddique, UK F Silva, Portugal L Steinicke, Belgium L Vajta, Hungary A Vitko, Slovakia K J Waldron, USA R Walker, UK T White, UK H W?ern, Germany Y Yamada, Japan A Yigit, Kuwait S Ylonen, Finland S Zahedi, UK M Zecca, Japan H Zheng, China Z W Zhong, Singapore C J Zhou, Singapore T Zielinska, Poland A Zomaya, Australia Local Organizing Committee: Bar?? G?k?e Can Kavakl?o?lu ?etin Meri?li Tekin Meri?li Workshop on Humanoid Robotics: Changjiu J Zhou, Singapore Special Sessions: Gurvinder S Virk, New Zealand Exhibition/Competition: Tekin Meri?li, Turkey -- =================================================================== H.Levent Akin [] To acquire knowledge and Department of Computer Engineering [] communicate it to others Bogazici University [] has been the ambition, 34342 Bebek-Istanbul [] pleasure, and business of TURKEY [] my life. [] -William Harvey [] Phone: +90 (212) 359 6769 [] Fax: +90 (212) 287 2461 [] E-Mail:akin at boun.edu.tr [] URL:http://www.cmpe.boun.edu.tr/~akin [] From alex.farinelli at gmail.com Tue Jan 13 17:50:46 2009 From: alex.farinelli at gmail.com (Alessandro Farinelli) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:50:46 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ADAPT 2009 workshop at AAMAS Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, The ADAPT (Agent Design: Advancing from Practice to Theory) welcomes your submissions on the topic of evaluating and improving the theoretical foundations of the agents community from our practical experiences. Short paper submissions are being accepted through Feb. 12. Details are below. Please feel free to forward to colleagues who might find this of interest. We look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, Rajiv Maheswaran Nathan Schurr Alessandro Farinelli *ADAPT 2009 Workshop Agent Design: Advancing from Theory to Practice AAMAS 2009 MOTIVATION* AAMAS is the premier international conference for both theoretical and applied agent-based research. However, in today's agents community, theory and practice seem to be walking separate paths with no clear feedback between the two. The ADAPT workshop hopes to bridge this gap by fostering an exchange where the lessons learned from taking theory to practice are used to understand the limitations of the theoretical models and the lessons learned directly from practice and used to discover the issues that theoretical models need to address. Over the last several years, members of the agents community have been involved with real-world systems in robotics, decision-support agents, personal-assistant agents in military, space and commercial domains. Many of the lessons learned from these endeavors involve the surprises, difficulties and flaws. These lessons are often not shared because they bring about questions for which an answer is not apparent. Nevertheless, it is important for our community to know and discuss these challenges if we are to produce the ideas and technology that are transformative and ultimately, utilized by practitioners. Some of these challenges may include: * Giving users a language to compactly communicate their problems; problem description * Translating a problem description into a chosen formalism; modeling * The lack of information to populate a model * The effects of bounded memory and processing on algorithms * Real-world communication channels * Communicating with a human user, e.g., giving instructions, receiving updates * Getting real information from the environment; sensing * User error or misinterpretation of instructions An important aspect of this workshop is not only to discuss these challenges, but also to develop directions for existing and new theoretical models so that algorithms and approaches that result can actually function in practice. *SHORT PAPER SUBMISSION* We are soliciting papers that discuss lessons learned from taking theory to practice or extracting lessons about theory from practice, particularly those that can identify issues with existing theoretical formulations or suggest new directions or approaches. Papers can be up to 5 single-spaced pages in standard LaTeX article format or Word with 1-inch margins in 12 point font. The papers will be reviewed by the Organizing Committee on the ability to further the goals and discussion that align with the motivation of the workshop. Position papers are also welcome. Please e-mail your submissions to by the deadline. *BEST PAPER AWARD * A best paper award will be chosen by the organizing committee. The winning authors will receive one free registration to the workshop. *PRESENTATIONS * All accepted papers will be invited to give short presentations on their experiences and ideas. In addition, we will have the following invited speakers: * *Nick Jennings*, University of Southampton * *Gal Kaminka*, Bar-Ilan University * *Pedro Szekely*, Information Sciences Institute * *Milind Tambe*, University of Southern California *DEADLINES * Submission: Feb 12, 2009 Notification: March 1, 2009 Camera-Ready: March 12, 2009 *ORGANIZING COMMITTEE * Rajiv Maheswaran Research Scientist, Information Sciences Institute Research Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department USC Viterbi School of Engineering University of Southern California E-mail: Nathan Schurr Human-Agent Collaboration Scientist Aptima, Inc. Email: Alessandro Farinelli Research Fellow, School of Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton Email: From Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at Tue Jan 13 08:50:13 2009 From: Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at (Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:50:13 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: Workshop on "Societal Impact: How Socially Accepted Robots Can be Integrated in our Society" - HRI2009 Message-ID: REMINDER: CfP Deadline 15th January 2009! Workshop on "Societal Impact: How Socially Accepted Robots Can be Integrated in our Society" http://workshops.icts.sbg.ac.at/hri2009societal/ at ? 4th ACM/IEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction 2009 http://hri2009.org/ 10th of March ?2008 San Diego, CA ?????????????????????? Call for Papers (apologies for multiple postings): ? The workshop on "Societal Impact: How Socially Accepted Robots Can be Integrated in our Society" will be held in San Diego, CA at the ACM/IEEE HRI2009 conference. This half-day workshop will discuss possible methodological approaches to evaluate social acceptance and societal impact of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) with a special focus on collaboration with robots. This workshop will be held as * Follow-up to the workshop "Robots as Social Actors: Evaluating Social Acceptance and Societal Impact of Robotic Agents" http://workshops.icts.sbg.ac.at/roman2008social/ which was held during IEEE Ro-Man 2008 and * In conjunction with the Workshop "Social Responsibility in HRI: Conducting our Research, Changing the World" http://www.rpi.edu/%7Efreien/hri2009workshop which will be held beforehand at this year's HRI conference. *Important dates* ? Submission of informal position papers (between 1 and max 4 pages):Sunday, 15th January 2009 Feedback to authors: Saturday, 28th February 2009 ? A special issue for the International Journal of Social Robotics is being planned for papers written based on abstracts submitted to the workshop. ? *Workshop topics* ? Submissions are invited addressing one or more of the following questions: 1. What kind of metrics already exist in the field of HRI for measuring social acceptance, like physiological measurements, behaviour observations, surveys etc.? 2. What are the pros and cons of existing evaluation methods and what are the innovations potentials toward other methods? 3. Do existing evaluation methods address needs for introducing robotic agents into "real life"? 4. How to support acceptance in Human-Robot Collaboration? 5. Which interdisciplinary approaches are used in HRI to address social acceptance and societal impact? 6. Which ethical issues should be concerned in the development of robotic agents, like legal aspects, psychological aspects etc. 7. How can the development of robotic agents be sustainable? 8. Which cultural differences exist in terms of societal impact on future Western and Asian societies? ? *Guidelines for submission* Workshop candidates should send a position paper (no longer than 4 A4 pages) before 15.01.2009 about a research or study they have been involved with (related to the topics described above) to astrid.weiss at sbg.ac.at. All position papers must be submitted in PDF format! *Organizing Committee* ? * Astrid Weiss, ICT&S Center - University of Salzburg, * Manfred Tscheligi, ICT&S Center - University of Salzburg, * Aude Billard, LASA Laboratory - EPFL Lausanne, From brugali at unibg.it Thu Jan 15 06:37:16 2009 From: brugali at unibg.it (Davide Brugali) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:37:16 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: Inaugural Issue of Journal of Software Engineering for Robotics Message-ID: <496F4A1C.6040408@unibg.it> ------------------------------------------------------------ Submission deadline for the inaugural issue : *June 1, 2009* ------------------------------------------------------------ Dear colleague, I'm happy to announce the creation of a journal dedicated to robotic software development, the *Journal of Software Engineering for Robotics*. 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/ 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 isler at cs.rpi.edu Wed Jan 14 07:01:48 2009 From: isler at cs.rpi.edu (Volkan Isler) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:01:48 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Papers: Workshop on Robotic Wireless Sensor Networks Message-ID: <496DFE5C.8050008@cs.rpi.edu> International Workshop on Robotic Wireless Sensor Networks http://hinrg.cs.jhu.edu/RWSN09/Home in conjunction with the International Conference on Distributed Computing in Sensor Systems (DCOSS) http://www.dcoss.org/ Submission Deadline: March 30, 2009 Workshop Date: June 10, 2009 Location: Marina Del Rey, California In the last decade, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been successfully deployed to perform numerous automation tasks such as environmental monitoring, surveillance and inventory tracking. By introducing actuation capabilities (in particular controlled-mobility), robots have the potential to improve the capabilities of existing WSNs significantly. Recent advances in robotics as well as the availability of inexpensive robotic platforms have made it feasible to develop hybrid networks in which multiple mobile robots interact with each other and other static sensors to perform complex tasks. On the other hand, design and implementation of such hybrid systems bring forth new algorithmic and systems challenges related to coordination, planning, and resource management. The goal of this workshop is to explore the algorithmic and systems aspects at the intersection of robotics and sensor networks. We seek work in a variety of areas including: * Development of hardware and software platforms * Experiences from deployments * Resource allocation algorithms * Novel research challenges and applications * Localization and route planning * Sensor tasking, control and planning Program Co-Chairs: Andreas Terzis and Volkan Isler From jlpons at iai.csic.es Wed Jan 14 04:20:18 2009 From: jlpons at iai.csic.es (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Jos=E9_L._Pons?=) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:20:18 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Workshop on "Interfacing the Human and the Robot (IHR)" in ICRA 2009 Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, In the framework of the coming ICRA 2009 conference (Kobe, Japan, May 12-17 2009) a full-day workshop on "Interfacing the Human and the Robot" is being organised. The call for contributions is now open. Details on the objectives, audience, preliminary programme and the Call itself are available at http://www.iai.csic.es/icra2009. Should you need any further details or information do not hesitate to contact me via email: jlpons at iai.csic.es. Best regards, Jos? L. Pons Grupo de Bioingenier?a - Bioengineering Group Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cient?ficas Ctra. Campo Real, km. 0,200 28500 Arganda del Rey, Madrid, Spain Tel.: 0034 918711900 Fax.: 0034 918717050 From jneira at unizar.es Tue Jan 13 12:18:47 2009 From: jneira at unizar.es (=?windows-1252?Q?Jos=E9_Neira?=) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:18:47 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICRA'09 Workshop on Visual Mapping and Navigation in Outdoor Environments Message-ID: <496CF727.6010403@unizar.es> =============================================================== Annoucement of ICRA Workshop on "Visual Mapping and Navigation in Outdoor Environments" Kobe, Japan, May 12 http://webdiis.unizar.es/~neira/icra2009 =============================================================== This full-day workshop will be held at ICRA 2009 in Kobe, on Tuesday, May 12 2009, 9:00-17:00. The invited speakers include some of the most prominent researchers in the field, who are currently investigating the use of visual sensors for navigation and mapping in challenging outdoor environments: urban, suburban, offroad, underwater, and airborne. The list of invited speakers includes: ?Martin Adams, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore ?Wolfram Burgard, University of Freiburg, Germany ?Ryan Eustice, University of Michigan, USA ?Dieter Fox, University of Washington, USA ?Kurt Konolige, Willow Garage, USA ?Simon Lacroix, LAAS/CNRS, France ?Paul Newman, University of Oxford, UK ?Roland Siegwart, ETH Zurich, Switzerland ?Salah Sukkarieh, University of Sydney, Australia ?Juan D. Tard?s, University of Zaragoza, Spain ?Stefan Williams, University of Sydney, Australia For details on registration and schedule, please see the workshop home page. -- Jose Neira ---------------------------------------------------- Departamento de Inform?tica e Ingenier?a de Sistemas Centro Polit?cnico Superior Universidad de Zaragoza Edificio Ada Byron Mar?a de Luna 1 E-50018 Zaragoza, Spain Fax: (34) 976 761 914; Voice: (34) 976 761 947; Office D.1.19 Email: jneira at unizar.es; URL: http://webdiis.unizar.es/~neira From kamal at iiit.ac.in Wed Jan 14 11:38:58 2009 From: kamal at iiit.ac.in (Kamal Karlapalem) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 01:08:58 +0530 (IST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Latest - RoboCup 2009 Rescue Agent and Infrastructure Competition - Call for Participation Message-ID: <1226.86.217.7.6.1231961938.squirrel@mail.iiit.ac.in> ================================================================== Call for Intention: RoboCup Rescue Agent and Infrastructure Competitions 2009 ----- To be held in conjunction with Robocup 2009 in Graz, Austria (http://www.robocup2009.org/) Dated : 14th Jan 2009 Date of Notification changed from March 9th to March 3rd. ================================================================== http://roborescue.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/roborescue/robocup2008data/SourceCodes/ Please submit your intention to participate by the **26th of January 2009** (only affiliation information required-see below) The RobocupRescue Agent Simulation Competition is divided two main sub-leagues: the Agent competition and the Infrastructure competition. * Agent Competition: The Agent competition involves scoring competing agent coordination algorithms on different maps of the RobocupRescue simulation platform. The challenge in this case involves developing coordination algorithms that will enable teams of Ambulances, Police forces, and Fire Brigades to save as many civilians as possible and extinguish fires in a city where an earthquake has just happened. The following general issues have to be dealt with: 1. New scoring schemes for ranking the teams. 2. Large number of new maps for the competition. 3. Scenarios wherein agents can lose communication. 4. Scheduling 5. Data fusion 6. Distributed constraints optimisation problems Teams have to individually achieve a score on chosen maps which represent different situations (e.g., civilians and fires, major fire in one corner of a city, blocked roads to refuges, damaged platoon agents, fire maps, civilian maps where only fires need to be extinguished or civilians need be saved respectively) and this will determine how they compare with other teams. The best teams on each map are then selected to move up the various rounds of the tournament. The information on scoring is detailed in the ScoreVector Manual included with the CFP. The participants shall be updated with any minor software level changes made to the ScoreVector as is the case with the Rescue server. * Infrastructure Competition: The Infrastructure competition involves evaluating tools and simulators for simulating disaster management problems in general. Here, the intent is, (but not limited to), to build up realistic simulators and tools that could be used to enhance the basic RobocupRescue simulator and expand upon it. The best tools and simulators will be evaluated by a panel and a winner chosen accordingly. The best tools will be selected for further integration with the simulation platform. While the general goal of the competition is to develop tools for disaster management, it also provides a playground to try out tools and techniques developed by Multi-Agent Systems and Artificial Intelligence research communities. Procedure to enter the competitions: ---------------------------------------------------- We require that groups intent on participating in the competitions should send the following information to kamal at iiit.ac.in: Team Name: Affiliation: Leader: Contact email: Website: For each team member: Email: Address: Previous participation in RoboCupRescue: The deadline for pre-registration is the **26th of January 2009**. This does not require submitting any code or detailed explanation of your strategy/simulator. New-comers ------------------ We understand that not all groups are familiar with the RobocupRescue platform. However, new teams can either choose to code their own algorithms for the Agent competition or use algorithms developed by other teams in previous years. While the basic robocuprescue package comes with dummy agents pre-intalled, there are a number of JAVA-based and C++-based code that are open source and will be soon available for download here. Last years top 3 teams' codes will be directly downloadable from this page in the coming weeks. Note: It is important that new teams improve upon and acknowledge previous teams' codes. Otherwise, they may be disqualified. Important Dates: ------------------------ January 26th, 2009: Deadline for pre-registration. January 26th, 2009: Rules of the game and tentative package released. February 23rd, 2009: Teams submit their qualification material. March 3rd, 2009: Acceptance notification to participating teams. March 9thm2009: Registration Starts July 2009: Competition takes place in conjunction with Robocup 2009. Technical and Organising Committee (TOC) Kamal Karlapalem (India) Nobuhiro Ito (Japan) Sarvapali Ramchurn (UK) Soheil Hassas Yeganeh (Iran) Omid AmirGhiasvand (Iran) Local Organizing Chair (LOC) Alexander Kleiner (Germany) Committee to evaluate TDPs (along with TOC & LOC) H. Levent Akin (Turkey) Cameron Skinner (New Zealand) Tomoichi Takahashi (Japan) Jiang Fu (China) From paul.ploeger at fh-bonn-rhein-sieg.de Fri Jan 16 00:43:04 2009 From: paul.ploeger at fh-bonn-rhein-sieg.de (=?ISO-8859-15?Q?=22Paul_G=2E_Pl=F6ger=22?=) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 09:43:04 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CfP: RoboCup@Home 2009, June 29-July 5, 2009, Graz, Austria http://www.robocupathome.org Message-ID: <49704898.5030509@fh-bonn-rhein-sieg.de> ---------------------- Call for Participation ---------------------- RoboCup at Home 2009 June 29-July 5, 2009 Graz, Austria http://www.robocupathome.org What is RoboCup at Home? --------------------- The RoboCup at Home league targets development and deployment of autonomous service and assistive robot technology being essential for future personal domestic applications. It is is part of the international RoboCup initiative and the biggest service and home robotic competition world-wide. The RoboCup at Home tournaments are organized in well defined test scenarios, which are used to evaluate the robots? abilities and performance in a realistic non-standardized home environment. It establishes a common benchmark suite. Focus of the @Home league ------------------------- * Human-robot cooperation through natural interaction * Navigation and mapping in dynamic environments * Computer vision and object recognition in natural light * Object manipulation * Speech and gesture recognition * Person detection and tracking * Ambient intelligence * Standardization and system integration Features of @Home ------------------ * Open, extendable framework for benchmarking * Lean set of rules * Realistic domestic environment and useful tasks * Low entry levels and progressive requirement increments * Attractiveness and conviviality Examples of @Home Tests ----------------------- Introduce: The robot introduces itself and the team. Follow me: A person guides the robot through the scenario using voice and gesture commands. Fetch & Carry: Find and bring and object to the user. Who's Who: Find and remember unknown persons. Partybot: Find persons, receive orders and serve a drink. Supermarket: An unknown user has make the robot to retrieve certain objects from a shelf. Walk&Talk: Teach in locations in an unknown environment by showing the robot around Cleaning up: Recognize and arrange unknown objects on the floor Further information ------------------- RoboCup at Home Homepage: http://www.robocupathome.org Details on Registration: http://www.ai.rug.nl/robocupathome/registration2009.html Videos on RoboCup at Home: http://www.youtube.com/robocupathome RoboCup 2009 Homepage: http://www.robocup2009.org Looking forward to see you in Graz! The RoboCup at Home Organizing Committee From solis at kurenai.waseda.jp Tue Jan 13 23:26:41 2009 From: solis at kurenai.waseda.jp (Jorge Solis) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:26:41 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] (Deadline Extension) ICRA2009 Workshop on Roboethics Message-ID: <003201c97619$758d3c20$60a7b460$@waseda.jp> Dear Colleagues: Due to several requests, the abstract submission deadline for the ICRA2009 Workshop on Roboethics has been extended to January 25, 2009. For further details, please access the webpage at: www.roboethics.org/icra2009 ********************************************* CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Full-Day Workshop on Roboethics ********************************************* A workshop at: ICRA 2009 (www.icra2009.org) Sunday, May 17th, 2009 Kobe, JAPAN URL: www.roboethics.org/icra2009 Abstract: Robotics research is increasingly raising ethical issues, related to the merging interactions between robots and humans. Roboethics deals with the ethical aspects of the design, development and employment of Intelligent machines. It shares many "sensitive areas" with Computer Ethics, Information ethics and Bioethics. Along these disciplines, it investigates the social and ethical problems due to the effects of the Second and Third Industrial Revolutions in the Humans/Machines interaction's domain. The focus of this workshop includes the study of how social, political, and cultural values affect robotics research and robotics application to society. In turn, how robotics affects society, politics, and culture - the basic assumption being that that science and technology are socially embedded. This full-day workshop is open to - and it strongly encourages - the p anticipation of researchers and scholars from other communities, both in science and humanities. This cultural openness provides the robotics researchers with a wide-range intellectual exchange, especially important in the perspective of educating young roboticists to interdisciplinary among technical disciplines, and to transdisciplinarity among engineering, life science and humanities. This workshop invites submissions on the following topics (but are not limited to): 1. Social (Robotics and job market; Cost benefit analysis; etc.); 2. Psychological (Robots and kids; Robots and elderly, etc.); 3. Legal (Robots and liability; Identification of autonomously acting robots, etc.); 4. Medical (Robotics in health care and prosthesis, etc.); 5. Warfare application of robotics; 6. Environmental (underwater robotics noise pollution, etc.) Extended Submission Deadline: January 25, 2009: Abstract Submission deadline February 1, 2009: Notification of Acceptance/Rejection February 25, 2009: Camera-Ready Submission Deadline Contributed abstracts are limited to 3000 characters, including title, authors, affiliations. Six pages in the standard ICRA format are allowed for each paper, including figures. A maximum of two additional pages is permitted. Prospective authors should submit their contributions electronically in PDF format to the address: icra2009 at roboethics.org Co-Organizers: Gianmarco Veruggio (CNR-IEIIT, ITALY) Ron Arkin (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA) Atsuo Takanishi (Waseda University, JAPAN) Jorge Solis (Waseda University, JAPAN) Matthias Scheutz (Indiana University, USA) Fiorella Operto (School of Robotics, ITALY) From secretariat at icorr2009.org Wed Jan 14 17:29:08 2009 From: secretariat at icorr2009.org (ICORR 2009 Secretariat) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 10:29:08 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Reminder ICORR 2009: Call for Papers Message-ID: <496E9164.4030107@icorr2009.org> Dear Colleagues, It is our great pleasure to announce the Call for Papers of: The 2009 IEEE 11th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR 2009) which will be held in Kyoto, Japan, from June 23 to 26, 2009. http://www.icorr2009.org/ ICORR 2009 will be focused on a number of topics including the themes of: - Assistive Robotics - Therapeutic Robotics - Mechatronics in Prosthetics - Artificial Human Exoskeletons - Psychosocial Robotics - Robotics for Caregiving - Neural-Machine Interfaces & Control - Robotics for Human-Motion Analysis - Evaluation & Clinical Experience The theme of the conference is "Reaching Users & the Community,? reflecting the strong demands on the rehabilitation robotics researchers to bring the fruits of their efforts to users and the community who wish to utilize them in their daily life. *** Important Dates *** January 31, 2009: Submission of full papers and video clips March 28, 2009: Notification of paper acceptance April 25, 2009: Final papers and W/T manuscripts due June 23-26, 2009: ICORR 2009 Conference We are looking forward to seeing you in Kyoto. ICORR 2009 General Chair Kiyoshi Nagai ----------------------------------------------------------------- Kiyoshi Nagai, Dr. Eng. Professor Department of Robotics College of Science and Engineering Ritsumeikan University Noji-higashi 1-1-1, Kusatsu, Shiga 525-8577, Japan Tel: +81-77-561-2750, Fax: +81-77-561-2665 E-mail: nagai at se.ritsumei.ac.jp ----------------------------------------------------------------- From pgoncalves at est.ipcb.pt Thu Jan 15 18:25:36 2009 From: pgoncalves at est.ipcb.pt (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Paulo_Jorge_Sequeira_Gon=E7alves?=) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 02:25:36 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2nd Call for Papers: Robotica'2009 - 9th CONFERENCE ON AUTONOMOUS ROBOT SYSTEMS AND COMPETITIONS Message-ID: <851a09ac0901151825r7e794c88g259bf81d8c7b0a3@mail.gmail.com> ********************************************************************************************************* ---- 2nd CALL FOR PAPERS ----2nd CALL FOR PAPERS ------ 2nd CALL FOR PAPERS ------ ********************************************************************************************************* 9th CONFERENCE ON AUTONOMOUS ROBOT SYSTEMS AND COMPETITIONS http://www.est.ipcb.pt/robotica2009/ec/index.htm with IEEE-RAS Technical co-sponsorship The 9th Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions is the 2009 edition of the scientific meeting of the Portuguese Robotics Open - ROB?TICA'2009 (http://www.est.ipcb.pt/robotica2009/ec/), and will take place at the Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco, Portugal, on May 7th, 2009. This conference aims to disseminate scientific contributions in areas of relevance to Autonomous Robotics. Its scope encompasses, but is not restricted to the fields of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Education. Topics ====== Artificial Intelligence Architectures and Middleware for Autonomous Robots Motion and Actuation Systems Sensorimotor Control System Integration and Software Engineering Computer Vision and Image Processing Recognition, Localization and Tracking Planning, Reasoning and Modelling Navigation and Control of Mobile Robots Simultaneous Localization and Mapping Mobile Robots and Humanoids Multi-agent and Multi-robot Systems Cooperative Perception and Navigation Robot Team Coordination Learning and Adaptive Systems Field and Service Applications Robotic Competitions Simulation and Visualization Computer and Robotic Entertainment Edutainment Robotics Submission =========== Authors are kindly invited to submit electronically their contributions by February 1st, 2009. Each contribution consists of a full-length paper with a possibly attached video. Detailed instructions on the electronic submission process and formats can be found at the conference website: http://www.est.ipcb.pt/robotica2009/ec/index.htm Submissions will be peer reviewed by the International Program Committee and selected on the basis of quality and relevance to the topics of the conference. Important Dates =============== Submission of full-length papers 1st February, 2009 Notification of acceptance 16th March, 2009 Camera Ready papers 26th March, 2009 Robotica'2009 begins 7th May, 2009 Publication and Prizes ====================== All accepted contributions, either presented orally or in the poster session, will be published in the conference proceedings (DVD and book). Videos included in an accepted contribution will also be published in the conference DVD. The 9th Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions will award prizes based on the reviewers comments and respective Committees. The final selection will be announced during the conference and in the conference web site. Organizers ========== Paulo Gon?alves (IPCB - PT) Paulo Torres (IPCB - PT) best regards, -- Paulo Jorge Sequeira Gon?alves www.est.ipcb.pt/pessoais/paulog From wamageed at umiacs.umd.edu Thu Jan 15 22:15:49 2009 From: wamageed at umiacs.umd.edu (Wael Abd-Almageed) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 01:15:49 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Deadline Extension: 2nd IEEE Human Detection from Mobile Platforms Workshop with ICRA 2009 Message-ID: Extended Submission deadline 11:59 PST January 31st, 2009 2nd IEEE Workshop on Human Detection from Mobile Platforms (IEEE HDMP 2009) in conjunction with IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Kobe, Japan, 12?17 May, 2009. Workshop Website: http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/conferences/hdmp/ Workshop Theme: The robot's ability to detect, identify and interact with surrounding humans is of unequivocal importance in many applications. When interaction with humans is imminent, safety and reliability are critical conditions before robots can be widely deployed in livable societies. For example, in health/elderly care communities, where robots interact with humans with less-thanperfect health conditions, reliable performance cannot be tolerated. Also, safe operation is major barrier before large-scale deployment of smart vehicles. Human detection, tracking and identification have been focus areas for many computer/robot vision researchers. However, many practical aspects of these problems have yet to be addressed in order to create robots capable of seamlessly interacting in livable societies, mainly because the nature of such applications requires high accuracy at very high processing rates. Computer vision and robotics researchers are invited to submit original contributions in related topics such as, but not limited to: ? Human detection in bad weather conditions ? Night-time human detection ? Multimodal human detection ? Detecting humans in non-upright postures ? Exploiting GPUs and FPGAs in human detection systems ? Recognizing dynamic human gestures ? Human tracking from mobile platforms Important Dates: Extended Submission deadline 11:59 PST January 31st, 2009 Notification of Acceptance/Rejection 11:59 PST February 15th, 2009 Camera-ready version 11:59 PST March 1st, 2009 Workshop date May 17th, 2009 Workshop Chairs: ? Dr. Wael Abd-Almageed, University of Maryland at College Park, USA ? Dr. Larry Matthies, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA From Philippe.Lutz at ens2m.fr Fri Jan 16 00:14:54 2009 From: Philippe.Lutz at ens2m.fr (Philippe LUTZ (FEMTO-ST)) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 09:14:54 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP for ICRA 09 - Workshop on "Control issues in the micro/nano-world" Message-ID: <497041FE.1010404@ens2m.fr> Object : CFP for ICRA 09 - Workshop on "Control issues in the micro/nano-world" Call for papers for ICRA09 International Workshop on "Control Issues in the micro/nano-world" , Kobe, Japan, May 12-17th. * website of the workshop: http://www.femto-st.fr/~micky.rakotondrabe/icra09/ * topics: - Automation in the micro/nano-world, - Control of systems for micro/nanomanipulation and positioning, - signal observers in micro/nano, - micro/nano imaging and metrology (AFM, etc.), - control of MEMS/NEMS. * important dates: - January 24, 2009: Abstract Submission deadline (less than 300words), - February 7, 2009: Notification of Acceptance/Rejection, - February 15, 2009: Extended Abstract Submission deadline (the camera ready file). If you intend to submit a paper, please send by mail before January 24 to mtrakoton at femto-st.fr an abstract (less than 300 words). More details can be found at the workshop website http://www.femto-st.fr/~micky.rakotondrabe/icra09/ or in the attached file. Best regards and Happy new year 2009 * The organizers: - Micky Rakotondrabe, FEMTO-st Institute - Besan?on France, http://www.femto-st.fr/~micky.rakotondrabe/ - John Wen, CAT RPI - Troy NY USA, http://www.cats.rpi.edu/~wenj/ - Philippe Lutz, FEMTO-st Institute - Besan?on France, http://www.femto-st.fr/en/ ======================================================================== * Abstract The objective of this workshop is to give an overview of current control techniques for systems in the micro/nano-world and MEMS/MOEMS/NEMS. Systems for microassembly and micromanipulation, micro/nano-positioning, imaging/measuring and manipulating systems with nanometer accuracy (AFM, etc.) are considered. These applications require a high position accuracy and sometimes a rapid response time, but the characteristics (e.g., hysteresis, creep, etc.) of the actuator and sensor materials (piezoelectric, SMA materials, etc.) frequently limit the performance. Moreover, the minute displacements in these systems lead to very low signal-to-noise ratio in the position measurements Finally, sensors that can provide the required performances for micro/nano-manipulation tasks are often large and not easily integrated into the system, and sensors with small dimensions are often noisy and with limited dynamic ranges. The participants of the workshop will present innovative control techniques to address these challenges related to the sensing and control in micro/nano-scale systems. The aim is to exchange experience and know-how on open-loop and closed-loop control approaches and to initiate collaborations. The workshop is a full day workshop. -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Philippe Lutz Professeur des Universit?s D?partement AS2M/FEMTO-ST UMR CNRS 6174 - UFC/ENSMM/UTBM 24 rue Alain Savary F - 25000 Besan?on http://www.femto-st.fr Direct phone: (33) 0 381 402 785 Portable: (33) 0 670 218 094 Fax: (33) 0 381 402 809 E-mail: Philippe.Lutz at ens2m.fr --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From tapus at usc.edu Tue Jan 13 11:06:57 2009 From: tapus at usc.edu (Adriana Tapus) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 11:06:57 -0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] HRI 2009: Student Volunteers Message-ID: Dear all, We are pleased to announce that there is a limited amount of funding available to partially support volunteer students travel to HRI09. Students receiving support will be expected to volunteer time to help with on-site registration and with general duties, if needed, from 10 March (early on-site registration, tutorials and workshops) to 13 March, 2009. Being a Student Volunteer is a great way to enter the HRI research community, meet other students in your field, and attend one of most important conferences in HRI. We are looking to include students with diverse backgrounds in HRI and from all parts of the world. To request funding, please send the following information to adriana.tapus at usc.edu (1) Provide: Your Name, Your Affiliation (name and address of college/university), Your Contact Information (email address and telephone number(s)). (2) Indicate: - whether you are a part-time or full-time student, and include the name of your faculty advisor with email and telephone contact information; - whether or not you are a (co)author of a paper or poster (please specify whether regular poster or informal poster) at HRI09; if you are receiving or requesting funding from the Young Researchers Workshop on 10 March 2009 Please include information about your area of study. (3) A statement of your requested funding amount and a brief justification of your funding needs (250 words maximum). Note that you do not have to have an accepted paper/poster at HRI09 to be considered for financial support. The deadline for the information submission is January 31, 2009. ____________________________________ Dr. Adriana Tapus Postdoctoral Research Associate Robotics Research Lab / Interaction Lab Computer Science Department University of Southern California Phone: +1 213-740-6245 Fax: +1 213-821-5696 Email: tapus at usc.edu Webpage: http://www-robotics.usc.edu/~tapus From EDWWANG at ntu.edu.sg Tue Jan 13 01:34:05 2009 From: EDWWANG at ntu.edu.sg (Wang Dan Wei (Prof)) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:34:05 +0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Reminder of CFP: special issue on Vehicle Terrain Interaction for Mobile Robots -- February 1, 2009- Submission of manuscripts Message-ID: <4FFBE7D294FA9D4392628A59BD82DA9B051734AD@EXCHANGE22.staff.main.ntu.edu.sg> Special Issue on Vehicle Terrain Interaction for Mobile Robots Journal of Field Robotics Special Issue Guest Editors: Danwei Wang, Nanyang Technological University, Philippe Martinet, Universit? Blaise Pascal & Karl Iagnemma, Massachusetts Institute of Technology This special issue focuses on state-of-the-art developments in modeling, estimation, motion planning, and control of all terrain mobile robots with significant vehicle-terrain interaction effects. Mobility in outdoor unstructured or semi-structured environments is an important consideration for mobile robotic systems. Modeling and estimation of the contact between tire (or track, foot, or other appendage) and ground, control performance robustness to uncertainties and disturbances, path/trajectory generation over 3D terrain, and precise trajectory tracking in dynamic environments, represent challenging issues in our scientific community. This special issue will stimulate interest and provides motivation for further research and development in intelligent transportation and autonomous robotics. Details can be found in http://www.journalfieldrobotics.org/Special_Issues.html We invite papers that exhibit theory and methods applied to modeling, estimation, path planning and control of all terrain mobile robots with vehicle-terrain interactions. Topics are including, but not limited to: 1. *modeling of interaction between the robot running gear and terrain, including analysis of the interaction between wheels, tracks, feet, or other appendages with soil, vegetation, or other natural materials; 2. *description of uncertainties to vehicle motions, such as skidding/ slipping, and methods for explicit consideration of these uncertainties in planning and control; 3. *methods for sensing, sensor fusion, and estimation in the presence of terrain-induced perturbations 4. *experiments in posture estimation, data fusion, and control implementation; Papers for this special issue must also provide technical descriptions of systems and results and analysis of experimentation. For this special issue, experimental verification via field experiments is considered essential. Important Dates: February 1, 2009- Submission of manuscripts May 1, 2009- Reviews sent to the authors August 1, 2009- Final manuscripts due for publication Authors interested in submitting to this issue can discuss submissions with the special issue editors: Danwei Wang (edwwang at ntu.edu.sg), Philippe Martinet (Philippe.Martinet at lasmea.univ-bpclermont.fr) and Karl Iagnemma (kdi at mit.edu) From ml at adoc-tm.com Thu Jan 15 13:59:49 2009 From: ml at adoc-tm.com (Matthieu Lafon) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:59:49 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Job offer in Humanoid robotics Message-ID: Job offer in Humanoid robotics Adoc talent management is the first recruitment company specialized on PhDs hiring. We are currently looking for a scientist expert in complex motion and object catching, for our client, Aldebaran Robotics. Founded in 2005, Aldebaran Robotics is the first French start-up developing humanoid robots for consumer applications. "NAO", the first autonomous and easily programmable humanoid robot, was selected as the new official robot in the worldwide RoboCup's Standard Platform League. "NAO" will be brought to market in 2009. Aldebaran Robotics is in constant growth and is now composed of 44 employees. The company expands the R&D teams in order to improve object catching as well as robot motion. PhD/Doctor in mechanics, automatism or robotics, you present strong competencies in generation of motions and\or object catching. A good command in inverted Kinematics is essential for the position. The candidate will have to present good skills of modeling. Programming in C ++ and knowledge in embedded software is required , that of Matlab would be an asset. A working experience on the articulated arm of a robot (trajectories of approach and work under constraint) or on the robot walking (with two or four legs) is needed. In both cases, the management of 6 degrees of freedom minimum is required. You are passionately interested in robotics and high tech, able to learn quickly new technologies. You are creative, innovative and dynamic. You appreciate the new challenges and multidisciplinary teamwork. You speak French. Salary will be negotiated according to your experience. The position is based in Paris and to be filed in immediately. Please send your application to Adoc talent management (www.adoc-tm.com) by e-mail to adoc-480213 at cvmail.com From tadokoro at rm.is.tohoku.ac.jp Fri Jan 16 01:58:21 2009 From: tadokoro at rm.is.tohoku.ac.jp (Satoshi Tadokoro) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:58:21 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Papers: ICRA2009 Workshop on Robotics for Disaster Response Message-ID: <20090116185201.BA49.CB6C3084@rm.is.tohoku.ac.jp> ** CALL FOR PAPERS ** ICRA2009 Workshop on Robotics for Disaster Response Full papers should be submitted by e-mail to tadokoro at rm.is.tohoku.ac.jp in PDF format. Six camera-ready pages including figures are allowed for each paper. Important Dates February 14, 2009: Deadline of full paper submission February 20, 2009: Notification of acceptance February 26, 2009: Deadline of final camera ready May 13, 2009: Workshop (9:00AM-12:00AM, Room 504, Session WW-H9) Objectives of Half-Day Workshop This half-day workshop focuses on robotics from theories and analyses to actual systems that contribute response actions against natural and man-made disasters. Urban search and rescue is an important humanitarian theme as one of the applications of robotics. Robotic systems have been applied to real disasters such as September 11th, Hurricane Catrina, and Berkman Plaza II. Research projects such as DDT Project have been performed to enhance application of robotics. Performance metrics for evaluation is being standardized by a group of NIST and ASTM. Competitions such as RoboCupRescue have activated this area. Robots are being used for recovery from disaster. Inspection and construction in critical situation bring the workers at risk. Robotic systems and technologies are powerful tools to avoid secondary damage. The wide-range presentations and discussions in this workshop will promote robotics research and application in this area. Organizers Satoshi Tadokoro, Tohoku University / International Rescue System Institute (IRS), Japan Robin Murphy, Texas A&M University / Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR), USA Adam Jacoff, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), USA Fumitoshi Matsuno, University of Electro-Communications, Japan Daniele Nardi, University of Rome, La Sapienza, Italy Richard Voyles, University of Denver, USA IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, TC on Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics List of Topics The topics are as follows, but not limited to - Robot performance requirements and technical solutions for applications of SSRR (urban search and rescue, CBRN hazard detection/mitigation, explosive ordinance disposal, physical security, surveillance, $B!D(B) - 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, $B!D(B) - Manipulation capabilities (hazards, payloads, obstacles, doors, $B!D(B) - Communications for reliable data transfer (tether management, radio, $B!D(B) - 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, $B!D(B) - Emergency management issues related to robotics -- Satoshi Tadokoro IEEE Fellow, JSME Fellow Professor, Graduate School of Information Sciences, Tohoku University 6-6-01 Aramaki Aza Aoba, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8579 Japan Phone +81-22-795-7022 Fax +81-22-795-7023 $BElKLBg3XBg3X1!(B $B>pJs2J3X8&5f2J(B $B1~MQ>pJs2J3X at l96(B $B65k8)@gBf;T at DMU6h9S4,;z at DMU(B6-6-01 From dzsong at cs.tamu.edu Sun Jan 18 11:06:17 2009 From: dzsong at cs.tamu.edu (Dezhen Song) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2009 13:06:17 -0600 (CST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP for JISR Special Issue on Networked Robots Message-ID: Journal of Intelligent Service Robotics Announcing: Special Issue on Networked Robots: Serving the Society Networked robots pose a number of technical challenges related to network noise, reliability, congestion, fixed and variable time delay, stability, passivity, range and power limitations, deployment, coverage, safety, localization, sensor and actuation fusion, privacy, security, and user interface design. New capabilities arise frequently with the introduction of new hardware, software, and protocol standards. In this special issue, the research topics are focused on addressing algorithmic and system challenges when the networked robots are used in service applications. Possible Topics: 1. Communication Variable time delays, packet effects Protocol design for networked robots Security, Privacy Low Latency Video, Tactile 2. Coordination, Algorithms Collaborative, distributed control, formation, swarm intelligence Deployment, localization, mobility Mapmaking and network self-organization 3. Systems and Applications Human interfaces, human-robot interaction Power management Hybrid architectures, interoperability Hardware (sensors, power, size, cost) Paper Submission: Deadline for paper submission: 15 Mar. 2009 Paper reviews returned to authors: 15 May 2009 Deadline for camera ready papers: 15 June 2009 Expected journal publication date: July 2009 See http://faculty.cs.tamu.edu/dzsong/tc/JISR-special-issue-call.html for details. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Special Issue Editors: Nak Young Chong, School of Information Science, JAIST, Japan Norihiro Hagita, ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communicatuon Laboratories, Japan Volkan Isler, Computer Science Dept., Univ. of Minnesota, USA Klaus Schilling, Computer Science Dept., the University of Wrzburg, Germany, Dezhen Song, Computer Science and Engineering Dept., Texas A&M University, USA From guo at eng.kagawa-u.ac.jp Fri Jan 16 19:50:14 2009 From: guo at eng.kagawa-u.ac.jp (Shuxiang GUO) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2009 12:50:14 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2nd CFP of IEEE ICMA 2009 (Changchun, China, August 9-12, 2009) Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.J.20090117124750.05ebff10@smtp.eng.kagawa-u.ac.jp> with IEEE-RAS Co-sponsorship Dear Colleague, The 2009 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation (ICMA 2009) will take place in Changchun, Jilin, China from August 9 to August 12, 2009. Please visit the website http://www.ieee-icma.org/ for the detailed information. A renowned ancient city in China, Changchun is situated in northeastern China. As the capital of Jilin province, Changchun is known as the cradle of new China's automobile industry, applied chemistry and so on. It ranks predominantly China in terms of the research and development on optics, exactitude apparatus, laser technique, macromolecule material, biological super conduct and automobile, etc. The objective of ICMA2009 is to provide a forum for researchers, educators, engineers, and government officials involved in the general areas of mechatronics, robotics, automation and sensors to disseminate their latest research results and exchange views on the future research directions of these fields. The topics of interest include, but not limited to the following: - Intelligent mechatronics, robotics, biomimetics, automation and control systems - Opto-electronic elements and Materials, laser technology and laser processing - Elements, structures, mechanisms, and applications of micro and nano systems - Teleoperation, telerobotics, haptics, and teleoperated semi-autonomous systems - Sensor design, multi-sensor data fusion algorithms and wireless sensor networks - Biomedical and rehabilitation engineering, prosthetics and artificial organs - Control system modeling and simulation techniques and methodologies - AI, intelligent control, neuro-control, fuzzy control and their applications - Industrial automation, process control, manufacturing process and automation Important Dates: March 20, 2009: Full papers and organized session proposals May 1, 2009: Proposals for tutorials and workshops May 15, 2009: Notification of paper and session acceptance June 1, 2009: Submission of final papers in IEEE Contributed Paper: All paper must be submitted in PDF format prepared strictly following the IEEE PDF Requirments for Creating PDF Documents for the IEEE XploreR. The standard number of pages is 6 and the maximum page limit is 8 pages with extra payment for the two extra pages. See detailed instructions in the conference web site. All paper accepted by IEEE ICMA 2009 will be indexed by EI and included in IEEE XploreR. Organized Sessions: Proposals with the title, the organizers, and a brief statement of purpose of the session must be submitted to an OS Chair by March 20, 2009. Tutorials & Workshops: Proposals for tutorials and workshops that address related topics must be submitted to one of the Tutorial/Workshop Chairs by May 1, 2009. Best Paper Competition: IEEE ICMA conference has the following four categories of conference awards: 1) Best Conference Paper Award 2) Toshio Fukuda Best Award in Mechatronics 3) Best Paper Award in Automation 4) Best Student Paper Award The winner of the Best Paper Award will receive a certificate. You are expected to make contributions to this conference via contributing high quality papers and attending the conference. We are striving to make IEEE ICMA 2009 a high quality conference. Your strong support is greatly appreciated. Sincerely, yours Toshio Fukuda & Shuxiang Guo, General Chairs of IEEE ICMA 2009 Yong Yu, Program Chair of IEEE ICMA 2009 ---------------------------------------- Shuxiang GUO (PH.D, Professor, IEEE Senior Member) Founding Chair of IEEE ICMA Conference ( IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation) Intelligent Mechanical Systems Eng'g Dept. Fac. of Engineering, Kagawa University 2217-20, Hayashi-cho, Takamatsu, 761-0396, JAPAN Tel:+81-87-864-2333, Fax:+81-87-864-2369(2333) E-mail: guo at eng.kagawa-u.ac.jp URL:http://www.eng.kagawa-u.ac.jp/~guo/ URL:http://biomecha.eng.kagawa-u.ac.jp/ ----------------------------------------- From jeedward at yahoo.com Fri Jan 16 13:23:59 2009 From: jeedward at yahoo.com (John Edward) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 13:23:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ARCS-09 final call for papers Message-ID: <107972.53313.qm@web45901.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> ARCS-09 final call for papers ? The 2009 International Conference on Automation, Robotics and Control Systems (ARCS-09) (website: http://www.PromoteResearch.org ) will be held during July 13-16 2009 in Orlando, FL, USA. We invite draft paper submissions. 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 nchopra at umd.edu Fri Jan 16 06:00:35 2009 From: nchopra at umd.edu (Nikhil Chopra) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 09:00:35 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP Elsevier Mechatronics Journal Special Issue: Design and Control Methodologies in Telerobotics Message-ID: 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 All manuscripts should follow the general guidelines for authors of Mechatronics. Manuscripts should not have been published or be under consideration at other journals. Please submit your paper electronically to the "Elsevier Mechatronics Journal" by selecting the "Special Issue: Design Control Methodology". 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 sitti at cmu.edu Sun Jan 18 20:29:04 2009 From: sitti at cmu.edu (Metin Sitti) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2009 23:29:04 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] AIM 2009 Call for Papers Message-ID: AIM 2009 Call for Papers: The 2009 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics will be held on July 14-17, 2009 in Suntec International Convention and Exhibition Center, Singapore. The theme of the conference is "Mechatronics for Everyday Lives". AIM 2009 conference invites submissions of high quality research papers describing original work on abstractions, algorithms, theories, methodologies, and case studies on the following topics: Actuators, Automotive Systems, Bioengineering, Data Storage Systems, Electronic Packaging, Fault Diagnosis, Human-Machine Interfaces, Industry Applications, Information Technology, Intelligent Systems, Machine Vision, Manufacturing, Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems, Micro/Nano Technology, Modeling and Design, Motion Vibration and Noise Control, Neural and Fuzzy Control, Opto-Electronic Systems, Prototyping, Real-Time and Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation, Robotics, Sensors, System Integration, Transportation Systems, and other fields of mechatronics. Contributed Papers: Original full papers must be submitted in PDF format prepared strictly following the IEEE PDF Requirements for Creating PDF Documents for the IEEE Xplore(r). For detailed format information, please visit the conference website: http://www.aim2009.org. Accepted and presented papers will be indexed by EI and included in IEEE Xplore(r). Best Paper Award: All submitted papers will be included in the evaluation for the Best Conference Paper Award. Tutorials & Workshops: Proposals for half day or full day tutorials and workshops addressing new topics in intelligent mechatronics are invited for submission to the T/W Chairs. Proposals must include (1) statement of objectives, (2) intended audiences, (3) list of speakers, and (4) list of topics. Organized Sessions: Organized session proposers should submit to the Organized Session Chairs a brief statement of purpose for the session as well as the abstract of the papers to be included. A typical organized session consists of 4 to 5 related papers. Technical Tours: In parallel to the technical sessions, the conference organizers will provide a number of technical tours to the participants to the major industrial companies, research institutions, and universities in Singapore. Details of the industrial tours will be posted on the conference website. Important Dates: Submission of Full Paper & Organized session papers January 31, 2009 Submission of Tutorials/Workshops proposals January 31, 2009 Notification of Paper Status April 1, 2009 Submission of Final Paper April 30, 2009 Advanced Registration April 30, 2009 Metin Sitti, PhD Associate Professor, Adamson Career Faculty Fellow NanoRobotics Lab, Carnegie Mellon University Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Institute Address: 5000 Forbes Ave., 320 Scaife Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 Tel: 412-268-3632 Fax: 412-268-3348 E-Mail: sitti at cmu.edu Lab: http://nanolab.me.cmu.edu MechE: http://www.me.cmu.edu/people/faculty/sitti.htm RI: http://www.ri.cmu.edu/people/sitti_metin.html From k_schi at t-online.de Sun Jan 18 22:05:56 2009 From: k_schi at t-online.de (Schilling,Klaus) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2009 07:05:56 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] NetRob 2009 - IFAC Workshop on Networked Robotics, 6.-8.October in Golden (Colorado) Message-ID: <49741844.6090802@informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de> IFAC Workshop on Networked Robotics October 6-8, 2009 ?Golden, Colorado USA http://control.mines.edu/netrob09 Important Deadlines Paper submissions April 1, 2009 Notification of acceptance June 15, 2009 Final paper submission August 1, 2009 Early registration cutoff August 1, 2009 Background and Scope Control of mobile robots or other entities, including multi-agent systems, via communication networks (wired or wireless, Internet or LAN) offers challenging research questions. Combinations of tele-operation and tele-presence methods with autonomous decision-making and control actions are needed in order to establish robust solutions in networked robotics applications, including such arenas as sensor networks with mobile components, search and rescue robots for emergency response, planetary exploration, and many others. NetRob2009 presents a three-day, single-trackworkshop aimed at promoting development of a theoretical basis for combining control and telecommunication techniques, as well as demonstrating the current state-of-the-art in applications. Workshop areas of focus include, but are not limited to: Networked robots Networked UAVs Control through networks Control of networks Mobile sensor-actuator networks Mobile sensor networks Tele-robotics, tele-presence Telematics methods Tele-operations, tele-maintenance Remote control Remote sensor data acquisition Robot path planning Autonomous control Robotics Mobile ad hoc networks Communication algorithms Applications of telematics Invitation The Program and Organizing Committees are pleased to invite you to participate in the 2009 IFAC Workshop on Networked Robotics. NetRob2009 will be held Tuesday-Thursday, October 6-8, 2009 at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado, USA. Call for Papers Paper submissions will be handled electronically. Please refer to the conference website for the most up-to-date information about the conference and how to submit a paper. For further information, please refer to the NetRob 2009 website at: http://control.mines.edu/netrob09 From a.visser at uva.nl Tue Jan 20 05:08:29 2009 From: a.visser at uva.nl (Arnoud Visser) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:08:29 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Participation: RoboCup 2009 Rescue Virtual Robot competition Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.1.20090120115739.0182e3d0@uva.nl> Dear all, hereby a call for participation in the Virtual Robot competition in the RoboCup Rescue Simulation League. The Virtual Robot competion will be part of the RoboCup 2009, June 29 - July 5 in Graz, Austria What is the Virtual Robot competition? The Virtual Robot competition is an initiative to stimulate research in robotics that allow autonomously exploration of devastated areas, providing high quality maps and demonstrating the capability to actively search and localize victims using robot models and control algorithms consistent with the state of the art. Who can participate? Everybody with experience in controlling an autonomous robot can participate. The Virtual Robot competition has a sophisticated simulation environment (http://sourceforge.net/projects/usarsim/), including a wide variety of robot and sensor models. The interaction of the robot and sensors are simulated in this environment in a physical realistic way. The communication to and from the robot and sensors is performed via a socket-interface, so existing control software should be easily ported to the simulation environment. The Virtual Robot competition allows to experiment with your control algorithms and hardware configurations without the need to buy this equipment . Important dates * symposium submission : February 2, 2009. * team pre-registration: February 28 2009. * team description paper deadline: February 28 2009. * team registration: April 20 2009. * competition: June 29 - July 5 2009. * symposium: June 30 - July 3 2009. Further information http://www.robocuprescue.org/wiki/index.php?title=VRCompetitions#Graz_2009 Interested teams should sent a email to , for further details of the qualification procedure. Regards, Arnoud Visser Universiteit van Amsterdam Technical Committee RoboCup Rescue Simulation League From rusu at cs.tum.edu Tue Jan 20 13:07:07 2009 From: rusu at cs.tum.edu (Radu Bogdan Rusu) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:07:07 -0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Juniorprofessor (W1) for Cognitive Control at TUM Message-ID: <49763CFB.8000900@cs.tum.edu> The Department of Informatics at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen invites applications for the position of a Juniorprofessor (W1) for *Cognitive Control* which is to be filled as soon as possible. The position is equivalent to an assistant professorship. Candidates are expected to have an excellent scientific record in the area of the learning and reasoning applied or applicable to autonomous robot control. Application domains include * AI-based control for everyday manipulation tasks, * perception, interpretation, and analysis of everyday activities, and * the development of action skills. Research experience in at least one of the following fields is expected: - learning and reasoning with probabilistic models - knowledge representation and algorithmic methods for reasoning under uncertainty - methods for optimization and approximation in cognitive control - methods extracting information from the World-wide Web to provide provide cognitive systems with knowledge about objects (appearance, 3D models), commonsense knowledge, encyclopedic knowledge, social knowledge, etc. Active participation in the Cluster of Excellence "Cognition for Technical Systems" (www.cotesys.org) is expected. Furthermore, teaching contributions are expected in the bachelor, master, and diploma education of the faculty. The appointment will be for an initial period of three years. Upon positive evaluation of the performance the position will be extended to an over-all duration of six years. Candidates must hold a degree from a university or an accredited college of applied science, pedagogical aptitude, and the qualification for academic work, which is typically proven by an excellent Ph.D./doctorate. Further academic achievements, which may have been also obtained outside the university environments, are desirable. In cases of substantially equal eligibility, preferential consideration will be given to disabled candidates. As part of the excellence initiative of the German federal and state governments, the Technische Universitaet Muenchen pursues the strategic goal of substantially increasing the proportion of women in research and education and thus expressly invites qualified female scientists to apply for this position. Applications with the usual supporting information (CV, certificates, credentials, etc., list of publications including reprints of the most important papers) should be submitted to: Dekan der Fakultaet Informatik der TU Muenchen, Arcisstrasse 21, 80333 Munich, Germany or by Email to alfons.kemper at in.tum.de Deadline for applications is 1 February, 2009. -- | Radu Bogdan Rusu | http://rbrusu.com/ From yoshikawa at jeap.org Tue Jan 20 17:54:02 2009 From: yoshikawa at jeap.org (Yuichiro Yoshikawa) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 10:54:02 +0900 (LMT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Workshop on "Human Robot Interaction: Cognitive factors and their applications" in ICRA 2009 Message-ID: <20090121.105402.18066698.yoshikawa@jeap.org> (Apologies for multiples copies) ========================================================================== Call for Participation for IEEE ICRA'09 ICRA Workshop on "Human Robot Interaction: Cognitive factors and their applications" Kobe, Japan, May 13th ( 9:00 - 12:00 ) http://www.ed.ams.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp/link/icra2009/WorkshopICRA2009HRI.htm =========================================================================== --------- Overview --------- The aim of this half day workshop is to discuss the state-of-the-art in human-robot interaction and bridges several approaches related to human-robot interaction, especially robot development and human behavior understanding. Roughly speaking, Japan and Korea are leading in the development of humanoids and USA and European countries are leading in cognitive architecture of the robots and human behavior understanding. It is important to bridge to these activities and establish a seamless research area. Throughout the workshop, we will focus on the core scientific questions as well as key engineering issues related to the design, implementation and use of such robots for a broad range of applications ranging from health care, to construction, to planetary exploration. Leading researchers will present their experiences and lessons learned from real-world systems. The workshop will culminate in a panel discussion to identify key scientific and technical challenges. This workshop is designed to benefit researchers and students who are interested in developing interactive robots and the state-of-the-art in the close interdisciplinary and internationally collaborative research areas. --------------------------- List of confirmed speakers --------------------------- - Kazuhiro Kosuge (Tokoku Univ.) - Shigeki Sugano (Waseda Univ.) - Gerhard Sagerer (CoR-Lab) - Hiroshi Ishiguro (Osaka Univ.) - Yuichiro Yoshikawa (JST/Osaka Univ.) --------------- List of topics --------------- *Discuss design elements required for socially intelligent robots including appearance, social cognition, human modeling, communication, interaction, and social learning *Review common problems, challenges, and potential solutions *Identify core scientific questions pertaining to the realization of intelligent robot teammates *Identify directions for future research and potential applications *Educate the audience on the difficulties inherent in human-robot interaction, especially designing to support human social intelligence and interaction *Foster technical discussion among leading researchers --------------- Registrations --------------- Please see the registration page which will appear soon at ICRA2009 HP. http://www.icra2009.org/ Workshop organizers Hiroshi Ishiguro, Cecilia Laschi, Cynthia Breazeal, Yasuchi Nakauchi, and Yuichiro Yoshikawa ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yuichiro Yoshikawa Asada Synergistic Intelligence Project, ERATO, JST, Japan Dept. of Adaptive Machine Systems, Graduate School of Eng., Osaka Univ. 401 FRC-1, Graduate School of Eng., Osaka Univ. 2-1 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, Japan 565-0871 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From frehe at ida.liu.se Wed Jan 21 04:13:49 2009 From: frehe at ida.liu.se (Fredrik Heintz) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:13:49 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP Swedish AI Society Workshop 27-28 May 2009 Message-ID: <4977117D.6080300@ida.liu.se> Please distribute to interested colleagues ********************************************************************** CALL FOR PAPERS The 25th annual workshop of the Swedish Artificial Intelligence Society (SAIS) May 27 - 28, 2009 Link?ping, Sweden http://www.sais.se/sais2009 The 25th annual workshop of the Swedish Artificial Intelligence Society (SAIS) will take place in Link?ping, Sweden on May 27-28, 2009. The SAIS workshop provides an ideal forum for contacts among AI researchers and practitioners in Sweden and neighboring countries, as well as for establishing links with related research disciplines and industry. Visit http://www.sais.se/sais2009 for more information. The purpose of the SAIS workshop is: * To give PhD students an opportunity to present their research to a friendly and knowledgeable audience and receive valuable feedback. * To provide a forum for established researchers and practitioners to present past and current research contributing to the state of the art of AI research and applications. * To provide an informal social event where AI researchers and practitioners can meet. In addition to the regular presentations there will be invited talks and presentations by the winners of the SAIS Master's Thesis Award and the SAIS Best AI Paper Award. We invite two types of contributions to the SAIS workshop: * Original research papers * Position papers from research groups or companies The main purpose of position papers is to communicate research activities of individuals and groups in Sweden and neighboring countries. Such papers should describe current research/application challenges or current research/application endeavors. All papers will be carefully reviewed by the program committee. Accepted papers will be published in the electronic workshop proceedings. Copyright stays with the authors and authors of previously unpublished papers accepted to the SAIS workshop are encouraged to submit these to other workshops or conferences. Original papers are not to exceed ten (10) pages, including all figures and references, in two-column A4 article format with 10pt font (detailed instructions are provided on the workshop webpage). Papers may be accepted for oral presentation or as posters. Position papers are limited to six (6) pages. All submissions should be in PDF and must be written in English. Papers should be submitted through EasyChair. INVITED SPEAKERS: * Wolfram Burgard, University of Freiburg Probabilistic techniques for mobile robot navigation * Tom Ziemke, Sk?vde University Why robots need emotions * Danica Kragic, KTH Vision for object manipulation and grasping * Patric Jensfelt, KTH Title to be announced * Christian Schulte, KTH Title to be announced IMPORTANT DATES: Paper submission deadline: February 27, 2009 Notification of acceptance: April 10, 2009 Deadline for final papers: April 29, 2009 The SAIS workshop: May 27-28, 2009 VENUE: The SAIS workshop will be held at the Department of Computer and Information Science (IDA) on the campus of Link?ping University. COLOCATED EVENTS: May 27th: The yearly workshop of SweConsNet, the Network for Sweden-based researchers and practitioners of Constraint programming. ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Patrick Doherty Fredrik Heintz (chair) Jonas Kvarnstr?m (co-chair) PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Christian Balkenius Lund University Marcus Bj?reland AstraZeneca Henrik Bostr?m University of Sk?vde Mathias Broxvall ?rebro University Paul Davidsson Blekinge Institute of Technology Patrick Doherty Link?ping University Patrik Eklund Ume? University G?ran Falkman University of Sk?vde Pierre Flener Uppsala University Peter Funk M?lardalen University Fredrik Heintz Link?ping University Anders Holst SICS Kai H?bner KTH Sture H?gglund Link?ping University Arne J?nsson Link?ping University Lars Karlsson ?rebro University Jonas Kvarnstr?m Link?ping University Jan Eric Larsson Lund University Jacek Malec Lund University Michael Minock Ume? University Lars Mollberg Ericsson Anthony Morse University of Sk?vde Mattias Nyberg Scania/Link?ping University Thorsteinn R?gnvaldsson University of Halmstad/University of ?rebro Lambert Spaanenburg Lund University Cecilia S?nstr?d University of Bor?s Vivian Vimarlund Link?ping University Ning Xiong M?lardalen University From n.a.hawes at cs.bham.ac.uk Wed Jan 21 05:05:06 2009 From: n.a.hawes at cs.bham.ac.uk (Nick Hawes) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:05:06 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Job Opportunity: Research Fellow on EU Cognitive Robotics Project Message-ID: <49771D82.4050504@cs.bham.ac.uk> UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM SCHOOL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH FELLOW - COGNITIVE ROBOTICS PROJECT Applications are invited for a Research Fellow to work on the EU-funded project: CogX: Cognitive Systems that Self-Understand and Self-Extend. The post is available from 1st April 2009 onwards and is for the lifetime of the project, which ends on 30th June 2012. The post will be concerned with the integration of reasoning, introspection and motivation systems into a complex intelligent robot. The person appointed to this post will work on new methods for representing and reasoning about a system?s knowledge and capabilities, and use these new approaches to build an architectural framework for managing an intelligent system?s goals and motivations. The work will have a strong practical element, with the post holder required to play a lead role in the theoretical and practical integration of project-wide results (including vision, language, navigation and planning systems) into a robotic demonstrator system, using the developed architectural framework. You will have a strong background in AI planning, reasoning, architectures for intelligent systems, sequential decision making or middleware for intelligent systems. The post holder will work in a team of six researchers within the Intelligent Robotics Lab at Birmingham, and along with partner groups at five other universities. Information on the CogX project is available at http://cogx.eu. The Intelligent Robotics Lab (http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/go/irlab) is a growing centre for research in robotics, cognition and machine learning in the UK. We collaborate with engineers, psychologists and biologists to develop new ideas and techniques. The group currently has 17 members, including 4 faculty, 4 postdoctoral researchers and 9 doctoral students, and holds over ?1.6m in external research funding. As part of your duties you will also be encouraged to contribute to grant writing, and setting the research agenda for the future work of the group. Strong communication and management skills are therefore essential. The ideal candidate must hold a PhD in Computer Science, AI, Cognitive Science, Engineering or a related subject, OR possess equivalent research experience, including, if possible, robotics research experience and linux expertise. Excellent programming skills, in C/C++ or Java, together with the ability to engineer software to very high standards of reliability, are also required. Informal enquiries (preferably by email) to any of: Dr Nick Hawes email: N.A.Hawes at cs.bham.ac.uk tel.: +44 121 415 8279 http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~nah/ Dr Jeremy Wyatt email: J.L.Wyatt at cs.bham.ac.uk tel.: +44 121 414 4788, http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~jlw/ Dr Richard Dearden email: R.W.Dearden at cs.bham.ac.uk tel.:+44 121 414 6687 http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~rwd/ Prof Aaron Sloman email: A.Sloman at cs.bham.ac.uk tel.: +44 121 414 4775 http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/ Starting salary of up to ?38,757 a year, in the range of ?36,532 to ?43,622 a year (potential progression on performance once in post to ?49,096). Closing date: 6th February 2009. Late applications will be considered if the appointments process has not gone too far. Reference: 43285 For more details see, including the application procedure, see: http://snipurl.com/cogx-rf-09-1 cheers, -- Dr. Nick Hawes Lecturer in Intelligent Robotics School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~nah || +44 121 415 8279 || skype: nickhawes From raj.madhavan at nist.gov Tue Jan 20 10:54:51 2009 From: raj.madhavan at nist.gov (Raj Madhavan) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:54:51 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [DEADLINE Feb. 1st] CFP Autonomous Robots Journal Special Issue: Characterizing Mobile Robot Localization and Mapping Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090120135418.01f74c90@mailhub.mel.nist.gov> [Call for Papers] Autonomous Robots Journal Special Issue: Characterizing Mobile Robot Localization and Mapping Editors: Raj Madhavan, Chris Scrapper, and Alexander Kleiner IMPORTANT DATES * Paper submission deadline: February 1 * Notification to authors: May 1 * Camera ready papers: August 1 Stable navigation solutions are critical for mobile robots intended to operate in dynamic and unstructured environments. In the context of this special issue, stable navigation solution is taken to mean the ability of a robotic system "to sense and create internal representations of its environment and estimate pose (where pose consists of position and orientation) with respect to a fixed coordinate frame". Such competency, usually termed localization and mapping, will enable mobile robots to identify obstacles and hazards present in the environment, and maintain an estimate of where they are and where they have been. A myriad of approaches have been proposed and implemented, some with greater success than others. Since the capabilities and limitations of these approaches vary significantly depending on the requirements of the end user, the operational domain, and onboard sensor suite limitations, it is essential for developers of robotic systems to understand the performance characteristics of methodologies employed to produce a stable navigation solution. Currently, there is no way to quantitatively measure the performance of a robot or a team of robots against user-defined requirements. Additionally, there exists no consensus on what objective evaluation procedures need to be followed to deduce the performance of various robots operating in a variety of domains. Lack of reproducible and repeatable test methods have precluded researchers working towards a common goal from exchanging and communicating results, inter-comparing robot performance, and leveraging previous work that could otherwise avoid duplication and expedite technology transfer from the "drawing board" to the field. For instance, currently, the evaluation of robotic maps is based on qualitative analysis (i.e. visual inspection). This approach does not allow for better understanding of what errors specific systems are prone to and what systems meet the needs. It has become common practice in the literature to compare newly developed mapping algorithms with former methods by presenting images of generated maps. This procedure turns out to be suboptimal, particularly when applied to large-scale maps. The absence of standardized methods for evaluating emerging robotic technologies has caused segmentation in the research and development communities. This lack of cohesion hinders the attainment of robust mobile robot navigation, in turn slowing progress in many domains, such as manufacturing, service, health care, and security. Providing the research community access to standardized tools, reference data sets, and an open-source library of navigation solutions, researchers and consumers of mobile robot technologies will be able to evaluate the cost and benefits associated with various navigation solutions. The primary focus of this special issue is to bring together what is so far an amorphous research community to define standardized methods for the quantitative evaluation of robot localization algorithms and/or robot-generated maps. The performance characteristics of several approaches will be documented towards developing a stable navigation solution by detailing the capabilities and limitations of each approach and by the inter-comparison of experimental results, as well as the underlying mechanisms used to formulate these solutions. Through this effort, we seek to start the process, which will compile the results of these evaluations into a reference guide that documents lessons learned and the performance characteristics of various navigation solutions. This will enable end users to select the "best" possible method that meets their needs and will also lead to the development of the adaptive systems that are more technically capable and at the same time are safe thus permitting collaborative operations of man and machine. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): * Characterizing navigation in complex unstructured domains & requirements imposed by dynamic nature of operating domains * Evaluation frameworks and adaptive approaches to developing stable navigation solutions * Probabilistic methodologies with particular attention to uncertainty in assessing robot-generated maps * Visualization tools for assessing localization and mapping * Methods for ground truth generation from public map sources * Multi-robot localization and mapping * Testing in various domains of interest ranging from manufacturing floors to urban search and rescue * Applications with demonstrated success or lessons learnt from failures The above topics are by no means exhaustive but are only meant to be a representative list. We particularly encourage submissions related to mobile robot field deployments, challenges encountered, and lessons learnt during such implementations. Theoretical investigations into assessing performance of robot localization and mapping algorithms are also welcome. Please contact the guest editors if you are not sure if a particular topic fits the special issue. SUBMISSION INFORMATION See journal webiste at http://www.springer.com/10514 Manuscripts should be submitted to: http://AURO.edmgr.com This online system offers easy and straightforward log-in and submission procedures, and supports a wide range of submission file formats. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 kanda at atr.jp Wed Jan 21 16:11:21 2009 From: kanda at atr.jp (Takayuki Kanda) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:11:21 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: HRI 2009 Workshop (UPDATE) Message-ID: <004201c97c25$f5b2f4f0$e118ded0$@jp> Submission deadline extended to February 15, 2009. Social Responsibility in HRI: Conducting our Research, Changing the World Workshop Website: http://www.rpi.edu/~freien/hri2009workshop Submission (1 Paragraph to 1 Page Statement) Due (extended deadline) February 15, 2009 At the 2008 ACM/IEEE Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2008) a provocative panel was held to discuss the complicated ethical issues that abound in the field of human-robot interaction. The panel members and the audience participation made it clear that the HRI community desires - indeed, is in need of - an ongoing discussion on the nature of social responsibility in the field of human-robot interaction. At this half-day workshop, we will explore through presentation and discussion the issues of social responsibility in HRI, focusing on the unique features of HRI (e.g., value-specific domains such as autonomy, accountability, trust, and/or human dignity; and application areas such as military applications, domestic care, entertainment, and/or communication). The focus of the workshop will be on outlining a living document of HRI and social responsibility - a dynamic documentation of shared perspectives and principles that might help guide those working actively in the field, and help position the HRI community to respond to what will likely emerge as increasing societal concerns about our work. We believe this workshop can act as an initial point of departure for an ongoing discussion on these issues. Call for Participation We invite all members of the HRI community to participate in this workshop on social responsibility in HRI. We ask that all participants write a short position statement (between one paragraph and one page in length) that explores a particular aspect of HRI from an ethical or moral perspective. Possible topics are listed below but position statements need not be limited to these topics. Position statements must be sent by email to Nathan G. Freier at freien at rpi.edu by (extended deadline) February 15, 2009. Workshop participants will not be asked to give formal presentations in the workshop, but there will be opportunity to engage in discussion on topics related to the position statements. Topics - Social Responsibility of HRI Researchers and Designers with Regard to... * Specific Applications (e.g., Military, Healthcare, Home Utility, etc.) * Specific Robot Features (e.g., Autonomy, Intelligence, Accessibility, etc.) * The Role of Funding and Funding Sources in Directing the HRI Field's Trajectory - Dilemmas Faced When Values Conflicts Arise in Robot Design (e.g., Autonomy vs. Accountability) - Ethical Concerns Regarding Methods of HRI Evaluation (e.g., Wizard-of-Oz) - Practical Concerns Regarding the Role of Social Responsibility in the Development of the HRI Community - Reflections on the Role that Social Responsibility Plays in Analogous Scholarly and Technology Design Communities - Etc. Workshop Outcomes We have identified a number of documentation and dissemination strategies. These strategies are guided by our overarching goals for the workshop: (1) to create common ground for discourse on issues around social responsibility in HRI; (2) to create awareness of these issues amongst researchers, designers (of robots/ robotic systems), and for the common public, and (3) to support the process of developing community guidelines for creating ethical research and design. Thus, we will collect position papers together organized by overarching thematics and disseminate them to the community as a white paper. We will also create an online presence providing tools to co-create a living document of principles and guidelines. Finally, we will target HRI 2010 as a possible venue for presentation of a paper summarizing the workshop and its in-process outcomes. Workshop Organizers Nathan G. Freier (http://www.rpi.edu/~freien/) Department of Language, Literature and Communication . Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Vanessa Evers (http://staff.science.uva.nl/~evers/) Institute for Informatics . University of Amsterdam Takayuki Kanda (http://www.irc.atr.jp/~kanda/) Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories . ATR Victoria Groom (http://communication.stanford.edu/phd/students/vgroom.html) Department of Communication . Stanford University Bilge Mutlu (http://www.bilgemutlu.com/) Human-Computer Interaction Institute . Carnegie Melon University Peter H. Kahn, Jr. (http://faculty.washington.edu/pkahn/) Department of Psychology . University of Washington Additional HRI Workshop This morning workshop is being held in conjunction with the HRI 2009 afternoon workshop titled, Societal Impact: How Socially Accepted Robots Can be Integrated in our Society. Participants in the Social Responsibility workshop are encouraged to attend and participate in the Social Impact workshop. Further information on the Social Impact workshop can be found here: http://workshops.icts.sbg.ac.at/hri2009societal/. From yon at cim.mcgill.ca Thu Jan 22 06:21:32 2009 From: yon at cim.mcgill.ca (yon) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:21:32 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Research Position at McGill University on haptic interaction for walking in VR References: Message-ID: <1867E4C8-609E-4C1C-8FEC-6EF3290E711F@cim.mcgill.ca> Research engineer or postdoctoral position at McGill University (Montreal, Canada) on haptic interaction methods for walking in virtual and augmented reality environments The Centre for Intelligent Machines at McGill University seeks applicants for a research position on haptic engineering motivated by the challenge of enabling walking in virtual and augmented reality environments. The aim is to investigate novel interfaces for interaction via walking, and the design of haptic or multisensory rendering techniques for simulating interaction with natural materials. There are several possible sub-projects the researcher may engage with, depending on interests and expertise: - Engineering of haptic devices for interaction via floor surfaces - Haptic synthesis of interaction with novel materials (e.g., soil, sand, stone) - Haptic simulation, display and evaluation of such interactions - Multimodal (audio and haptic) rendering - Measurement-based contact interaction modeling - Novel sensor network design for distributed interactive floor surfaces The candidate should have a PhD in a related discipline, and should possess experience in one or more of the following areas: - Haptic synthesis - Haptic device engineering and control - Multisensory rendering - Robotic systems - Sensor networks - Other relevant topics Work will take place in the context of the project NIW: Natural Interactive Walking, funded by the European Commission 7th Framework and the Minist?re du D?veloppement, ?conomique, Innovation et Exportation (Qu?bec). The project is being undertaken in partnership with leading European research institutions in France, Italy, and Denmark, with significant exchange between them. The position is initially for two years. It will be based in the Shared Reality Environments lab of the Centre for Intelligent Machines at McGill University. The lab is also affiliated with the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology. The position is available effective immediately. A short list of candidates will be interviewed, either in person or by videoconference. Interested candidates should send their CV, selected publications, and contact information for three references to: Jeremy Cooperstock niw-jobs at cim.mcgill.ca Associate Professor Centre for Intelligent Machines and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering McGill University 3480 University Street, Room 424 Montreal, QC, H3A 2A7, Canada From lagoudakis at ieee.org Thu Jan 22 10:57:56 2009 From: lagoudakis at ieee.org (Michail G. Lagoudakis) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:57:56 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: RoboCup International Symposium 2009 Message-ID: <4978C1B4.30500@ieee.org> ******************************************************************** >>> CALL FOR PAPERS >>> CALL FOR PAPERS <<< CALL FOR PAPERS <<< ******************************************************************** RoboCup International Symposium 2009 Graz, Austria June 30 - July 3, 2009 http://www.robocup2009.org/202-0-symposium.html ******************************************************************** >>>>>>>>>>> THE SUBMISSION SITE IS NOW OPEN <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ******************************************************************** OVERVIEW The 13th annual RoboCup International Symposium will be held in conjunction with RoboCup 2009, during the Competitions and Demonstrations. The Symposium represents the core meeting for presentation and discussion of scientific contributions to a variety of research areas related to all RoboCup divisions (RoboCupSoccer, RoboCupRescue, RoboCup at Home, and RoboCupJunior). Its scope encompasses, but is not restricted to, research and educational activities within the fields of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. Due to its interdisciplinary nature, the symposium offers a unique venue for exploring various and intimate connections of theory and practice across a wide spectrum of research fields. The experimental, interactive, and benchmark character of the RoboCup initiative presents the opportunity to disseminate novel ideas and promising technologies, which are rapidly adopted and field-tested by a large (and still growing) community. SUBMISSION We solicit submissions of papers reporting on high-quality, original research with relevance to the areas mentioned below. All researchers working in these areas, even if not actively participating in RoboCup teams, are urged to submit their work. Both papers describing real-world research and papers reporting theoretical results, as well as combinations thereof, are welcome. We also encourage the submission of high-quality overview articles for any field related to the general scope of RoboCup. The proceedings of the RoboCup International Symposium are published and archived within the Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI) series. Submitted papers are limited to 12 pages formatted according to the LNAI requirements and must be electronically submitted through the symposium web site. All contributions are peer-reviewed by at least three reviewers using a blind review process. IMPORTANT DATES Submission of abstracts: February 2, 2009 23:59 PST Submission of papers: February 9, 2009 23:59 PST Notification to authors: April 13, 2009 Camera-ready papers: April 27, 2009 23:59 PST RoboCup Symposium 2009: June 30 - July 3, 2009 SYMPOSIUM CO-CHAIRS Jacky Baltes, University of Manitoba, Canada Michail G. Lagoudakis, Technical University of Crete, Greece Tadashi Naruse, Aichi Prefectural University, Japan Saeed Shiry, Amirkabir University of Technology, Iran AREAS OF INTEREST * Robot Hardware and Software -- mobile and humanoid robots -- sensors and actuators -- embedded and mobile devices -- robot construction and new materials -- robotic system integration -- robot software architectures -- robot programming environments and languages -- real-time and concurrent programming -- robot simulators * Perception and Action -- distributed sensor integration -- sensor noise filtering -- real-time image processing and pattern recognition -- motion and sensor models -- sensory-motor control -- robot kinematics and dynamics -- high-dimensional motion control * Robotic Cognition and Learning -- world modeling -- localization, navigation, and mapping -- planning and reasoning -- decision making under uncertainty -- reinforcement learning -- complex motor skill acquisition -- motion and sensor model learning * Multi-Robot Systems -- team coordination methods -- communication protocols -- learning and adaptive systems -- teamwork and heterogeneous agents -- dynamic resource allocation -- adjustable autonomy * Human-Robot Interaction -- human-robot interfaces -- speech synthesis and natural language generation -- visualization * Education and Edutainment -- Robotics and Artificial Intelligence education -- educational robotics -- robot kits and programming tools -- robotic entertainment * Applications -- disaster rescue information systems -- search and rescue robots -- robotic surveillance -- service robots -- robots at home ******************************************************************** From icratravelgrant at gmail.com Fri Jan 23 12:53:45 2009 From: icratravelgrant at gmail.com (ICRA Travel Grant Committee) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:53:45 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2009 IEEE ICRA Travel Grant for US Students Message-ID: Please see the posting at http://sites.google.com/site/icratravelgrant/ for information on a travel grant opportunity for US students presenting their work at ICRA 2009 in Kobe, Japan. From jmh at cs.utah.edu Fri Jan 23 13:29:20 2009 From: jmh at cs.utah.edu (John Hollerbach) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:29:20 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJRR February 2009 issue Message-ID: <497A36B0.3080103@cs.utah.edu> A new issue of The International Journal of Robotics Research is available online: 1 February 2009; Vol. 28, No. 2 The below Table of Contents is available online at: http://ijr.sagepub.com/content/vol28/issue2/?etoc Editorial: Sixth International Conference on Field and Service Robotics Christian Laugier, Agostino Martinelli, C?dric Pradalier, and Roland Siegwart The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 147-148 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/28/2/147 A Robust Descriptor for Tracking Vertical Lines in Omnidirectional Images and Its Use in Mobile Robotics Davide Scaramuzza, Roland Siegwart, and Agostino Martinelli The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 149-171 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/2/149 Robotic Mapping Using Measurement Likelihood Filtering John Mullane, Martin D. Adams, and Wijerupage Sardha Wijesoma The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 172-190 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/2/172 Look-ahead Proposals for Robust Grid-based SLAM with Rao-Blackwellized Particle Filters Slawomir Grzonka, Christian Plagemann, Giorgio Grisetti, and Wolfram Burgard The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 191-200 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/2/191 Efficient Multi-robot Search for a Moving Target Geoffrey Hollinger, Sanjiv Singh, Joseph Djugash, and Athanasios Kehagias The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 201-219 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/2/201 A Plan Manager for Multi-robot Systems Sylvain Joyeux, Rachid Alami, Simon Lacroix, and Roland Philippsen The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 220-240 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/2/220 Editorial: Special Issue on the Ninth International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots (CLAWAR 2006) Bram Vanderborght and Dirk Lefeber The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 243-244 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/28/2/243 Probabilistic Balance Monitoring for Bipedal Robots O. H?hn and W. Gerth The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 245-256 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/2/245 Towards Bipedal Jogging as a Natural Result of Optimizing Walking Speed for Passively Compliant Three-Segmented Legs A. Seyfarth, F. Iida, R. Tausch, M. Stelzer, O. von Stryk, and A. Karguth The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 257-265 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/2/257 Proxy-based Sliding Mode Control of a Planar Pneumatic Manipulator Mich?el Van Damme, Bram Vanderborght, Bjorn Verrelst, Ronald Van Ham, Frank Daerden, and Dirk Lefeber The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 266-284 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/2/266 Mini-Whegs TM Climbs Steep Surfaces Using Insect-inspired Attachment Mechanisms Kathryn A. Daltorio, Terence E. Wei, Andrew D. Horchler, Lori Southard, Gregory D. Wile, Roger D. Quinn, Stanislav N. Gorb, and Roy E. Ritzmann The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 285-302 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/2/285 Efficient Walking Speed Optimization of a Humanoid Robot T. Hemker, M. Stelzer, O. von Stryk, and H. Sakamoto The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 303-314 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/2/303 Indoor Navigation for a Humanoid Robot Using a View Sequence Junichi Ido, Yoshinao Shimizu, Yoshio Matsumoto, and Tsukasa Ogasawara The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 315-325 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/2/315 From alex at cs.iastate.edu Sat Jan 24 01:25:57 2009 From: alex at cs.iastate.edu (Alexander Stoytchev) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2009 03:25:57 -0600 (CST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: ICDL 2009, 8-th IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (Shanghai, June 5-7, 2009) Message-ID: ======================================================================= CALL FOR PAPERS 8th IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL2009) Shanghai, June 5-7, 2009 http://www.icdl09.org/ ICDL is a multidisciplinary conference pertaining to all subjects related to the development and learning processes of natural and artificial systems, including perceptual, cognitive, behavioral, emotional and all other mental capabilities that are exhibited by humans, higher animals, and robots. Its visionary goal is to understand autonomous development in humans and higher animals in biological, functional, and computational terms, and to enable such development in artificial systems. ICDL strives to bring together researchers in neuroscience, psychology, artificial intelligence, robotics and other related areas to encourage understanding and cross-fertilization of latest ideas. Topics of interest include, but are not restricted to: (1) Biological and biologically inspired architectures and general principles of development (2) Neuronal, cortical and pathway plasticity (3) Autonomous generation of internal representation, including feature identification (4) Neural networks for development and learning (5) Dynamics in neural systems and neurodynamical modeling (6) Attention mechanisms and the development of attention skills (7) Visual, auditory, touch systems and their development (8) Motor systems and their development (9) Language acquisition & understanding through development (10) Multimodal integration through development (11) Conceptual learning through development (12) Motivation, value, reinforcement, and novelty (13) Emotions and their development (14) Learning and training techniques for assisting development (15) Biological and biologically inspired thinking models and development of reasoning skills (16) Models of developmental disorders (17) Development of social skills (18) Philosophical and social issues of development (19) Robots with development and learning skills (20) Using robots to study development and learning ICDL2009 will feature invited plenary talks by world-renowned speakers, a variety of special sessions aligned with the conference theme, pre-conference tutorials, as well as regular technical sessions, and poster sessions. Best Paper Awards will be offered. Four students will each receive $250 Travel Awards to support their travel to the conference. In addition to full-paper submissions, ICDL 2009 accepts one-page abstract submissions to encourage late-breaking results or for work that is not sufficiently mature for a full paper. Organizing Committee General Chair: Juyang Weng, Michigan State University, USA General Co-Chairs: Tiande Shou, Fudan University, China Xiangyang Xue, Fudan University, China Program Chairs: Jochen Triesch, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Germany Zhengyou Zhang, Microsoft Research, USA Publication Chair: Yilu Zhang, GM Research, USA Publicity Chair: Alexander Stoytchev, Iowa State University, USA Publicity Co-Chairs: Hiroaki Wagatsuma, RIKEN, Japan (Asia) Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, INRIA Bordeaux - Sud-Ouest, France (Europe) Gedeon De?k, University of California at San Diego, USA (North America) Local Organization Sub-Committee: Hong Lu (Chair), Rui Feng (Hotel), Cheng Jin (Web), Yuefei Guo (Finance), Wenqiang Zhang (Publication) Important Dates January 25, 2009: Special session and tutorial proposals February 8, 2009: Full papers April 19, 2009: Accept/Reject notification for full papers April 26, 2009: One-page poster abstracts May 3, 2009: Accept/Reject notification for poster abstracts May 10, 2009: Final camera-ready papers Sponsors IEEE Computational Intelligence Society Cognitive Science Society Microsoft Research ======================================================================= Alex Stoytchev, ICDL-09 Publicity Chair http://www.ece.iastate.edu/~alexs/ From a.birk at jacobs-university.de Mon Jan 26 04:51:21 2009 From: a.birk at jacobs-university.de (Andreas Birk) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:51:21 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] several open positions at Jacobs Robotics Group () Message-ID: <497DB1C9.6090200@jacobs-university.de> [apologies for multiple messages] There are several job openings at the Jacobs University Robotics Group (). The positions are suited for candidates at postdoc as well as doctorate student level. Furthermore, there is an opening for a technician: 1) Postdoc or PhD position "3D Underwater Perception and Mapping". The candidate should have experience in underwater mapping, especially in form of applied knowledge of available commercial range sensors. Experience with high resolution underwater sensors, especially imaging sonars is an asset for this position. The ideal candidate has a degree in Computer Science, but candidates with a background in Electrical Engineering are also welcome. 2) Postdoc or PhD position "Underwater Multi Robot Simulation". The candidate should have experience with high fidelty 3D robot simulators like USARsim or Gazebo, respectively with general 3D visualization and physics engines. Previous work within underwater robotics is an asset but not a must. The ideal candidate has a degree in Computer Science. 3) Postdoc or PhD position "Cognitive AUV Control". The candidate should have experience with high level, deliberative control and mission planning, ideally in the context of underwater robotics. Previous work on cooperative systems or semantic mapping is an additional asset. The ideal candidate has a degree in Computer Science. 4) Research Technician. The candidate should have experience with system integration and the development of mechatronics. Previous work on the hardware side of mobile robots is an asset. The candidate should be experienced with electronics design software (e.g. Eagle) or CAD software (e.g., Autocad, SolidWorks). Excellent German language skills (spoken and written) are required for this position for interactions with local companies. The three Postdoc/PhD positions at Jacobs Robotics are related to the EU-project "Cooperative Cognitive Control for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (Co3-AUVs)". Co3-AUVs is a cooperative project with the Interuniversity Center Integrated Systems for Marine Environments (ISME) in Italy, the Institute for Systems and Robotics of the Instituto Superior Tecnico (ISR/IST) in Portugal and the SME Graal Tech in Italy. The project is coordinated by Jacobs Robotics. Jacobs University () is located in Bremen, Germany. It is a private institution committed to excellence in research and teaching. English is the sole language of teaching and in daily life at Jacobs University. Please send your application by email to Andreas Birk (a.birk @ jacobs-university.de) with Mrs. Marta Mueller (mar.mueller @ jacobs-university.de) on cc. -- ======================================================= Prof. Dr. Andreas Birk ======================================================= Jacobs University School of Engineering and Science Research 1, Campus Ring 12, 28759 Bremen, Germany http://robotics.jacobs-university.de/ ======================================================= From Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at Mon Jan 26 06:02:36 2009 From: Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at (Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:02:36 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: HRI 2009 Workshop on Societal Impact (Extended Deadline: 15th Febuary 2009) Message-ID: EXTENDED: CfP Deadline 15th February 2009! Workshop on "Societal Impact: How Socially Accepted Robots Can be Integrated in our Society" http://workshops.icts.sbg.ac.at/hri2009societal/ at ? 4th ACM/IEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction 2009 http://hri2009.org/ 10th of March ?2008 San Diego, CA ?????????????????????? Call for Papers (apologies for multiple postings): ? The workshop on "Societal Impact: How Socially Accepted Robots Can be Integrated in our Society" will be held in San Diego, CA at the ACM/IEEE HRI2009 conference. This half-day workshop will discuss possible methodological approaches to evaluate social acceptance and societal impact of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) with a special focus on collaboration with robots. *Important dates* ? Submission of informal position papers (between 1 and max 4 pages):Sunday, 15th February 2009 Feedback to authors: Saturday, 28th February 2009 A special issue for the International Journal of Social Robotics is being planned for papers written based on abstracts submitted to the workshop. ? *Workshop topics* ? Submissions are invited addressing one or more of the following questions: 1. What kind of metrics already exist in the field of HRI for measuring social acceptance, like physiological measurements, behaviour observations, surveys etc.? 2. What are the pros and cons of existing evaluation methods and what are the innovations potentials toward other methods? 3. Do existing evaluation methods address needs for introducing robotic agents into "real life"? 4. How to support acceptance in Human-Robot Collaboration? 5. Which interdisciplinary approaches are used in HRI to address social acceptance and societal impact? 6. Which ethical issues should be concerned in the development of robotic agents, like legal aspects, psychological aspects etc. 7. How can the development of robotic agents be sustainable? 8. Which cultural differences exist in terms of societal impact on future Western and Asian societies? ? *Guidelines for submission* Workshop candidates should send a position paper (no longer than 4 A4 pages) before 15.01.2009 about a research or study they have been involved with (related to the topics described above) to astrid.weiss at sbg.ac.at. All position papers must be submitted in PDF format! *Organizing Committee* ? * Astrid Weiss, ICT&S Center - University of Salzburg, * Manfred Tscheligi, ICT&S Center - University of Salzburg, * Aude Billard, LASA Laboratory - EPFL Lausanne This workshop will be held as * Follow-up to the workshop "Robots as Social Actors: Evaluating Social Acceptance and Societal Impact of Robotic Agents" http://workshops.icts.sbg.ac.at/roman2008social/ which was held during IEEE Ro-Man 2008 and * In conjunction with the Workshop "Social Responsibility in HRI: Conducting our Research, Changing the World" http://www.rpi.edu/%7Efreien/hri2009workshop which will be held beforehand at this year's HRI conference. From fabio.bonsignorio at gmail.com Mon Jan 26 02:21:20 2009 From: fabio.bonsignorio at gmail.com (Fabio Bonsignorio) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:21:20 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Reminder: CfP: Workshop on GEM and Benchmarking at Euron AGM - Leuven 6-8 April Message-ID: (apologies for multiple postings) Dear All, There will be a Workshop on GOOD EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY AND BENCHMARKING IN ROBOTICS RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS --- GEMBENCH09 during the Euron Annual General Meeting 2009 in Leuven, Belgium, April 6-8, 2009. Many people agree that replication of reported results and their comparison by means of benchmarks are needed to foster a quicker cumulative advancement of our knowledge of intelligent physical agents and even to correctly appreciate disruptive innovation in robotics research. Despite that there are a number of open issues: should we take inspiration from biology and medicine?Are replication and benchmarking really possible in robotics?Are current limits in reporting a bottleneck to industrial exploitation? Is there an impact on robotics research funding policy evaluation? We will check where we are and speculate on what's ahead. This will be an opportunity to gather people sharing these ideas. If you are interested to speak, there is still room, please submit an abstract by email to one of the organizers asap, but please before February 7th, to allow us to issue the, quite flexible :-) program. Voice your opinion! At Euron AGM in Leuven there will be the official startup of Euron 3, and many other interesting events, too :-) All the best Fabio Fabio Workshop Highlights: -- Registration is Free -- Seminar Format: This forum aims to provoke a public discussion of the challenges, problems, possible approaches and doubts raised, related to this program and to identify the possible ways to cope (or fail) with them. The forum will consist of presentations interleaved with a significant amount of additional time for discussions between the presentations and at the end of the half-day single track session. --Post Proceedings: The speakers and the attendees will be invited to send a 'real' paper AFTER the discussion for a post proceedings book, with no hurry :-) -- Advance Booking of Zipped Talks: If you want to book in advance for a 3 minutes talk on one of the topics, just send an email to the organizers, with a 'title'. -- Unconference style interaction is encouraged: This will be a 'working' :-) workshop interaction in person and by social networking media with people in the room and outside is welcome DATES: Abstract submission deadline: February 7th Notification of acceptance: February 15th Organizers:Fabio Bonsignorio CEO & Founder Heron Robots srl V.R. Ceccardi 1/18, 16121 Genova, Italy. Email: fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com Tel: +39-339-8406011 Angel P. del Pobil, Ph.D. Co-Chair for Research, European Robotics Research Network EURON Professor, Department of Engineering and Computer Science Universitat Jaume-I Campus Riu Sec, Edificio TI, E-12071 Castellon, Spain. Email: pobil at icc.uji.es Tel: +34-964-72.82.93 John Hallam, M?rsk Mc-Kinney M?ller Institute, University of Southern Denmark (SDU) Odense, Denmark Email:john at mmmi.sdu.dk Tel: +45-65503546 ---- Fabio P. Bonsignorio Ceo Heron Robots s.r.l. Via R.Ceccardi 1/18 I-16121 Genova Italy www.heronrobots.com From sethu.vijayakumar at ed.ac.uk Mon Jan 26 07:32:40 2009 From: sethu.vijayakumar at ed.ac.uk (Sethu Vijayakumar) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:32:40 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdoctoral Fellowships in Robotics and Adaptive Control @ Edinburgh, UK Message-ID: <20090126153240.khu4c5b65ck0cgko@www.staffmail.ed.ac.uk> UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH SCHOOL OF INFORMATICS TWO Postdoctoral Research Fellows in Robotics and Adaptive Control Applications are invited for two Postdoctoral Research Fellows in the area of Learning Robotics and Adaptive Control as part of an EU-IST FP7 funded project. The posts are available from Mar. 2009 for a maximum of 34 months and located in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Salary is on the UE07 scale (?29,704-?35,469) with annual increments and full staff benefits. Placement for the post is according to experience and qualifications. Post One: Robotics and Adaptive Control: The candidate is expected to have good fundamentals in control theory and most importantly, hands on experience with writing software and controlling robotic hardware. The appointee will be responsible for direct implementation of adaptive control paradigms on biophysical simulations and on state-of-the-art novel variable impedance actuators. Post Two: Statistical Learning and Adaptive Control Theory: The candidate is expected to have a strong background in optimization, statistical learning and adaptive control theory and some familiarity of concepts such as direct policy learning, stochastic dynamic programming and optimal feedback control. An interest and knowledge of variable impedance strategies in human motor control is a definite advantage. The appointee will be responsible for development of effective adaptive control strategies and algorithms that exploit variable stiffness paradigms. Both posts will involve traveling to project partner meetings around Europe, periodic reporting at EU reviews as well as attending and disseminating work at international conference. The post also assumes leadership roles and some level of PhD supervision on topics relevant to the project. The successful candidates will have a PhD (or expected completion) in the area of (learning) robotics, probabilistic machine learning and/or adaptive motor control; strong mathematical skills in the area of optimization, algebra and control theory; strong programming skills in C, C++, MATLAB or equivalent; some experience with writing software and control of real hardware systems; a good understanding of adaptive control paradigms More details of the job and the research group can be found at: http://www.ipab.inf.ed.ac.uk/slmc Applicants are asked to submit your curriculum vitae including a statement of interest justifying your suitability for the post you are applying for and contact details of two referees using the online application procedure at: Post1: http://www.jobs.ed.ac.uk/vacancies/index.cfm?fuseaction=vacancies.detail&vacancy_ref=3010336 Post2: https://www.jobs.ed.ac.uk/vacancies/index.cfm?fuseaction=vacancies.detail&vacancy_ref=3010337 Application Deadline: February 20, 2009 Informal enquiries may be addressed to: Dr. Sethu Vijayakumar (sethu.vijayakumar [at] ed.ac.uk) ------------------------------------------------------------------ Sethu Vijayakumar, Ph.D. Reader (Associate Professor) Director, IPAB, School of Informatics, The University of Edinburgh 1.28 Informatics Forum, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB, UK URL: http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/svijayak Ph: +44(0)131 651 3444 SLMC Research Group URL: http://www.ipab.informatics.ed.ac.uk/slmc ------------------------------------------------------------------ Adjunct Faculty, Department of Computer Science University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA 90089-0781 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Microsoft Research & Royal Academy of Engg. Senior Research Fellow ------------------------------------------------------------------ -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. From emg at dei.unipd.it Mon Jan 26 14:37:02 2009 From: emg at dei.unipd.it (Emanuele Menegatti) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:37:02 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] deadline extension: Special Issue on Omnidirectional Robot Vision (RAS Journal) Message-ID: <1C580E5F-6F40-4014-AD24-C79E04F3A69D@dei.unipd.it> ===Robotics and Autonomous Systems (Elsevier) ====== ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Special Issue: Omnidirectional Robot Vision ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dear Colleagues, due to many request the deadline for the paper submission to this special issue is posponed to the end of February 2009. The aim of this special issue is to gather high quality paper, so everyone will have some more time to work on their experiments. The Guest Editors: * Emanuele Menegatti (University of Padua, Italy) * Tomas Pajdla, (Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic) =================== CALL FOR PAPER Omnidirectional vision research has always been greatly stimulated by mobile robotics and it has been finding its major applications there. Significant progresses have been made since the pioneer works which used shielded light bulbs or steel spheres as mirrors. Nowadays, several companies are selling high quality omnidirectional mirrors and cameras. Recently, a broader community has started working with omnidirectional sensors and commercial applications appeared also in surveillance and automotive industry. The increase of resolution of modern cameras overcome one of the major limitations of omnidirectional vision, the low resolution of omnidirectional images. The increase of computational power on board of nowadays robots and vehicles enables the use of more complex robot vision algorithms. Therefore, more computer vision algorithms are now applicable to omnidirectional images and the new approaches show their effectiveness in moving robots or autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles. In this special issue, we wish to collect examples of active collaboration of computer vision and robotic researchers to develop more robust, practical and applicable systems in robotics and elsewhere. Authors of papers published at the workshop Omnidirectional Robot Vision @ SIMPAR 2008 are encouraged to submit an extended version of their paper to go through a new peer-review process. Nevertheless, the special issue is open to novel contribution not previously published in the workshop. **Topics of interest - Omnidirectional sensors for robotics - Omnidirectional vision for mobile robots, flying robots and manipulators - Omnidirectional vision for robot navigation and safety - Omnidirectional vision for multi-robot teams (including RoboCup leagues) - Omnidirectional visual odometry - Omnidirectional SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) - Omnidirectional vision in industrial robotics and automotive industry **IMPORTANT DATES (of special issue): Deadline for submission of paper: February 28, 2009 Notification of acceptance: April 20, 2009 Submission of final camera ready papers: May 15, 2009 **SUBMISSION: Please send your contribution by email directly to the Guest Editors at the following addresses emanuele.menegatti at dei.unipd.it, pajdla at cmp.felk.cvut.cz in PDF format following the template you can find at: http://ees.elsevier.com/robot/ The number of pages of the single paper can range between 15 and 24. ------------------------------------------ Emanuele Menegatti, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Intelligent Autonomous Systems Laboratory (IAS-Lab) Department of Information Engineering The University of Padua via ognissanti 72 I-35129 Padova - ITALY Skype: emanuele.menegatti Phone: ++39 049 827 7840 FAX: ++39 049 827 7826 http://www.dei.unipd.it/~emg ------------------------------------------ From asim at cs.cmu.edu Mon Jan 26 20:27:54 2009 From: asim at cs.cmu.edu (Asim Smailagic) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:27:54 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] International Symposium on Quality of Life Technology Message-ID: <200901270428.n0R4SVqC019751@chokecherry.srv.cs.cmu.edu> International Symposium on Quality of Life Technology Intelligent Systems for Better Living June 30-July 1, 2009 University Club at Oakland Pittsburgh, PA, USA http://www.shrs.pitt.edu/cms/qolt/qolt.asp Well-Known Keynote and Invited Speakers (see list below) Objective : Technologies to support quality of life and to maintain social and productive activities of every person are most demanded for the sustainability of the society. Focusing technology on various applications of robot services and intelligent sensing systems to prepare for demographic change and support quality of life is timely and of interest for scientists, engineers and society. In this conference, the leading researchers in the fields will exchange their scopes, activities and most recent developments and open discussion to the participants. List of Invited Speakers (Confirmed) Henrik Christensen, Georgia Institute of Technology Rory Cooper, University of Pittsburgh Margaret Giannini, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Alan Jette, Boston University Takeo Kanade, Carnegie Mellon Alex Pentland, MIT Neil Resnick, University of Pittsburgh Isao Shimoyama, University of Tokyo Topics: o Components, Technology, Design and Engineering for QoLT: Sensors, Visual Interpretation, Participatory Design of Technology for Older People with Disabilities, Lead User Design of QoLT, Assessment of Impact of Technology on Quality of Life, Persuasive Engineering Technologies. o Robotics: Human Assistance Robots, Intelligent and Robotic Mobility Systems, Telerobotics, Manipulation. o Rehabilitation Engineering: Prosthetics, Computer Access, Mobility, Augmented Communication. o Human System Interaction: Modalities of Interaction, Coaching, Personal Agency, User Centered Design. o Applications: Fall Prevention, Driving Assistance. General Chair: Cliff Brubaker Program Chairs: Rory Cooper and Asim Smailagic Paper and Poster Submissions Due date for submissions: March 1, 2009 Submission site: http://www.shrs.pitt.edu/cms/qolt/qolt.asp Intended Audience * Scientists in research institutions * Engineers in industries * Clinicians and practitioners in health care * Graduate students * Professionals interested in the service technologies and applications of human daily activities Sessions * Eight plenary sessions with invited and regular papers * Three poster sessions * Exhibition * Panel on Future Challenges in Quality of Life Technologies * Banquet Speaker In addition to the conference proceedings, we expect that all accepted papers will appear in a book within the Assistive Technology Research Series published by the Institute of Science. From rdbeach at WPI.EDU Tue Jan 27 05:03:55 2009 From: rdbeach at WPI.EDU (Beach, Richard D) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 08:03:55 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] RICC Robotics Competition webpage is LIVE for Registration Message-ID: <09F233757A82B14E979C363A14A370B71D89C059FE@EXCHANGEMAIL.admin.wpi.edu> Hello Robot Enthusiasts, You are cordially invited to attend the First Annual Robotics Innovations Competition and Conference (RICC), which will take place at Worcester Polytechnic Institute on Saturday & Sunday, Nov. 7 & 8, 2009. One of the main goals is to allow RICC competitors to move out of the research laboratory and into the world of practical applications and real markets, by asking students at the undergraduate or graduate level to develop and prototype a robotic product that solves a real problem. This year, the theme is "Improving Quality of Life". The other main goal of this event is to build community among academia and industry. Prizes up to $5000 will be awarded. There is NO CHARGE to apply to compete in RICC 2009 or to register to attend. The Robotics Innovations Competition and Conference Website ( http://ricc.wpi.edu) is now LIVE and has been updated with information relating to the event, including RULES as well as REGISTRATION information. Please feel free to visit the website and also help us publicize the RICC event to interested competition participants as well as potential attendees. Registration to attend the Conference is open at this time. Applications to compete will be submitted later as detailed on the website. Thank you all for your help. Feel free to contact Richard D. Beach (rdbeach at wpi.edu) with any questions or comments. On behalf of the Robotics Engineering Group at WPI, and the RICC Steering Committee, we look forward to your participation in RICC 2009 and hope to see you on Nov. 7 & 8, 2009. Sincerely, Richard D. Beach, Ph.D. Research Associate/RICC Manager Department of Computer Science Fuller Labs - Rm 138 Worcester Polytechnic Institute 100 Institute Road. Worcester, MA 01609-2280 (e-mail): rdbeach at wpi.edu (Phone): 508-831-6731 (Fax) : 508-831-5776 (General WPI): 508-831-5000 From juergen at idsia.ch Wed Jan 28 05:28:55 2009 From: juergen at idsia.ch (Schmidhuber Juergen) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:28:55 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 10 jobs at the Swiss AI Lab IDSIA: 5 Postdocs & 5 PhD students in Cognitive Robotics & Machine Learning Message-ID: The Robot Learning Group at the Swiss AI Lab IDSIA is currently expanding. We are seeking 5 outstanding postdocs and 5 excellent PhD students with experience / interest in topics such as adaptive robotics http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/learningrobots.html , curiosity- driven learning & intrinsic motivations based on the theory of surprise and interestingness http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/ interest.html , computer vision, reinforcement learning & policy gradients for partially observable environments http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/rl.html , artificial evolution http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/evolution.html , recurrent neural networks (RNN) http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/ rnn.html , RNN evolution http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/ rnnevolution.html , hierarchical reinforcement learning http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/subgoals.html , statistical / Bayesian approaches to machine learning, statistical robotics http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/statisticalrobotics.html , unsupervised learning http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/ica.html , general artificial intelligence http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/ai.html , universal learning machines http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/unilearn.html & http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/goedelmachine.html . Goal: to improve the state of the art in adaptive robotics and machine learning in general, in both theory and practice. Funding is provided by several new EU projects, one on developmental robotics with adaptive iCub humanoids exploring the world like little infants, one on learning to control artificial hands with antagonistic & stiff muscles, and one on self-reference and "humanobs." But all postdocs and students will interact with each other and resident IDSIAni - we are one big family! Our international project partners include leading neuroscientists, machine learners, psychologists, roboticists, and other experts from Germany, the UK, Italy, Scandinavia, the US, and other countries. Salary: commensurate with experience. Postdocs ~ SFR 72,000 / year (~ US$ 67,000 / ? 48,000 / ? 46,000 as of 1/1/09). PhD fellowships: ~ SFR 38,000 / year (~ $ 35,000 as of 1/1/09). Low taxes! There is travel funding in case of papers accepted at important conferences. Interviews: most will take place at IDSIA in Switzerland, but we will also arrange meetings in the period 5-17 March 2009 in the area Washington / New York / Boston, where JS will give the AGI-09 keynote and talks at various US East Coast labs. Instructions and background: http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/eu2009.html Juergen Schmidhuber --- IDSIA was the smallest of the world's top ten AI labs listed in the 1997 "X-Lab Survey" by Business Week magazine, and ranked in fourth place in the category "Computer Science - Biologically Inspired". IDSIA's most important work was done after 1997 though. It is small but visible, competitive, and influential. Its highly cited Ant Colony Optimization Algorithms broke numerous benchmark records and are now widely used in industry for routing, logistics etc (today entire conferences specialize on Artificial Ants). IDSIA is also the origin of the first mathematical theory of optimal Universal Artificial Intelligence and self-referential Universal Problem Solvers (previous work on general AI was dominated by heuristics). IDSIA's artificial Recurrent Neural Networks learn to solve numerous previous unlearnable sequence processing tasks through gradient descent, artificial evolution and other methods. Research topics also include complexity and generalization issues, unsupervised learning and information theory, forecasting, learning robots. IDSIA's results were reviewed not only in science journals such as Nature, Science, Scientific American, but also in numerous popular press articles in TIME, the NY Times, der SPIEGEL, etc. Many TV shows on Tech & Science helped to popularize IDSIA's achievements. Switzerland is a good place for scientists. It is the origin of special relativity (1905) and the World Wide Web (1990), is associated with 105 Nobel laureates, and boasts far more Nobel prizes per capita than any other nation. It also has the world's highest number of publications per capita, the highest number of patents per capita, the highest citation impact factor, the most cited single-author paper, etc, etc. Switzerland also got the highest ranking in the list of happiest countries. From mouri at gifu-u.ac.jp Tue Jan 27 17:44:40 2009 From: mouri at gifu-u.ac.jp (Tetsuya MOURI) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 10:44:40 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: 9th International IFAC Symposium on Robot Control in Gifu (SYROCO2009) Message-ID: <200901280144.AA04797@robota.gifu-u.ac.jp> (apologies for multiple postings) ***************************************************** SYROCO'09 - Call For Papers 9th International IFAC Symposium on Robot Control Nagaragawa Convention Center, Gifu, Japan September 9-12, 2009 http://www.syroco2009.org/ ***************************************************** Welcome to Gifu and Japan! The 9th International IFAC Symposium on Robot Control (SYROCO2009) will be held at the Nagaragawa Convention Center in Gifu, Japan from September 9 to 12, 2009. All the past symposiums were held in Europe. To create a new foothold for growth, the 9th SYROCO comes to Gifu, Japan. It is the first time that SYROCO is held in non-European countries. The registration fees have been changed, and a 15% discount has been applied. The deadline of Submission is firm and is not extended. The invited sessions have been scheduled in SYROCO2009. Meeting Scope: -------------- The primary topics for the SYROCO 2009 will be "Robot Control in Human- Robot Dynamic Interaction". Robot control technology is widely used for space, surgery, rehabilitation, micro machine, entertainment, underwater, civil engineering etc. It will continue to play an increasing role in the area of human-robot dynamic interaction technology. The SYROCO 2009 will also try to cover the whole range of areas in the field of robot control including mobile robots. Contributions on basic research as well as on relevant applications are included. Topics of interests include, but are not limited to the followings. : --------------------------------------------------------------------- * Haptic interaction * Telemanipulation * Micro/Nano manipulation * Networked robots * Hybrid Dynamical System * Robot control (adaptive, robust, learning) * Force and compliance control * Multi-fingered hand control * Multi cooperative robot control * Sensory based robot control * Modeling and identification * Mobile robots * Humanoid robot * Advanced Applications: space, surgery, rehabilitation, entertainment, underwater, civil engineering, etc. Invited session (New!) ---------------- * IPROMS session on Methods for Multiple Mobile Robots Control * Mechatronic Approach to Robotics * Cognitive Robotics * Control Issues and Sensor Feedback in Nanohandling Systems * Robotic Human-Machine-Systems in the Security Domain * Evolvable Systems: Current Industrial & Academic results * Energy-Based Motor Control and Learning for Human-Robot Interaction * Dexterous Manipulation If you interested in a session and hope that you submit your paper to the session, please contact the corresponding organizer. Schedule: ---------------- * February 1, 2009 Firm Deadline for Submission of full-length papers The number of pages and the file size: 6 pages, 1.5 MB * May 1, 2009 Notification of paper acceptance * June 15, 2009 Deadline for Submission of final papers * July 1, 2009 Deadline for Advanced Registration * September 9-12 2009 SYROCO 2009 Please submit your papers no later than February 1, 2009. The deadline is firm and is not extended. Symposium Venue: ---------------- * Nagaragawa Convention Center 2695-2 Nagara Fukumitsu, Gifu 502-0817, Japan. Web: http://www.g-ncc.jp/test/e-framepage.htm The Nagaragawa Convention Center is located at the Nagara riverside. It stands 5 km away from JR (Japan Railway) Gifu Station or Meitetsu Gifu Station. On the Nagara riverside, there are world class hotels and ryokans (Japanese-style hotels) equipped with hot springs. Sightseeing of cormorant fishing is available either from the riverside or a viewing boat, in the evening. * Gifu City Gifu city is situated in the center of Japan. Gifu is rich in history, culture, and natural beauty. Mt. Kinka rises on the east side of the city. Gifu Castle, which was the famous residence of Nobunaga Oda, stands at the summit of this forested mountain. At sunset, Gifu Castle lights up, reminding us of its history of 700 years. Since Nobunaga Oda, a warrior who aimed to conquer the entire country, strongly promoted commerce and industry in Gifu, a prosperous castle town was developed here. Gifu has a lot of restaurants, theaters, a variety of retail stores and shopping malls, including a department store downtown, located between Gifu JR station and the conference site. Registration Fees: ------------------ Advance (before July 1, 2009) On-site Full Registration JPY 50,000 JPY 60,000 Student Registration JPY 25,000 JPY 30,000 The registration fees have been changed, and a 15% discount has been applied. The Full Registration fee includes the Symposium Preprints, coffee breaks, Welcome and Farewell Receptions and the Symposium Banquet. The Student Registration fee includes the Symposium Preprints, coffee breaks and Welcome and Farewell Receptions. For every accepted paper, at least one full registration fee must be paid before June 15, 2009. Otherwise the paper will not be considered in the final event program and will not be published in the event documentation. No-show papers: --------------- A paper not presented takes away a slot from another author and creates a hole in the session, which can cause serious inconvenience to the audience and the organizers. Noshow papers will not appear at IFAC-PapersOnline.net. Program: -------- * Technical Sessions * Plenary Lectures * Special Invited Lecture from Toyota Motor Corporation * Company Exhibition Contact Us: ----------- SYROCO 2009 Secretariat: Dr. Tetsuya Mouri Department of Human and Information Systems, Gifu University 1-1 Yanagido Gifu 501-1193, Japan. TEL/FAX: +81-58-293-2548 E-mail: syroco2009_office at syroco2009.org Committees: ----------- International Program Committee: IPC Chair: Hideki Hashimoto, University of Tokyo, Japan IPC Vice-Chairs: Paolo Dario, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy Yoshikazu Hayakawa, Nagoya University, Japan Oussama Khatib, Stanford University, USA Masashi Yamashita, Toyota Motor Corporation, Japan IPC Members: Nikos A. Aspragathos (Greece) George Boiadjiev (Bulgaria) Wayne J. Book (USA) Mo-Yune Chow (USA) Sergej Fatikow (Germany) Aarne Halme (Finland) Vincent Hayward (Canada) Keum-Shik Hong (Korea) Sang-Ho Hyon (Japan) Rolf Johansson (Sweden) Makoto Kaneko (Japan) Haruhisa Kawasaki (Japan) Wisama Khalil (France) Peter Kopacek (Austria) Peter Korondi (Hungary) Kazuhiro Kosuge (Japan) Ju-Jang Lee (Korea) Sandro Leuchter (Germany) Yun-Hui Liu (China) Shugen Ma (Japan) Claudio Melchiorri (Italy) Yoshihiko Nakamura (Japan) Goro Obinata (Japan) Mauro Onori (Sweden) Shinsuk Park (Korea) Vladimir Pavlovsky (Russia) Jose M. G. Sa da Costa (Portugal) Miguel A Salichs (Spain) Jurek Z. Sasiadek (Canada) Bruno Siciliano (Italy) Hanxu Sun (China) Satoshi Tadokoro (Japan) Tzyh-Jong Tarn (USA) Krzysztof Tchon (Poland) Masayoshi Tomizuka (USA) Dirk Wollherr (Germany) National Organizing Committee: NOC Chair: Haruhisa Kawasaki, Gifu University, Japan NOC Vice-Chair: Kazuhiko Terashima, Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan NOC Members: Takahiro Endo (Japan) Hideki Hashimoto (Japan) Hiroki Ishikawa (Japan) Satoshi Ito (Japan) Naoki Mizuno (Japan) Yoshifumi Morita (Japan) Tetsuya Mouri (Japan) Minoru Sasaki (Japan) Kazuo Tani (Japan) Kazunori Terada (Japan) Hironao Yamada (Japan) Hidehiko Yamamoto (Japan) Kenichi Yano (Japan) National Advisory Committee: NAC Chair: Tsuneo Yoshikawa, Ritsumeikan University, Japan NAC Members: Tamio Arai (Japan) Suguru Arimoto (Japan) Toshio Fukuda (Japan) Fumio Harashima (Japan) Hidenori Kimura (Japan) Sponsors: --------- Sponsoring Organization: International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) IFAC Technical Committee on Robotics (TC 4.3) Co-sponsoring IFAC Technical Committees: Mechatronic Systems (TC 4.2) Control Design (TC 2.1) Co-sponsor: Science Council of Japan Technical co-sponsors: IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IES) IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) International Association for Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (IMACS) Japan Robot Association (JARA) The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineering (JSME) The Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ) The Society of Instrument and Control Engineering (SICE) The Virtual Reality Society of Japan (VRSJ) ------------------------------------------------------------- From msh at aber.ac.uk Wed Jan 28 05:35:58 2009 From: msh at aber.ac.uk (Martin Huelse) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:35:58 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Int. summer research camp on Autonomous Intelligent Robots Message-ID: <49805F3E.1070209@aber.ac.uk> [Our apologies if you receive multiple copies of this announcement.] #################################################################### CALL for PARTICIPANTS 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/ #################################################################### 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. It is an unique opportunity to see their own research from a different angle and to gain the valuable experience of applying competence and skills in new domains. "Adaptation on different time scales" is the focus theme. During the first two days we will have a Symposium on this topic, where invited speakers and researchers from Aberystwyth University present their views on this topic and related work. During the symposium participants can briefly present their background as well. Starting on the third day participants will work in research projects. Every day there will be a closing session where each team presents briefly the current state of their project. The final presentation of the projects finishes the research camp. PROJECTS - Short and long-term changes in the appearance of things - 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. The APPLICATION PROCESS has started! In order to apply, send a brief CV and a Letter of Interest (both documents max. 2 pages) describing your (1) current research activities (PhD-project, or research you are involved in etc.), (2) programming skills and (3) which projects your are interested to work in and why. Please, indicate 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice from the projects listed, since particular projects might be full already. We also need to receive a short letter of recommendation from your supervisor if you are a PhD-student. Please provide all documents in pdf-format and send them via email to Martin Huelse, email: msh at aber.ac.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 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 pgoncalves at est.ipcb.pt Wed Jan 28 01:47:43 2009 From: pgoncalves at est.ipcb.pt (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Paulo_Jorge_Sequeira_Gon=E7alves?=) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 09:47:43 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Deadline extended: Robotica'2009 - 9th CONFERENCE ON AUTONOMOUS ROBOT SYSTEMS AND COMPETITIONS Message-ID: <851a09ac0901280147k576aa110j6ea8714895f25c85@mail.gmail.com> ********************************************************************************************************* ---- Deadline extended ----Deadline extended ------ Deadline extended ------ ********************************************************************************************************* 15th February 2009 9th CONFERENCE ON AUTONOMOUS ROBOT SYSTEMS AND COMPETITIONS http://www.est.ipcb.pt/robotica2009/ec/index.htm with IEEE-RAS Technical co-sponsorship The 9th Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions is the 2009 edition of the scientific meeting of the Portuguese Robotics Open - ROB?TICA'2009 (http://www.est.ipcb.pt/robotica2009/ec/), and will take place at the Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco, Portugal, on May 7th, 2009. This conference aims to disseminate scientific contributions in areas of relevance to Autonomous Robotics. Its scope encompasses, but is not restricted to the fields of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Education. Topics ====== Artificial Intelligence Architectures and Middleware for Autonomous Robots Motion and Actuation Systems Sensorimotor Control System Integration and Software Engineering Computer Vision and Image Processing Recognition, Localization and Tracking Planning, Reasoning and Modelling Navigation and Control of Mobile Robots Simultaneous Localization and Mapping Mobile Robots and Humanoids Multi-agent and Multi-robot Systems Cooperative Perception and Navigation Robot Team Coordination Learning and Adaptive Systems Field and Service Applications Robotic Competitions Simulation and Visualization Computer and Robotic Entertainment Edutainment Robotics Submission =========== Authors are kindly invited to submit electronically their contributions by February 1st, 2009. Each contribution consists of a full-length paper with a possibly attached video. Detailed instructions on the electronic submission process and formats can be found at the conference website: http://www.est.ipcb.pt/robotica2009/ec/index.htm Submissions will be peer reviewed by the International Program Committee and selected on the basis of quality and relevance to the topics of the conference. Important Dates =============== Submission of full-length papers 15th February, 2009 Notification of acceptance 16th March, 2009 Camera Ready papers 26th March, 2009 Robotica'2009 begins 7th May, 2009 Publication and Prizes ====================== All accepted contributions, either presented orally or in the poster session, will be published in the conference proceedings (DVD and book). Videos included in an accepted contribution will also be published in the conference DVD. The 9th Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions will award prizes based on the reviewers comments and respective Committees. The final selection will be announced during the conference and in the conference web site. Organizers ========== Paulo Gon?alves (IPCB - PT) Paulo Torres (IPCB - PT) best regards, -- Paulo Jorge Sequeira Gon?alves www.est.ipcb.pt/pessoais/paulog From e.ruffaldi at sssup.it Fri Jan 30 10:28:34 2009 From: e.ruffaldi at sssup.it (Emanuele Ruffaldi) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:28:34 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdoctoral position for context aware motion and computer vision analysis at PERCRO-SSSA (Pisa, Italy) Message-ID: <498346D2.7050304@sssup.it> [Apologies for possible multiple copies] Postdoctoral position in context aware motion and computer vision analysis at PERCRO Scuola Superiore S.Anna (Pisa,Italy) Applicants are invited to join the PERceptual RObotics laboratory (PERCRO) for research in the area of human-machine interaction based on haptic interfaces and virtual environment technologies. The selection closes 28th February 2009. The postdoc position will be granted for a period of 24 months. Acitivity: The postdoc candidate will work in the context of the European Project SKILLS IP http://www.skills-ip.eu/ for the transfer of human skills by means of multimodal technologies. The research activity will take part inside one of the project demonstrators: rowing training simulator, upper limb rehabilitation with haptics or augmented reality based industrial maintenance. Ideal candidate profile: Candidates with strong backgrounds in computer vision, multiple camera configurations, virtual environments and computer graphics are welcome. Knowledge of machine learning technique and GPU based computations are considered a plus. Applications will have to be addressed as soon as possible with: a detailed CV research program phd dissertation Contact for information: Emanuele Ruffaldi e.ruffaldi at sssup.it PERCRO Scuola Superiore S'Anna Piazza Martiri Libert? 33,Pisa,Italy http://www.percro.org/ Laboratory: PERCRO (Perceptual Robotics ? Simultaneous Presence, Telepresence and Virtual Presence) is a fundamental research laboratory founded by Prof. Massimo Bergamasco belonging to the Industrial and Information Engineering Faculty of the Scuola Superiore S.Anna, Pisa, Italy. The research activities carried out at PERCRO deals with the control component and the sense of presence of humans in Virtual Environments (VE) and in Teleoperation conditions. The main research topics of the laboratory are focused in the fields of mechanical and control design of haptic interfaces, exploration and manipulation of virtual objects, advanced real time visual rendering techniques, simulators, telepresence and interaction design. -- Emanuele Ruffaldi Assistant Professor in Applied Mechanics - PhD Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa PERCRO Lab - Virtual Reality and Telerobotic Systems Division via Martiri 11 56100 Pisa - ITALY Tel.: +39 050 838 980 Fax.: +39 050 883 333 E-mail: emanuele.ruffaldi at sssup.it Web: http://www.teslacore.it From Jason.Gu at dal.ca Thu Jan 29 07:07:16 2009 From: Jason.Gu at dal.ca (Jason Gu) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 11:07:16 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IEEE ICAL 2009 Call for Papers Message-ID: <20090129110716.s7mhd0u9jjcoowcw@my3.dal.ca> Dear Colleague, The IEEE International Conference on Automation and Logistics (IEEE ICAL) is the flagship conference of IEEE in automation and logistics. The 2009 annual event, 2009 IEEE International Conference on Automation and Logistics (IEEE ICAL 2009), will take place from August 5 to 7, 2009 in the historical city of Shenyang, China. The theme of IEEE ICAL 2009 is 'Advanced Automation and Logistics in the Information Age', reflecting the fast growing interests in research, development and applications in the dynamic and exciting areas of advanced intelligent automation and logistics. Shenyang, the largest city in Northeast China, is the political, economic, and cultural center of Liaoning Province. It is an important industrial base and a celebrated old city with more than 2,000 years of history. It is the birthplace of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). IEEE ICAL 2009 promises to be a great event, bringing together a group of electrical, mechanical, industrial, systems, logistics, and computer engineers, and offering a rich technical program emphasizing effective use of the synergy in the areas of automation and logistics. IEEE ICAL 2009 conference invites high quality original research papers in all areas of automation, logistics, their related areas and applications. Detailed information about the conference is available at http://www.ieee-ical.org/ or http://www.ee.cuhk.edu.hk/~qhmeng/ical/. The papers will be full-paper peer reviewed and all accepted papers will be EI indexed and published on IEEE Xplore. In fact, all papers published in the Proceedings of the IEEE ICAL 2008 Conference were EI Compendex full-paper indexed in December of 2008, only three months after the conference being held. We would like to invite all the scholars and experts around the world to contribute recent and original research results and to attend the conference to be hosted at the great Chinese city of Shenyang. The conference paper submission has started at the conference website. Proposals for special sessions are welcome. Papers with original work in all aspects of Automation and Logistics are invited. SUBMISSION OF PAPERS: Prospective authors are invited to submit original papers in IEEE double column format with no less than 10p fonts. Please follow the standard IEEE guidelines for preparing papers when preparing your manuscript. More information can be found here: http://www.ieee.org/web/publications/pubservices/confpub/author_faqs.html AUTHORS'S SCHEDULES: Deadline for full paper submission: March 1, 2009 Notification of accepted papers: May 15, 2009 Submission of accepted final papers: June 1, 2009 We look forward to meeting you in Shenyang, China in August, 2009. Kindest regards, Tianyou Chai, General Co-Chair T.-J. Tarn, General Co-Chair Toshio Fukuda, Program Co-Chair Huaguang Zhang, Program Co-Chair From mouri at gifu-u.ac.jp Fri Jan 30 02:58:15 2009 From: mouri at gifu-u.ac.jp (Tetsuya MOURI) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:58:15 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Deadline Extension - CPF: 9th Iternational IFAC Symposium on Robot Control in Gifu (SYROCO'09) Message-ID: <200901301058.AA04826@robota.gifu-u.ac.jp> (apologies for multiple postings) We are pleased to announce the deadline for paper submission to SYROCO2009 has been extended until 8th February. ***************************************************** SYROCO'09 - Call For Papers 9th International IFAC Symposium on Robot Control Nagaragawa Convention Center, Gifu, Japan September 9-12, 2009 http://www.syroco2009.org/ ***************************************************** Welcome to Gifu and Japan! The 9th International IFAC Symposium on Robot Control (SYROCO2009) will be held at the Nagaragawa Convention Center in Gifu, Japan from September 9 to 12, 2009. All the past symposiums were held in Europe. To create a new foothold for growth, the 9th SYROCO comes to Gifu, Japan. It is the first time that SYROCO is held in non-European countries. The invited sessions is scheduled in SYROCO2009. Meeting Scope: -------------- The primary topics for the SYROCO 2009 will be "Robot Control in Human- Robot Dynamic Interaction". Robot control technology is widely used for space, surgery, rehabilitation, micro machine, entertainment, underwater, civil engineering etc. It will continue to play an increasing role in the area of human-robot dynamic interaction technology. The SYROCO 2009 will also try to cover the whole range of areas in the field of robot control including mobile robots. Contributions on basic research as well as on relevant applications are included. Topics of interests include, but are not limited to the followings. : --------------------------------------------------------------------- * Haptic interaction * Telemanipulation * Micro/Nano manipulation * Networked robots * Hybrid Dynamical System * Robot control (adaptive, robust, learning) * Force and compliance control * Multi-fingered hand control * Multi cooperative robot control * Sensory based robot control * Modeling and identification * Mobile robots * Humanoid robot * Advanced Applications: space, surgery, rehabilitation, entertainment, underwater, civil engineering, etc. Invited session ---------------- * IPROMS session on Methods for Multiple Mobile Robots Control * Mechatronic Approach to Robotics * Cognitive Robotics * Control Issues and Sensor Feedback in Nanohandling Systems * Robotic Human-Machine-Systems in the Security Domain * Evolvable Systems: Current Industrial & Academic results * Energy-Based Motor Control and Learning for Human-Robot Interaction * Dexterous Manipulation If you interested in a session and hope that you submit your paper to the session, please contact the corresponding organizer. Schedule: (new!) ---------------- * February 8, 2009 Firm Deadline for Submission of full-length papers The number of pages and the file size: 6 pages, 1.5 MB * May 1, 2009 Notification of paper acceptance * June 15, 2009 Deadline for Submission of final papers * July 1, 2009 Deadline for Advanced Registration * September 9-12 2009 SYROCO 2009 Please submit your papers no later than February 8, 2009. The deadline is firm and is not extended. Symposium Venue: ---------------- * Nagaragawa Convention Center 2695-2 Nagara Fukumitsu, Gifu 502-0817, Japan. Web: http://www.g-ncc.jp/test/e-framepage.htm The Nagaragawa Convention Center is located at the Nagara riverside. It stands 5 km away from JR (Japan Railway) Gifu Station or Meitetsu Gifu Station. On the Nagara riverside, there are world class hotels and ryokans (Japanese-style hotels) equipped with hot springs. Sightseeing of cormorant fishing is available either from the riverside or a viewing boat, in the evening. * Gifu City Gifu city is situated in the center of Japan. Gifu is rich in history, culture, and natural beauty. Mt. Kinka rises on the east side of the city. Gifu Castle, which was the famous residence of Nobunaga Oda, stands at the summit of this forested mountain. At sunset, Gifu Castle lights up, reminding us of its history of 700 years. Since Nobunaga Oda, a warrior who aimed to conquer the entire country, strongly promoted commerce and industry in Gifu, a prosperous castle town was developed here. Gifu has a lot of restaurants, theaters, a variety of retail stores and shopping malls, including a department store downtown, located between Gifu JR station and the conference site. Registration Fees: ------------------ Advance (before July 1, 2009) On-site Full Registration JPY 50,000 JPY 60,000 Student Registration JPY 25,000 JPY 30,000 The registration fees have been changed, and a 15% discount has been applied. The Full Registration fee includes the Symposium Preprints, coffee breaks, Welcome and Farewell Receptions and the Symposium Banquet. The Student Registration fee includes the Symposium Preprints, coffee breaks and Welcome and Farewell Receptions. For every accepted paper, at least one full registration fee must be paid before June 15, 2009. Otherwise the paper will not be considered in the final event program and will not be published in the event documentation. No-show papers: --------------- A paper not presented takes away a slot from another author and creates a hole in the session, which can cause serious inconvenience to the audience and the organizers. Noshow papers will not appear at IFAC-PapersOnline.net. Program: -------- * Technical Sessions * Plenary Lectures * Special Invited Lecture from Toyota Motor Corporation * Company Exhibition Contact Us: ----------- SYROCO 2009 Secretariat: Dr. Tetsuya Mouri Department of Human and Information Systems, Gifu University 1-1 Yanagido Gifu 501-1193, Japan. TEL/FAX: +81-58-293-2548 E-mail: syroco2009_office at syroco2009.org Committees: ----------- International Program Committee: IPC Chair: Hideki Hashimoto, University of Tokyo, Japan IPC Vice-Chairs: Paolo Dario, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy Yoshikazu Hayakawa, Nagoya University, Japan Oussama Khatib, Stanford University, USA Masashi Yamashita, Toyota Motor Corporation, Japan IPC Members: Nikos A. Aspragathos (Greece) George Boiadjiev (Bulgaria) Wayne J. Book (USA) Mo-Yune Chow (USA) Sergej Fatikow (Germany) Aarne Halme (Finland) Vincent Hayward (Canada) Keum-Shik Hong (Korea) Sang-Ho Hyon (Japan) Rolf Johansson (Sweden) Makoto Kaneko (Japan) Haruhisa Kawasaki (Japan) Wisama Khalil (France) Peter Kopacek (Austria) Peter Korondi (Hungary) Kazuhiro Kosuge (Japan) Ju-Jang Lee (Korea) Sandro Leuchter (Germany) Yun-Hui Liu (China) Shugen Ma (Japan) Claudio Melchiorri (Italy) Yoshihiko Nakamura (Japan) Goro Obinata (Japan) Mauro Onori (Sweden) Shinsuk Park (Korea) Vladimir Pavlovsky (Russia) Jose M. G. Sa da Costa (Portugal) Miguel A Salichs (Spain) Jurek Z. Sasiadek (Canada) Bruno Siciliano (Italy) Hanxu Sun (China) Satoshi Tadokoro (Japan) Tzyh-Jong Tarn (USA) Krzysztof Tchon (Poland) Masayoshi Tomizuka (USA) Dirk Wollherr (Germany) National Organizing Committee: NOC Chair: Haruhisa Kawasaki, Gifu University, Japan NOC Vice-Chair: Kazuhiko Terashima, Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan NOC Members: Takahiro Endo (Japan) Hideki Hashimoto (Japan) Hiroki Ishikawa (Japan) Satoshi Ito (Japan) Naoki Mizuno (Japan) Yoshifumi Morita (Japan) Tetsuya Mouri (Japan) Minoru Sasaki (Japan) Kazuo Tani (Japan) Kazunori Terada (Japan) Hironao Yamada (Japan) Hidehiko Yamamoto (Japan) Kenichi Yano (Japan) National Advisory Committee: NAC Chair: Tsuneo Yoshikawa, Ritsumeikan University, Japan NAC Members: Tamio Arai (Japan) Suguru Arimoto (Japan) Toshio Fukuda (Japan) Fumio Harashima (Japan) Hidenori Kimura (Japan) Sponsors: --------- Sponsoring Organization: International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) IFAC Technical Committee on Robotics (TC 4.3) Co-sponsoring IFAC Technical Committees: Mechatronic Systems (TC 4.2) Control Design (TC 2.1) Co-sponsor: Science Council of Japan Technical co-sponsors: IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IES) IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) International Association for Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (IMACS) Japan Robot Association (JARA) The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineering (JSME) The Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ) The Society of Instrument and Control Engineering (SICE) The Virtual Reality Society of Japan (VRSJ) ------------------------------------------------------------- From secretariat at icorr2009.org Wed Jan 28 18:47:59 2009 From: secretariat at icorr2009.org (ICORR 2009 Secretariat) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 11:47:59 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Deadline extended: ICORR 2009: Call for Papers Message-ID: <498118DF.7050402@icorr2009.org> The deadline for Submission of full papers and video clips has been extended to Feb. 7, 2009. -------------------------------------------- Dear Colleagues, It is our great pleasure to announce the Call for Papers of: The 2009 IEEE 11th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR 2009) which will be held in Kyoto, Japan, from June 23 to 26, 2009. http://www.icorr2009.org/ ICORR 2009 will be focused on a number of topics including the themes of: - Assistive Robotics - Therapeutic Robotics - Mechatronics in Prosthetics - Artificial Human Exoskeletons - Psychosocial Robotics - Robotics for Caregiving - Neural-Machine Interfaces & Control - Robotics for Human-Motion Analysis - Evaluation & Clinical Experience The theme of the conference is "Reaching Users & the Community,? reflecting the strong demands on the rehabilitation robotics researchers to bring the fruits of their efforts to users and the community who wish to utilize them in their daily life. *** Important Dates *** [New!] February 07, 2009: Submission of full papers and video clips March 28, 2009: Notification of paper acceptance April 25, 2009: Final papers and W/T manuscripts due June 23-26, 2009: ICORR 2009 Conference We are looking forward to seeing you in Kyoto. ICORR 2009 General Chair Kiyoshi Nagai ----------------------------------------------------------------- Kiyoshi Nagai, Dr. Eng. Professor Department of Robotics College of Science and Engineering Ritsumeikan University Noji-higashi 1-1-1, Kusatsu, Shiga 525-8577, Japan Tel: +81-77-561-2750, Fax: +81-77-561-2665 E-mail: nagai at se.ritsumei.ac.jp ----------------------------------------------------------------- From sigalbe at bgu.ac.il Wed Jan 28 20:00:57 2009 From: sigalbe at bgu.ac.il (Sigal Berman) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:00:57 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Ben-Gurion University - Post Doc and Graduate Student Opportunity: Interfaces for the Smart Home Message-ID: <02e401c981c6$30e0b3f0$92a21bd0$@ac.il> Post Doc and Graduate Student Opportunity: Interfaces for the Smart Home Department of Industrial Engineering and management and Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel DESCRIPTION - The research involves the development of a novel human-machine interface for future smart homes. The interface involves interacting with and controlling objects found in the home such as appliances, home service robots, and entertainment devices. There are several aspects to this project. 1. Comparison of the operation of a vision based and 3D sensor based hand trajectory recognition. 2. Use of image processing algorithms for gesture recognition. 3. Integration of machine learning and gesture recognition for algorithm parameter optimization. 4. Design and performance of a usability study for system evaluation. Prospective students should have background in image processing and programming (C++ or C#). SUPPORT ? Graduate student financial support may be provided based on student background and proficiency. ? For more details contact: ??? Dr, Sigal Berman,? Rm 247, Phone: 08 647 9785 ??? Email: sigalbe at bgu.ac.il???? ? ??? Prof. Helman Stern , Rm 250, Phone 08 6472213, or? 08 6461434(messages) ?? ?Email: helman at bgu.ac.il Sincerely, ? Sigal Berman, Ph.D. Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Ben-Gurion University of the Negev P.O.B 653, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel? Phone: +972 8 647 9785 Fax:????? +972 8 647 2958 Email: sigalbe at bgu.ac.il http://www.bgu.ac.il/~sigalbe From alex.farinelli at gmail.com Sat Jan 31 06:14:29 2009 From: alex.farinelli at gmail.com (Alessandro Farinelli) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 14:14:29 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Second CFP for ADAPT 2009 workshop at AAMAS Message-ID: * ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * *Second Call For Papers for **ADAPT 2009 Workshop Agent Design: Advancing from Theory to Practice AAMAS 2009 Web Site: http://nathanschurr.googlepages.com/motivation Submission deadline: February 12 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MOTIVATION* AAMAS is the premier international conference for both theoretical and applied agent-based research. However, in today's agents community, theory and practice seem to be walking separate paths with no clear feedback between the two. The ADAPT workshop hopes to bridge this gap by fostering an exchange where the lessons learned from taking theory to practice are used to understand the limitations of the theoretical models and the lessons learned directly from practice and used to discover the issues that theoretical models need to address. Over the last several years, members of the agents community have been involved with real-world systems in robotics, decision-support agents, personal-assistant agents in military, space and commercial domains. Many of the lessons learned from these endeavors involve the surprises, difficulties and flaws. These lessons are often not shared because they bring about questions for which an answer is not apparent. Nevertheless, it is important for our community to know and discuss these challenges if we are to produce the ideas and technology that are transformative and ultimately, utilized by practitioners. Some of these challenges may include: * Giving users a language to compactly communicate their problems; problem description * Translating a problem description into a chosen formalism; modeling * The lack of information to populate a model * The effects of bounded memory and processing on algorithms * Real-world communication channels * Communicating with a human user, e.g., giving instructions, receiving updates * Getting real information from the environment; sensing * User error or misinterpretation of instructions An important aspect of this workshop is not only to discuss these challenges, but also to develop directions for existing and new theoretical models so that algorithms and approaches that result can actually function in practice. *SHORT PAPER SUBMISSION* We are soliciting papers that discuss lessons learned from taking theory to practice or extracting lessons about theory from practice, particularly those that can identify issues with existing theoretical formulations or suggest new directions or approaches. Papers can be up to 5 single-spaced pages in standard LaTeX article format or Word with 1-inch margins in 12 point font. The papers will be reviewed by the Organizing Committee on the ability to further the goals and discussion that align with the motivation of the workshop. Position papers are also welcome. Please e-mail your submissions to by the deadline. *BEST PAPER AWARD * A best paper award will be chosen by the organizing committee. The winning authors will receive one free registration to the workshop. *PRESENTATIONS * All accepted papers will be invited to give short presentations on their experiences and ideas. In addition, we will have the following invited speakers: * *Nick Jennings*, University of Southampton * *Gal Kaminka*, Bar-Ilan University * *Pedro Szekely*, Information Sciences Institute * *Milind Tambe*, University of Southern California *DEADLINES * Submission: Feb 12, 2009 Notification: March 1, 2009 Camera-Ready: March 12, 2009 *ORGANIZING COMMITTEE * Rajiv Maheswaran Research Scientist, Information Sciences Institute Research Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department USC Viterbi School of Engineering University of Southern California E-mail: Nathan Schurr Human-Agent Collaboration Scientist Aptima, Inc. Email: Alessandro Farinelli Research Fellow, School of Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton Email: From gerhard.kraetzschmar at h-brs.de Sat Jan 31 06:52:38 2009 From: gerhard.kraetzschmar at h-brs.de (Gerhard Kraetzschmar) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:52:38 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CfP Workshops and Tutorials for ICAR 2009 (2nd Call) Message-ID: <52BCA3E7-D162-474F-B9FB-52295BC6A07E@h-brs.de> ** Second Call, First Reminder ** Dear robotics-worldwide list members, the International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR 2009) will be held in Munich next year in June. The conference organizers work hard to put together a very high quality technical program. I have the pleasure to solicit proposals for workshops and tutorials, to be held immediately prior to the conference technical program. All details are specified in the call below. Please do not hesitate to contact me, if you have questions or want to discuss ideas. Best regards, Gerhard Kraetzschmar ICAR 2009 Workshop and Tutorials Chair --------------------------------------- ** Apologies for cross-postings. ** ** Please send to interested colleagues and students.** ===================================================================== CALL FOR WORKSHOPS AND TUTORIALS 14th International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR 2009) Munich, Germany, June 22nd to June 26th, 2009 Theme: Able Robots http://www.icar2009.org/ Workshop and tutorial proposal submission deadline: Feb 15, 2009 Workshop and tutorial program: Jun 22 to Jun 23, 2009 Sponsored by the German Robotics Society (DGR) Technically Co-sponsored by IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) ====================================================================== ------------------------------------------------- CONFERENCE THEME ------------------------------------------------- The theme of ICAR 2009 will be "able robots", where "able" is the lexical intersection of "cap-able", "depend-able", "measur-able", "afford-able". These adjectives stand as synonyms for four rather fundamental and important features of robots which are supposed to deliver useful and economically competitive services in everyday environments under everyday conditions. Robots need to be "cap-able" of performing functions, which are considered to be of real use to a customer. These functions and capabilities have to be shown in a "depend-able" manner 24 hours per day, 7 days per week and 52 weeks per year. Service robots, which have become products, have become "measur-able" because their price performance ratio determines their competitiveness. Measurability of functions, components, system designs is needed to develop competitive service robot products. Finally, attention must be paid not only to the development of high technology but also to "afford-able" technology, which leads to a competitive price performance ratio of the eventual service robotics products. ------------------------------------------------- SUBMISSION OF WORKSHOP AND TUTORIAL PROPOSALS ------------------------------------------------- ICAR 2009 is inviting workshop and tutorial proposals for the Workshop and Tutorial Program. We solicit proposals -- particularly, but not exclusively -- addressing or complementing the core scientific and technological issues of the technical conference program: * cap-able * motion planning and navigation, reactive and sensor-based planning, visual navigation, mapping and localization, robot control, kinematics and dynamics, behavior-based systems, robot architectures, distributed robot systems, sensing and perception, scene understanding, situation awareness, force and tactile sensing, haptics, sensor fusion, visual servoing, tracking, manipulation, mobile manipulation, grasping, reasoning, learning, interaction, service robotics, domestic robotics, home automation, field and service robotics * afford-able * low-cost localization, low-cost sensing and 3D perception, low-cost wide-area navigation, low-cost collision detection and obstacle avoidance, low-cost manipulation and grasping, low-cost actuation, low-cost coverage, low-cost robot design * measur-able * performance measures and procedures, benchmarks, experimental robotics, standards * depend-able * robust autonomy, error recovery, remote diagnosis and monitoring, self-modeling, self-monitoring, self-repair Tutorial durations can be half-day or full-day. Workshop durations can be anything from half-day to two days. Proposals for tutorials should include - the title of the tutorial - a brief description of the tutorial content - a brief description of the target audience - the names, affiliations, and brief CVs of all speakers - a tentative schedule for the tutorial - a description of the material that will be supplied to participants - a listing of any equipment needed Proposals for workshops should include - the title of the workshop - a description of the workshop topics, motivations, and objectives - a brief description of the target audience - a list of workshop organizers and (if applicable) committee members (all confirmed, with name, affiliation, country for everyone) - a list of confirmed (invited) speakers and confirmed participants (with name, affiliations, country for everyone) - a tentative schedule indicating also the format of the workshop, e.g. sessions of invited or contributed talks, panels, workgroups, etc. All proposals should be submitted as PDF documents by email to the workshop and tutorial chair no later than Feb 15, 2009: Gerhard Kraetzschmar, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences E-Mail: gerhard.kraetzschmar at fh-brs.de ------------------------------------------------- WORKSHOP PROCEEDINGS AND TUTORIAL MATERIAL ------------------------------------------------- Tutorial and workshop material will be distributed on CDROM or USB stick to registered tutorial and workshop participants. All material must be supplied by the workshop/tutorial organizers to the Tutorials and Workshop Chair by the dates listed below. It is recommended that workshops use the same formats, instructions and means for preparing tutorial and workshop material as required by the main conference. ------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT DATES, WORKSHOP AND TUTORIAL PROGRAM ------------------------------------------------- Workshops: Proposal submission due date: Feb 15, 2009 Notification of acceptance: Mar 01, 2009 Final participants list due date: May 01, 2009 Camera-ready workshop paper submission: May 01, 2009 Workshop program: Jun 22-23, 2009 Tutorials; Proposal submission due date: Feb 15, 2009 Notification of acceptance: Mar 01, 2009 Camera-ready tutorial material submission: May 15, 2009 Tutorial program: Jun 22-23, 2009 ------------------------------------------------- FURTHER INFORMATION ------------------------------------------------- Inquiries may be sent by e-mail message to the workshop and tutorial chair: Gerhard Kraetzschmar, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences E-Mail: gerhard.kraetzschmar at fh-brs.de Detailed information on the conference is available at the Conference web page: http://www.icar2009.org/ ------------------------------------------------- COMMITTEES ------------------------------------------------- * Honorary Chairs Rolf Dieter Schraft, Fraunhofer IPA Gerd Hirzinger, DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics * General Chair Erwin Prassler, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences * Program Chair Paolo Fiorini, Univ. of Verona * Workshop and Tutorial Chair Gerhard Kraetzschmar, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences * Financial Chair Rainer Bischoff, KUKA Roboter GmbH * Publication Chair Martin H?gele, Fraunhofer IPA * Publicity Chair Monica Reggiani, Univ. of Padua * Industrial Liaison Chair Gisbert Lawitzky, Siemens AG * International Steering Committee J. Angeles (Canada) A.K. Bejczy (USA) Alicia Casals (Spain) Paulo Dario, University of Pisa (Italy) B. Espiau (France) George Giralt (France) J.O. Gray (UK) Gerd Hirzinger (Gemany) Oussama Khatib (USA) Giulio Sandini (Italy) Rolf Dieter Schraft (Gemany) Jon Trevelyan (UK) Y. Umetani (Japan) * Local Organizer Corinna Noltenius, GPS Gesellschaft f?r Produktionssysteme GmbH ------------------------------------------------- VENUE ------------------------------------------------- All sessions and activities of the ICAR 2009 will be held at the Munich Marriott Hotel, Berliner Strasse 93, Munich, Germany Best regards, Gerhard Kraetzschmar --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gerhard K. Kraetzschmar Professor for Autonomous Systems Fon: +49-2241-865-293 Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University oAS Fax: +49-2241-865-8293 Computer Science Department Net: gerhard.kraetzschmar at fh-brs.de Grantham-Allee 20 Web: http://www.kraetzschmar.de/ 53757 Sankt Augustin, Germany B-IT Bonn-Aachen International Center of Information Technology Net: gerhard.kraetzschmar at b-it-center.de --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From hager at cs.jhu.edu Sat Jan 31 06:07:38 2009 From: hager at cs.jhu.edu (Gregory Hager) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 09:07:38 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdoctoral position at JHU: Vision and Robotics for Microsurgery Message-ID: <85BC19FD-CB2A-4817-835F-798B455501EF@cs.jhu.edu> Postdoctoral Position at JHU We are seeking a postdoctoral fellow to take a leading role in the development of systems for sensor-based control and augmented reality display with application to retinal surgery. This position is part of a recent NIH BRP award which can be viewed at: http://www.researchgrantdatabase.com/g/1R01EB007969-01A1/A-Microsurgical-Assistant-System/ The chosen individual will participate in a multi-disciplinary team that is developing a broad range of imaging, display, and manipulation capabilities. He or she will have the opportunity to work on both theoretical and applied aspects of the project in close collaboration with graduate students, engineering staff and clinical personnel. He or she will also be encouraged to participate in and/or define other projects related to computer vision and imaging within the newly established Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics (www.lcsr.jhu.edu) and the Center for Computer-Integrated Surgical Systems and Technology (cisst.org). The position is available immediately and is renewable annually for up to four years. Further extension is possible based on performance and available funding. Qualified applicants should respond by email as soon as possible to Gregory Hager (hager at cs.jhu.edu) with full C.V. and a list of at least two references. Gregory D. Hager, Professor The Johns Hopkins University Department of Computer Science 121 CSEB, 3400 N. Charles St. Baltimore, MD 21218 Tel: 410-516-5521 Fax: 410-516-4410 Email: hager at cs.jhu.edu http://cirl.lcsr.jhu.edu/ From jminguez at unizar.es Sat Jan 31 05:30:49 2009 From: jminguez at unizar.es (Javier Minguez) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 14:30:49 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFAbstracts: ICRA'09 Brain Machine Interfaces for Neuroprostheses and Robot Control Message-ID: WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT (CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS) IEEE ICRA'09 Brain Machine Interfaces for Neuroprostheses and Robot Control The full-day workshop will be held at ICRA 2009 in Kobe (Japan), on May 12th within the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation May 12-17th . The workshop has already a list of confirmed speakers (see below) and this call for extended abstracts and participation will be used to add new speakers to the list and to organize a poster session. WEBPAGE: http://webdiis.unizar.es/~jminguez/webICRA09/ ---------------------------------------------------------- GOAL AND SCOPE Brain-Machine Interfaces encompass 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 of neuroscience, computer science, and biomedical engineering among others. With the understanding of the human brain and the rapid development of the instrumentation, signal processing and machine learning; 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 beginning of scientific and practical exploration. In response to this growing interest in neurosignal actuated devices, several initiatives are starting to pave the path toward 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 that we humans proceed. Other researches are applying brain machine learning technology to directly interact with autonomous mobile robots in applications like intelligent wheelchairs or teleoperation between remote scenarios. The objective of this workshop is two-folded. On the one hand, the intention is to gather researchers working in different areas of brain computer interfaces in order to give a broad panorama of the recent technological advances. On the other hand, the workshop will address researchers working in applications of brain machine control relevant for the robotics community. More precisely, the aims of this workshop include: ? To bring together researchers from multidisciplinary fields, so as to focus on the different aspects of the brain computer interfaces and their applications to robotics, and therefore being novel and complimentary to previous related workshops, which had a broader scope. ? To give a panorama to the robotics community of the basic technologies on brain computer interfaces. ? To discuss novel applications of neurocontrol such as neuroprostheses, brain actuated wheelchairs and brain teleoperated robots with the brain computer interface community to seek for fundamental solutions. ? To evaluate different experimental designs for brain-robot interaction in the assistive context. ? To provide a general overview of the critical issues and key points in building brain-machine devices and assistive applications and providing indications for further directions and developments in the field, based on the current diverse expertise of the participants. ---------------------------------------------------------- LIST OF CONFIRMED SPEAKERS Prof. Jos? del R. Mill?n, PhD. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. Prof. Christa Neuper, PhD. TU-Graz. Austria. Carmen Vidaurre, PhD. TU-Berlin. Germany. Reinhold Scherer, PhD. University of Washington. USA Gernot M?ller-Putz, PhD. TU-Graz. Austria. Silvestro Micera, PhD. Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna. Italy Prof. Fivos Panetsos, PhD. Universidad Complutense Madrid. Spain Jos? Carmena, PhD. Universidad de Berkeley. USA Prof. Andy Schwartz, PhD. U. Pittsburg. USA Jun Morimoto, PhD (Prof. Dr. Mitsuo Kawato, PhD). ATR Japan. Ander Ramos, MSc. Fatronik and University of Tubingen. Germany. Prof. Axel Gr?ser, PhD. U. Bremen. Germany. Prof. John Donogue, PhD. Cyberkinetics. USA Javier Minguez, PhD. University of Zaragoza. Spain Rajesh P. N. Rao, PhD. University of Washington. USA ---------------------------------------------------------- ABSTRACT SUBMISSION Extended Abstracts should be submitted by email to jminguez at unizar.es . The abstract submission should include: * Title * List of authors and affiliations * Abstract of 500-800 words * References to your own related work * Relevant web links Important dates: - February 7st, 2009 Deadline for submission extended abstract, - February 14th, 2009 Notification of type of acceptance (talk of poster) - February 26th, 2009 Deadline for submission of final contributions - May 12th, 2009 Workshop ---------------------------------------------------------- ORGANIZERS: Javier Minguez, PhD. Universidad Zaragoza. Spain Carmen Vidaurre, PhD. TU-Berlin. Germany Ander Ramos, MSc. University of Tubing?en. Germany; Fatronik, Spain Prof. Jos? del R. Mill?n, PhD . Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. Prof. Klaus Robert M?ller, PhD. TU-Berlin. Germany Prof. Niels Birbaumer, PhD. University of Tubing?en. Germnay -- -- Javier Minguez Dpto de Infomatica e Ingenieria de Sistemas Universidad de Zaragoza Spain From lagoudakis at ieee.org Sat Jan 31 11:15:06 2009 From: lagoudakis at ieee.org (Michail G. Lagoudakis) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:15:06 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: RoboCup Symposium 2009 *DEADLINE APPROACHING* Message-ID: <4984A33A.7050409@ieee.org> ******************************************************************** >>>>>> ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE: *FEBRUARY 2, 2009* <<<<<<< ******************************************************************** RoboCup International Symposium 2009 Graz, Austria June 30 - July 3, 2009 http://www.robocup2009.org/202-0-symposium.html ******************************************************************** >>> CALL FOR PAPERS >>> CALL FOR PAPERS <<< CALL FOR PAPERS <<< ******************************************************************** OVERVIEW The 13th annual RoboCup International Symposium will be held in conjunction with RoboCup 2009, during the Competitions and Demonstrations. The Symposium represents the core meeting for presentation and discussion of scientific contributions to a variety of research areas related to all RoboCup divisions (RoboCupSoccer, RoboCupRescue, RoboCup at Home, and RoboCupJunior). Its scope encompasses, but is not restricted to, research and educational activities within the fields of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. Due to its interdisciplinary nature, the symposium offers a unique venue for exploring various and intimate connections of theory and practice across a wide spectrum of research fields. The experimental, interactive, and benchmark character of the RoboCup initiative presents the opportunity to disseminate novel ideas and promising technologies, which are rapidly adopted and field-tested by a large (and still growing) community. SUBMISSION We solicit submissions of papers reporting on high-quality, original research with relevance to the areas mentioned below. All researchers working in these areas, even if not actively participating in RoboCup teams, are urged to submit their work. Both papers describing real-world research and papers reporting theoretical results, as well as combinations thereof, are welcome. We also encourage the submission of high-quality overview articles for any field related to the general scope of RoboCup. The proceedings of the RoboCup International Symposium are published and archived within the Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI) series. Submitted papers are limited to 12 pages formatted according to the LNAI requirements and must be electronically submitted through the symposium web site. All contributions are peer-reviewed by at least three reviewers using a blind review process. IMPORTANT DATES Submission of abstracts: February 2, 2009 23:59 PST Submission of papers: February 9, 2009 23:59 PST Notification to authors: April 13, 2009 Camera-ready papers: April 27, 2009 23:59 PST RoboCup Symposium 2009: June 30 - July 3, 2009 SYMPOSIUM CO-CHAIRS Jacky Baltes, University of Manitoba, Canada Michail G. Lagoudakis, Technical University of Crete, Greece Tadashi Naruse, Aichi Prefectural University, Japan Saeed Shiry, Amirkabir University of Technology, Iran AREAS OF INTEREST * Robot Hardware and Software -- mobile and humanoid robots -- sensors and actuators -- embedded and mobile devices -- robot construction and new materials -- robotic system integration -- robot software architectures -- robot programming environments and languages -- real-time and concurrent programming -- robot simulators * Perception and Action -- distributed sensor integration -- sensor noise filtering -- real-time image processing and pattern recognition -- motion and sensor models -- sensory-motor control -- robot kinematics and dynamics -- high-dimensional motion control * Robotic Cognition and Learning -- world modeling -- localization, navigation, and mapping -- planning and reasoning -- decision making under uncertainty -- reinforcement learning -- complex motor skill acquisition -- motion and sensor model learning * Multi-Robot Systems -- team coordination methods -- communication protocols -- learning and adaptive systems -- teamwork and heterogeneous agents -- dynamic resource allocation -- adjustable autonomy * Human-Robot Interaction -- human-robot interfaces -- speech synthesis and natural language generation -- visualization * Education and Edutainment -- Robotics and Artificial Intelligence education -- educational robotics -- robot kits and programming tools -- robotic entertainment * Applications -- disaster rescue information systems -- search and rescue robots -- robotic surveillance -- service robots -- robots at home ******************************************************************** From terry.huntsberger at jpl.nasa.gov Sat Jan 31 11:01:26 2009 From: terry.huntsberger at jpl.nasa.gov (Terry Huntsberger) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 11:01:26 -0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2nd CFP LAB-RS 2009 Message-ID: <7FABE3B7-5DBE-4EAE-8314-D9C779BEDA3D@jpl.nasa.gov> This is the second Call for Papers and Special Session Proposals for LAB-RS'09. Please visit the website for more details. ================== 2nd ECSIS Symposium on Learning and Adaptive Behavior in Robotic Systems, July 22-24, 2009 Iasi Romania The website is now active. http://www.labrs.info/labrs09.html Please note the following important dates: Proposals for special sessions February 20, 2009 Deadline for papers: March 9, 2009 Author notification: April 6, 2009 Camera ready: April 27, 2009 Author/Early registration: May 30, 2009 Two co-located events of interest to the robotic community are: International School in Robotics and Intelligent Systems ISRIS 2009 Focus theme: Assistive robots and systems for healthcare and rehabilitation Iasi, Romania, July 22-26, 2009 http://www.isris.info/isris09.html and Exploratory Workshop on Assistive and Recuperative Technologies for Injured, ill, Pregnant, Elderly and people with Disabilities ARTIPED 2009 July 24-26, 2009, Iasi, Romania http://www.artiped.info/artiped09.html LAB-RS Aim and scope Learning and adaptive behaviors are key to robotics system operation in real world environments. While there have been important developments at the theoretical level and in simulations or laboratory environments, the transfer of these methods onto real-world platforms has been limited. This symposium aims to provide a forum for advancement of learning and adaptation in robotics systems to high capability levels comparable to those of biological systems. It seeks reports on new concepts, laboratory demonstrations, and fielded robotic systems that exhibit learning and adaptive behaviors. 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 2009 will take place in Iasi, Romania. The capital of the medieval principality of Moldavia, Iasi is a city immersed in history and culture, yet trendy and vibrant due to the tens of thousands of university students that live in Romania?s oldest - and second largest - university city. The social program will include a tour to the famous painted monasteries of Northern Moldavia and Iasi sightseeing. ------------------------------------- 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