From rjwood at eecs.harvard.edu Wed Jul 1 10:42:06 2009 From: rjwood at eecs.harvard.edu (Rob Wood) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 13:42:06 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] postdoc positions in the Harvard Microrobotics Lab Message-ID: <0756E727-C96E-49B5-9854-05DC10E80243@eecs.harvard.edu> The Harvard Microrobotics Lab has multiple postdoc positions available. Please see below for details and email Prof. Wood with questions (rjwood at seas.harvard.edu). Position #1: The Harvard Microrobotics Lab is currently seeking applications for a postdoc position pertaining to the design and integration of morphable soft-bodied robots. Such a device will require quantum advances in materials, actuation, and control strategies. This is part of a highly visible research project and it is expected that the successful applicant will be a leader of a large multidisciplinary team of researchers. Applicants should have a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering or a related field. Experience with mechanical design is essential. The position is open immediately (7/1/09) and is guaranteed for a year with a possible second year extension. Position #2: The Harvard Microrobotics Lab is currently seeking applications for a postdoc position involving multiple topics in the development of robotic insects. This includes the development of experimental apparatus, integration of sensing, and system design and analysis. It is expected that the successful applicant will be a leader of a large multidisciplinary team of researchers. Applicants should have a Ph.D. in mechanical or electrical engineering or a related field. Experience with microfabrication techniques is essential. The position is open immediately (7/1/09) and is guaranteed for a year with a possible second year extension. Instructions for all applicants: Applicants should send a cover letter briefly describing their background and career plans, a CV, and the names and contact information for at least three references. Please clearly indicate which position you are applying for. These documents should be submitted as pdf attachments to Prof. Wood: rjwood at seas.harvard.edu Harvard University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer and applications from women and underrepresented minorities are strongly encouraged. ------------------------------ Robert Wood Assistant Professor School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Harvard University (617) 496-1341 The Harvard Microrobotics Lab http://micro.seas.harvard.edu (617) 384-7892 ------------------------------- From jmh at cs.utah.edu Wed Jul 1 21:49:02 2009 From: jmh at cs.utah.edu (John Hollerbach) Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:49:02 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJRR OnlineFirst articles for the period 22 June to 1 July 2009 Message-ID: <4A4C3C3E.3070700@cs.utah.edu> New IJRR OnlineFirst articles have been made available (for the period 22 June to 1 July 2009): Modeling and Experimental Characterization of an Untethered Magnetic Micro-Robot Chytra Pawashe, Steven Floyd, and Metin Sitti The International Journal of Robotics Research published 1 July 2009, 10.1177/0278364909341413 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909341413v1 Using Multi-view Recognition and Meta-data Annotation to Guide a Robot's Attention Alexander Thomas, Vittorio Ferrari, Bastian Leibe, Tinne Tuytelaars, and Luc van Gool The International Journal of Robotics Research published 1 July 2009, 10.1177/0278364909340444 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909340444v1 Planning Long Dynamically Feasible Maneuvers for Autonomous Vehicles Maxim Likhachev and Dave Ferguson The International Journal of Robotics Research published 26 June 2009, 10.1177/0278364909340445 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909340445v1 Planning and Control of Ensembles of Robots with Non-holonomic Constraints Nathan Michael and Vijay Kumar The International Journal of Robotics Research published 26 June 2009, 10.1177/0278364909340280 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909340280v1 Probabilistic Analysis of Market-based Algorithms for Initial Robotic Formations Antidio Viguria and Ayanna M Howard The International Journal of Robotics Research published 24 June 2009, 10.1177/0278364909340333 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909340333v1 From jaime.vallsmiro at eng.uts.edu.au Thu Jul 2 00:50:27 2009 From: jaime.vallsmiro at eng.uts.edu.au (Jaime Valls Miro) Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:50:27 +1000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: Multi-sensor integration for longer-term autonomous navigation (an ISSNIP 2009 International Symposium) Message-ID: <4A4C66C3.2010701@eng.uts.edu.au> CALL FOR PAPERS ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Multi-sensor integration for longer-term autonomous navigation ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dear Colleagues A symposium on " Multi-sensor integration for longer-term autonomous navigation" will be held in conjunction with the 5th International Conference on Intelligent Sensors, Sensor Networks and Information Processing (ISSNIP), Melbourne, Australia during December 7-10, 2009 (www.issnip.org/2009). Despite all the advances exhibited by robotic platforms in making seemingly intelligent decisions when it comes to planning their motions, the theme of long-term reliable autonomy is still an elusive one. Many advances are being reported in the scientific literature, yet achieving realistic, independent, continuous operation even within the boundaries of specific application domains is still an aspiration in accomplishing effective autonomous robot navigation for many real world problems. Limitations in the physics of the sensorial devices, computational issues, intelligent data fusion and many other factors play an important role in hampering further advances. The symposium will focus on techniques for extracting and relating information from sensors for the purpose of persistent robot autonomy in the widely varied settings that these platforms are designed to operate in: indoors-outdoors, known-unknown environments, static-dynamic problems, highly structured-unstructured scenarios, human-aware or fully-remote applications. While the areas are wide and varied, an underlying current flows through all these themes: no sensing capability or technique will be able to afford success unless working in cooperation with others and intelligently exploiting the combined sensor strengths. The aim of this symposium is to bring together researchers who are working in the area of multi-sensor fusion integration techniques to solve real world problems where longer autonomous operation is key in the success of the application. Areas such as autonomous driving on roads, navigating on unknown (and more often than not harsh) environments such as those encountered during planetary exploration or post-disaster affected areas, airborne surveillance, multi-robot cooperative planning or unsupervised cognitive robots working with humans on a daily basis are but a few token examples. The symposium will seek original research work on all of aspects of sensor integration and fusion algorithms for long-term autonomous operation, with a distinct emphasis on learning how the proposed multi-source aspects of the proposed analytical solutions have been applied to solve real world problems. Topics include, but are not limited to: * Managing ever expanding world models for motion planning * Large-scale SLAM * Exteroceptive perception for improved odometry * Driver assistance systems * Integrity self-monitoring for continuous operation * Centralised/Decentralised intelligent decision making * Autonomous navigation in open and dynamic environments * Novel sensors and techniques, applicable in seemingly contrasting fields (e.g. mining, home, underwater, hospital care ...) * Data association concepts for sensor integration * Sensory-oriented fault tolerant robotic architectures for long-term operation Important Dates: Paper Submission: August 7 2009 Author Notification: September 14 2009 Final Camera Ready Paper Submission: October 5 2009 General Chairs: Jaime Valls Miro, Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems, UTS, Australia Alen Alempijevic, Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems, UTS, Australia {javalls, alalemp}@eng.uts.edu.au Technical Committee: Dieter Fox, University of Washington Mike Bosse, CSIRO Nick Roy, MIT Simon Lacroix, LAAS Stefan Willians, University of Sydney Shoudong Huang, University of Technology Sydney All accepted papers will be published by the IEEE Press and appear in the Conference Proceedings and on IEEE Xplore. Please see http://www.issnip.org/2009/guide.html for paper format and on-line (EDAS-based) submissions. Given the shorter time-frame for submission, please contact the Symposium Chair directly on javalls at eng.uts.edu.au should you run into difficulties during your EDAS submission process (or if you are keen but think you migth possibly be late). -- Dr Jaime Valls Miro Senior Research Fellow Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems (CAS) UTS, Faculty of Engineering and IT, PO BOX 123, Broadway NSW 2007, Australia Office: CB02.605 p: +61 2 9514 2967 f: +61 2 9514 2655 jaime.vallsmiro[AT]eng.uts.edu.au -- UTS CRICOS Provider Code: 00099F DISCLAIMER: This email message and any accompanying attachments may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, do not read, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender expressly, and with authority, states them to be the views the University of Technology, Sydney. Before opening any attachments, please check them for viruses and defects. From jessehoey at computing.dundee.ac.uk Thu Jul 2 01:30:59 2009 From: jessehoey at computing.dundee.ac.uk (jesse hoey) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 09:30:59 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdoctoral Position in Machine Learning and Planning under Uncertainty Message-ID: ******** Postdoctoral Position in Machine Learning and Planning under Uncertainty ********* School of Computing, University of Dundee, Scotland The School of Computing at the University of Dundee seeks applicants for a research position on machine learning and planning under uncertainty for assistive technologies and assistive robots. Expertise is sought in the the following key areas -reinforcement learning -machine learning -decision theoretic models (MDPs and POMDPs) -computer vision Additionally, experience in any of the following areas will be considered assets: -probabilistic graphical models -Bayesian reinforcement learning -robotics -rehabilitation robots -human motion analysis -human-computer interaction -computer graphics The successful candidate will ideally hold a PhD in a related discipline, although we will consider any applicants with substantial postgraduate experience. Informal inquiries can be made to Dr Jesse Hoey (jessehoey at computing.dundee.ac.uk). Formal application details can be obtained at http://www.jobs.dundee.ac.uk/vacancies/20090716_00001-y.html or at jobs.dundee.ac.uk search reference AAE/2830, or by following links from www.computing.dundee.ac.uk/staff/jessehoey/ The University of Dundee is committed to equal opportunities and welcomes applications from all sections of the community. -- Jesse Hoey School of Computing, University of Dundee, Dundee, Scotland, DD14HN +44 (0) 1382 384154 ----- The University of Dundee is a registered Scottish charity, No: SC015096 From glyang at SIMTech.a-star.edu.sg Thu Jul 2 08:23:48 2009 From: glyang at SIMTech.a-star.edu.sg (Yang Guilin Dr) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 23:23:48 +0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] =?windows-1252?q?Call_for_Participation_=96_?= =?windows-1252?q?AIM_2009?= Message-ID: Dear colleagues, 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", reflecting the growing importance of mechatronic technology close to our daily living, not just in the factories. The Organizing Committee highly encourages researchers in the areas of mechatronics, robotics, and automation to attend the AIM 2009 conference. We have assembled a fruitful conference program for participants, such as plenary speeches, a 3-day multiple-track technical program, technical tours, tutorials and workshops. Further information about registration and conference programs can be found on the conference website: http://aim2009.org Looking forward to meeting you in AIM 2009 soon. With best regards, Guilin Yang Publicity Co-Chair of AIM 2009 From cbelta at bu.edu Fri Jul 3 07:42:59 2009 From: cbelta at bu.edu (Calin Belta) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 10:42:59 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Tutorials and Workshops at ICRA 2010, Anchorage, Alaska Message-ID: <9DCAA1DB-7F7E-4EFC-A7A6-074669ECB164@bu.edu> We solicit tutorial and workshop proposals for the the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2010), which will be held in Anchorage, Alaska, May 3 - 8, 2010. The theme of the conference is ?50 Years of Robotics.? Workshops should be focused on interactions of participants to exchange new ideas and explore new directions in research. Tutorials should provide self-contained descriptions of established research topics. We encourage proposals that will attract industrial audience. The primary criteria for selection are anticipated level of interest, impact, novelty or creativity, and technical background of presenters. Proposals following the format below must be submitted via paperplaza (ras.papercept.ne)t by September 15, 2009 (23:59:59, US Pacific Time). Note that this deadline is firm and cannot be extended. Proposal Format: Title Abstract (<200 words, indicate full or half day, workshop or tutorial) Organizers (complete address, phone, and email) Presenters with affiliations and status of confirmation List of topics Motivation and objectives (<300 words) Primary/secondary audience Relation to the previous IROS or ICRA workshops/tutorials that your have participated in as organizers or presenters Note that each section should be numbered and separated by blank lines. For additional information, please visit http://icra2010.grasp.upenn.edu/~graspweb/dynamic/icra2010/?q=node/40 Jing Xiao and Calin Belta Workshops and Tutorials Co-Chairs, ICRA 2010 From erlars at erlars.org Fri Jul 3 14:25:02 2009 From: erlars at erlars.org (ERLARS Workshop) Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:25:02 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Deadline extended: ERLARS 2009 workshop at the IROS 2009 Message-ID: <7691f82fb98471abbb72406f20a2f70e@localhost> [Apologies if you receive this more than once!] News: Deadline extended to July 12 News: Springer book chapter invitation for ERLARS authors ************************************************************************ ERLARS 2009 2nd INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON EVOLUTIONARY AND REINFORCEMENT LEARNING FOR AUTONOMOUS ROBOT SYSTEMS Held in conjunction with IROS 2009 in St. Louis, USA on October 15, 2009 Submission deadline: July 12, 2009 (extended!) http://www.erlars.org/2009/ ************************************************************************ CALL FOR PAPERS Objectives Learning is essential for an autonomous robot system. The range of unexpected situations it can handle while performing its task depends on its ability to adapt. Recent developments have taken autonomous robots beyond industrial settings, for example at home as toys and cleaners. However, production models usually interact with their environment following a fixed control strategy, which limits their range of application. More adaptable robots require control strategies that learn more and better from interactions with their environment. The ERLARS workshop addresses the challenge to develop efficient and versatile learning architectures for autonomous robot systems, with the main focus on adequate evolutionary and reinforcement learning algorithms. Relevant Topics Papers are invited on all aspects of learning methods for the control of autonomous robot systems, including, but not limited to: * Model-free visual servoing * Mobile robot navigation by means of reinforcement learning * Combining offline- and online learning methods for robot control * Reinforcement learning by evolutionary algorithms of neural network-based and other robot controllers * Hybrid systems that combine modelling and parameter estimation by reinforcement learning * Learning from scratch and cascaded learning architectures * Developmental and epigenetic robotics * Balancing exploration and exploitation of acquired knowledge * Simulated environments for autonomous robot learning scenarios Important Dates * July 12, 2009: Paper submission deadline (extended!) * August 10, 2009: Notification of paper acceptance * August 23, 2009: Camera ready paper submission * October 15, 2009: Workshop takes place Springer book chapter Selected ERLARS 2009 articles will appear in an edited book in the Springer Studies in Computational Intelligence series. Please see the call for papers on our website for details (http://www.erlars.org/2009/call_for_papers.php). Workshop Chairs Nils T Siebel Cognitive Systems Group, Institute of Computer Science, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel Kiel, Germany Josef Pauli Intelligent Systems Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Duisburg-Essen Duisburg, Germany Programme Committee Andrew Barto (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA) Peter D?rr (EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland) Christian Igel (Ruhr-Universit?t Bochum, Germany) Yohannes Kassahun (DFKI Lab Bremen, University of Bremen, Germany) Takanori Koga (Yamaguchi University, Japan) Tim Kovacs (University of Bristol, UK) Jun Ota (University of Tokyo, Japan) Josef Pauli (University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany) Jan Peters (MPI for Biological Cybernetics, T?bingen, Germany) Daniel Polani (University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK) Marcello Restelli (Politecnico di Milano, Italy) Stefan Schiffer (RWTH Aachen University, Germany) Juergen Schmidhuber (Swiss AI Lab IDSIA, Lugano, Switzerland) Marc Toussaint (TU Berlin, Germany) Nils T Siebel (Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Germany) Jeremy Wyatt (University of Birmingham, UK) ************************************************************************ More information on the workshop website: http://www.erlars.org/2009/ ************************************************************************ From silvio.sabatini at unige.it Fri Jul 3 10:39:11 2009 From: silvio.sabatini at unige.it (Silvio Sabatini) Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:39:11 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IURS'09 SUMMER SCHOOL ON VISUOMOTOR INTERACTION Message-ID: <4A4E423F.9080708@unige.it> CALL FOR PARTICIPATION 9th INTERNATIONAL UJI ROBOTICS SCHOOL ON "VISUOMOTOR INTERACTION" September 14-18,2009 Bonaire Hotel, Benicassim, SPAIN http://www.robot.uji.es/lab/plone/iurs/iurs09/ This year, for the 9th edition of this long-lasting tradition school, the Robotic Intelligence Lab of Jaume-I University has joined efforts with the partners of the FP7 European project EYESHOTS [www.eyeshots.it] to organize a major event on the visuomotor interaction mechanisms involved in the cognitive representation of the 3D peripersonal space. The program is highly interdisciplinary, covering topics that span Biorobotics, Neuroscience, Vision Science and Computer Vision. Confirmed speakers: Giorgio Cannata (Genoa), Casper J. Erkelens (Utrecht), Patrizia Fattori (Bologna), Claudio Galletti (Bologna), Fred Hamker (Chemnitz), Markus Lappe (Muenster), Rosana Matuk (Buenos Aires), Michele Rucci (Boston), Silvio P. Sabatini (Genoa), Marc Van Hulle (Leuven). We welcome applications outside the consortium, from PhD students and young researchers who share the interest in the theoretical, experimental, and technological aspects of visuomotor interaction. To register, please follow this link: http://www.robot.uji.es/lab/plone/iurs/iurs09/reg Organization: Angel P. del Pobil (Universitat Jaume I, Spain) Eris Chinellato (Universitat Jaume I, Spain) Markus Lappe (Westfalishe Wilhems-University Muenster, Germany) Silvio P. Sabatini (University of Genoa, Italy) -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Silvio P. SABATINI - PSPC Research Group DIBE - University of Genova | e_mail: silvio.sabatini at unige.it Via Opera Pia, 11A | phone: +39 010 3532092/3532289 I-16145 Genova (ITALY) | fax: +39 010 3532289/3532777 URL: http://pspc.dibe.unige.it/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- From urbano at deec.uc.pt Fri Jul 3 03:01:00 2009 From: urbano at deec.uc.pt (Urbano Nunes) Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:01:00 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] DEADLINE EXTENSION - IROS09 Works. on Planning, Perception and Navigation for Intelligent Vehicles Message-ID: <4A4DD6DC.6030402@deec.uc.pt> *************************************************************************** C A L L F O R P A P E R S - DEADLINE EXTENSION 3rd WORKSHOP ON PLANNING, PERCEPTION AND NAVIGATION FOR INTELLIGENT VEHICLES http://www.isr.uc.pt/~urbano/WorkIROS09/ at 2009 IEEE INT. CONFERENCE ON INTELLIGENT ROBOTS AND SYSTEMS (IROS 2009) 11 October 2009, St. Louis, USA *************************************************************************** Important Dates *************** Paper submission: July 15, 2009 Notification: July 25, 2009 Final submission: August 5, 2009 Workshop: October 11, 2009 IEEE IROS08: Oct. 11-15, 2009 Scope *********** The purpose of this workshop is to discuss topics related to the challenging problems of autonomous navigation and of driving assistance in open and dynamic environments. Technologies related to application fields such as unmanned outdoor vehicles or intelligent road vehicles will be considered from both the theoretical and technological point of views. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): -Object detection, tracking and classification -Collision prediction and avoidance -Environment perception, vehicle localization and autonomous navigation -Probabilistic methods in navigation -Real-time perception, smart sensors and sensor fusion -Integrated in-vehicle and infrastructure systems -Road scene understanding, and lane keeping -Pedestrian and vehicle detection -Cooperative techniques -Human-centred driver assistance -Driver state, intent and activity sensing -Visual tracking and map building -SLAM in dynamic environments -Real-time motion planning in dynamic environments -Multi autonomous vehicles studies, models, techniques and simulations -Human-machine interaction Submission *********** Authors are invited to submit their papers by email, in PDF format, to urbano at deec.uc.pt (include the paper title and author names in the email). Journal Special Issue / Book ********************* Depending on the quality of the papers we may consider the edition of a Journal Special Issue or Book, by inviting the authors of the best papers to submit extended versions of their works, and issuing at the same time an open call. Organizers ********************* Urbano Nunes, (U. Coimbra, Portugal), http://www.isr.uc.pt/~urbano Christian Laugier (INRIA, France), http://emotion.inrialpes.fr/laugier Program Committee ********************* Alberto Broggi, Univ. Parma, Italy Anya Petrovskaya, Stanford University, USA Jackson Matsuura, ISR, University of Coimbra, Portugal Philippe Martinet, LASMEA, France Roland Siegwart, ETH Z?rich, Switzerland Javier Ibanez-Guzman, Renault, Research Division, France Michel Parent, INRIA, France Miguel ?ngel Sotelo V?zquez, Alcal? University; Spain Ljubo Vlacic, Griffih University, Australia Rafael Toledo-Moreo, University of Murcia, Spain Dimitar Filev, Ford Research and Advanced Eng., USA Martin Adams, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore --------------------- Past Workshops (pdf of papers available in the webpages): - 1st PPNIV workshop webpage: http://www.isr.uc.pt/~urbano/WorkICRA07/ - 2nd PPNIV workshop webpage: http://www.isr.uc.pt/~urbano/WorkIROS08/ From despina.filippidis at dsto.defence.gov.au Thu Jul 2 16:52:51 2009 From: despina.filippidis at dsto.defence.gov.au (Filippidis, Despina) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 09:22:51 +0930 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] : MAGIC2010 Message-ID: <5C2DC46F1D90834FB62F4AF456B0778C018C22C5@ednex511.dsto.defence.gov.au> I am writing to you to help us disseminate information with regards to MAGIC2010, information given below. If you have a list of e-mail addresses of personal who should receive this information I will greatly appreciate it if you could please forward that list to me., Alternatively please forward this information to others who are active in Robotic Systems Technology. Thank you. Despina MAGIC2010 Coordinator/LWC Executive Secretary DSTO Land Operations Division Edinburgh SA 5111 Voice: +61 88259 5873 E-mail: despina.filippidis at defence.gov.au A joint Australian/US sponsored competition for Multi Autonmous Ground Robotic International Challenge (MAGIC) to be held in November 2010 was announced on 1 st July 2009., The website containing full information is http://www.dsto.defence.gov.au/magic2010/ . The competition is jointly sponsored by the Australian Defence Science and Technology Organization (DSTO) and the US Army Research Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM). Participant conferences will be held in Adelaide Australia (on July 31st), Frankfurt Germany (on August 4th) and Warren, MI, USA (on August 6th). The Media POC for this event is: Jimmy Hafesjee Tel: +612 6128 6376. Mobile: +61 404 042 457 Email: jimmy.hafesjee at dsto.defence.gov.au IMPORTANT: This email remains the property of the Australian Defence Organisation and is subject to the jurisdiction of section 70 of the CRIMES ACT 1914. If you have received this email in error, you are requested to contact the sender and delete the email. From rvoyles at du.edu Sun Jul 5 17:41:48 2009 From: rvoyles at du.edu (Richard Voyles) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 18:41:48 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PhD positions in Robotics, Unmanned Systems, UAVs - University of Denver Message-ID: <00195A026C4047EE8CFF67A865BDB262@richardd620> The University of Denver has several PhD positions in Robotics, Wireless Sensor/Control Networks, Unmanned Aerial/Ground Systems and Computer Vision. Located in the south suburbs of Denver, the University of Denver is well-positioned in a vibrant technical, intellectual, cultural and recreational area of the United States. DU is a thriving research-I university with about 4500 undergraduates and 5000 grads. Excellent candidates for the PhD degree with an emphasis in Electrical, Computer, or Mechanical Engineering are invited to apply. Candidates who have already earned their Master?s degree in either Electrical or Computer Engineering are particularly sought. It is still possible, for exceptional candidates, to admit PhD-seeking graduates for the Fall 2009 quarter. For additional information, check out the following web sites: www.du.edu/~rvoyles http://www.engr.du.edu/mmahoor/ http://www.engr.du.edu/kvalavanis/index.html http://ece.du.edu Or contact Prof. Richard Voyles at rvoyles [at] du [dot] edu (due to an extensive travel schedule this month, replies may be slow.) _______________________________________________________ 2390 S. York Street? | (303) 871-2481 CMK 200??????????????| rvoyles at du.edu Denver, CO? 80208??? | www.du.edu/~rvoyles From hirata at irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp Mon Jul 6 07:03:31 2009 From: hirata at irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp (Yasuhisa Hirata) Date: Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:03:31 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Advanced Robotics : Vol. 23, No. 9 issue Message-ID: <4A520433.9090600@irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp> ************************************************************************ The Official International Journal of the Robotics Society of Japan Advanced Robotics Volume 23, Number 9, 2009 Disaster Response Robotics ************************************************************************ You have free access to the abstracts of all papers below from the following link, and can access the pdf files if you or your institution is subscribing to Advanced Robotics: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/vsp/arb/2009/00000023/00000009 Table of Contents Preface pp. 1023-1024(2) Authors: Tadokoro, Satoshi; Matsuno, Fumitoshi; Nardi, Daniele; Jacoff, Adam Self-Rappelling Robot System for Inspection and Reconnaissance in Search and Rescue Applications pp. 1025-1056(32) Author: Schempf, Hagen AMOEBA-I: A Shape-Shifting Modular Robot for Urban Search and Rescue pp. 1057-1083(27) Authors: Li, B.; Ma, S.; Liu, J.; Wang, M.; Liu, T.; Wang, Y. A Mobile Robot Platform with Double Angle-Changeable Tracks pp. 1085-1102(18) Authors: Gao, Xueshan; Li, Kejie; Gao, Junyao Spilled Oil Tracking Autonomous Buoy System pp. 1103-1129(27) Authors: Senga, Hidetaka; Kato, Naomi; Ito, Asuka; Niou, Hiroki; Yoshie, Muneo; Fujita, Isamu; Igarashi, Kazuyuki; Okuyama, Etsuro Parameterized and Scripted Gaits for Modular Snake Robots pp. 1131-1158(28) Authors: Tesch, Matthew; Lipkin, Kevin; Brown, Isaac; Hatton, Ross; Peck, Aaron; Rembisz, Justine; Choset, Howie Robbie: A Fully Autonomous Robot for RoboCupRescue pp. 1159-1177(19) Authors: Pellenz, Johannes; Gossow, David; Paulus, Dietrich Intelligent Sensing Systems for Rescue Robots: Landmark Identification and Three-Dimensional Mapping of Unknown Cluttered Urban Search and Rescue Environments pp. 1179-1198(20) Authors: Zhang, Zhe; Nejat, Goldie Improving Search and Rescue Using Contextual Information pp. 1199-1216(18) Authors: Calisi, D.; Iocchi, L.; Nardi, D.; Randelli, G.; Ziparo, V.A. Robotic Tasks for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive Incident Response pp. 1217-1232(16) Authors: Humphrey, Curtis M.; Adams, Julie A. Framework of an Emergency Management System Using Different Rescue Simulators pp. 1233-1246(14) Authors: Yotsukura, Shigeru; Takahashi, Tomoichi These are the relevant links to Advanced Robotics: http://www.rsj.or.jp/AR/index_e.html [Advanced Robotics Home Page] http://www.rsj.or.jp/AR/Subscribe_e.html [How to Subscribe] http://www.rsj.or.jp/AR/Submit_e.html [Paper Submission] -- Shigeki Sugano (Waseda University, Japan) Editor-in-Chief, Advanced Robotics Tetsunari Inamura (National Institute of Informatics) Committee Chair of RSJ International Journal e-info at rsj.or.jp From murphy at cse.tamu.edu Sun Jul 5 03:29:00 2009 From: murphy at cse.tamu.edu (Robin Murphy) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 05:29:00 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP due July 12: FAA/AUVSI Workshop on Best Practices for UAS Message-ID: Call for Participation Due July 12, 2009 FAA/AUVSI?Workshop on Best Practices for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Aug 12, 2009 Washington, DC (AUVSI?North America) 1-5PM Invitation Only Chairs:?Brian?Argrow, Univ. of Colorado Boulder and?Robin Murphy, Texas A&M A body of expertise for safe UAS operations in the National Airspace System?is emerging from deployments of unmanned aircraft systems. This workshop will synthesize these experiences into practitioner-based guidelines for safe UAS operations which can be incorporated into COAs and future regulations.??This is expected to ease entry for new UAS users and researchers, create safer systems, and lead to more expeditious, confident processing of COAs. The workshop will also identify additional uses and issues stemming from actual use, which will complement the speculative applications and concerns already under discussion in the UAS and regulatory communities.??The ?-day workshop is organized by the Research Advisory Group to the FAA, which was formed as an outcome to the 2008 NSF/AUVSI/FAA/DHS Workshop on UAS Research Directions for the National Air Space, and is supported in part by the FAA and?AUVSI. While a set of practitioners have been selected, the workshop has space for 15 additional practitioners to participate in the discussions; registration for the workshop is waived but travel funds are not available. If you are interested, we encourage you to submit a short application via email by July 12, 2009: 1) Name, affiliation, and contact info 2) A short, 1 paragraph bio 3) A 1 paragraph statement of your expertise, insights, or interests into best practices for sUAS Please put "UAS Best Practices" in the subject line. Selected applicants will be notified by July 17, 2009. We hope that you will join us! Robin Murphy & Brian?Argrow -- Prof. Robin R. Murphy, PhD Raytheon Professor of Computer Science & Engineering Texas A&M University office phone: 1-979-845-2015 location: HR Bright 333C http://faculty.cse.tamu.edu/murphy/ blog: rescuerobotics.blogspot.com From adriana.tapus at ensta.fr Tue Jul 7 08:43:55 2009 From: adriana.tapus at ensta.fr (Adriana Tapus) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 17:43:55 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] =?utf-8?q?PhD/Postdoc_position_in_Human-Robo?= =?utf-8?q?t_Interaction_at_the_Pierre_and_Marie_Curie_University_?= =?utf-8?q?=E2=80=93_Institute_of_Intelligent_Systems_and_Robotics_=28Fran?= =?utf-8?b?Y2Up?= In-Reply-To: <931809332.188711246981401553.JavaMail.root@zomail> Message-ID: <920910343.188751246981435024.JavaMail.root@zomail> The Pierre and Marie Curie University ? Institute of Intelligent Systems and Robotics (France) (http://www.robot.jussieu.fr/?op=view_page&id=2&page=Object&lang=en)(an English language research institute) is soliciting applications for a Postdoctoral position (2 years appointment) or a PhD scholarship. The selected candidate will be part of the ?ROBADOM: Impact of a robot ?butler? at home on psychological and cognitive state of the elderly with mild cognitive impairment?, a 3 year project. The candidates for the PhD position are expected to have an Engineering MSc degree (EE, CS or Physics/Maths). The candidates for the postdoctoral position are required a PhD degree in Robotics/Computer Science with a strong background in machine learning, human-machine systems, HRI, and/or cognitive modeling. Strong programming skills in C, C++, MATLAB or equivalent are also required. Applicants demonstrating excellence in other related areas are encouraged to apply. International applications are encouraged and will receive logistic support with visa issues. Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. Salaries will be dependent on experience and will be in the range 25k-40k Euros per year excluding additional pension, health, etc benefits. For further information contact Asst. Prof. Adriana Tapus (tapus at ensta.fr) and Asst. Prof. Mohamed Chetouani (mohamed.chetouani at upmc.fr). Applications, including cover letter, CV, and the contact information for at least three references should be emailed to Asst. Prof. Adriana Tapus and Asst. Prof. Mohamed Chetouani by September 1st, 2009. *** Please forward this email to interested *** colleagues which might not be on this *** mailing list. From bradski at willowgarage.com Mon Jul 6 14:55:00 2009 From: bradski at willowgarage.com (Gary Bradski) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 14:55:00 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for papers: IROS 2009 Workshop: Semantic Perception for Mobile Manipulation Message-ID: ---[ CALL FOR PAPERS ]--- IROS 2009 Workshop: Semantic Perception for Mobile Manipulation When: October 11 to 15, 2009 Where: International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2009, St. Louis, MO, USA Website: http://www.willowgarage.com/iros09spmm Submission deadline: 15 July 2009 As autonomous mobile manipulation will soon move away from individually set up manipulation experiments and begin to tackle real-world everyday manipulation tasks, such as setting the table or cleaning up, the perception capabilities of the robots must become much more powerful. For example, if the robot is asked to bring a glass it must not bring a dirty one or one that is intended for the use of somebody else. More generally, perception for mobile manipulation must become a resource for the robot, which informs the robot with respect to what to do to which object and in which way. This is the main issue of semantic perception for mobile manipulation. In this full-day workshop we will try to analyze the requirements of such a perception system, and discuss alternatives for achieving this goal, by bringing together researchers from the Computer Vision, 3D Mapping, and Mobile Manipulation and Grasping areas. As an immediate course of action, we plan to make available during the workshop a complete database of 3D object models and scenes for mobile manipulation scenarios. This workshop is also part of a broader movement of multiple communities toward mobile manipulation as a key interdisciplinary research topic. We encourage participation in other mobile manipulation meetings, such as the IJCAI 2009 Mobile Manipulation Challenge and the RSS 2009 Workshop on Mobile Manipulation in Human Environments. Submissions: We solicit paper submissions, optionally accompanied by a video, both of which will be reviewed (not double-blind) by the program committee. The review criteria will be: technical quality, significance of system demonstration, and topicality. We aim to accept 9--12 papers for oral presentation at the meeting. Videos will be shown during an afternoon session open to the public. Accepted papers and videos will be assembled into proceedings and distributed in CD format at the workshop. If there is sufficient interest, we will pursue publication of a special journal issue or a book to include extended versions of the best papers. The list of topics of interest includes, but are not necessary limited to: * 3D object recognition * semantic scene interpretation based on point clouds * object modelling for manipulation and grasping * accurate 3D collision models * surface reconstruction for close-range scenes * vision for manipulation * deformable objects * object classification based on manipulation experience/capabilities Papers should be in PDF, conform to the IEEE requirements, and be maximum of 8 pages in length (shorter papers are welcome). Videos should be in the MPEG format, 3-5 minutes in length, and easily viewed with free video players (please try playing your video on a couple of different machines before submitting). Email submissions to: iros09spmm at lists.willowgarage.com . Please do not attach video files to email; include a URL instead. Important Dates: * 15 July 2009: Submissions due * 01 August 2009: Notification of acceptance * 15 August 2009: Final papers due Organizers: * Radu Bogdan Rusu, Technische Universitaet Muenchen * Gary Bradski, Willow Garage * Kurt Konolige, Willow Garage * Michael Beetz, Technische Universitaet Muenchen Program Committee: * Peter Allen, Columbia University, USA * Darius Burschka, Technische Universitaet Muenchen/German Aerospace Center (TUM/DLR), Germany * Gordon Cheng, Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Germany * Henrik Christensen, GeorgiaTech, USA * Matei Ciocarlie, Columbia University, USA * Trevor Darrell, Berkeley University, USA * Brian Gerkey, Willow Garage, USA * Chad Jenkinks, Brown University, USA * Charlie Kemp, GeorgiaTech, USA * Danica Kragic, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden * Norbert Krueger, Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute, Denmark * David Lowe, University of British Columbia, USA * Kei Okada, University of Tokyo, Japan * Morgan Quigley, Stanford University, USA * Silvio Savarese, University of Michigan, USA * Sidd Srinivasa, Intel Research Pittsburgh/Carnegie Mellon University, USA ----------- From davidwilliams.phd at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 03:09:01 2009 From: davidwilliams.phd at gmail.com (David Williams) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 12:09:01 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Workshop on Machine Intelligence for Autonomous Operations Message-ID: ************************************************************************ Call for Abstracts Workshop on Machine Intelligence for Autonomous Operations 7-8 October 2009 in Lerici, Italy Workshop Website: http://geos2.nurc.nato.int/miw09/ ************************************************************************ The US Office of Naval Research Global (ONRG), the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), and the NATO Undersea Research Centre (NURC) are sponsoring a workshop focusing on automatic classification, autonomy, and intelligent navigation (e.g., feature-based navigation), with a special focus on the underwater environment. Underwater systems rely heavily on acoustics for sensing and communication. The underwater environment, however, presents specific challenges to acoustic propagation not seen to the same extent in other operating environments, particularly highly variable propagation conditions due to bathymetry, surface conditions, internal waves, and noise; target variability, clutter, and classifier training issues (in-situ training, limited target data) are also important. The goal of the workshop is to bring together international researchers from signal processing (esp. detection, classification, localization, and tracking), machine learning and computational intelligence, intelligent navigation and control of autonomous vehicles, and other relevant disciplines to: -- Review the most recent research results in these fields; -- Identify shortcomings and associated technical challenges in the performance of current approaches; -- Present new research directions that could be applied to the technical challenges. The workshop will consider technology applicable to all types of unmanned systems, namely UUVs, UAVs, UGVs, and USVs, as well as fixed deployed systems. We are seeking contributed presentations from active researchers in the following areas of interest: automatic classification, clutter discrimination, feature identification (for automatic classification), classifier training (in-situ training, large data sets, imbalanced training sets), adaptive classification (e.g., environmental adaptation, limited resources), anomaly detection, collision avoidance, feature-based tracking, route planning, sensor/platform autonomy. Extended abstracts (1-2 pages) are invited on the above topics. The abstract submission deadline is 1 August 2009, to be submitted to any of the workshop organizers listed below. Please see the workshop website, http://geos2.nurc.nato.int/miw09/, for more information. Contact the workshop organizers if you are interested in participating or have any questions: David Williams, NURC: williams at nurc.nato.int James Pitton, ONR Global: jpitton at onrglobal.navy.mil Duncan Williams, DSTL: dpwilliams at dstl.gov.uk From fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com Tue Jul 7 00:45:06 2009 From: fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com (Fabio Bonsignorio) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 09:45:06 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Reminder: CfP: IROS 2009 Workshop Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking for Next Intelligent Robots and Systems Message-ID: apologies for multiple postings Dear all, You will find below and attached the call for participation for the IROS workshop on Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking for Next Intelligent Robots and Systems to be held in St. Louis, MO, USA during IROS 2009 (October 11-15 2009). Pls notice there are still ten days left to the due date for extended abstracts :-). High quality and even provocative contributions on measuring and comparing objectively capabilities of artificial agents, such as autonomy and cognition, as well as more well analysed such as SLAM, navigation and objetc avoidance and visual servoing, are welcome. Interaction between the workshop attendees is highly encouraged. To contribute send an email to one of the organizer. This workshop is under the auspices of the IEEE-TC on Benchmarking and of the EURON Good Experimental Methodology and Benchmarking SIG All the best Fabio Important Dates Papers/Ext. Abstracts: July 17th Acceptance: August 14th Full Papers: August 28th Workshop: At IROS 2009 October 11-15 CALL FOR PARTICIPATION High-level cognitive competencies encompassing knowledge representation, perception, control, and learning are considered essential elements that will allow robots to perform complex tasks within highly uncertain environments with an appropriate level of autonomy in various domains (service, manufacturing, and search and rescue). As the complexity and variety of required tasks and of the targeted environments increase exploring new application capabilities and domains, it becomes necessary to develop well principled procedures that allow quantitative comparison of the solutions provided by robotics research thereby facilitating exchanges of methods and solutions between different research groups and assessment of the state of the art. New more successful implementations of concepts already presented in literature, but not implemented with exhaustive experimental methodology, run the risk of being ignored, if appropriate benchmarking procedures allowing to compare the actual practical results with reference to standard accepted procedures, are not in place. The emphasis of the workshop will be on principles, methods, and applications expanding beyond the current limit of robotics applications in terms of cognitive capabilities and autonomy. Another key issue will be a capability-led understanding of cognitive robots: how to define shared ontologies or dictionaries to discuss robotic cognitive systems in terms of their performance, relationships between different cognitive robotics capabilities, requirements, theories, architectures, models and methods that can be applied across multiple engineering and application domains, detailing and understanding better the requirements for robots in terms of performance, the approaches to meeting these requirements and the trade-offs in terms of performance. The proper definition of benchmarking is related to the problem of measuring capabilities of robots in a context in which, in many cases, the ?robotics experiments? themselves are difficult to ?replicate?. We welcome any topic relevant to benchmarking and performance evaluation in the context of cognitive solutions to practical problems, such as: - Knowledge representation, perception (sensing), and learning - Uncertainty management in robot navigation, path-planning and control - Cognitive manipulation - Metrics for sensory motor coordination and visual servoing effectiveness/efficiency - Benchmarking autonomy and robustness to changes in the environment/task - Scalable autonomy measurements - Shared ontologies to discuss robotic cognitive systems in terms of their performance capabilities - Relationships between different cognitive robotics capabilities - Requirements, theories, architectures, models and methods that can be applied across multiple engineering and application domains - Detailing and understanding better the requirements for robots in terms of performance, the approaches to meeting these requirements, the trade-offs in terms of performance - The development of experimental scenarios to evaluate performance, demonstrate generality, and measure robustness - Performance modeling of the relationship between a task and the environment where it is performed - Relationship between benchmarking and replication of experiments with robots - Robotics experiment reporting Workshop Format & Date The workshop will consist of invited presentations and regular presentations. INTERACTION IS HIGHLY ENCOURAGED. The papers have to be formatted according to IROS 2009 formatting rules and will be included in the IROS 2009 Tutorials and Workshops DVD. You can register for the workshop via the IROS'09 website at http://www.iros2009.org/. Intended Audience The primary audience of the proposed workshop is intended to be researchers and practitioners both from academia and industry with an interest in cognitive robotics and how these approaches can be utilized in generating intelligent behaviors amidst uncertainty for robots in the service and commercial sectors. The workshop is also aimed at benchmarking and objectively evaluating performance of such robots. Accordingly, it is envisioned to be useful for anyone who has an interest in quantitative performance evaluation of robots and/or robot algorithms. Contact Details Angel P. del Pobil, Univ. Jaume I pobil at icc.uji.es Raj Madhavan ORNL/NIST raj.madhavan at nist.gov Fabio Bonsignorio Heron Robots fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com About the Organizers The organizers of the workshop have been actively involved in performance evaluation and benchmarking for robotics. The organizers are currently involved in several projects to define methods for measuring cognitive abilities for robots, both at the component and the systems level. -- Fabio P. Bonsignorio Ceo Heron Robots s.r.l. Via R.Ceccardi 1/18 I-16121 Genova Italy www.heronrobots.com Professor Banco de Santander Chair of Excellence in Robotics Universidad Carlos III de Madrid Madrid Spain From kstubbs at irobot.com Mon Jul 6 08:53:02 2009 From: kstubbs at irobot.com (Kristen Stubbs) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 11:53:02 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP -- AAAI Using Electronic Tangibles to Promote Learning: Design and Evaluation Message-ID: <657c48b20907060853k448a97d7x29c508dc79d3f96b@mail.gmail.com> ---------------------------------------------------------- Call for Papers: AAAI Spring Symposium Using Electronic Tangibles to Promote Learning: Design and Evaluation http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~AAAI10-ETPL/ March 22-24, 2010, Stanford University Submissions due: Oct 2, 2009 ---------------------------------------------------------- For over twenty years, robots, electronics, microcontrollers, and other physically-instantiated devices have been used as educational tools in both formal (in-school) and informal (out-of-school) settings. Particularly at the high school and undergraduate levels, these tools have been used to enhance computer science education and illustrate artificial intelligence concepts. In the last several years, a number of programs have been developed which use physically instantiated devices to promote learning in a wider variety of topics, including science, engineering, math, as well as storytelling, sculpture, and other art forms. Such programs, while not always directly teaching AI concepts, do promote technological literacy in participants and may motivate some to further study in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). In order to further expand programs based on electronic, tangible components into these and other areas, it is important to demonstrate the impacts that these education programs have on participants, in both the short- and the long-term. This workshop will provide a forum for researchers working with many different types of programs, including researchers in robotics, computer science, education, and formal and informal learning evaluation. This workshop will highlight (1) work featuring AI- and electronic tangibles used to promote learning in any topic (including approaches targeting arts and humanities in addition to STEM education); and (2) descriptions of the evaluation methodology and impacts of such programs. Topics of interest include: * Design of physically instantiated electronic educational tools * Curriculum design process * Evaluation methodology for programs featuring electronic tangibles * Evaluation results from such programs, both quantitative and qualitative We welcome contributions describing programs in both in and out of school settings, utilizing a variety of electronic tangibles (robots, microcontrollers,...), targeting any age, and promoting learning in the arts, humanities, or STEM disciplines. In addition to papers, we welcome short abstracts for demonstration/hands-on sessions and panel discussion sessions. Submissions We welcome prospective participants to submit either full papers (up to 6 pages), short papers (1-2 pages), or panel proposals (up to 2 pages, clearly indicating the names, affiliations, and email addresses for all panelists). Where appropriate, participants are strongly encouraged to demonstrate educational projects at the symposium and/or provide hands-on experiences for other symposium participants (please indicate your demonstration plans with paper submissions). Selected papers (both long and short) from the symposium will be published as an AAAI technical report. All submissions should be in PDF format adhering to the AAAI conference paper formatting guidelines, and should be sent to Tom Lauwers at tlauwers at andrew.cmu.edu by October 2nd, 2009. ---------------------------------------------------------- -- Kristen Stubbs, Ph.D. STEM Outreach Program Manager iRobot Corporation | 8 Crosby Drive 10-2 | Bedford, MA | 01730 p 781.430.3234 | f 781.430.3001 kstubbs at irobot.com www.irobot.com From philippe.poignet at lirmm.fr Mon Jul 6 10:03:18 2009 From: philippe.poignet at lirmm.fr (Philippe POIGNET) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 19:03:18 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Post Doctoral position at LIRMM lab, Montpellier, France, Interaction modeling for physiological motion compensation using force and US-image measurements. Message-ID: <5FB8BD39-3EFD-4909-9D0D-122BDF2AFBFC@lirmm.fr> Dear colleague, Could you please forward the following post doctoral position announcement ? Thanks Regards Nabil Zemiti and Philippe Poignet ========================= A postdoctoral position to be held at LIRMM lab (Montpellier, France) is available immediatly in the area of medical robotics. Scientific description of the research activities are detailed below and contacts are given Title Instrument-organ interaction modeling for physiological motion compensation using force and US-image measurements. Location The Montpellier Laboratory of Informatics, Robotics, and Microelectronics (LIRMM) Robotics Department, Dexter Team (Medical Robotics and Parallel mechanisms) Address: Laboratoire LIRMM, D?partement de Robotique 161 rue Ada 34392 - Montpellier - France Project description The position is available within the national framework ? USComp ? founded by the ANR (French Research Agency) in 2008. In this research project, we want to provide methods and solutions to perform real time motion compensation of organs using Ultra-Sound (US) images. The proposed approach consists in synchronizing the US-probe position with respect to the physiological motion of the observed patient structure. This allows the surgeon to work on stabilized image and to perform thus a surgery of quality. To do so, the US-probe (a 2D or 3D probe) will be held by a vision- force controlled surgical robot. To enhance the performance and the robustness of the system, we propose to use in the controller loop a model of the interaction between the US-probe and the patient skin. Since this interaction model is patient specific, it must be estimated in-line based on the measurements given by the force sensor and the US-probe. The main goals of this work are: ? To model the interaction between the US-probe and the patient soft tissues (superficial and underling layers) ? To propose a patient specific protocol to estimate in-line the parameters of the model ? To identify the relationship between the applied forces and the tissues deformation ? To use the calculated model to control the contact interaction between the US-probe and the patient skin ? To implement the model in a predictive force controller: this allows maintaining the contact between the probe and the patient skin and offers to the surgeon stable and good quality US-image despite the physiological motion of the organs ? Coupling the force measurement and the US-image information within a hybrid vision/force controller. Here, the control and the coupling strategies are to be defined (hybrid approach, data fusion, dynamic projector, ?) Requirements Candidates with excellent background in biomechanics and/or living tissue modeling and/or medical robotics are encouraged to apply. C++ programming is also requested. Qualifications include Ph.D., M.D.- Ph.D., or equivalent doctoral degree. French language is not required. Starting date / duration / salary The position will be available at the earliest convenience for a maximum 18 months duration. The salary will be around 2200? per month. Contacts Interested candidates should send enquiries, curriculum vitae, containing information about education, experience and publications, a copy of relevant international publications (max 3) and a list of two individuals who can serve as references by E-mail to: Philippe Poignet and Nabil Zemiti. Phone: (+33) 4 67 41 85 61 E-mail: Philippe.Poignet at lirmm.fr , Nabil.Zemiti at lirmm.fr ============================================== Prof. Philippe POIGNET Universit? Montpellier 2 - IUT LIRMM UMR 5506 CNRS UM2 T?l. +33 4 67 41 85 61 / Fax. +33 4 67 41 85 00 Mobile +33 (0)6 79 79 95 66 Philippe.Poignet at lirmm.fr From tpadir at WPI.EDU Wed Jul 8 10:58:16 2009 From: tpadir at WPI.EDU (Taskin Padir) Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:58:16 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: IEEE Int. Conf. on Technologies for Practical Robot Applications (1-week notice) Message-ID: <4A54DE38.8020600@wpi.edu> This is a reminder that the deadline for abstract submissions for 2009 TePRA is 1-week away. --------------------------- IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Practical Robot Applications (TePRA) November 9-10, 2009 Greater Boston Area, Massachusetts, USA www.ieeerobot-tepra.org IMPORTANT DATES July 15, 2009: Submission of abstracts August 15, 2009: Notification of acceptance September 15, 2009: Submission of final contributions CALL FOR PAPERS The 2nd Annual IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Practical Robot Applications (TePRA) will be held in the Greater Boston Area, Massachusetts, USA from November 9-10, 2009. TePRA is aimed at catalyzing the development of enabling technologies and encouraging their adoption by robot designers. With an emphasis on practical applications and industrial participation, TePRA provides researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs and robotics professionals with a forum balanced between an academic conference and an exhibition, while presentations are selected through IEEE's rigorous peer-review process. The conference theme this year will be new technologies in robotics and automation and their practical applications. While papers are solicited in all related areas of robotics and automation, the conference tracks include:: Robot Applications -Military -Medical -Consumer -Industrial -Service Robot Technologies -Sensing -Actuation -Computation -Power -Communication Prospective authors are invited to submit an extended abstract of their proposed contributions electronically in PDF or MS Word format. Detailed instructions for abstract submission can be found on the conference website. Sponsorship, exhibit and demonstration opportunities are available. Please see the conference website for further details. Website: www.ieeerobot-tepra.org Email: info at ieeerobot-tepra.org Conference Chair Helen Greiner, Founder and CEO, The Droid Works, Inc. Technical Program Chairs Michael A. Gennert, Worcester Polytechnic Institute William R. Michalson, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Conference Secretary John Conrad, Textron Defense Systems Publications Chair Karen Panetta, Tufts University Publicity Chair Peter Meyer, Philips Technical Program Coordinator Taskin Padir, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Tutorials Chair Ted Kochanski, University of New Hampshire Exhibits Chair Sorin Faibish, EMC Demonstrations Chair Ryan Pettigrew, IEEE RAS Boston Chapter Student Liaison Chair William Agassounon, Textron Defense Systems Sponsorships Chair Nithyanandam Mathiyazhagan, Management Consultant Local Arrangements Chair Bob Alongi, IEEE Boston Section Technical Program Committee William Agassounon, Textron Defense Systems Kevin Blankespoor, Boston Dynamics Martin Buehler, iRobot Julian Center, Autonomous Explorations, Inc. Jeanne Dietsch, Mobile Robots, Inc. Sorin Faibish, EMC Gregory Fischer, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Todd Jochem, Foster-Miller Chris Jones, iRobot Ted Kochanski, University of New Hampshire John Masciola, Caliper Life Sciences Peter Meyer, Philips Taskin Padir, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Karen Panetta, Tufts University Ryan Pettigrew, IEEE RAS Boston Chapter Jean-Pierre Rasaiah, Applied Manufacturing Technologies, Inc. Gretar Tryggvason, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Peter Wells, Foster-Miller -- Taskin Padir, Ph.D. Robotics Engineering Electrical and Computer Engineering Worcester Polytechnic Institute Ph. +(508)831-6427 From vgazi at etu.edu.tr Wed Jul 8 09:06:28 2009 From: vgazi at etu.edu.tr (Veysel Gazi) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 19:06:28 +0300 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Two Short-Term Post-Doc/Visiting Researcher/Visiting Scholar/PhD Positions ... Message-ID: <004001c9ffe6$0d848780$288d9680$@edu.tr> Two Short-Term Post-Doc/Visiting Researcher/Visiting Scholar/PhD Positions The Swarm Systems Research Laboratory (http://suru.etu.edu.tr/) at the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at TOBB University of Economics and Technology situated in Ankara, Turkey invites application for two postdoctoral positions. The candidates will work in the context of the European FP6 research project GUARDIANS (http://www.guardians-project.eu/). The topics include but are not limited to: multi-robot cooperation; cooperative navigation and positioning; communication constrained control, coordination, and navigation of a group of mobile robots; cooperative SLAM; cooperative search and exploration; olfactory based swarm navigation and chemical plume localization. The focus will be on both theoretical and implementation aspects of the above (or related) algorithms. Implementations will be done using the Player/Stage simulator and on a real mobile robotic system composed of 9 Khepera 3 mobile robots. The positions are available immediately and will last until January 31, 2010. Candidates with backgrounds in Multi-Robot Systems, Mobile Robotics, Automatic Control, Mathematics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Computer Science, Mechatronics, and other related areas are encouraged to apply. Strong theoretical background and analytical skills or extensive implementation experience is considered an advantage. Candidates are also expected to be experienced with programming in C and Matlab as well as program development under Linux. The candidates applying for a Post-Doc/Visiting Researcher position should hold a Ph.D. or equivalent in one of the above or a closely related field. PhD students in the final stage of their studies who are working on one of the above mentioned or closely related topics are also strongly encouraged to apply. Applications should include statement of intent, curriculum vitae, list of publications, and the names and email addresses of at least three references. For more information please contact Veysel Gazi at vgazi at etu.edu.tr. Applications should also be sent by email to vgazi at etu.edu.tr. From asada at MIT.EDU Wed Jul 8 12:56:31 2009 From: asada at MIT.EDU (Harry H. Asada) Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:56:31 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJRR Special Issue Call-for-Papers Message-ID: <4A54F9EF.5030109@mit.edu> Hi, I am resubmitting a message to post. Based on your comments, I have changed the format. Thanks. Harry Asada *********************** International Journal of Robotics Research Call for Papers Special Issue on *Stochasticity in Robotics and Biological Systems* Guest Editors: H. Harry Asada (M.I.T.) and Vijay Kumar (University of Pennsylvania) *Invitation:* The International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR) invites papers for a special issue on Stochasticity in Robotics and Biological Systems. Stochasticity has been a central issue in many branches of robotics research. Not only basic signal processing, communication, filtering, and control, but also advanced localization, planning, learning, and optimization as well as self-assembly and emergent behaviors are all heavily involved in stochasticity. Understanding of the stochastic nature of robotic systems and its strategic use are an integral part in developing effective systems. Biological systems are noisy systems, built upon thermodynamic random processes. Yet, a biological system is a highly regulated system that is robust and sustainable as well as flexible and adaptable. Although individual cells and molecules are stochastic, their collective behaviors are highly organized, exhibiting a particular morphological structure and high-level functionality. There will be effective architecture and regulatory mechanisms exploiting stochasticity that today's engineered systems have not yet utilized. It is our expectation that this special issue will display emerging new theory and methodologies, novel robotic systems and devices, and frontier research efforts in broad areas of stochastic robotics with emphasis on cross-disciplinary research between robotics and biological systems. Papers are solicited on all aspects of stochastic robotics, including, but not limited to, the following: Stochastic emergent behaviors of multi-robot systems and swarms; Bio-inspired population modeling and control; Machine learning, stochastic approximation, and probabilistic planning and optimization; Neural system modeling, signal processing, and inference; Stochastic modeling and control of biological robots, including bacteria-powered micro-robots; Stochastic modeling and estimation of human behaviors and intension; Self-assembly and chemical kinetics in micro/nano robotic systems; and SLAM and integrated model building, data acquisition, and decision processes. Papers must contain high-quality original contributions and be prepared in accordance with IJRR. All papers will be reviewed following the regular reviewing procedure of IJRR. *Manuscript Submission* Upload manuscripts to: http://mcmanuscriptcentral.com/ijrr. Under 'Manuscript Type', select 'Stochastic Robotics'. Instructions for authors, with information about 'Multimedia Extensions', are available on-line at: http://www.uk.sagepub.com/repository/binaries/pdf/Multimedia_Extension_submissions.pdf. *Important Dates:* *November 30, 2009 Paper submission* *April 30, 2010 Completion of First Review* *June 15, 2010 Submission of Revised Papers* *August 16, 2010 Completion of Final Review* *September 4, 2010 Submission of Final Manuscripts and Source Files* *Late 2010/Early 2011 Publication* * * From serge.stinckwich at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 20:58:46 2009 From: serge.stinckwich at gmail.com (Serge Stinckwich) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 10:58:46 +0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP 2nd International Workshop on Agent Technology for disaster Management Message-ID: ====================================================================================== CALL FOR PAPERS Second International Workshop on << Agent Technology for Disaster Management >> (ATDM'09) December 13rd 2009, Nagoya, Japan Web site : http://doesnotunderstand.org/wikka.php?wakka=ATDM2009 ====================================================================================== This workshop will take place in December 2009 in Nagoya (????), during the 12th International Conference on Principles of Practice in Multi-Agent Systems (PRIMA'09). A first workshop on the same topic already took place in May 2006 in Hakodate, Japan during the Fifth International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. Description In the context of large natural disasters like the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 or Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005? but also man-made disasters like terrorist attacks, the topic of disaster management has become a key concern both from a social and political point of view. It is critical to provide rescue personnel with information technology tools that enable more effective and efficient mitigation during crisis response. A number of distinct actors and agencies (local and international rescue teams, NGOs, etc.), each with their own aims, objectives, and resources, should be able to coordinate their efforts in a flexible manner in order to prevent further problems or to effectively manage the aftermath of a disaster. This workshop will focus on the use of agent technology for disaster management and response and includes the following non-exhaustive list of special interest topics: * Dedicated frameworks and architectures for agent-based spatial decision support systems (SDSS) for natural and man-made disasters, * Coordination, communication and collaborative planning in large-scale multi-agent systems that deals with uncertainty and conflicting information during crisis management, * Coordination and deployment of multi-robots system or wireless sensors network on site, * Human-Agent or Human-Robot interactions (HRI) during search & rescue operations, * Security issues in agent-based systems for search and rescue missions, * Agent-based simulation systems, participatory simulations, * Behavioural modelling and simulation of rescue workers, * Development methods for agent based systems in emergency management. Multi-Agent Systems are being increasingly applied to real-life applications that deals with uncertain, complex and dynamic environments. Future disaster response systems may involve a complex mixture of humans performing high level decision-making, intelligent agents coordinating the response, sensors networks providing real-time observations and robots undertaking physical tasks in large-scale environments, which are prone to uncertainty, ambiguity and incompleteness given the dynamic and evolving nature of disasters. Although, this workshop will mainly focus on the potential of agent technology for disaster management and response, we also welcomes contributions focusing on potential problems and risks associated with the use of this technology. Important dates - Due date for full workshop papers submission: Sep. 15, 2009 - Final acceptance: Oct. 1, 2009 - Camera-ready paper due: Oct. 31, 2009 - Early registration deadline: Nov. 4, 2009 - Registration deadline: Dec. 1, 2009 - Workshop date: Dec. 13, 2009 (full-day workshop) Submission guidelines Springer has committed to publish the post-proceedings of all the PRIMA 2009 workshops in the "Studies in Computational Intelligence" book series. All accepted workshop papers will be published by Springer. All submitted papers will be reviewed on the basis of technical quality, relevance, significance, and clarity. At least two reviews for each paper will be conducted. All workshop papers should be submitted electronically in PDF format and should use the Springer SCI format. You can find the format requirements on Springer SCI website: http://www.springer.com/series/7092 The final accepted papers are limited to 10 pages. Organizers - Serge Stinckwich, (UMI UMMISCO IRD/UPMC/MSI-IFI, Vietnam) - Sarvapali D. Ramchurn (University of Southampton, UK) Program committee - Noury Bouraqadi (Ecole des Mines de Douai, France) - Alexis Drogoul (UMI UMMISCO IRD/UPMC/MSI-IFI, Vietnam) - Julie Dugdale (IMAG, France) - Frank Fiedrich (Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management, Georges Washington University, USA) - Paul Scerri (Carnegie Mellon, USA) - Tomoichi Takahashi (Meijo University, Japan) - Tomohisa Yamashita (AIST, Japan) -- Serge Stinckwich UMI UMMISCO 209 (IRD/UPMC), Hanoi, Vietnam Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)] http://doesnotunderstand.org/ From jcpark at jcinter.co.kr Wed Jul 8 23:35:03 2009 From: jcpark at jcinter.co.kr (JC Park) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 15:35:03 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CIRA2009: Call for Papers Message-ID: <200907090635.n696ZFR11287@usc.edu> CIRA2009 2009 IEEE International Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Robotic and Automation Daejeon, Korea December 15 - 18, 2009 http://www.cira2009.org --------------------------------------------------------- The 8th IEEE International Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Robotics and Automation (CIRA2009) provides an opportunity for prominent researchers, engineers and practitioners to present the latest research results, innovations, and potential future directions in computational intelligence in robotics and automation. Ubiquitous computing has motivated a paradigm shift in robotics, which has commenced the new multidisciplinary research areas such as ubiquitous robotics and genetic robotics, initiating the next generation of robotics, following the first generation of industrial robotics and the second generation of personal robotics. Special emphasis will be placed on the usage of computational intelligence technologies to realize cognitive intelligence, social intelligence, behavioral intelligence, ambient intelligence and genetic intelligence for the next generation robots and also to implement intelligent knowledge service systems, medical systems, health care systems, manufacturing systems and automation systems. The Symposium covers the following topics, but is not limited to these: . Evolutionary computation . Fuzzy logic . Neural networks . Machine learning . Sensor fusion . Computer vision . Voice recognition . Agent technology . Cognitive intelligence . Social intelligence . Behavioral intelligence . Ambient intelligence . Genetic intelligence . Swarm intelligence . Intelligent systems . Adaptive and learning system . Knowledge service system . Personal robotics . Ubiquitous robotics . Genetic robotics . Biologically inspired robotics . Evolutionary robotics . Modular robotics . Multi co-operative robotics . Cyber-physical system robotics . Health-care robotics . Complex behaviors Electronic Paper Submission Papers are invited on all aspects of computational intelligence in robotics and automation. Six pages are allowed for each paper. Up to four additional pages will be permitted with extra charge. Full-length papers in standard IEEE format must be submitted electronically in either the PDF (Portable Document Format) file format as per the electronic submission instructions published on the CIRA2009 website (http://www.cira2009.org). Special Session, Tutorial and Workshop Proposals Proposals for special sessions consisting of four papers and for half and full day tutorials and workshops are welcome. Proposals should include a statement of purposes and a summary with a list of speakers and their topics with abstracts. Further information is posted on the CIRA2009 website (http://www.cira2009.org). Location The CIRA2009 will be held at DCC (Daejeon Convention Center) where is the optimal venue to support all kinds of meetings and convention activities. Several major science facilities such as Daedeok Valley, EXPO Park are adjacent to the DCC. Daejeon, where longstanding tradition and future science co-exist, was reborn as a convention city of new concept. It is a clean and modern city with excellent transportation system, state-of-the-art convention facilities, various tourist attractions and accommodations. The biggest strength of Daejeon as a MICE site is that it is the hub of Korea's science and technology industries. Important Dates Deadline for proposals for special sessions: April 15, 2009 Deadline for submission of full-length papers: July 31, 2009 Deadline for submission of special session papers: July 31, 2009 Deadline for proposals for tutorials and workshops: July 31, 2009 Notification of acceptance: September 30, 2009 Deadline for submission of final papers: October 31, 2009 Related Events ITHET2009: December 16-18, 2009 11th International Robot Olympiad 2009 Korea: December 17-20, 2009 1st International Education Robot Fair 2009: December 17-20, 2009 Sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society General Chair Jong-Hwan Kim (KAIST, Korea) Program Chair Sung-Bae Cho (Yonsei University, Korea) From tamar.flash at weizmann.ac.il Thu Jul 9 01:55:20 2009 From: tamar.flash at weizmann.ac.il (Tamar Flash) Date: Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:55:20 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdocs and Phd positions announcement Message-ID: <4A55B078.6050403@wisdom.weizmann.ac.il> would like to announce the following positions: PhD students and Post-doc opportunities at the Weizmann Institute and the Hebrew University, Israel Topic: The control of the hyper-redundant flexible arm movements in the octopus Starting date: Immediately Language requirement: English PhD students and postdocs are sought for research at the Weizmann institute and at the Hebrew University on the control of the hyper-redundant flexible arm movements in the octopus as a basis for the development of flexible robotic arms. The work involves different computational and experimental aspects including the kinematic analysis of octopus movements, the development of kinematic and dynamic models and investigations of the control strategies used by the octopus in the control of unconstrained, grasping and contact tasks and the development of suitable neural networks and computational models. These research topics involve the use of behavioral, neurobiological and computational approaches. However the amount of emphasis on experimental versus computational approaches will differ depending on the specific project, the students/postdocs background and interest, etc. The research work will be part of a work of a EU funded research project led by a computational motor control scientist and neurobiologists within a research team composed of neuroscientists and roboticists working on the project. Interest in neuroscience and specifically in motor control, biomechanics and robotics are preferred but individuals with knowledge and educational background in computational neuroscience and neuroscience in general, physics, applied mathematics, computer science, engineering (mechanical, biomedical, electrical), bioinformatics or related areas may also apply. Programming skills are expected. A description of the work of the team and prior publications can be found in *http://www.octopus.huji.ac.il* _How to apply_: Please send your CV and contact information to Tamar Flash (Email: tamar.flash at weizmann.ac.il). If you have any questions related to the project, please don't hesitate to contact Prof. Tamar Flash by e-mail From alexandre.krupa at irisa.fr Fri Jul 10 03:06:58 2009 From: alexandre.krupa at irisa.fr (Alexandre Krupa) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:06:58 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdoctoral position at INRIA Rennes, France - Physiological motion compensation by visual servoing during ultrasound imaging Message-ID: <4A5712C2.5030702@irisa.fr> An postdoctoral position is available in the area of medical robotics at the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA). http://www.irisa.fr/lagadic/documents/position/2009-postdoc-uscomp.html =========================================== Title: Physiological motion compensation by visual servoing during ultrasound imaging Location: INRIA Rennes ? Bretagne Atlantique, France http://www.inria.fr/rennes/index.en.html Research group: LAGADIC http://www.irisa.fr/lagadic/welcome-eng.html Address: INRIA Rennes - Bretagne Atlantique - Campus universitaire de Beaulieu - 35042 Rennes - France Starting date: September 1, 2009 or October 1, 2009 Duration: 20 months Monthly salary: 2357 Euros (1923 Euros free of tax) Context: This post-doctoral position is part of the research project ANR Contint USComp funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR). This project involves a collaboration with the Visages project-team in Rennes, LSIIT in Strasbourg and LIRMM in Montpellier. Its goal is to provide methodological solutions allowing real-time compensation of the motion of living soft tissues during ultrasound imaging. The proposed approach consists in synchronizing the displacement of a 2D or 3D ultrasound sensor in such a way to stabilize the observed image thanks to a robotized probe holder. This project deals with the complete signal process of the system, including perception of the environment and robot control. The problematic concerns more specially the use in the control scheme of the per-operative ultrasound image, the interaction force between the probe and the soft tissues and the measurements of external signals providing the breathing state of the patient. Mission: The main goal of this postdoc is to propose new visual servoing techniques based on ultrasound images to automatically synchronize the displacement of a robotized ultrasound probe with the soft tissue motion. Activities of the postdoc are: - To determine the visual features that can be extracted from live segmented ultrasound images and that are pertinent to perform the robotic task of soft tissue motion stabilization. - To model the interaction that links the variation of the retained visual features to the probe displacements. - To design a kinematic control law using the developed interaction model in order to move the robot holding the probe in such a way to automatically follow a soft tissue element of interest. - To implement the proposed methods and the developments performed by the LIRMM and LSIIT partners related to the control part of the robotic system. These developments respectively concern the force control of the robotized probe and the extension of the control with a predictive control scheme using the measurement of physiological signals of the patient for fast motion compensation capability. The developed methods will be tested and validated on an experimental setup made up of an ultrasound probe mounted on a six degrees of freedom ?Hyppocrate? medical robot. In first experiments a six-axis ?Adept Viper? robot will also be used to apply simulated physiological motion to ultrasound phantom in order to simulate soft tissue motion. If first results are convincing, experiments on human will be performed using the ?Hyppocrate? safe medical robot. Requirements: - Competences in robotics and in computer vision are strongly required. - Competences in visual servoing, control and image processing are highly recommended. - An excellent practice in C++ programming is also required. Applications: Applications must include a letter of candidature, a brief vitae, a publication list and a letter of recommendation. Applications have to be sent by e-mail to alexandre.krupa at irisa.fr Contact: Alexandre Krupa Phone: (+33) 2 99 84 25 85 E-mail: alexandre.krupa at irisa.fr =========================================== -- Alexandre Krupa, Lagadic Group, IRISA/INRIA Rennes - Bretagne Atlantique Campus universitaire de Beaulieu 35042 Rennes cedex France Tel: +33 (0)2.99.84.25.85, Fax: +33 (0)2.99.84.71.71 E-mail: alexandre.krupa at irisa.fr, web: http://www.irisa.fr/lagadic From p.l.olivier at newcastle.ac.uk Thu Jul 9 13:12:38 2009 From: p.l.olivier at newcastle.ac.uk (P L Olivier) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 21:12:38 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Post-doctoral position in robotics/machine learning for pervasive computing Message-ID: Location: Newcastle University, UK Project: http://research.ncl.ac.uk/side The position is for 3 years (probable extension to 5 years) and involves the development of activity recognition and situated prompting algorithms incorporating single and multiple sensor modalities for application in pervasive computing environments. The primary application domain is the support of people with cognitive impairments in their activities of daily living. The work will involve the development of new algorithms for activity recognition and situated prompting for Parkinson's disease and for supporting people with dementia conduct daily activities research that will be conducted using Newcastle University's Ambient Kitchen (http://culturelab.ncl.ac.uk/ambientkitchen/), an instrumented environment for pervasive computing research. The Ambient Kitchen is a multi-sensor environment integrating embedded pressure, RFID, accelerometer and vision sensors During the course of the project prototypes will be deployed and evaluated in up to 30 real-world kitchen deployments -- using hardware and software developed by the Digital Economy Research Hub based in Newcastle see: http://research.ncl.ac.uk/side You should have a PhD or equivalent in robotics or machine learning and have a strong theoretical and practical grounding in machine learning techniques, particularly reinforcement learning applied in real-world (large-scale) domains with complex sensor data (e.g. video and audio), and an ability and desire to work with real users and real data within a multidisciplinary research team. As the project also involves close collaboration with the Research Hub's industrial partners including Philips Research (Eindhoven) and Microsoft (Redmond) some travel will be required. Informal inquiries to: Patrick Olivier To apply: http://www15.i-grasp.com/fe/tpl_newcastle02.asp?s=yhJgMRoBzQChEeQzw&jobid=30288,1221356521&key=4343581&c=494668628378&pagestamp=sevxaiinidupyadvuy From scarpin at eng.ucmerced.edu Thu Jul 9 02:48:18 2009 From: scarpin at eng.ucmerced.edu (Stefano Carpin) Date: Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:48:18 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] USARSim Workshop at IROS 2009 -- Deadline Extended Message-ID: <4A55BCE2.9090700@eng.ucmerced.edu> Please note the new extended deadline for submission. --------------- Title: Robots, Games, and Research: Success stories in USARSim http://robotics.ucmerced.edu/Robotics/iros-2009-usarsim-workshop Motivation: Since its genesis in 2003, USARSim has evolved into a full-blown robot simulator whose components have been downloaded more than 40,000 times. The spectrum of envisioned applications has grown far beyond the initially envisioned search and rescue applications, and now encompasses a huge variety of robots, sensors and actuators. Examples of successful and effortless migrations of code from simulation to real robots abound; a clear indication of its value as a tool to ease the development and debugging of robot control software targeted for running on real robots. An active community of developers has contributed back a variety of additions to the open source project, and a fruitful exchange of ideas and tools has been established. This workshop aims to bring together researchers and educators using this software in order to promote and exchange of ideas, results, and software components. This timely event will coincide with the release of the new version of the simulator that will offer many renewed opportunities to current and new users. Topics of interest: The organizers welcome the submission of papers detailing extensions of the simulator, its use as a research tool for any kind of robotic application, or as an educational tool. Interesting application areas include, but are not limited to: * validation; * robot benchmarking; * cooperative robotics; * robotics education; * Robocup; * IEEE Virtual Manufacturing Competition; * mobile sensor networks; * human robot interfaces; * industrial applications. By no means is this workshop exclusively aimed to people involved in Robocup or urban search and rescue. On the contrary, papers describing research results related to other areas or initiatives are particularly welcome. Important dates: - Submission of papers: July 17, 2009 - Notification of acceptance: August 5, 2009 - Final papers due: August 20, 2009 Organization: Steve Balakirsky, National Institute of Standards and Technology Stefano Carpin, University of California, Merced Mike Lewis, University of Pittsburgh For authors: Papers should be formatted accordingly to the official IROS guidelines. A maximum of 8 pages will be allowed. Papers must be submitted in PDF format. See https://robotics.ucmerced.edu/Robotics/iros-2009-usarsim-workshop for additional details. Registration policy: Authors of accepted papers will be required to follow the official IROS 2009 registration policies. -- Stefano Carpin Assistant Professor School of Engineering University of California, Merced http://eng.ucmerced.edu/people/scarpin http://robotics.ucmerced.edu From K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk Fri Jul 10 03:53:04 2009 From: K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk (Kerstin Dautenhahn) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:53:04 +0100 (BST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Job Advertisements: Research Fellow/Assistant in Human-Robot Interaction and Rehabilitation Robotics Message-ID: sorry, the previous email I just sent had a typo in it, I would appreciate if this version can be forwarded to the list instead. thanks, Kerstin ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:50:16 +0100 (BST) From: Kerstin Dautenhahn To: robotics-worldwide at usc.edu Subject: Job Advertisements: Research Fellow/Assistant in Human-Robot Interaction and Rehabilitation Robotics Job Advertisement for two positions at University of Hertfordshire: Research Fellow in Human-Robot Interaction and Research Assistant in Rehabilitation Robotics University of Hertfordshire http://www.herts.ac.uk/home-page.cfm Adaptive Systems Research Group http://adapsys.feis.herts.ac.uk/ ***RESEARCH FELLOW IN HUMAN-ROBOT INTERACTION*** Full-time position, salary 20226-27999 GBP per annum (depending on qualifications and experience), ref. Number EN8942 Fixed-term 2-year contract (starting date: 1 September 2009) Closing date: 23/07/2009 A postgraduate/postdoctoral Research Assistant/Research Fellow position is available in the EU funded project LIREC (LIving with robots and interactive companions). This full-time research post will allow you to pursue research into human robot interaction as part of a European Integrated Project. This multidisciplinary project consists of several European partners in Germany, UK, Hungary, Belgium, Sweden, Portugal and Poland. The University of Hertfordshire.s research within LIREC relevant to this post concerns a .Robot Home Companion. Scenario, whereby robots are being used to provide assistance to users in a home environment. One aspect of specific relevance is how the robot approaches people and maintains appropriate social distances from them (proxemics research). You will conduct research into human-robot proxemics, based on an existing conceptual framework that needs to be implemented, tested and revised in human-robot interaction studies in the Robot House. This framework will allow the robot to adopt appropriate social distances towards its user, and to learn and adapt to the user.s individual references and long-term changes. You will also contribute to the development of the Robot House Showcase at UH which is one of the key showcases for the LIREC project. You will be a member of the Adaptive Systems Research Group (http://adapsys.feis.herts.ac.uk/) at University of Hertfordshire in the School of Computer Science which includes 30 research staff members (postdocs and PhD students). The University of Hertfordshire ranks 27th in England for post-2008 RAE-funding in Computer Science and Informatics. The highly active and multidisciplinary research group has an excellent international research track record including research in human-robot interaction, social robotics and robot learning. You should have a strong postgraduate degree (MSc, MPhil or PhD) in Robotics, Computer Science, or a related area. You are also expected to have strong qualifications and practical experience in robotics programming and robot learning. Experience with robotics hardware and experience in human-robot interaction are desirable. You are expected to work independently, but under guidance of and in close collaboration with other team members at UH and other project partner institutions. The position is full-time. Work will be based at University of Hertfordshire and may include short stays at European partner institutions. More details of the job description and person description can be found here: http://web-apps.herts.ac.uk/uhweb/apps/hr/research-vacancies.cfm All applications must be made via the Human Resource Department at University of Hertfordshire (see URL above). ***RESEARCH ASSISTANT IN REHABILITATION ROBOTICS*** Full-time position, salary 20226 GBP per annum, ref. Number EN8941 Fixed-term contract (starting date: 1 September 2009, end date: end of June 2012) Closing date: 23/07/2009 A Research Assistant position is available in the EU funded project LIREC (LIving with robots and interactive companions). This full-time research post will allow you to pursue research into human robot interaction as part of a European Integrated Project. This multidisciplinary project consists of several European partners in Germany, UK, Hungary, Belgium, Sweden, Portugal and Poland. The University of Hertfordshire.s research within LIREC relevant to this post concerns a .Social Mediator. Scenario, whereby a robot remotely mediates communication and interaction between two people. Relevant for this post is the use of robots as aid in communication, interaction and rehabilitation. Specifically, the development of different assistive and interactive applications for a PHNAToM omni in the context of the Social Mediator scenario is a central part in the research relevant for this specific post. This involves software development, interface design, as well as experimental testing, including human-robot interaction and user studies in a rehabilitation context, analysis of data and documentation of results. You will be a member of the Adaptive Systems Research Group (http://adapsys.feis.herts.ac.uk/) at the University of Hertfordshire in the School of Computer Science which includes 30 research staff members (postdocs and PhD students). The University of Hertfordshire ranks 27th in England for post-2008 RAE-funding in Computer Science and Informatics. The highly active and multidisciplinary research group has an excellent international research track record including research in human-robot interaction, social robotics and assistive and rehabilitation robotics. You should have a strong undergraduate or postgraduate degree (BSc or MSc) in a relevant discipline (i.e. Computer Science, Robotics, Cybernetics, or Engineering). Potential candidates must have excellent understanding, and preferably previous experience, in several or all of the areas: -programming robots and haptic interfaces -interface design -master/slave approaches in control of robotic tools -assistive and rehabilitative robotics -human-robot interaction You are expected to work independently, but under guidance of and in close collaboration with other team members at UH and other project partner institutions. A postgraduate successful applicant will have the opportunity to pursue research in the same area towards a PhD. The position is full-time. Work will be based at University of Hertfordshire and may include short stays at European partner institutions. More details of the job description and person description can be found here: http://web-apps.herts.ac.uk/uhweb/apps/hr/research-vacancies.cfm All applications must be made via the Human Resource Department at University of Hertfordshire (see URL above). ----------------------------------------------------- Prof. Dr. Kerstin Dautenhahn Professor of Artificial Intelligence Adaptive Systems Research Group The University of Hertfordshire, School of Computer Science College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, United Kingdom URL: http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~comqkd E-mail: K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk Fax: +44-1707-284-303 Tel: +44-1707-284-333 From anderson at cs.ua.edu Fri Jul 10 08:38:56 2009 From: anderson at cs.ua.edu (Monica Anderson) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:38:56 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJCAI 2009 Robotics Workshop and Exhibition - July 13-16 Message-ID: <3340d09c0907100838nf7ac1a1n95d28de802702a1c@mail.gmail.com> IJCAI 2009 Robotics Workshop and Exhibition Pasadena Convention Center Pasadena, CA, USA July 13-16 ---- For those attending IJCAI 2009 next week, we invite you to join us for the IJCAI 2009 Robotics Workshop (July 13) and IJCAI Robotics Exhibition (July 14-16). Information about the event is available online at: ?http://robotics.cs.brown.edu/ijcai09/ The IJCAI 2009 Robotics Workshop features talks by all robotics exhibitors as well as invited talks by: ?Robert Kohout (DARPA) ?Stewart Tansley (Microsoft Research) ?Giorgio Metta (U. Genoa) ?Aaron Edsinger (Meka Robotics) ?William Townsend (Barrett Technology) ?Brian Gerkey (Willow Garage) ?Chris Jones (iRobot) and a "Citizen Science and Robotics" panel to discuss the future of amateur, academic, and commercial robotics working together with panelists: ?Kipp Bradford (Make Magazine) ?Jim Wright (Seattle Robotics Society) ?Fred Martin (UMass-Lowell) The IJCAI 2009 Robotics Exhibition features demonstrations centered around mobile manipulation, multirobot systems, and learning by demonstration. Student projects will also be featured. Chairs Odest Chadwicke Jenkins (Brown University) Monica Anderson (University of Alabama) Ayanna Howard (Georgia Tech) From alfredo at itam.mx Fri Jul 10 09:23:31 2009 From: alfredo at itam.mx (alfredo at itam.mx) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:23:31 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] LARS 2009 - July 13th 2009 Deadline for Paper Submission Message-ID: <4664.131.247.116.58.1247243011.squirrel@allman.rhon.itam.mx> Dear Colleague, On behalf of the Latin American Robotics Symposium (LARS) Organizing Committee, I would like to invite you to submit paper contributions to LARS 2009. LARS 2009 will be held October 29-30, 2009 in Valparaiso, Chile, in conjunction with the Latin American Robotics Contest and the RoboCup Latin American Open. This is LARS sixth event and as in previous years we expect it to have IEEE and RAS technical co-sponsorship (pending approval) with proceedings published by IEEE Explore. Web site is http://robotica.elo.utfsm.cl/lars2009 Call for papers is http://robotica.elo.utfsm.cl/simposio/cfp_lars2009.pdf Important Dates: July 13: Deadline for Full Paper Submissions. August 10: Notification of Acceptance/Rejection. August 24: Final, Camera Ready Papers, Due. For additional information you can contact "alfredo at itam.mx" We look forward to your participation! Best regards, Alfredo Weitzenfeld Chair LARS 2009 -- La informaci?n contenida en este mensaje de datos es confidencial, constituye un secreto industrial y/o profesional en t?rminos de la legislaci?n vigente y se encuentra dirigida exclusivamente al destinatario indicado en dicho mensaje. Si usted recibe esta informaci?n por error o si usted no es el destinatario del mensaje, favor de notificar al emisor, y destr?yalo. The information contained in this electronic message is confidential, it constitutes a professional and/or industrial secret in terms of the current legislation, and is intended for its recipient only. If you receive this message by mistake and/or if you are not the recipient thereof, please notify the sender and destroy it. From edb at gdl.cinvestav.mx Fri Jul 10 16:30:30 2009 From: edb at gdl.cinvestav.mx (Eduardo Bayro) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:30:30 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Deadline Extension July 31, 2009 , Special Issue on "Cognitive Humanoid Vision" International Journal of Humanoid Robotics (IJHR) Message-ID: <4A57CF16.8090106@gdl.cinvestav.mx> Deadline Extension to July 31, 2009 for the Special Issue on "Cognitive Humanoid Vision" to be published in the International Journal of Humanoid Robotics (IJHR) http://www.worldscinet.com/ijhr/mkt/callforpapers_details.shtml#active Submission Schedule: New Submission deadline July 31, 2009 Notification: September 1, 2009. Final manuscript due: October 1, 2009 Publication: December 2009 Details for submission: Submissions should comply with the publication guidelines for the ////International Journal of Humanoid Robotics// (http://www.worldscinet.com/ijhr/mkt/guidelines.shtml). Please submit papers at http://www.worldscinet.com/ijhr/ijhr.shtml with a note "Paper for Special Issue on Cognitive Humanoid Vision?. Guest Editors: Prof. Eduardo Bayro-Corrochano, CINVESTAV, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Guadalajara, M?xico, edb at gdl.cinvestav.mx and Prof. Ales Leonardis, Visual Cognitive Systems Laboratory , Faculty of Computer and Information Science , University of Ljubljana , _ales.leonardis at fri.uni-lj.si_ Following the two successful workshops the first on ?Active Vision of Humanoids? that took place in Pittsburgh, PA at the conference Humanoids?2007, November 29, http://planning.cs.cmu.edu/humanoids07/index.shtml and the second on ?Cognitive Humanoid Vision? held at IEEE-RAS Humanoids?2008 in Daejeon, South Korea, December, 1, _http://humanoids2008.org/_ we solicit papers for a special issue devoted to the topic cognitive humanoid vision. Special Issue Theme In the middle eighties pioneers brought into play the concept of active vision. This accompanied the thoughts of researchers and developers of vision systems up to know. On the other hand research in neuroscience, cognitive robotics and humanoids is showing the need for more understanding about the brain function and the human vision system. Recently at the Workshop ?The Active Vision of Humanoid Robots? (Humnoids?2007, Pittsburgh)* *the wording Action Vision was introduced to relate vision with an expected action when we are looking for the foundations of a cognitive architecture. Definitively, it appears that we need a broad conceptual framework to bring together all those new ideas and efforts for vision to push forward the design and development of intelligent perception action systems.** The visual manifold carries enormous amount of information which can not be exhaustively processed in real time with current technology. So, the obvious WWWW questions are: what, where, when and with which procedures we should look at. The rapid growing in research interests like to understand how the brain works by building humanoids, shows clearly that our current thoughts, theory, algorithms and hardware are by far still insufficient to cope with the high algorithmic complexity involved by the image processing to tackle in real time fundamentals problems like the correspondence problem other our na?ve predisposition to stick with processing in Euclidean metric in apparently obvious subspaces. The attempt of this workshop goes beyond Active Vision or Action Vision, it proposes as study topic the Cognitive Humanoid Vision as a much more general framework to develop a real time vision system for humanoids. The Workshop goal is to gather researchers confronted with the challenge to develop real time algorithms for cognitive vision. The traditional robot architectures are calling for a cognitive architecture to embodied the sophistication required for an intelligent machine. In this regard, the traditional concept of active vision evolves to a concept the ////action vision and /further to/ cognitive humanoid vision//, as this is the way how the visual processing is tight with a reactive behaviour as by humans confronted with dynamic changes of all sort in their environment. In this workshop we expect contributions and a debate with focus on following key issues: - visual architecture for a cognitive architecture - Feature extraction, grouping, 3D contours, visuo-motor representations - Segment the scene into surfaces? - How build models of objects and events in space and time? - How integrate cue information - Visuo-motor representations: how build and use them - Priming models to bottom up information - Model base segmentation, prospective anticipation - Conscious reality instead of physical reality - Perception of spatial layout - Software for a basic visual front-end for humanoids - Nature of the information that the humanoid should extract from images and video - A language for processing the semantics of the meaning of the visual manifold - Information extracting and learning at middle level vision Papers addressing such topics or others relevant to the design of humanoid's vision system, should be submitted before the first of July for a target publication date of end 2009. From asada at MIT.EDU Sat Jul 11 13:49:17 2009 From: asada at MIT.EDU (Harry H. Asada) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:49:17 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call-for-Papers, IJRR Special Issue on Stochasticity in Robotics and Bio-Systems Message-ID: <4A58FACD.1060509@mit.edu> Please post the following message at Robotics-Worldwide. Thanks. Harry Asada ********************* International Journal of Robotics Research Call for Papers Special Issue on *Stochasticity in Robotics and Biological Systems* Guest Editors: H. Harry Asada (M.I.T.) and Vijay Kumar (University of Pennsylvania) *Invitation:* The International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR) invites papers for a special issue on Stochasticity in Robotics and Biological Systems. Stochasticity has been a central issue in many branches of robotics research. Not only basic signal processing, communication, filtering, and control, but also advanced localization, planning, learning, and optimization as well as self-assembly and emergent behaviors are all heavily involved in stochasticity. Understanding of the stochastic nature of robotic systems and its strategic use are an integral part in developing effective systems. Biological systems are noisy systems, built upon thermodynamic random processes. Yet, a biological system is a highly regulated system that is robust and sustainable as well as flexible and adaptable. Although individual cells and molecules are stochastic, their collective behaviors are highly organized, exhibiting a particular morphological structure and high-level functionality. There will be effective architecture and regulatory mechanisms exploiting stochasticity that today?s engineered systems have not yet utilized. It is our expectation that this special issue will display emerging new theory and methodologies, novel robotic systems and devices, and frontier research efforts in broad areas of stochastic robotics with emphasis on cross-disciplinary research between robotics and biological systems. Papers are solicited on all aspects of stochastic robotics, including, but not limited to, the following: Stochastic emergent behaviors of multi-robot systems and swarms; Bio-inspired population modeling and control; Machine learning, stochastic approximation, and probabilistic planning and optimization; Neural system modeling, signal processing, and inference; Stochastic modeling and control of biological robots, including bacteria-powered micro-robots; Stochastic modeling and estimation of human behaviors and intension; Self-assembly and chemical kinetics in micro/nano robotic systems; and SLAM and integrated model building, data acquisition, and decision processes. Papers must contain high-quality original contributions and be prepared in accordance with IJRR. All papers will be reviewed following the regular reviewing procedure of IJRR. *Manuscript Submission* Upload manuscripts to: http://mcmanuscriptcentral.com/ijrr. Under ?Manuscript Type?, select ?Stochastic Robotics?. Instructions for authors, with information about ?Multimedia Extensions?, are available on-line at: http://www.uk.sagepub.com/repository/binaries/pdf/Multimedia_Extension_submissions.pdf. *Important Dates:* *November 30, 2009 Paper submission* *April 30, 2010 Completion of First Review* *June 15, 2010 Submission of Revised Papers* *August 16, 2010 Completion of Final Review* *September 4, 2010 Submission of Final Manuscripts and Source Files* *Late 2010/Early 2011 Publication* From yrefanid at uom.gr Sun Jul 12 13:48:01 2009 From: yrefanid at uom.gr (yrefanid at uom.gr) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:48:01 +0300 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICAPS-2009 Call for Participation Message-ID: <1247431681.4a5a4c016bab3@lydia.uom.gr> [apologies for cross-posting] 19th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling ICAPS-2009, http://icaps09.icaps-conference.org September 19-23, 2009, Thessaloniki, Greece The Organizing Committee of the 19th International Conference on Automated Planning & Scheduling (ICAPS'09) invites you to participate at the conference, to be held in Thessaloniki, Greece, September 19 to 23. The technical program of ICAPS-2009 involves 41 oral presentations and 14 poster presentations, selected out of a body of 159 submissions. In addition, it contains 3 invited talks by: * Maria Fox, University of Strathclyde, UK, on "Planning with Continuous Change" * Stephen F. Smith, Carnegie Mellon University, USA, on "Scheduling in Dynamic, Uncertain Environments: Closing the Loop with Execution" * Sebastian Thrun, Stanford University, USA, on "Towards Self-Driving Cars" In addition, the conference program involves: * A workshop program comprising 10 workshops. See http://icaps09.uom.gr/workshops/workshops.htm . * A tutorial program comprising 5 tutorials. See http://icaps09.uom.gr/tutorials/tutorials.htm . * The Application Showcase, with oral presentations of the best systems. * The 3rd International Competition on Knowledge Engineering for Planning and Scheduling (ICKEPS). The early registration deadline is July 31st, 2009. More details can be found at: http://icaps09.uom.gr/registration/registration.htm Please, book your rooms as early as possible in order to guarantee availability, as well as your flights in order to obtain better prices. We look forward to seeing you in Thessaloniki this September. From alfredo at itam.mx Mon Jul 13 17:28:30 2009 From: alfredo at itam.mx (alfredo at itam.mx) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:28:30 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] LARS 2009 Deadline Extension - July 27th 2009 Message-ID: <4255.72.184.10.26.1247531310.squirrel@allman.rhon.itam.mx> Dear Colleague, Please note the July 27th 2009 deadline extension for paper submission to the Latin American Robotics Symposium (LARS 2009). LARS 2009 will be held October 29-30, 2009 in Valparaiso, Chile, in conjunction with the Latin American Robotics Contest and the RoboCup Latin American Open. Web site is http://robotica.elo.utfsm.cl/lars2009 Call for papers is http://robotica.elo.utfsm.cl/simposio/cfp_lars2009.pdf For additional information you can contact "alfredo at itam.mx" We look forward to your participation! Best regards, Alfredo Weitzenfeld Chair LARS 2009 -- La informaci?n contenida en este mensaje de datos es confidencial, constituye un secreto industrial y/o profesional en t?rminos de la legislaci?n vigente y se encuentra dirigida exclusivamente al destinatario indicado en dicho mensaje. Si usted recibe esta informaci?n por error o si usted no es el destinatario del mensaje, favor de notificar al emisor, y destr?yalo. The information contained in this electronic message is confidential, it constitutes a professional and/or industrial secret in terms of the current legislation, and is intended for its recipient only. If you receive this message by mistake and/or if you are not the recipient thereof, please notify the sender and destroy it. From jiyeongl at hanyang.ac.kr Mon Jul 13 19:13:20 2009 From: jiyeongl at hanyang.ac.kr (Ji Yeong Lee) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:13:20 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Extended Deadline of URAI2009 Paper Submission Message-ID: <4A5BE9C0.4010200@hanyang.ac.kr> * * * * *Dear Colleague,* *The **6th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots and Ambient Intelligence (URAI 2009) * * **October 28 - 31, 2009, Gwangju, Republic of Korea* *http://www.kros.org**/urai2009/*** The 6th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots and Ambient Intelligence (URAI 2009), hosted by Korea Robot Society (KROS) will be held on October 28-31, 2009 at Kimdaejung Convention Center, Gwangju, Korea. Other robot related events (Automobile-Robot Exhibition and World Light Exposition) will be also held during this week. The aim of this conference is to bring together researchers, engineers and practitioners to present their ideas and recent works related to the various aspects of ubiquitous robots, ambient intelligence, HRI, mobile robotics, sensors and networks. Four days conference consists of one day?s workshop, two days? technical program, and one-day?s unforgettable cultural tour program around Gwangju. We are pleased to invite you to submit papers and video, propose the organized sessions, and attend the URAI 2009. The TOPICS covered by the conference are, but not limited to: *MAIN TOPICS* *Division I : Ubiquitous Robots * Network-based Robotics, Ambient Intelligence, Intelligent Space / Environment Technologies, Human-Robot Interaction, Robot Vision and Audition, Robot Intelligence and Learning, Robotic Agents, Sensor Network and Sensor Fusion * * *Division II : Robotic Mechanisms and Systems * Navigation / Localization, Robot Kinematics and Dynamics, Robotic Mechanisms and Design, Humanoid Robots, Haptics / Teleoperation, Sensors and Actuators, Medical / Rehabilitation Robotics, Biorobotics, Control Architecture and Middleware ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *AUTHOR SCHEDULE: Important dates (*_Extended !)_ June 20, 2009: _Organized session proposal_ June 30, 2009: _Submission of short papers (2 pages) or video_ July 20, 2009 : Notification of Acceptance August 15, 2009 : Submission of camera ready papers/video ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *SUBMISSION OF PAPERS*: In the initial submission, authors are required to submit a short paper: 1. Regular and work in progress papers : 2 pages 2. Video papers : 1 page plus video If accepted, authors select one of the following three submission types in the final submission,. 1. Regular papers (4-5 pages), which report novel and significant contribution 2. Work in progress papers (2-3 pages), which present recent ideas and on-going works 3. Video papers (1 pages+video), which report successful implementation. Please submit your papers or video written in English to http://www.kros.org/urai2009/ where templates for both Word and Latex formats can be found. The presented papers will be further screened for possible publication in Journal of Intelligent Service Robots. *Sponsors* Sponsored by Korea Robotics Society Technically co-sponsored by IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, Robotics Society of Japan(RSJ), Robotics Society of Taiwan(RST) *All inquiries related to the conference or organized session proposal to Secreteriat :* Ji Yeong Lee (Hanyang Univ., Korea) e-mail : jiyeongl at hanyang.ac.kr Tel: +82-31-400-5253 Byung-Ju Yi, Ph.D. General Chair of URAI 2009 Hanyang University Korea -- ------------------------------------- Ji Yeong Lee, Assistant Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hanyang University, Ansan Tel. 82-31-400-5253 Fax. 82-31-406-5550 jiyeongl at hanyang.ac.kr From solis at kurenai.waseda.jp Mon Jul 13 19:48:54 2009 From: solis at kurenai.waseda.jp (solis at kurenai.waseda.jp) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:48:54 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] (Deadline Extension) CfP IROS2009 Workshop on Biologically-Inspired Robots (October 11th, 2009) Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, Due to several requests, the submission deadline for the IROS2009 Workshop on Biologically-Inspired Robots has been extended to: July 31, 2009 For further details, please access: www.bio.waseda.ac.jp/IROS_Workshop/index.htm Looking forward to receive your contributions ! ************************************************* IEEE/RSJ IROS 2009 Workshop October 11th, 2009 Full-Day Workshop on Biologically-Inspired Robots FIRST CALL FOR PARTICIPATION (www.bio.waseda.ac.jp/IROS_Workshop/index.htm) ************************************************* Abstract: In recent years, the benefits of $B!H(Bbiologically inspired$B!I(B approaches have become increasingly clear in engineering design. Living organisms are complex systems exhibiting a range of desirable engineering characteristics that have proved difficult to realize using traditional engineering methodologies. Research in this field has successfully fused techniques from sensor development, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, simulation/modeling, and robotics. The goal of this workshop is to provide a forum for the examination of the interplay between biological and artificial (autonomous or semi-autonomous) systems, and present biology as a learning tool for novel robotic paradigms. Contributions are welcome on the following topics, but are by no means limited to: - Biologically-Inspired Robot Architectures - Biomimetic Perception, Action, and Behavior - Learning and Adaptation; - Evolutionary Robotics; - Neuromechanical Systems. The workshop will be of particular interest to robotic engineers and researchers that work in the general areas of Biologically-Inspired Robotics. The state-of-art will be analyzed and discussed from a perspective that could be interesting and useful for researchers developing new robotic machines, in their different forms. Extended Deadlines: - July 31, 2009: Paper Submission (or extended abstract) deadline - August 7, 2009: Notification of Acceptance/Rejection - August 25, 2009: Camera-Ready Submission Deadline Contributed extended abstracts: limited to 3000 characters, including title, authors, affiliations. Camera-Ready papers: Six pages in the standard IROS 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 solis at kurenai dot waseda dot jp Organizers: Kin-Huat Low (Nanyang Technology University, SINGAPORE) Jorge Solis (Waseda University, JAPAN) Xinyan Deng (University of Delaware, USA) Ravi Vaidyanathan (University of Bristol, UK) From aude.billard at epfl.ch Tue Jul 14 00:33:53 2009 From: aude.billard at epfl.ch (Aude Billard) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:33:53 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Fw: Last call for papers: EpiRob 2009 Message-ID: <6497C4A9B2DB461FA36369934CC65459@lasalap1> ---------------------------------------------------------- Apologies if you receive this announcement more than once Please distribute as appropriate -- thanks! ---------------------------------------------------------- LAST CALL FOR PAPERS EpiRob 2009 NINTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON EPIGENETIC ROBOTICS: Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems Centro Culturale Don Orione Artigianelli Venice, Italy, November 12-14, 2009 http://www.epigenetic-robotics.org ** Submission Deadline: July 17, 2009 ** Epigenetic systems, whether natural or artificial, share a prolonged developmental process through which varied and complex cognitive and perceptual structures emerge as a result of the interaction of an embodied system with a physical and social environment. Submissions are welcome regarding all aspects of the study of cognitive development, including (but not limited to): - The roles of and interactions among motivation, emotion, and value systems in development - The development of emotional competencies and systems - The development of "social skills", such as imitation, synchrony processing, intersubjectivity, joint attention, intentionality, non-verbal and verbal communication, sensorimotor schemata, shared meaning and symbolic reference, social learning, social relationships, social cognition ("mind reading", "theory of mind") - The role of play in emotional, social, and cognitive development - The development of verbal and non-verbal communication - Links between (the development of) expression and communication - Architectures for autonomous development - Dynamical systems models of emotional, social, and cognitive development - The scope and limits of maturation, the mechanisms of open-ended development - The mechanisms of stage formation and stage transitions - Interaction between innate structure, ongoing developing structure, and experience - The interplay between embodiment, learning biases and environment - Algorithms for self-supervision, autonomous exploration, representation making, and methods for evolving new representations during ontogeny - Philosophical and social issues of development - The epistemological foundations of using robots to study development - The use of robots as theoretical tools (e.g., to make predictions) in the study of development in biological systems - The use of robots in applied settings (e.g., autism therapy) to study development in biological systems Robots that can undergo morphological changes and how they can be used to study interplays among social, emotional, cognitive and morphological development SUBMISSION INFORMATION: ----------------------------------------- EpiRob09 will accept submissions in two categories: long papers (presenting more mature research ideas and results) or short abstracts (presenting more preliminary / ongoing work). Manuscripts submitted as long papers should have a maximum length of 8 pages using the usual EpiRob format (former SAB template modified for A4 paper). Manuscripts submitted as abstracts should have a maximum length of 2 pages using the usual EpiRob format. The style files for LaTex are available in zip format and in tar format on the EpiRob'09 website, where you can also find a Word style file. All submissions must be in PDF format. Accepted long papers will have oral presentations at the conference. Accepted abstracts will be presented as posters. Authors of accepted abstracts will also have the opportunity to make a brief oral presentation during a Poster Spotlight session. All submissions and camera-ready papers and abstracts should be sent as email attachments in PDF format (only) to: epirob09 at epigenetic-robotics.org. A post-conference special issue of a good interdisciplinary journal containing a selection of (extended) EpiRob'09 papers will be considered depending on the quality of the submissions received. Authors of high-quality contributions would in that case be invited to send extended paper submissions for the special journal issue. IMPORTANT DATES: ----------------------------- - July 17, 2009: Papers and abstracts submission deadline. - September 7, 2009: Acceptance notification. - October 1, 2009: Camera-ready versions of accepted papers and abstracts due in electronic format. - November 12-14, 2009: Conference dates. ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: -------------------------------------- Lola Ca?amero, University of Hertfordshire, UK - General and Program Chair; Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, INRIA Bordeaux, France - Program Co-chair; Hideki Kozima, Miyagi University, Japan - Publicity Co-chair; Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze, University College London, UK - Publicity Co-chair; Aude Billard, EPFL, Switzerland - Publicity Co-chair; Christian Balkenius, Lund University, Sweden - Publications Chair From Ce at ewi.utwente.nl Mon Jul 13 23:37:26 2009 From: Ce at ewi.utwente.nl (Ce at ewi.utwente.nl) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:37:26 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] FW: Request to mailing list robotics-worldwide rejected Message-ID: Vacancy for a PhD student in the project 'MYOPRO' at the University of Twente Introduction The population of patients who could use a hand prosthetic device as a consequence of an amputation is estimated in the Netherlands around 4000 and in the United states 500.000. The classical prosthetic devices are very limited in usage, in sensorially and degrees of freedom. In myoelectrical prosthesis, electromyographic (EMG) activity of the remaining muscles is measured via sensors on the skin and this signals are used as commands to control voluntarily the prosthetic device. Unfortunately currently the few myoelectrically controlled prosthetic devices uses mostly only one degree of freedom controlled via myographic signals. Another shortcoming of current devices is the absence of a feedback for the user on the force with which he or she is closing the hand and therefore a "feeling" of the force applied on the grasped object. The MYOPRO project The MYOPRO project wants to develop a new generation of prosthetic device which would tackle many of the shortcomings of present devices. First, we want to be able to selectively control more degrees of freedom, second we want to implement feedback signals to the user in order to improve the grasping sensation and stability during manipulation, and third we want to create a supporting virtual environment system which would be coupled to a myoelectric interface in order to directly train patient right after the loss or amputation of the limb since this would have great advantages in the rehabilitation and usage learning of the prosthetic device. Within this project one of the Ph.D. students will be employed at the Control Laboratory. This Ph.D. student will be responsible for the mechatronic development of the device including a control algorithm which will make use of proportional (co)contraction of the muscles measure myoelectrically to properly actuate the device which will have to be developed.. What we ask: An MSc or comparable degree in engineering or physics with demonstrated abilities in the fields of research described above: modeling, control and mechanical design. Good control of the English language in written and spoken form. Ability to perform research individually and also work in a team. What we offer: Gross monthly salary for the PhD position range from 2042 to 2812 Euro. In addition to this, we offer a holiday allowance (amounts to 8%), an end-of-year bonus of one extra month, various sporting and cultural facilities at reduced rate, medical insurance at a reduced rate. About the University of Twente: The University of Twente is an entrepreneurial research university, located about 200 km from Amsterdam in Enschede, a city in Twente, the garden of the Netherlands with excellent recreation facilities. Organized over 5 faculties, the UT offers 20 educational programs ranging from applied physics, public and business administration, communication studies and diverse programs in engineering technology. Research takes place within the context of institutes and focuses, among other things, on nanotechnology, information and communication technology (CTIT), biomedical technology, policy studies, construction management & engineering, and mechanics. More than 7,000 students and 2,700 staff members live, work and recreate at the UT, the Netherlands' only campus university with a park-like atmosphere and numerous sporting facilities. About the involved research institutes The research will be carried out in the Control Engineering (CE) laboratory of the faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EWI), which is embedded among other in the Institute of Mechanics Processes And Control Twente (IMPACT). Contact Applications can be sent via email to the secretarial office of Control Engineering, ce at ewi.utwente.nl before the 1st of October 2009. Please mention vacancy number CE2009-6 Regards, Carla Gouw Secretariat Control Engineering building Hogekamp, room 8240 tel. 053- 489 2606 / 2626 From ras-learning-owner at lists.csail.mit.edu Tue Jul 14 03:52:28 2009 From: ras-learning-owner at lists.csail.mit.edu (ras-learning-owner at lists.csail.mit.edu) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:52:28 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Lectureships in Robotics in Sheffield, UK Message-ID: Job Title: Lecturer in Automatic Control & Systems Engineering (2 Posts) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Department: Department of Automatic Control & Systems Engineering Ref No: R07355 Closing Date: 31st August, 2009 Salary: ?36,532 - ?43,622 per annum with the potential to progress to ?49,096 Summary Outstanding individuals are sought for two lectureship positions to complement and enhance the multi-disciplinary research portfolio of the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering. Research experience and expertise in (i) Robotics (ii) Aerospace and Transport Systems or (iii) Systems Modelling and Optimisation in Healthcare or in Manufacturing is preferred. Applicants with a strong general background in Systems, Signal Processing and Control are also encouraged to apply. If successful, you will be expected to work closely with relevant department and faculty based research centres. You must have a good first degree and a PhD (or equivalent experience) in a related subject. In addition, you should display an ability and willingness to teach across the range of taught programmes and to work as part of a team. http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/jobs/academic.html From spong at control.csl.illinois.edu Wed Jul 15 05:35:22 2009 From: spong at control.csl.illinois.edu (spong at control.csl.illinois.edu) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:35:22 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Research Assistant position in bipedal locomotion Message-ID: I have an immediate opening for a PhD student in the area of control of bipedal locomotion. Requirements include a master's degree in electrical or mechanical engineering or a related discipline. The project involves modeling, simulation, and nonlinear control of walking robots. Interested candidates should contact me at mspong at utdallas.edu Mark W. Spong Lars Magnus Ericsson Chair and Dean Department of Electrical Engineering University of Texas at Dallas 800 W. Campbell Rd Richardson, TX 75080 From illah at cs.cmu.edu Wed Jul 15 20:31:51 2009 From: illah at cs.cmu.edu (Illah Nourbakhsh) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:31:51 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Papers: Community-Based Robotics Message-ID: <4A5E9F27.7060906@cs.cmu.edu> Autonomous Robots Journal Special Issue Call for Papers: Community-Based Robotics Paper submission deadline: November 30, 2009 Illah Nourbakhsh, Associate Professor of Robotics Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, illah at cmu.edu Carl DiSalvo, Assistant Professor School of Literature, Communication and Culture, Georgia Institute of Technology Kevin Crowley, Associate Professor Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh The study of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) has enabled researchers to model human-robot systems with greater fidelity, and this in turn has led to the development of reasoning, sensing and actuation modalities for social robots that maximize the capability for effective one-on-one interactions with humans in shared spaces. But human interaction is not limited to one-on-one encounters. We live in and form communities based on social practice, locale, goals and issues, which are different from the workplace environments and groups common to HRI. Robots and robotic technologies can have meaningful roles in human communities, supporting social and situated learning, creativity, and civic engagement, as has been demonstrated by projects as diverse as community-based educational robotics programs, participatory design program with robotics, robot exhibitions and installations, and arts-robotics fusion curricula. Such programs hint at the challenges of integrating robots into community settings, but there is a need for focused research on community-based robotics in order to systematically identify and address those challenges and provide pathways for future research. In this Autonomous Robots special issue on Community-based Robotics we intend to outline recent advances in modeling, enabling and evaluating the interaction of robotics with communities. This topic is interdisciplinary and so our focus spans fundamentally enabling research as well as large-scale deployments and their formal evaluation: * Robot perception and reasoning for large-scale human interaction * Robotic curricula for educational communities * Role of robotics in community-based inquiry and action * Methods for mental modeling and evaluation of community-robot interaction * Methods for large-scale interaction of robots with untrained human groups * Design strategies for increasing public engagement with robot platforms * Evaluation rubrics for assessing public engagement with robots * Arts-based approaches to public encounters with robots For more information please go to http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~illah/cbr or contact the guest editors listed above. From auke.ijspeert at epfl.ch Thu Jul 16 12:45:24 2009 From: auke.ijspeert at epfl.ch (Auke Ijspeert) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:45:24 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PhD scholarships for a joint doctoral degree in robotics between IST Lisbon and EPFL Lausanne Message-ID: <4A5F8354.1040902@epfl.ch> Dear roboticists, Could you please forward the following call for applications for doctoral fellowships to bright master students in your group? Many thanks. The initiative offers the opportunity to do a PhD at two locations: IST (Lisbon, Portugal) and EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland) and to obtain a joint doctoral degree from both institutions. During the duration the PhD program, students will spend about 50% of the time at IST and 50% of the time at EPFL and be advised by faculty members from both institutions. The deadline for applications is Sept 15th. Students from any nationality can apply. Information about the initiative and how to apply can be found on the following website: http://www.ist.utl.pt/en/html/ist-epfl/ Best regards, Auke Ijspeert -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Auke Jan Ijspeert SNF (Swiss National Science Foundation) Assistant Professor School of Computer and Communication Sciences, EPFL EPFL-IC-ISIM-GRIJ EPFL, Ecole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne Station 14 CH 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland Office: INN 237 Tel: +41 21 693 2658, Fax: +41 21 693 3705 www: http://birg.epfl.ch Email: Auke.Ijspeert at epfl.ch Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Southern California ----------------------------------------------------------------- From rusu at cs.tum.edu Fri Jul 17 00:57:38 2009 From: rusu at cs.tum.edu (Radu Bogdan Rusu) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:57:38 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Extended Call for papers: IROS 2009 Workshop: Semantic Perception for Mobile Manipulation Message-ID: <4A602EF2.7030104@cs.tum.edu> ---[ EXTENDED CALL FOR PAPERS ]--- IROS 2009 Workshop: Semantic Perception for Mobile Manipulation When: October 15, 2009 Where: International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2009, St. Louis, MO, USA Website: http://www.willowgarage.com/iros09spmm Submission deadline: 07 August 2009 (was: 15 July 2009) As autonomous mobile manipulation will soon move away from individually set up manipulation experiments and begin to tackle real-world everyday manipulation tasks, such as setting the table or cleaning up, the perception capabilities of the robots must become much more powerful. For example, if the robot is asked to bring a glass it must not bring a dirty one or one that is intended for the use of somebody else. More generally, perception for mobile manipulation must become a resource for the robot, which informs the robot with respect to what to do to which object and in which way. This is the main issue of semantic perception for mobile manipulation. In this full-day workshop we will try to analyze the requirements of such a perception system, and discuss alternatives for achieving this goal, by bringing together researchers from the Computer Vision, 3D Mapping, and Mobile Manipulation and Grasping areas. As an immediate course of action, we plan to make available during the workshop a complete database of 3D object models and scenes for mobile manipulation scenarios. This workshop is also part of a broader movement of multiple communities toward mobile manipulation as a key interdisciplinary research topic. We encourage participation in other mobile manipulation meetings, such as the IJCAI 2009 Mobile Manipulation Challenge and the RSS 2009 Workshop on Mobile Manipulation in Human Environments. Submissions: We solicit paper submissions, optionally accompanied by a video, both of which will be reviewed (not double-blind) by the program committee. The review criteria will be: technical quality, significance of system demonstration, and topicality. We aim to accept 9--12 papers for oral presentation at the meeting. Videos will be shown during an afternoon session open to the public. Accepted papers and videos will be assembled into proceedings and distributed in CD format at the workshop. If there is sufficient interest, we will pursue publication of a special journal issue or a book to include extended versions of the best papers. The list of topics of interest includes, but are not necessary limited to: * 3D object recognition * semantic scene interpretation based on point clouds * object modelling for manipulation and grasping * accurate 3D collision models * surface reconstruction for close-range scenes * vision for manipulation * deformable objects * object classification based on manipulation experience/capabilities Papers should be in PDF, conform to the IEEE requirements, and be maximum of 8 pages in length (shorter papers are welcome). Videos should be in the MPEG format, 3-5 minutes in length, and easily viewed with free video players (please try playing your video on a couple of different machines before submitting). Email submissions to: iros09spmm at lists.willowgarage.com . Please do not attach video files to email; include a URL instead. Important Dates: * 07 August 2009: Submissions due * 21 August 2009: Notification of acceptance * 31 August 2009: Final papers due Organizers: * Radu Bogdan Rusu, Technische Universitaet Muenchen * Gary Bradski, Willow Garage * Kurt Konolige, Willow Garage * Michael Beetz, Technische Universitaet Muenchen Program Committee: * Peter Allen, Columbia University, USA * Darius Burschka, Technische Universitaet Muenchen/German Aerospace Center (TUM/DLR), Germany * Gordon Cheng, Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Germany * Henrik Christensen, GeorgiaTech, USA * Matei Ciocarlie, Columbia University, USA * Trevor Darrell, Berkeley University, USA * Brian Gerkey, Willow Garage, USA * Chad Jenkinks, Brown University, USA * Charlie Kemp, GeorgiaTech, USA * Danica Kragic, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden * Norbert Krueger, Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute, Denmark * David Lowe, University of British Columbia, USA * Kei Okada, University of Tokyo, Japan * Morgan Quigley, Stanford University, USA * Silvio Savarese, University of Michigan, USA * Sidd Srinivasa, Intel Research Pittsburgh/Carnegie Mellon University, USA Cheers, Radu. -- | Radu Bogdan Rusu | http://rbrusu.com/ From richard.moreau at insa-lyon.fr Mon Jul 20 05:34:32 2009 From: richard.moreau at insa-lyon.fr (Richard Moreau) Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:34:32 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] =?iso-8859-1?q?Post_Doc_and_research_enginee?= =?iso-8859-1?q?r_positions_at_Laboratoire_Amp=E8re_-_INSA_de_Lyon_-_Franc?= =?iso-8859-1?q?e?= Message-ID: <4A646458.3000903@insa-lyon.fr> ***** Post doc position for 12 months A Post doc position is available at the laboratory Amp?re (INSA de Lyon - France). It concerns the conception and the design of a attitude determination and control for a picosatellite. A picosatellite is a 10x10x10 cm cube, its weight less than 1 kg and its power should be less than 1 W. The objective of this study is to model the space environment to detemine the actuators and sensors to use to control the orientation of a picosatellite. Once the choice is made, control laws have to be developped to ensure an efficient attitude determination and control. A prototype will be then manufactured to proceed to the ground validation. Applicants should have a PhD in one of the following disciplines Aeronautics, mechatronics, mechanical or electrical engineering, robotics. In order to apply candidates should send a vitae, a letter of motivation and a letter of recommendation to richard.moreau at insa-lyon.fr Details are available on http://www.gdr-robotique.fr/Templates/annonces/1247850132_PostDoc_SCA_Ampere_en.pdf ***** Research engineer position for 5 months A research engineer position is also available at the laboratory Amp?re on the same subject. According to the profile of the applicant, this work will be focused on the identification of the characteristics of the sensors and the actuators or on the development of the control algorithms. Applicants should preferably have a master's degree in one of the following disciplines Aeronautics engineering Mechanical engineering Electrical engineering Robotics engineering Candidates from other disciplines are also welcome if they demonstrate skills in the above-mentionned areas. In order to apply candidates should send a vitae, a letter of motivation and a letter of recommendation to richard.moreau at insa-lyon.fr Details are available on http://www.gdr-robotique.fr/Templates/annonces/1248084012_Engineer_SCA_Ampere_en.pdf ***** The candidate will join a young and enthusiastic research team (post doc, research engineer, master students and researchers) on a emergent topic. For more information please refer to richard.moreau at insa-lyon.fr -- Moreau Richard Ma?tre de Conf?rences - Associate Professor Laboratoire Amp?re - UMR CNRS 5005 INSA de Lyon B?timent Antoine de Saint Exup?ry 25 avenue Jean Capelle 69621 Villeurbanne Cedex FRANCE tel: +33 4 72 43 85 59 fax: +33 4 72 43 85 35 e-mail: richard.moreau at insa-lyon.fr http://www.ampere-lab.fr/ From tduckett at lincoln.ac.uk Mon Jul 20 08:53:06 2009 From: tduckett at lincoln.ac.uk (Tom Duckett) Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:53:06 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Lecturer positions in Vision, Robotics and HCI Message-ID: <08EC78E748D4534BB97FFAD4136097B06942D6@AEXCMS03.network.uni> The Department of Computing and Informatics at the University of Lincoln (UK) is looking to recruit a new Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Vision and Robotics, and two new Lecturer/Senior Lecturers in HCI (including social robotics and human-robot interaction). Job descriptions follow: Please visit our website at www.lincoln.ac.uk/vacancies to apply online. Alternatively, email jobs at lincoln.ac.uk or telephone (01522) 886629. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Vision and Robotics The University of Lincoln is seeking to appoint a new Lecturer in the Department of Computing and Informatics, with specific research interests that are aligned with the activities of the Centre for Vision and Robotics Research (CVARR). You will contribute to the University's ambition to achieve international recognition as a research intensive institution and will be expected to conduct high quality research, seek external research income and supervise postgraduate research students as well contribute to wider activities of the Dept. An interest or experience in one or more of the following research areas would be of particular interest: - Autonomous mobile robotics, e.g. navigation and mapping - Real-time and embedded computer vision - Semantic vision for robotic and surveillance applications - Multi-sensor fusion, and/or "frontier" sensor technologies (omnidirectional vision, infrared, radar, 3D vision, chemical sensing, etc.) - Biologically-inspired neural vision and pattern recognition - Medical image segmentation, particularly retinal images - Digital contents analysis of video and other modalities Evidence of national/international research reputation, or the potential to achieve such a reputation, is essential as is experience of teaching, and the ability to work collaboratively as part of a team. The Dept of Computing & Informatics at University of Lincoln scored highly in RAE2008 with 85% of its outputs ranked at international quality or better with 15% ranked world-leading. It offers a range of taught programmes in computer science, games and information systems with approximately 500 full-time students. The Department is located at the University's ?75million Brayford Pool development - the first new city centre university campus to be built in the UK for 25 years. CVARR has existing research in various application domains, including mobile robotics, video surveillance, food technology and medical imaging. The Centre has a wide range of national and international sponsors, from Research Councils to companies, and over 20 members, including 6 full-time faculty members (with further imminent expansion expected), 3 postdoctoral research assistants, and a large number of graduate research students. For further information see http://www.lincoln.ac.uk. Informal enquiries about the posts can be made to David Cobham (Head of Dept, 01522 886120; email: dcobham at lincoln.ac.uk). To apply please click here http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/home/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Human Computer Interaction (2 positions) The University of Lincoln is seeking to appoint two new Lecturers/Senior Lecturers in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), with specific research interests that are aligned with the activities of the Lincoln Social Computing (LiSC) research centre in the Dept of Computing & Informatics. You will contribute to the University's ambition to achieve international recognition as a research intensive institution and will be expected to conduct high quality research, seek external research income and supervise postgraduate research students as well contribute to wider activities of the Dept. An interest or experience in one or more of the following research areas would be of particular interest: - Social computing and online social networks - Social, pervasive and mobile gaming - Serious, educational and persuasive games - Social robotics and human-robot interaction - HCI applied to special populations (e.g. older/younger people) - HCI and social computing applied to environmental/green issues Evidence of national/international research reputation, or the potential to achieve such a reputation, is essential as is experience of teaching, and the ability to work collaboratively as part of a team. The Dept of Computing & Informatics at University of Lincoln scored highly in RAE2008 with 85% of its outputs ranked at international quality or better with 15% ranked world-leading. It offers a range of taught programmes in computer science, games and information systems with approximately 500 full-time students. The Department is located at the University's ?75million Brayford Pool development - the first new city centre university campus to be built in the UK for 25 years. LiSC, set up in 2005, currently holds external research funding worth over ?0.5 million and conducts research on how society and individuals interact with technology; its activities are well aligned with the RCUK Digital Economy research priorities. We are seeking highly motivated and talented researchers to contribute to the expansion of the Centre's activities, its research income and its reputation. For further information see http://lisc.lincoln.ac.uk. Informal enquiries about the posts can be made to David Cobham (Head of Dept, 01522 886120; email: dcobham at lincoln.ac.uk). To apply please click here http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/home/ -- Dr. Tom Duckett Reader in Computer Science University of Lincoln Brayford Pool Lincoln LN6 7TS Phone: +44 1522 837113 Fax: +44 1522 886974 From swhelan at foster-miller.com Mon Jul 20 11:49:59 2009 From: swhelan at foster-miller.com (Whelan, Scott) Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:49:59 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Robotics Roles Message-ID: Good Morning All: I have recently joined the group through a member referral and would like to pass on several opportunities that we have with our Robotics Group in Pittsburgh; Applied Perception.? You can see more about our products at www.appliedperception.com but here is a snapshot of some of the things that we look for.? As a point of reference, I do work for the Parent Company; Qinetiq and support all hiring for this group from the Boston area. Thank you in advance for looking. We develop software and hardware for unmanned vehicles. We write the code that makes dumb robots smart. We work with a wide variety of robots, from small, man portable robots to robots that can run over cars. Our core need right now is for highly motivated, energetic individuals with a Ph.D. in Robotics or Computer Science. In all cases, excellent computer programming skills are necessary, along with a desire and aptitude for practical, applied work. Prior experience in working with field robots is strongly preferred. General Requirements: Ph.D. in Computer Science or Robotics. 7 or more years of industry R&D experience A track record of writing winning proposals to DoD, DoT, DHS, DARPA, or NSF US Citizenship or Permanent Residency Required. Available Positions and Requirements 1. Perception Researcher: Deep familiarity with SLAM and visual navigation, using active and passive sensors is required. Ideally, you also have experience with terrain classification using active and passive sensors, including sensor fusion techniques to combine laser, stereo, and radar data. 2. Multi-Robot Collaboration: Experience with multi-robot task allocation and management. Familiarity with SOA techniques such as market based collaboration. We are looking for someone who has moved beyond simulation, and has some experience in demonstrating collaboration algorithms on real UGVs and/or UAVs, with outdoor field testing. 3. UGV Systems Engineer: Strong track record of building robust unmanned ground vehicles, including software and hardware integration. Significant experience in building vehicles that work on roads, unimproved surfaces, and moderate cross country terrain. Note - we are not looking for a vehicle designer, but rather someone who understands all the systems-level issues required to make a UGV work in the real world.? Best Regards, ? Scott Whelan Sr. Staffing Consultant Qinetiq North America Technology Solutions Group 350 Second Avenue Waltham, MA 01756 Direct:? 781-684-4487 swhelan at foster-miller.com From lavalle at uiuc.edu Mon Jul 20 14:33:33 2009 From: lavalle at uiuc.edu (Steven M LaValle) Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:33:33 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IROS Tutorial: Filtering and Planning in Information Spaces Message-ID: <1248125613.19472.4.camel@localhost> Hello, I am offering an all-day tutorial on October 11, 2009, at IROS in St. Louis, USA. http://msl.cs.uiuc.edu/~lavalle/iros09/ The focus is on sensor modeling and uncertainty, and how these relate to filtering and planning. Emphasis is on ways to achieve tasks with weaker sensors to reduce overall modeling burdens and system complexity. The early registration deadline is August 1: http://www.iros09.mtu.edu/index.php/Registration I particularly look forward to meeting students at the tutorial. Best wishes, Steve LaValle http://planning.cs.uiuc.edu/ University of Illinois From bmchen at nus.edu.sg Tue Jul 21 00:41:12 2009 From: bmchen at nus.edu.sg (Ben M. Chen) Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:41:12 +0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Please kindly help post the following message in Robotics Worldwide Message-ID: <2E4AC16A5332964ABC35AE3FD2CC998E0CE127F4@MBX03.stf.nus.edu.sg> Call for Papers for a Special Issue in Mechatronics on Development of Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles We would like to bring your attention an opportunity of paper submission to a special issue of Mechatronics, an IFAC International Journal, on Development of Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. The aim of this special issue is to bring together researchers and practitioners in the fields of unmanned systems, with a common interest in the new challenges in platform design and autonomous control development. We hope to attract contributions on novel ideas in the design of non-conventional UAVs, autonomous control, navigation, guidance, and implementation considerations such as miniature flight computer and computational efficiency. Topics will include, but are not limited to: . Mechatronics Design of Unconventional and Micro UAVs . UAV Stabilization via Electro-Mechanical Design . Autonomous Flight . Intelligence Control . Perch and Stare . Air Refueling . Formation Flight . Cooperative/Coordinated Flight . Flight in Urban Canyon . Ship Deck Operations . Urban/Indoor/GPSless Navigation . Sensor Shooting . Collision Detection and Avoidance . Vision-based Techniques The timetable for the special issue is: . 30 Nov 2009 due date for papers submission . 30 Mar 2010 first reviews completed; and first decisions sent . 30 May 2010 revised manuscripts due . 30 Jul 2010 final reviews complete, make decisions on acceptance Paper submission, review and decision process for this special issue is managed entirely online using the Elsevier Editorial System (EES). For a paper submission to the special issue, please refer to the following link: http://ees.elsevier.com/mech. During the submission process, it is important that you select Autonomous UAV System Special Issue under the "Article Type" for the correct inclusion into the special issue. If you encounter technical difficulties while using the ESS system, please contact the Editor Support department via e-mail at editorsupport at elsevier.com. Chang Chen, Ben M. Chen, Tong H. Lee Guest Editors, Mechatronics From fulvio.mastrogiovanni at unige.it Tue Jul 21 01:07:18 2009 From: fulvio.mastrogiovanni at unige.it (Fulvio Mastrogiovanni) Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:07:18 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Papers: IEEE RO-MAN workshop about "Context-Awareness in Smart Environments" Message-ID: <1248163638.4a6577369fd22@webmail.unige.it> Please, can you forward this Call to the list? Best regards, Fulvio Mastrogiovanni ================================================= Deadline has been extended! ================================================= IEEE RO-MAN Workshop about "Context-Awareness in Smart Environments: Background, Achievements and Challenges" September 27, 2009, Toyama International Conference Center (Japan) Organizers: Dr. Fulvio Mastrogiovanni, University of Genova, Italy. Prof. Antonio Sgorbissa, University of Genova, Italy. Prof. Renato Zaccaria, University of Genova, Italy Abstract: The paradigm of Ambient Intelligence (AmI) is a multidisciplinary approach aimed at enriching physical environments with networks of distributed devices, such as sensors, actuators, and computational resources, in order to support humans in achieving their everyday objectives. AmI represents the convergence of various technologies and related research fields: sensor networks, distributed computing, industrial electronics, pervasive computing, intelligent user interfaces and artificial intelligence, to name a few. AmI is not only the superimposition of these disciplines, but it is a major effort to integrate and make them really useful for everyday human life. In particular, the recognition of human activities, coupled with semantic knowledge represented within an AmI system, form the basis of the so-called "context-awareness". A context-aware system is aware of what sensory data mean: it is able to associate meaning to observations, and to make the best use of sensory data once the meaning has been assessed. During the past decade, several techniques have been proposed to design aware AmI systems: from this experience, a tight relationship emerged between the capabilities of activity recognition processes and the information flow within the AmI system, whose implications are still far from being completely investigated. High quality submissions are solicited that address the following topics: - Activity recognition in smart environments. - Adaptive man-machine interfaces in smart environments. - Human behavioral models for context-aware systems. - Information fusion in smart environments. - Infrastructure in context-aware systems. - Knowledge representation and its role in context-aware systems. - Languages for describing contexts. - Learning and its implications for context-awareness. - Logical approaches to context-awareness. - Philosophical Issues. - Reasoning supported by context-aware systems. - Robotics and smart environments. - Sensing techniques to enforce context-awareness. - Software engineering issues for context-aware systems. Important dates: July 30, 2009: Initial submissions. August 7, 2009: Notifications to authors. August 27, 2009: Camera ready versions of accepted papers due. Submission: All contributions are expected in 8-pages IEEE double-column format. Paper proceedings will be distributed in electronic format. Please send your contribution directly to Fulvio Mastrogiovanni at the email address: fulvio.mastrogiovanni at unige.it Further and updated information about submissions will be available at: http://www.robotics.laboratorium.dist.unige.it/index.php?section=4 Furthermore, inquiries can be directed to Fulvio Mastrogiovanni (fulvio.mastrogiovanni at unige.it) . Thanks a lot for your interest! -- Fulvio Mastrogiovanni DIST|University of Genova|Italy Email: fulvio.mastrogiovanni at unige.it WWW: http://www.laboratorium.dist.unige.it/~fulvio/ Phone: (+39)0103532801 "Chi ? abile nel sortire bizzarri stratagemmi ? inesauribile come il Cielo, la Terra e i grandi fiumi. Giunto al termine riparte, come il Sole e la Luna; dopo morto rinasce, come le quattro stagioni." From hirata at irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp Tue Jul 21 11:44:46 2009 From: hirata at irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp (Yasuhisa Hirata) Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:44:46 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Nominations "IROS Harashima Award, for Innovative Technologies" Message-ID: <4A660C9E.1090405@irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp> Call for Nominations IROS Harashima Award for Innovative Technologies The IROS Harashima Award for Innovative Technologies is established by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, the Robotics Society of Japan, and the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers to honor Professor Fumio Harashima, the founding chair of the IROS conferences. The Harashima Award will recognize outstanding contributions of an individual of the IROS community who has pioneered activities in robotics and intelligent systems. This is an annual award starting from last year. To propose a candidate, please submit a letter of recommendation, which should summarize the candidate's qualifications for the award, to the nomination committee chair, Kazuhiro Kosuge Professor Department of Bioengineering and Robotics Tohoku University kosuge at irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp by email before August 20th, 2009. The following is the detailed description of the award. Purpose: To honor Professor Fumio Harashima, the founding chair of the IROS conferences, by recognizing outstanding contributions of an individual of the IROS community who has pioneered activities in robotics and intelligent systems. Prize: $ 2000 and a plaque Eligibility: The recipient must have created a new research area and/or technology for intelligent robots and systems. The recipient must have presented his or her contribution in one or more past IROS conferences. Basis for Judging: Factors that will be considered are: a created area and/or technology for intelligent robots and systems, achievements for the advancement of the field of intelligent robots and systems, and activities in robotics and intelligent systems. Selection: The Section Committee (separate from the Nominations Committee) of the Harashima Award for innovative technologies will evaluate the nominations and make the selection. Presentation: Up to one award will be given annually at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. -- ========================================== Kazuhiro Kosuge IEEE RAS President Elect 2008-2009 IEEE Fellow, JSME Fellow, SICE Fellow Professor Department of Bioengineering and Robotics Graduate School of Engineering Tohoku University Aoba-yama 01, Sendai 980-8579, JAPAN Telephone +81-22-795-6914 Mobile Phone +81-90-2366-2566 Fascimile +81-22-795-6915 http://www.irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp/ From rsiegwart at ethz.ch Wed Jul 22 07:04:33 2009 From: rsiegwart at ethz.ch (Siegwart Roland) Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:04:33 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ISRR 2009 - Invitation for Participation and Early Registration Message-ID: Invitation for Participation and Early Registration ISRR 2009 - 14th International Symposium on Robotics Research August 31 - September 3, 2009, Lucerne, Switzerland --- http://www.isrr2009.ethz.ch/ --- =================================================== The final program of ISRR 2009 is now available on: http://www.isrr2009.ethz.ch/doc/isrr2009_program.pdf Apart the high quality technical program, the symposium features a Blue Sky Session on Mount Pilatus to discuss future avenues in robotics research and an informal video presentation session: http://www.isrr2009.ethz.ch/bluesky.html Early registration is possible until July 31, 2009: http://www.isrr2009.ethz.ch/registration.html Best regards Roland Siegwart & Gerd Hirzinger, ISRR General Chair General Information: ==================== Objective: The goal of the ISRR Symposia is to bring together active leading robotics researchers and pioneers from academia, government, and industry to assess and share their views and ideas about the state of the art in robotics, and to discuss promising new avenues for future research. All participants are kindly asked to convey the single track and highly interactive spirit of ISRR and take part in all sessions so that a stimulating and dynamic discussion can be established. As the flagship symposium of the International Foundation of Robotics Research (IFRR), this 14th edition of ISRR follows up on a long history of extraordinary meetings. Symposium Format: The Symposium will be held in an informal setting with a limited number of participants to encourage close technical and personal interactions. During the four-day Symposium, approximately 45 papers will be presented. The meeting will be organized as a single track meeting, and contributions that cover all aspects of robotics research are solicited. Sessions will be organized in themes, and all sessions will provide ample opportunity for discussion. As in previous years, the proceedings of the Symposium will be published as a Springer STAR series book. Attendance will be limited. Priority is given to authors and invited participants. Venue: The symposium will be held in Lucerne, one of the most charming and picturesque cities in Switzerland at the boarder of the Lace of Lucerne. Lucerne is easy to reach by direct trains from Zurich Airport. Important Dates: - July 31, 2009: Deadline for early registration and hotel reservation - August 31, 2009: Start Conference (Evening Reception) - September 3, 2009: End Conference (Lunch time) Sponsors: International Foundation of Robotics Research http://www.ifrr.org/ ETH Zurich - Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems http://www.iris.ethz.ch/ DLR Oberpfaffenhofen - Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics http://www.dlr.de/rm/en/desktopdefault.aspx Maxon Motor http://www.maxonmotor.com/ Committee: General Co-Chairs: Roland Siegwart, ETH Zurich Gerd Hirzinger, DLR Germany Program Co-Chairs: Tomomasa Sato (Asia/Oceania) Henrik Christensen (Americas) Raja Chatila (Europa/Africa) Publication Chair Cedric Pradalier Web Master Ralf K?stner Conference Office Cornelia Della Casa Eve Lasserre International Foundation of Robotics Research http://www.ifrr.org/ President Oussama Khatib Executive Officers Hirochika Inoue Gerd Hirzinger Takeo Kanade Honorary Officers Ruzena Bajcsy Rod Brooks George Giralt Bernie Roth Officers Robert Bolles Herman Bruyninckx Raja Chatila Henrik Christensen Paolo Dario Rudiger Dillmann Shigeo Hirose John Hollerbach Ray Jarvis Makoto Kaneko Dan Koditschek Tomomasa Sato Yoshiaki Shirai Roland Siegwart _________________________ From maarja.kruusmaa at ut.ee Wed Jul 22 10:15:42 2009 From: maarja.kruusmaa at ut.ee (Maarja Kruusmaa) Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:15:42 +0300 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Professorship at TUT Center for Biorobotics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5E7BAC79CE17441DA038BBB38CF0AE6E@LifeBook> Tallinn University of Technology, Center for Biorobotics www.biorobotics.ttu.ee invites applications from outstanding scientist for two fulltime faculty position of Full Professorship in Biomechanics Areas of interest: biomechanics, biolocomotion, soft body modelling and deformation registration, artificial muscle mechanical modelling and control, mechanical design of bio-inspired devices, bio-inspired control, learning and adaptation, locomotion in fluids, experimental and computational fluid mechanics in the context of biolocomotion and any other areas related or complementary to the research in TUT Center for Biorobotics. Duties: General responsibility for research and research education, teaching and supervision at graduate and postgraduate level and teaching at advanced and basic level. Participation in leadership and administrative roles of laboratory projects involving responsibility for budgets and personnel may be relevant. Demonstrated ability to attract external grants will be expected. Previous experience gained from research in industry or the public sector will be particularly relevant. The applicant should be able to demonstrate good leadership skills and high capability of cooperation. More information: maarja.kruusmaa at biorobotics.ttu.ee Application procedure: The application shall be written in English and include the following items: Curriculum Vitae (CV) Description of the applicant's research and pedagogical qualifications, as well as other qualifications Complete list of publications Two reference persons who can be contacted (describe association with them and give their contact addresses) Copies of the applicant's best scientific publications (not more than 10) Copies of a maximum of 10 other publications (such as pedagogy, and popular science) in support of pedagogical and other merits Plans for future work, both scientific and educational, if appointed Any other relevant documents Applications should be sent by September 30, 2009 to: Tallinn University of Technology, Department of Computer Engineering, Raja 15, 12618 Tallinn, Estonia. Attn.: Gert Jervan. _______________________ Maarja Kruusmaa Prof. Biorobotics Tallinn University of Technology Center for Biorobotics http://www.biorobotics.ttu.ee and Intelligent Materials and Systems Lab Tartu University Institute of Technology http://www.ims.ut.ee skype: nasuke phone: (+372)51 83074 From jmh at cs.utah.edu Wed Jul 22 11:04:33 2009 From: jmh at cs.utah.edu (John Hollerbach) Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:04:33 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJRR OnlineFirst articles for the period 1 to 22 July 2009 Message-ID: <4A6754B1.9020800@cs.utah.edu> New IJRR OnlineFirst articles have been made available (for the period 1 to 21 July 2009): A Fast Stereo-based System for Detecting and Tracking Pedestrians from a Moving Vehicle Max Bajracharya, Baback Moghaddam, Andrew Howard, Shane Brennan, and Larry H. Matthies The International Journal of Robotics Research published 21 July 2009, 10.1177/0278364909341884 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909341884v1 The Belief Roadmap: Efficient Planning in Belief Space by Factoring the Covariance Nicholas Roy and Samuel Prentice The International Journal of Robotics Research published 21 July 2009, 10.1177/0278364909341659 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909341659v1 How Should Microrobots Swim? Jake J. Abbott, Marco Cosentino Lagomarsino, Li Zhang, Lixin Dong, and Bradley J. Nelson The International Journal of Robotics Research published 21 July 2009, 10.1177/0278364909341658 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909341658v1 Navigating, Recognizing and Describing Urban Spaces With Vision and Lasers Paul Newman, Gabe Sibley, Mike Smith, Mark Cummins, Alastair Harrison, Chris Mei, Ingmar Posner, Robbie Shade, Derik Schroeter, Liz Murphy, Winston Churchill, Dave Cole, and Ian Reid The International Journal of Robotics Research published 21 July 2009, 10.1177/0278364909341483 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909341483v1 Persistent Navigation and Mapping using a Biologically Inspired SLAM System Michael Milford and Gordon Wyeth The International Journal of Robotics Research published 21 July 2009, 10.1177/0278364909340592 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909340592v1 From K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk Thu Jul 23 06:38:48 2009 From: K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk (Kerstin Dautenhahn) Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:38:48 +0100 (BST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] First Announcement and CFP: New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction Symposium at AISB 2010 Message-ID: Dear colleagues, please see below the first annoucement and CFP for this HRI event. *****Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this email*************** Second International Symposium on New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction A two-day symposium at AISB 2010, 31 March - 1 April 2010, De Montfort University, Leicester, United Kingdom http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~comqkd/HRI-AISB2010-Symposium.html Motivation: Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is a growing research field with many application areas that could have a big impact not only economically, but also on the way we live and the kind of relationships we may develop with machines. Due to its interdisciplinary nature different views and approaches towards HRI need to be nurtured. This symposium will provide a platform to discuss collaboratively recent findings and challenges in HRI. The first symposium on "New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction" was held as part of AISB 2009 in Edinburgh, Scotland, see programme: http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~comqkd/HRI-AISB2009-Symposium.html The symposium organized in 2009 was characterized by excellent presentations as well as extensive and constructive discussions of the research among the participants. Different categories of submissions are encouraged that reflect the different types of research studies that are being carried out. The symposium will encourage a diversity of views on HRI and different approaches taken. In the highly interdisciplinary research field of HRI, a peaceful dialogue among such approaches is expected to contribute to the synthesis of a body of knowledge that may help HRI sustain its creative inertia that has drawn to HRI during the past 10 years many researchers from HCI, robotics, psychology, the social sciences, and other fields. Topics of interest include but are not limited to: * Developments towards robot companions * User-centred robot design * Robots in personal care and health care * Robots in search and rescue * Sensors and interfaces for HRI * Human-aware robot perception * Dialogue and multi-modal human-robot interaction * Robot architectures for socially intelligent robots * HRI field studies in naturalistic environments * Robot assisted therapy * Robots in HRI collaborative scenarios * Robots in schools and in other educational environments * Robots as personal assistants and trainers * Robot and human personality * New methods and methodologies to carry out and analyze human-robot interaction * Robots as companions and helpers in the home * Robots as assistive technology * Long-term or repeated interaction with robots * Creating relationships with robots * Expressiveness in robots * Sustaining the engagement of users * Personalizing robots and HRI interfaces * Human-robot teaching * Robots that learn socially and adapt to people * User experience in HRI * User needs and requirements for HRI * Robots as autonomous companions * Robots as remote-controlled tools * Embodied interfaces for smart homes * Ethnography and field studies * Cross-cultural studies The symposium encourages submissions in any of the following categories. The submission should clearly state which category the article falls under: *N* Completed empirical studies reporting novel research findings In this category we encourage submissions where a substantial body of findings has been accumulated based on precise research questions or hypotheses. Such studies are expected to fit within a particular experimental framework (e.g. using qualitative or quantitative evaluation techniques) and the reviewing of such papers will apply relevant (statistical and other) criteria accordingly. Findings of such studies should provide novel insights into human-robot interaction studies. *E* Exploratory studies Exploratory studies are often necessary to pilot and fine-tune the methodological approach, procedures and measures. In a young research field such as HRI with novel applications and various robotic platforms, exploratory studies are also often required to derive a set of concrete research questions or hypothesis, in particular concerning issues where there is little related theoretical and experimental work. Although care must be taken in the interpretation of findings from such studies, they may highlight issues of great interest and relevance to peers. *S* Case studies Due to the nature of many HRI studies, a large-scale quantitative approach is often neither feasible nor desirable. However, case study evaluation can provide meaningful findings if presented appropriately. Thus, case studies with only one participant, or a small group of participants, are encouraged if they are carried out and analyzed in sufficient depth. *P* Position papers While categories N, E and S require reporting on HRI studies or experiments, position papers can be conceptual or theoretical, providing new interpretations of known results. Also, in this category we consider papers that present new ideas without having a complete study to report on. Papers in this category will be judged on the soundness of the argument presented, the significance of the ideas and the interest to the HRI community. *R* Replication of HRI studies To develop as a field, HRI findings obtained by one research group need to be replicated by other groups. Without any additional novel insights, such work is often not publishable. Within this category, authors will have the opportunity to report on studies that confirm or disconfirm findings from experiments that have already been reported in the literature. This category includes studies that report on negative findings. *D* Live HRI Demonstrations Contributors may have an opportunity to provide live demonstrations (live or via Skype), pending the outcome of negotiations with the local organization team. The demo should highlight interesting features and insights into HRI. Purely entertaining demonstrations without significant research content are discouraged. *Y* System Development Research in this category includes e.g. the design and development of new sensors, robot designs and algorithms for socially interactive robots. Extensive user studies are not necessarily required in this category. If authors feel that their particular paper does not fit any of the above mentioned categories, then they should indicate this when submitting their paper so that the reviewing process can take this into consideration. Symposium chair: Kerstin Dautenhahn (University of Hertfordshire, UK) Symposium contributions: We invite unpublished, original work as extended abstracts (up to 3 pages) or full papers of up to 8 pages (double column) according to the AISB 2010 formatting guidelines (templates will be available later on the AISB 2010 convention website). In category *D* we invite one page descriptions detailing the demo and its associated research questions. In addition to full paper presentations the symposium will also include panels, invited talks, and poster presentations. The symposium schedule will emphasize critical discussions of the presented research as well as wider issues that are important to HRI. Submission of contributions: Please send the PDF submissions to Kerstin Dautenhahn (K.Dautenhahn "@" herts "." ac "." uk) (files bigger than 2MB will not be accepted) including in the email text the following information: title of paper, author list, contact email, name of attached PDF file. All submissions will be peer reviewed. Proceedings: Authors of accepted contributions will be asked to prepare the final versions (up to 8 pages) for inclusion in the symposium proceedings. All accepted contributions will be published in the symposium proceedings. A special journal issue will be considered and/or a book publication with a selection of the best symposium contributions. Important Dates: 11th January 2010 - Papers submission deadline 8th February 2010 - Notifications of acceptance 22nd February 2010 - Camera ready copies due Programme Committee members: Adriana Tapus, USC, USA Aris Alissandrakis, Tokio Institute of Technology, Japan Astrid Weiss, University of Salzburg, Austria Ben Krose, UVA, the Netherlands Ben Robins, University of Hertfordshire, UK Christoph Bartneck, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands Dirk Wollherr, TUM, Germany Dong-Soo Kwon, KAIST, South Korea Haizhou Li, Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore Hatice Kose-Bagci, University of Hertfordshire, UK Hisato Kobayashi, Hosei University, Japan Holly Yanco, University of Massachusetts-Lowell, USA Julie Adams, Vanderbilt University, USA Karl F. MacDorman, Indiana University, USA Kerstin Severinson Eklundh, KTH, Sweden Kheng Lee Koay, University of Hertfordshire, UK Kolja Kuehnlenz, TUM, Germany Matthias Scheutz, Indiana University Bloomington, USA Manfred Tscheligi, University of Salzburg, Austria Michael A. Goodrich, Brigham Young University, USA Michael L. Walters, University of Hertfordshire, UK Monica Nicolescu, University of Nevada, Reno, USA Nuno Otero, University of Minho, Portugal Reid Simmons, Carnegie Mellon University, USA Sandra Hirche, TUM, Germany Sylvain Calinon, Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) Takayuki Kanda, ATR, Japan Tatsuya Nomura, Ryukoku University, Japan Wolfram Erlhagen, University of Minho, Portugal Yiannis Demiris, Imperial College, UK Yorick Wilks, University of Sheffield, UK ----------------------------------------------------- Prof. Dr. Kerstin Dautenhahn Professor of Artificial Intelligence Adaptive Systems Research Group The University of Hertfordshire, School of Computer Science College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, United Kingdom URL: http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~comqkd E-mail: K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk Fax: +44-1707-284-303 Tel: +44-1707-284-333 From alfredo at itam.mx Thu Jul 23 10:08:19 2009 From: alfredo at itam.mx (alfredo at itam.mx) Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:08:19 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] LARS 2009 - July 27th Deadline Message-ID: <1241.131.247.168.99.1248368899.squirrel@allman.rhon.itam.mx> Dear Colleague, Final submission date for LARS 2009 is next Monday July 27th! LARS 2009 (Latin American Robotics Symposium) will be held October 29-30, 2009 in Valparaiso, Chile, in conjunction with the Latin American Robotics Contest and the RoboCup Latin American Open. Web site is http://robotica.elo.utfsm.cl/lars2009 Call for papers is http://robotica.elo.utfsm.cl/simposio/cfp_lars2009.pdf Important Dates: July 27th: Deadline for Full Paper Submissions. August 10th: Notification of Acceptance/Rejection. August 24th: Final, Camera Ready Papers, Due. We look forward to your participation! Best regards, Alfredo Weitzenfeld Chair LARS 2009 From stachnis at informatik.uni-freiburg.de Fri Jul 24 05:54:57 2009 From: stachnis at informatik.uni-freiburg.de (Cyrill Stachniss) Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:54:57 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Journal of Field Robotics: Special issue on Visual Mapping and Navigation Outdoors Message-ID: <4A69AF21.9000405@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> ------------------------------------------------------- Journal of Field Robotics Special issue on Visual Mapping and Navigation Outdoors ------------------------------------------------------- Guest editors: Cyrill Stachniss, University of Freiburg Stefan Williams, Australian Centre for Field Robotics Jos? Neira, University of Zaragoza Mapping and navigation, the successful modeling and traversal of unknown environments using vehicles equipped with sensors, has been an extremely active research area in robotics. Recently, researchers have reported impressive results in this area, to the point that building 2D maps of indoor planar environments using laser sensors is considered a solved problem. For this reason, research has moved to addressing larger, non planar, less-structured and dynamic outdoor environments. Information rich visual sensors are being incorporated into these new systems because cameras have become inexpensive, light weight, and offer high performance in resolution and speed. Visual sensors offer much more detailed environmental information, but pose new challenges such as robust feature detection and tracking, data association, and 3D computation. Also, computationally efficient large-scale estimation is much harder using cameras than using a laser scanner. The goal of the special issue of the Journal of Field Robotics is to publish outstanding results on the use of visual sensors for mapping and navigation in challenging outdoor environments: urban, suburban, off-road, underwater, and airborne, in applications that include but are not limited to surveying, virtual and augmented reality, surveillance and search and rescue operations. This call for papers follows a very successful workshop on Visual Mapping and Navigation Outdoors at ICRA 2009. ------------------------------------------------------- List of topics: ? Bearing only/monocular systems, multi-camera systems, mapping with omni-directional cameras, active/passive cameras ? Vision + other sensors ? Environment representations: metric, topological, semantic, hybrid ? Visual loop closing techniques ? Place recognition ? Large scale visual navigation and mapping ? Urban, suburban and off-road mapping ? Underwater applications ? Airborne navigation and mapping ------------------------------------------------------- Important dates: September 1, 2009 - Submission of manuscripts December 1, 2009 - Reviews sent to the authors March 1, 2010 - Final manuscripts due for publication ------------------------------------------------------- Links: Journal of Field Robotics http://www.journalfieldrobotics.org/Home.html Journal of Field Robotics - Special Issue page http://www.journalfieldrobotics.org/Special_Issues.html ICRA 2009 workshop page http://webdiis.unizar.es/~neira/icra2009/ ------------------------------------------------------- Questions: For comments, suggestions, or requests, please send email to Cyrill Stachniss , Stefan Williams , or Jose Neira . ------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Dr. Cyrill Stachniss Albert-Ludwigs-University Institute of Computer Science Phone: +49-761-203-8024 Autonomous Intelligent Systems Fax : +49-761-203-8007 Georges-Koehler-Allee 079 stachnis at informatik.uni-freiburg.de 79110 Freiburg, Germany http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~stachnis/ From kanda at atr.jp Fri Jul 24 23:24:46 2009 From: kanda at atr.jp (Takayuki Kanda) Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:24:46 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Post-doc positions at ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Labs. Message-ID: <000901ca0cf0$9bb64ae0$d322e0a0$@jp> The ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communications Laboratory is recruiting outstanding young (post-doctoral) researchers. Our laboratory is unique in the world in its strong focus on conducting human-robot interaction field trials in real-world environments, and we have deployed robots to interact with people in locations such as elementary schools, science museums, train stations, and shopping malls. We are going to start new research projects to study robots that work (1) in a classroom environment to help people's learning, and (2) in a home and shopping mall environment to help elderly people's daily activity. We are seeking applications from researchers with special interest in social human-robot interaction and related topics. Candidates with specific expertise in the following domains are particularly welcome: - Technical issue in social human-robot interaction - Cognitive human-robot interaction, cognitive architecture - Dialogue management, speech and gesture communication with robots - Modeling social interaction, human motion, and human behavior - Interface design for operating and/or designing social robots' behavior - Personal robots and robots for classroom environments We welcome candidates with specific expertise in the following domains who wish to extend their expertise into social human-robot interaction: - Ambient intelligence, network robot system, and ubiquitous robotics - Assistive robotics - Education technology, and computer supported learning - Virtual agents, and embodied conversational agents - Physical human-robot interaction - Learning and adaptive systems - Perception of human activity (e.g. language, speech, gestures, emotions, and other nonverbal communication) Our laboratory conducts a variety of social robotics research projects, and within these projects, researchers in our team will have some flexibility in terms of their own research focus. The duration of these projects are 4 to 5 years; the initial term for employment is one year, and extensions will be expected until the end of each project based on the evaluation during the first year. Further employment as a researcher will be considered based on the evaluation during the project. Wage will be decided based on your experience and expertise. Please feel free to ask me (kanda at atr.jp) about details, and send us your CV with a statement about your interest and motivation! - Takayuki Kanda, Hiroshi Ishiguro, and Norihiro Hagita ---------------------------------------------- Dr. Takayuki Kanda ATR Intelligent robotics and communication labs. 2-2-2 Hikaridai Seikacho Sorakugun 619-0288 Kyoto Japan E-mail address: kanda at atr.jp From pad at ethics.ubc.ca Sun Jul 26 09:49:09 2009 From: pad at ethics.ubc.ca (Peter Danielson) Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2009 09:49:09 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Research Survey on Ethics & Assistive Technology Message-ID: <4317E3C1-6821-4838-BEE3-6915DC5D09DB@ethics.ubc.ca> Dear robotics list members, Our research group welcomes your participation in our new survey on ethics and assistive technology. Examples of assistive technologies include "smart" robotic wheelchairs and prosthetics, as well as the use of robotics in education. The survey can be found at: http://yourviews.ubc.ca/at_welcome There are 5 questions (with variations) which should take about 15 minutes. Please feel free to pass this invitation on. Thanks in advance, Prof. Peter Danielson Leader, NERD Research Group W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics Univ of Brit. Columbia Vancouver, Canada From shibata-takanori at aist.go.jp Mon Jul 27 06:10:04 2009 From: shibata-takanori at aist.go.jp (Takanori Shibata) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:10:04 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP IEEE ARSO2009 Nov 23-25 in Tokyo, Japan Message-ID: <00f301ca0ebb$8e5e7a30$ab1b6e90$@go.jp> Call for Papers The 5th IEEE Workshop on Advanced Robotics and its Social Impacts at Miraikan, Tokyo, Japan, Nov. 23-25, 2009; http://www.arso2009.org/ The paper submission site is now available; http://www.arso2009.org/submission.html ---------------------------------------- Takanori Shibata, Ph.D. AIST Japan From peter.power at dsto.defence.gov.au Sun Jul 26 17:14:10 2009 From: peter.power at dsto.defence.gov.au (Power, Peter) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:44:10 +0930 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] FW: MAGIC2010 - Participants Conferences [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] Message-ID: > Dear All > A Multiple Autonomous Ground robotic International Challenge (MAGIC), > jointly sponsored by US and Australian Department of Defence was > announced on 1st July and officially launched by Minister for Defence > Personnel, Materiel, and Science will be held in November 2010, The > website containing full information is > http://www.dsto.defence.gov.au/magic2010/ . > The competition is jointly sponsored by the Australian Defence Science > and Technology Organization (DSTO) and the US Army Research > Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM). Participant conferences > will be held in Adelaide Australia (on July 31st), Frankfurt Germany > (on August 4th) and Warren, MI, USA (on August 6th). Registration > forms for attending the particpants conference are available on the > website. > > > > Regards > > Peter Power > Magic2010 Conference Coord > Bay 17 Bld 75 Labs > Defence Science& Technology Organisation > Telephone: +61 8 8259 5455 > Fax: +61 8 8259 5196 > email: magic2010 at dsto.defence.gov.au > > > > IMPORTANT: This email remains the property of the Australian Defence Organisation and is subject to the jurisdiction of section 70 of the CRIMES ACT 1914. If you have received this email in error, you are requested to contact the sender and delete the email. From jsabater at iiia.csic.es Mon Jul 27 03:00:08 2009 From: jsabater at iiia.csic.es (Jordi Sabater Mir) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:00:08 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [CfP] AAMAS 2010 Message-ID: <4A6D7AA8.1050706@iiia.csic.es> **** We /apologize/ for /multiple postings ****/ Call for Papers-AAMAS 2010 The 9th International Conference on Agents and Multi Agent Systems Toronto, Canada Important dates: Conference: May 10 - 14, 2010 Electronic Abstract Submission: October 8, 2009 Full Paper Submission: October 13, 2009 Author Notification: December 18, 2009 Collocated with KR, NMR, ICAPS, FOIS, (all in Toronto) and DL 2010 (in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada) Expanded and latest information: www.cse.yorku.ca/AAMAS2010/ INTRODUCTION AAMAS is the leading scientific conference for research in autonomous agents and multiagent systems. The AAMAS conference series was initiated in 2002 by merging three highly-respected meetings: International Conference on Multi-Agent Systems (ICMAS); International Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL); and International Conference on Autonomous Agents (AA). The aim of the joint conference is to provide a single, high-profile, internationally-respected archival forum for scientific research in the theory and practice of autonomous agents and multiagent systems. AAMAS-2010 is the Ninth conference in the AAMAS series, following enormously successful previous conferences, and will be held at the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel in downtown Toronto. See www.ifaamas.org for more information on the AAMAS conference series. SUBMISSION DETAILS AAMAS-2010 seeks high-quality submissions of full papers, limited to 8 pages in length. Submissions will be rigorously peer reviewed and evaluated on the basis of originality, soundness, significance, presentation, understanding of the state of the art, and overall quality of their technical contribution. Reviews will be double blind; authors must avoid including anything that can be used to identify them. Where submission is for full (8 page) papers only, in some cases they may be accepted as 2 page extended abstracts. For formatting instructions, please refer to the conference page. In addition to submissions in the main track, AAMAS is soliciting papers in two special tracks on robotics, and on virtual agents (see below). The review process for the special tracks will be the same as for the main track, but with specially-selected program committee members. Special Track on Robotics (Chair: Michael Beetz): Papers on theory and applications concerning single and multiple robots will be welcome, namely those focusing on real robots interacting with their surrounding environments. The goal is to foster interaction between researchers on agent and robotics systems, so as to provide a cradle for cross-fertilization of concepts from both fields. Special Track on Virtual Agents (Chair: Stacy Marsella): Virtual agents are embodied agents in interactive virtual or physical environments that emulate human-like behavior. We encourage papers on the design, implementation, and evaluation of virtual agents as well as challenging applications featuring them. The goal is to provide an opportunity for interaction and cross-fertilization between the AAMAS community and researchers working on virtual agents and to strengthen links between the two communities. In addition to the conference papers, presented in parallel technical sessions, AAMAS-2010 will include: o Industry and Applications track o Demonstrations o Posters presentations for full papers and extended abstracts o Invited talks and panel discussions The submission processes for the demonstration and industry tracks are separate from the main paper submission process. ORGANIZING COMMITTEE General Chairs: Michael Luck and Sandip Sen Program Chairs: Wiebe van der Hoek and Gal A. Kaminka Local Organization Chair: Yves Lesperance A list of the other members of the AAMAS-2010 Organizing Committee may be found at www.cse.yorku.ca/AAMAS2010/ From jneira at unizar.es Mon Jul 27 07:34:11 2009 From: jneira at unizar.es (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jos=E9_Neira?=) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:34:11 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ROBOT Track - ACM SAC 2010 Message-ID: <4A6DBAE3.9080804@unizar.es> --------------------------------- ACM SAC 2010 - CALL FOR PAPERS Track: Intelligent Robotic Systems (ROBOT) http://www.icmc.usp.br/~lrm/sac2010/ The 25th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 2010) Lausanne, Switzerland - March 22-26, 2010 http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2010/ For the past twenty-four years, the ACM Symposium on Applied Computing has been a primary gathering forum for applied computer scientists, computer engineers, software engineers, and application developers from around the world. For the third year, the ACM SAC will have a specific track on robotics. It aims to be a forum for researchers to share experiences, expose issues, and discuss about this exciting research field. Robotics is a multidisciplinary area of study that presents an enormous commercial and research potential. While industrial robotics covers the study, design, and use of robot systems for manufacturing, mobile robotics concerns about developing systems that are capable of making decisions and acting autonomously in real and unpredictable environments to accomplish determined tasks. In the last decade, technological advances made possible the development of very efficient sensors and electronic devices at affordable prices. This fact has great impact on robotics research, allowing the development of efficient and relatively cheap sensors and computing devices. It also allows robots to accomplish more complex tasks, posing new challenges to scientists and engineers. This track focuses on all aspects of robotics, including related areas and applications. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: Rehabilitation Robotics Humanoid Robotics Underwater Robots Search and Rescue Robots Entertainment Robots Multi-robot Coordination Active Perception and Vision Coverage and Deployment Learning Autonomous systems Navigation Localization and Mapping Evolutionary Robotics Grasping Control Architectures and Programming Bio-Inspired Robots Aerial Robotics Contact Modeling and Touching Educational Robotics Smart Actuators Micro/nano robotics Embedded Systems architectures Reconfigurable robotic platforms Vision-based Systems Multi-robot systems Simulation Swarms Important dates: Sep. 8, 2009: Paper submissions Oct. 19, 2009: Author notification Nov. 2, 2009: Camera-Ready Copy Denis Wolf, Eduardo Marques, and Fernando Osorio Intelligent Robotics Systems (ROBOT) Track Chairs ACM Symposium on Applied Computing 2010 -- 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 omozos at googlemail.com Mon Jul 27 09:58:29 2009 From: omozos at googlemail.com (Oscar Martinez) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:58:29 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Subject: CfP: Special Issue on People Detection and Tracking (J. Social Robotics) Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPER ----------------------------------------------------------- Special Issue on PEOPLE DETECTION AND TRACKING Springer International Journal of Social Robotics http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~omartine/stuff/IJSR_special_issue09.html ----------------------------------------------------------- EDITORS ------- * Kai O. Arras, Social Robotics Lab, University of Freiburg, Germany * Oscar Martinez Mozos, Robotics and Real-Time Group, University of Zaragoza, Spain GOAL AND SCOPE -------------- As robots enter domains in which they interact and cooperate closely with humans, the ability of machines to detect and track humans is becoming a key technology for many areas in robotics. Interaction with people, recognition and understanding of human activities, pedestrians tracking or intruder detection are example tasks that rely heavily on the ability to robustly detect and track people. Recent advances in estimation theory, machine learning and computer vision as well as progress in sensor technology have enabled us to design people detection and tracking systems with good levels of robustness. However, there is great demand for even more robust systems, especially over a wider range of conditions, and an increasing interest from industry for intelligent cars, domestic robots or surveillance of public areas. After a very successful ICRA 2009 workshop on people detection and tracking, this special issue aims to bring together contributions from the computer vision community and the community that has mostly worked with range finders. The goal is to provide a representative survey of the state-of-the-art and to transfer knowledge within and across the communities. The issue will focus primarily on theoretical aspects (see list of topics) but we are also interested in practical questions and applications. TOPICS ------ Examples of topics of interest include, but are not limited to: * People detection and tracking with vision, laser and/or other sensors * Tracking of groups of people and/or interacting targets * Full body pose estimation and tracking * Human motion modeling and estimation in 2d and 3d * Learning and model-based approaches * Probabilistic frameworks for simultaneous segmentation, detection and tracking * Multi-sensor fusion/integration approaches * Advanced target tracking and data association methods * Advanced handling of occlusion, fragmentation, and merging * Multi-hypothesis model selection methods * Distributed sensors for people detection/tracking * Performance metrics and evaluation of people tracking systems * Applications: human-robot interaction, human activity recognition and understanding, intelligent cars, surveillance etc. IMPORTANT DATES --------------- * Submission of Manuscripts: 1-August-2009 * Notification of Acceptance: 15-Sep-2009 * Submission of Final Paper: 15-Oct-2009 * Final Publication: 1-Jan-2010 SUBMISSION ---------- * Manuscripts should be submitted to http://www.editorialmanager.com/soro. Please select option "People Detection and Tracking" * The recommended paper length is 8-14 pages * Templates for Latex and Word: http://www.springer.com/engineering/robotics/journal/12369 ?detailsPage=contentItemPage&CIPageCounter=512809 (remove line break for full address) LINKS ----- * Up to date information about the special issue: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~omartine/stuff/IJSR_special_issue09.html * International Journal of Social Robotics: http://www.springer.com/engineering/robotics/journal/12369 * ICRA 2009 Workshop: http://srl.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/conferences/icra09ws Contact information: Kai O. Arras: arras at informatik.uni-freiburg.de Oscar Martinez Mozos: ommozos at unizar.es -- ----------------------------------------------- Oscar Martinez Mozos Robotics, Perception and Real Time Group Department of Computer Science and System Engineering Centro Politecnico Superior (CPS) Edificio Ada Byron C/Maria de Luna, 3 E-50018 Zaragoza Spain Email: omozos at gmail.com http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~omartine ----------------------------------------------- From rjwood at eecs.harvard.edu Mon Jul 27 13:24:52 2009 From: rjwood at eecs.harvard.edu (Rob Wood) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:24:52 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] open postdoctoral position in the Harvard Microrobotics Lab Message-ID: <1F1A9DEB-A89E-43F4-8E94-9B29776BAD44@eecs.harvard.edu> The Harvard Microrobotics Lab is currently seeking applications for a postdoc position involving integration and control of 'Programmable Matter'. This includes the design of control experiments for coordination of complex many-DOF robotic systems. It is expected that the successful applicant will be a leader of a large multidisciplinary team of researchers. In particular this position will involve close collaboration (i.e. daily) with collaborators at MIT. Applicants should have a Ph.D. in mechanical or electrical engineering, computer science, or a related field. Hands-on experience with feedback control techniques is essential. The position is open immediately (8/1/09) and is guaranteed for the 2009-2010 academic year with a possible extension. Applicants should send a cover letter briefly describing their background and career plans, a CV, and the names and contact information for at least three references. These documents should be submitted as pdf attachments to Prof. Wood: rjwood at seas.harvard.edu ------------------------------ Robert Wood Assistant Professor School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Harvard University (617) 496-1341 The Harvard Microrobotics Lab http://micro.seas.harvard.edu (617) 384-7892 ------------------------------- From rfierro at ece.unm.edu Tue Jul 28 11:45:34 2009 From: rfierro at ece.unm.edu (Rafael Fierro) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:45:34 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Sponsors & Exhibitors at ICRA 2010 Message-ID: <00c401ca0fb3$973a8d80$c5afa880$@unm.edu> Sponsors & Exhibitors at ICRA 2010, Anchorage, Alaska, May 3-8 ICRA 2010 offers sponsorship opportunities and exhibit space for interested corporations, companies, universities, labs, publishers, and researchers. With anticipated more than 1300 conference attendees from universities, industries, and government agencies worldwide, ICRA 2010 provides a great opportunity to advertise robotic related products, increase the visibility of your organization, and raise your profile with the robotics and automation research community. If you are interested in being a sponsor or/and exhibitor or need more information please contact the Exhibits and Publicity chairs and visit http://www.icra2010.org/exhibits Exhibits and Publicity chairs Rafael Fierro rfierro at ece.unm.edu Jim Ostrowski jim at evoretail.com Milos Zefran mzefran at uic.edu ANCHORAGE CIVIC & CONVENTION DISTRICT http://www.anchorageconventiondistrict.com/455.cfm From solis at kurenai.waseda.jp Tue Jul 28 15:58:34 2009 From: solis at kurenai.waseda.jp (Jorge SOLIS) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 07:58:34 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [Deadline Reminder] CfP IROS2009 Workshop on Biologically-Inspired Robots (October 11th, 2009) Message-ID: <000601ca0fd6$ef442900$cdcc7b00$@waseda.jp> Dear Colleagues, We would like to kindly remind that the deadline for contributions to the IROS2009 Workshop on Biologically-Inspired Robots is approaching soon: July 31, 2009 For further details, please access: www.bio.waseda.ac.jp/IROS_Workshop/index.htm Looking forward to receive your contributions ! ************************************************* ?????????? IEEE/RSJ IROS 2009 Workshop ?????????? ???October 11th, 2009 Full-Day Workshop on Biologically-Inspired Robots ????????? FIRST CALL FOR PARTICIPATION ? (www.bio.waseda.ac.jp/IROS_Workshop/index.htm) ************************************************* Abstract: In recent years, the benefits of ?biologically inspired? approaches have become increasingly clear in engineering design. Living organisms are complex systems exhibiting a range of desirable engineering characteristics that have proved difficult to realize using traditional engineering methodologies. Research in this field has successfully fused techniques from sensor development, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, simulation/modeling, and robotics. The goal of this workshop is to provide a forum for the examination of the interplay between biological and artificial (autonomous or semi-autonomous) systems, and present biology as a learning tool for novel robotic paradigms. Contributions are welcome on the following topics, but are by no means limited to: - Biologically-Inspired Robot Architectures - Biomimetic Perception, Action, and Behavior - Learning and Adaptation; - Evolutionary Robotics; - Neuromechanical Systems. The workshop will be of particular interest to robotic engineers and researchers that work in the general areas of Biologically-Inspired Robotics. The state-of-art will be analyzed and discussed from a perspective that could be interesting and useful for researchers developing new robotic machines, in their different forms. Extended Deadlines: - July 31, 2009: Paper Submission (or extended abstract) deadline - August 7, 2009: Notification of Acceptance/Rejection - August 25, 2009: Camera-Ready Submission Deadline Contributed extended abstracts: limited to 3000 characters, including title, authors, affiliations. Camera-Ready papers: Six pages in the standard IROS 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 solis at kurenai dot waseda dot jp Organizers: Kin-Huat Low (Nanyang Technology University, SINGAPORE) Jorge Solis (Waseda University, JAPAN) Xinyan Deng (University of Delaware, USA) Ravi Vaidyanathan (University of Bristol, UK) From Rene.Mayorga at uregina.ca Tue Jul 28 20:23:59 2009 From: Rene.Mayorga at uregina.ca (Rene Mayorga) Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:23:59 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Special Issues by Applied Bionics and Biomechanics Message-ID: <4A6F6C70.238F.0089.0@uregina.ca> Dear Colleague I would greatly appreciate that you distribute this notice. Thank you. I would like to bring to your attention our recent Special Issues on: Humanoid Robots; Biologically Inspired Robots and Mechanisms; and Lower and Upper Limb Exoskeletons by Applied Bionics and Biomechanics: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/11762322.asp We also be publishing in the near future some other Special Issues on: Robot Assisted Surgery; and Human-Robot Interface/Interaction If you are interested in organizing a Special Issue for Applied Bionics and Biomechanics, please contact me at your earliest convenience. Best regards. Dr. Rene V. Mayorga Editor in Chief Applied Bionics and Biomechanics From elrob at fgan.de Thu Jul 30 02:16:21 2009 From: elrob at fgan.de (elrob) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 11:16:21 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] M-ELROB 2010 - 5th European Land-Robot Trial - 17.-20. May 2010 - Hammelburg, Germany Message-ID: <4A7164E5.80202@fgan.de> M-ELROB 2010 5th European Land Robot Trial 17.-20. May 2010 Hammelburg, Germany www.m-elrob.eu Dear participants, spectators, and roboticists, We would like to invite you to participate in the European Land Robot Trial 2010 (M-ELROB 2010). Featured scenarios this time: 1. Reconnaissance and surveillance - Approach (day/night) 2. Reconnaissance and surveillance - RSTA (day/night) 3. Transport - Movements 4. Transport - Mule (5. CBRNE and IED reconnaissance / TBC) ELROB is a trial! It allows to demonstrate and compare the capabilities of unmanned systems in realistic scenarios and terrains. Therefore it is as close as possible to the typical deployment scenario for today. ELROB is designed to assess current technology to solve problems at hand, using whatever strategy to achieve it. We believe that we are all committed to demonstrating at ELROB is presenting cutting edge robotics technology, applied to real world applications, that can save lives now and shape the direction of research for the short and medium term. ELROB will enable Europe to re-engage in the benefits robotics can deliver now and the future. The philosophy of the trial: * ELROB is conducted with a focus on short-term realisable robot systems * ELROB is explicitly designed to assess current technology to solve real world problems at hand * ELROB in addition is an opportunity to bring together users, researchers and industry to build a community For more information please visit our web-page "http://www.m-elrob.eu/". regards Frank E. Schneider PS: We would highly appreciate if you could publish this note on your web site and provide the link to "http://www.elrob.org". Thank you very much for your support! From jmh at cs.utah.edu Thu Jul 30 09:12:03 2009 From: jmh at cs.utah.edu (John Hollerbach) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 10:12:03 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJRR August 2009 issue Message-ID: <4A71C653.8070408@cs.utah.edu> A new issue of The International Journal of Robotics Research is available online: 1 August 2009; Vol. 28, No. 8 The below Table of Contents is available online at: http://ijr.sagepub.com/content/vol28/issue8/?etoc Editorial: Selected Papers from Robotics: Science and Systems 2008 Jeff Trinkle and Shinichi Hirai The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 931-932 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/28/8/931 Planning Long Dynamically Feasible Maneuvers for Autonomous Vehicles Maxim Likhachev and Dave Ferguson The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 933-945 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/8/933 Distributed Localization of Modular Robot Ensembles Stanislav Funiak, Padmanabhan Pillai, Michael P. Ashley-Rollman, Jason D. Campbell, and Seth Copen Goldstein The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 946-961 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/8/946 Planning and Control of Ensembles of Robots with Non-holonomic Constraints Nathan Michael and Vijay Kumar The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 962-975 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/8/962 Using Multi-view Recognition and Meta-data Annotation to Guide a Robot's Attention Alexander Thomas, Vittorio Ferrari, Bastian Leibe, Tinne Tuytelaars, and Luc Van Gool The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 976-998 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/8/976 Probabilistic Models of Object Geometry with Application to Grasping Jared Glover, Daniela Rus, and Nicholas Roy The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 999-1019 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/8/999 Friction-Induced Velocity Fields for Point Parts Sliding on a Rigid Oscillated Plate Thomas H. Vose, Paul Umbanhowar, and Kevin M. Lynch The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 1020-1039 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/8/1020 Metastable Walking Machines Katie Byl and Russ Tedrake The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 1040-1064 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/8/1040 Nanonewton Force Sensing and Control in Microrobotic Cell Manipulation Xinyu Liu, Keekyoung Kim, Yong Zhang, and Yu Sun The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 1065-1076 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/8/1065 Modeling and Experimental Characterization of an Untethered Magnetic Micro-Robot Chytra Pawashe, Steven Floyd, and Metin Sitti The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 1077-1094 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/8/1077 From jruizd at ing.uchile.cl Wed Jul 29 13:01:28 2009 From: jruizd at ing.uchile.cl (Javier Ruiz-del-Solar) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:01:28 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Positions in Mobile Robotics and Mining Technology - Universidad de Chile Message-ID: Faculty and Postdoctoral Positions in Mobile Robotics and Mining Technology The Advanced Mining Technology Center (AMTC) at the Universidad de Chile has been created recently with a grant from the Chilean Government. Codelco and BHP Billiton, the two major mining companies operating in Chile, are supporting the center. The center has a funding of USD$20 million for the initial five years, and its activities are organized in 3 main areas: Automation and Robotics, Mining Planning and Technology, and Geo-Resources and Sustainability. The AMTC is seeking to hire approximately 30 new research and technical staff to be part of this exciting new initiative. In Automation and Robotics we are seeking highly qualified and motivated assistant/associate professors (3), post-doctoral research staff (4), and visiting professors (4 month periods) in the following areas: - Autonomous vehicles, navigation, mapping, localization, and SLAM. - Planning and control of mobile robots and vehicles, control architectures, Markov Decision Process (MDP), POMDP, Approximate POMDP. - Learning in robotics, especially reinforced learning. - Sensor technologies, especially applied electro-optics, hyperspectral imaging, 3D laser-scanning, computer vision. - Mechanical and mechatronics design. Innovative mechanical systems design as applied to robotics. Use of CAD design tools. Modeling and simulation of vehicles and robots. Hydraulics, pneumatics and electrical actuation. - Mining Technology, especially automation and tele-operation of mining systems and mining equipments, block and panel caving technologies, mine design, simulation and optimization of mining systems. All research staff are expected to develop and engage in major research areas of the Center, to publish and to teach at post-graduate and industry levels at Universidad de Chile (located in Santiago, Chile). Assistant/Associate professor level positions include undergraduate teaching. Appointments will be made at a variety of different levels depending on qualifications and experience. Applicants should have a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Mining Engineering or some related field, and expertise in mobile robotics and/or mining technology. The ability to work in a team and to effectively communicate technical information in written and spoken English is required. Selected candidates should be willing to learn Spanish. Applicants to faculty and postdoctoral positions should send a curriculum vitae, research and teaching interests, three letters of recommendation, a copy of the degree diplomas, and reprints of selected papers to: Prof. Javier Ruiz-del-Solar, Director, Advanced Mining Technology Center, Universidad de Chile Email: jruizd at ing.uchile.cl; Subject: Faculty/Postdoc Positions in Robotics (Electronic submission is accepted for a first contact) Applicants to visiting professor positions should send a curriculum vitae and a document describing their research interests. First application deadline: September 30, 2009. From murphy at cse.tamu.edu Wed Jul 29 05:59:10 2009 From: murphy at cse.tamu.edu (Robin Murphy) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 07:59:10 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Anticipated post-doc position in rescue robotics Message-ID: In anticipation of a 1 year position starting in the Fall, we are seeking applications for a post-doctoral assistant to assist in a study evaluating and improving underground mine rescue robots. This position is an excellent opportunity for a roboticist with a strong interest in systems and has experience writing technical reports. This position would provide experience in reliability, field evaluation, and human-robot interaction to a person with a demonstrated strong background in robot design, sensors, or wireless communications. It is a unique opportunity for someone with initiative who enjoys meeting and working with people, as the knowledge elicitation and field evaluation aspects of the study requires working with a large number of agencies, manufacturers, and users. The project will provide guidance on how to effectively collaborate with researchers from diverse backgrounds and disciplinary areas and training in human-robot interaction and responsible professional practices. The study will conclude with a major report that is likely to be broken down in at least one co-authored journal article and book. In addition to the opportunity to conduct field research with robots and sensors at a top university with a close community of 13 robotics researchers in four departments, a post-doctoral position at Texas A&M offers mentoring activities such as career counseling and training in preparation of grant proposals, publications and presentations. If interested, the post-doc may develop or teach a course and create a teaching portfolio with the assistance of the Center for Teaching Excellence, thereby improving teaching and mentoring skills. If you are interested and wish to be considered when a post-doc position is formalized, please submit: - a 1 page statement of research interests and where you see a match between your current skills and your career development with this project - your CV to Ms. Kimberly Mallett at Kimberly at cse.tamu.edu -- Prof. Robin R. Murphy, PhD Raytheon Professor of Computer Science & Engineering Texas A&M University office phone: 1-979-845-2015 location: HR Bright 333C http://faculty.cse.tamu.edu/murphy/ blog: rescuerobotics.blogspot.com From samir.bouabdallah at mavt.ethz.ch Thu Jul 30 09:05:41 2009 From: samir.bouabdallah at mavt.ethz.ch (Bouabdallah Samir) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:05:41 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] UAV'10 - INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES - June 21 - 23, 2010 - Al Bustan Rotana Hotel, Dubai - UAE Message-ID: <20B3DFB65FB4244A869D91798B18FC9003169B2C@EX2.d.ethz.ch> ---------------------------------------------------------- Apologies for multiple postings Please distribute as appropriate ---------------------------------------------------------- Dear colleagues, Please find the CFP of the UAV'10 in: http://www.uavconferences.com/CFP-UAV10.pdf INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES, June 21-23, 2010 - Al Bustan Rotana Hotel, Dubai UAE. IMPORTANT DATES: December 10, 2009: Full papers are due. February 28, 2010: Notification of acceptance / rejection. Mars 31, 2010: Final paper are due. April 30, 2010: Early registration deadline May 15, 2010: Power point presentation files are 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 tduckett at lincoln.ac.uk Wed Jul 29 06:27:15 2009 From: tduckett at lincoln.ac.uk (Tom Duckett) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:27:15 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PhD Studentships in Robotics and Computer Science Message-ID: <08EC78E748D4534BB97FFAD4136097B0694325@AEXCMS03.network.uni> A number of funded PhD Studentships are now available to outstanding students at the University of Lincoln (UK), including the following areas in Computer Science. Please refer to our website at http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/home/postgraduate/pgrstudentships.htm for further details. Closing date: 21st August, 2009. COMPUTER SCIENCE Vision and Robotics Research Autonomous mobile robotics, e.g. navigation and mapping, in dynamic indoor and outdoor environments. Lifelong learning and adaptation in autonomous systems. People detection, tracking and recognition by mobile robots. Learning control of robotic systems, e.g. reinforcement learning and visual serving applications. Aerial robotics and aerial imaging applications, e.g. agricultural monitoring. Multi-robot coordination and cooperation, e.g. between aerial and ground robots. Food technology, e.g. artificial sensory analysis for quality control of fresh produce. Bayesian modelling, tracking and estimation for vision and robotics. Real-time and embedded computer vision, e.g. FPGA-based neural models. Biologically-inspired neural vision and pattern recognition. Semantic vision for robotic, surveillance and security applications, including behavioural analysis. Computer vision for wildlife monitoring. Multi-sensor fusion, and/or "frontier" sensor technologies (omnidirectional vision, infrared, radar, 3D vision, chemical sensing, etc.) Digital contents analysis of video and other modalities. Artificial intelligence for games, simulation and robotics. Click on this link for more information about the Centre for Vision and Robotics Research: http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/mht/research-technology/vissur_default.htm Social Computing Research Analysis of human behaviour in online social networks (OSNs) such as Facebook. Social gaming on web2.0 (e.g. Facebook) and mobile (e.g. iPhone) platforms. Persuasive and motivational games for health, wellbeing and the environment. Educational/serious games including "advergaming" and games for social marketing. Novel approaches to games design. Application of artificial intelligence (AI) to games. Artificial life, visualisation and animation. Social technology applied to environmental/green/conservation issues and citizen science. Finding patterns and trends in web2.0 datasets (e.g. blogs, email, OSNs and game logs). Social robotics, human-robot interaction and virtual creatures. Click on this link for more information about the Lincoln Social Computing Research Centre: http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/mht/research-technology/scr_default.htm -- Dr. Tom Duckett Reader in Computer Science University of Lincoln Brayford Pool Lincoln LN6 7TS Phone: +44 1522 837113 Fax: +44 1522 886974 From akin at boun.edu.tr Fri Jul 31 06:06:07 2009 From: akin at boun.edu.tr (H. Levent AKIN) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:06:07 +0300 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CLAWAR 2009 Call for Participation Message-ID: <4A72EC3F.9060400@boun.edu.tr> 12th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots and the Support Technologies for Mobile Machines (CLAWAR 2009) September 9-11, 2009 Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey http://www.clawar2009.org Call for participation: CLAWAR 2009 conference will bring together researchers, scientists, engineers and practitioners 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. The program includes three invited talks -Manuela Veloso, "Strategy Selection and Learning in Teams of Intelligent Robots" -Holk Cruse, "From 1st Order Embodiment to 2nd Order Embodiment: Toward a Cognitive Walker " -Yasuhiro Ota, "Toyota Partner Robots - Development and Implementation Vision" as well as oral presentations of refereed papers. Further information about registration and the technical program may be found on the conference website: http://www.clawar2009.org -- =================================================================== H.Levent Akin [] To acquire knowledge and Dean [] communicate it to others School of Engineering [] has been the ambition, Bogazici University [] pleasure, and business of 34342 Bebek-Istanbul [] my life. TURKEY [] -William Harvey [] Phone: +90 (212) 359 6401 [] Fax: +90 (212) 265 8488 [] E-Mail:akin at boun.edu.tr [] URL:http://www.cmpe.boun.edu.tr/~akin [] From Charles.DuHadway at us.bosch.com Thu Jul 30 13:11:47 2009 From: Charles.DuHadway at us.bosch.com (DuHadway Charles (CR/RTC1.1-NA)) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:11:47 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Robotics Application Internship Position Message-ID: <273120712CCD3C4FB8D3D519F07774E6030C539D@sbdmail23.us.bosch.com> Job Title: Robotics Application Intern Degree Level: Master, Ph.D. Major(s): Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related fields. Required Skills: Proven experience in C++ software development Strong implementation skills. Preferable Skills: Knowledge and experience in computer vision, machine learning, robotics, autonomous systems or related fields. Experience with ROS. Software development experience in *nix environment using version control systems. Job Description: This intern will be responsible for developing new functionality for an existing robotics platform. The specific application will be matched to the intern's skills and interests. This intern will join a team of Bosch researchers who design and develop algorithms and applications for autonomous systems at the Bosch Research and Technology Center in Palo Alto, CA. We solicit applications from individuals with a strong background in CS or related areas and proven implementation skills. We offer the opportunity to work with experienced researchers in a flexible and creative industrial research environment on cutting edge technologies. Example Projects: Semi-autonomy: Development of semi-autonomous capabilities for remote operation, telepresence, and human assisted operation Object Recognition: Object and person classification and tracking using vision and laser sensors Visual SLAM: Implementation of localization and mapping algorithms using a monocular or stereo camera system Time Frame: Now through the end of 2009. Location: Robert Bosch Research and Technology Center Palo Alto, CA Contact: Charles DuHadway charles.duhadway at us.bosch.com Robert Bosch LLC Research and Technology Center 4009 Miranda Avenue, Suite 250 Palo Alto, CA 94304 www.BoschResearch.com From e.burdet at imperial.ac.uk Thu Jul 30 14:54:38 2009 From: e.burdet at imperial.ac.uk (Etienne Burdet) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:54:38 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Junior research fellowships at Imperial College London In-Reply-To: <6F1237D7-B204-4DC2-92BE-0B15740490A6@imperial.ac.uk> References: <6F1237D7-B204-4DC2-92BE-0B15740490A6@imperial.ac.uk> Message-ID: Dear Moderator, can you please pass to or post the job opening below to the robotics list? thank you very much, etienne IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON Three Year Junior Research Fellowships Applications are open for Imperial's second round of Junior Research Fellowships, to give the world's top early-career researchers freedom to focus on research, by providing a competitive salary and laboratory support costs; there will be no teaching or administrative duties associated with the appointments. The three-year Fellowships also aim to help scientists make the difficult leap from post-doctoral researcher to lecturer (i.e. assistant professor in the UK system). In 2010, Imperial College will be awarding up to 20 fellowships. Proposals will be accepted in all Imperial's core disciplines and can be held in any Faculty (Engineering, Medicine, Natural Sciences), the Business School and the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine. Interdisciplinary projects are welcomed. Applicants may be from the UK or abroad and will be normally expected to have up to 4 years post-doctoral experience at the time of application. Applicants need to identify an Imperial academic staff member to act as their sponsor and provide laboratory space, facilities and mentorship for the tenure of the fellowship. Proposals will be judged primarily on the basis of scientific merit, track record of the applicant and potential for development of an independent research programme. Further details can be found on http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/juniorresearchfellowships The key requirements are that a sponsor is found within the relevant discipline. The departments of bioengineering has significant research in neuroscience, neurotechnology and biorobotics (see www.imperial.ac.uk/bioengineering), and is keen to sponsor outstanding young researchers in these topics. Etienne Burdet, Ph.D. e.burdet at imperial.ac.uk http://www.bg.ic.ac.uk/staff/burdet Department of Bioengineering Imperial College London SW7 2AZ London, UK From xmorimo at atr.jp Thu Jul 30 16:44:19 2009 From: xmorimo at atr.jp (Jun Morimoto) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:44:19 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: Special Issue on Robot Learning in Practice, IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine Message-ID: <4A723053.2050803@atr.jp> [Apologies if you receive this announcement more than once] ========================== CALL FOR PAPERS =========================== Special Issue of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine "Robot Learning in Practice" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Guest Editors: Jun Morimoto (ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, Japan) Chad Jenkins (Brown University, USA) Marc Toussaint (TU Berlin, Germany) IEEE-RAS TC on Robot Learning web page: http://www.learning-robots.de/ Scope: IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (RAM) seeks articles for this special issue, scheduled for publication in June 2010. There is an increasing interest in machine learning and statistics within the robotics community. At the same time, there has been a growth in the learning community in using robots as motivating applications for new algorithms and formalisms. Considerable evidence of this exists in the use of learning in high-profile competitions such as RoboCup and the DARPA Challenges, and the growing number of research programs funded by governments around the world. The proposed special issue is intended to publish contributions on robot learning algorithms with practical applications. Areas of research interest include: * learning models of robots, task or environments. * learning hierarchical representations from sensor inputs and motor outputs to task abstractions. * learning of plans and control policies by imitation and reinforcement learning. * extraction of low-dimensional task relevant representations for robot learning. * learning robust policies that work in real environments. * state estimation algorithms for robot learning. Submission instructions: Articles must be around a nominal length of eight pages each. We encourage submission of supplementary material such as experiment videos and source code. For further details see the instruction page: http://www.ieee-ras.org/ram/for_authors Submission deadline: October 1st, 2009 Issue date: June 2010 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jun Morimoto Department of Brain Robot Interface ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories 2-2-2 Hikaridai, Seika-cho, Soraku-gun, Kyoto, Japan E-mail : xmorimo at atr.jp Chad Jenkins Department of Computer Science Brown University, 115 Waterman St, 4th Floor Providence, RI, USA 02912-1910 E-mail: cjenkins at cs.brown.edu Marc Toussaint TU Berlin Franklinstr. 28/29 FR6-9 10587 Berlin, Germany E-mail: mtoussai at cs.tu-berlin.de From Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at Fri Jul 31 08:12:50 2009 From: Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at (Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:12:50 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [Internation Journal of Social Robotics] Special issue on Robots for future societies: Evaluating social acceptance and societal impact of robots Message-ID: ****Robots for future societies: Evaluating social acceptance and societal impact of robots**** Special Issue for the International?Journal?of Social Robotics, Springer?http://www.editorialmanager.com/soro/ Guest Editors: Astrid Weiss and Manfred Tscheligi (ICT&S Center, University of Salzburg) Contact:?astrid.weiss at sbg.ac.at??(http://www.icts.sbg.ac.at/ ) ****Submission of Manuscripts (DL): 1-Nov-09****????????? ??? Notification of Acceptance: 1-Feb-10???????? ??? Submission of Final Paper: 1-Apr-10????????? ??? Final Publication: 1-Jul-10?? You are cordially invited to submit your original?research?and discoveries on scientific, technological, methodological and philosophical advances in social robots, and their interactions and communications with humans, especially innovative ideas and concepts, new discoveries and improvements, as well as novel applications on the latest fundamental advances in the core technologies that form the backbone of Social Robotics, distinguished developmental projects, as well as seminal works in aesthetic design, ethics and philosophy, studies on social impact and influence pertaining to, and its interaction and communication with human beings and its social impact on our society. This special issue encourages submissions on *original research findings addressing societal impact robots could have in the future and? how to design and asses social acceptable robotic systems*. Such social Human-Robot Interaction studies include ?* Reviews on existing measures and metrics assessing? social acceptance and societal impact of robotic systems (e.g physiological ?? measurements, behaviour observations, surveys etc.) ?* Proposals of new methodological approaches to address social acceptance and societal impact in lab- and field-based settings ?* Structural frameworks towards social and societal acceptance supporting the understanding of the concept as well as contributing factors ?* Findings from Human-Robot Interaction studies (lab and field-based) on social acceptance and societal impact. ?* Ethical issues regarding future life with social robots should (legal aspects, psychological aspects etc.) ?* Cultural differences regarding the integration of robots into society This special issue aims to report on the latest research findings in this field, as well as point out the key challenges (and possible ways to address some of these) that social robots pose in terms of methodological, technological, design-orientated, ethical and other aspects. For more information, please visit: Submission On-Line: http://www.editorialmanager.com/soro/ Special Issue: Social Acceptance in HRI Description of the Journal http://www.springer.com/engineering/journal/12369 Aims and Scope: http://www.springer.com/engineering/journal/12369?detailsPage=aimsAndScopes Authors' information: http://www.springer.com/engineering/journal/12369detailsPage=contentItemPage&CIPageCounter=512809 Authors who intend to submit a manuscript are encouraged to contact Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at?as soon as possible in order to ensure that the planned submission falls within the aims and scope of the special issue. Please submit the journal manuscripts (between 10 and 14 pages) by 01 Nov 2009: http://www.editorialmanager.com/soro/?(Special Issue: Social Acceptance in HRI). The Editorial Board is committed to speedy review, fast publication, and high scientific impact.?? From omozos at googlemail.com Fri Jul 31 09:25:36 2009 From: omozos at googlemail.com (Oscar Martinez) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:25:36 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Deadline Extension: Special Issue on People Detection and Tracking (J. Social Robotics) Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPER *************************************** *************************************** DEADLINE EXTENDED: 15-August-2009 *************************************** *************************************** ----------------------------------------------------------- Special Issue on PEOPLE DETECTION AND TRACKING Springer International Journal of Social Robotics http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~omartine/stuff/IJSR_special_issue09.html ----------------------------------------------------------- EDITORS ------- * Kai O. Arras, Social Robotics Lab, University of Freiburg, Germany * Oscar Martinez Mozos, Robotics and Real-Time Group, University of Zaragoza, Spain GOAL AND SCOPE -------------- As robots enter domains in which they interact and cooperate closely with humans, the ability of machines to detect and track humans is becoming a key technology for many areas in robotics. Interaction with people, recognition and understanding of human activities, pedestrians tracking or intruder detection are example tasks that rely heavily on the ability to robustly detect and track people. Recent advances in estimation theory, machine learning and computer vision as well as progress in sensor technology have enabled us to design people detection and tracking systems with good levels of robustness. However, there is great demand for even more robust systems, especially over a wider range of conditions, and an increasing interest from industry for intelligent cars, domestic robots or surveillance of public areas. After a very successful ICRA 2009 workshop on people detection and tracking, this special issue aims to bring together contributions from the computer vision community and the community that has mostly worked with range finders. The goal is to provide a representative survey of the state-of-the-art and to transfer knowledge within and across the communities. The issue will focus primarily on theoretical aspects (see list of topics) but we are also interested in practical questions and applications. TOPICS ------ Examples of topics of interest include, but are not limited to: * People detection and tracking with vision, laser and/or other sensors * Tracking of groups of people and/or interacting targets * Full body pose estimation and tracking * Human motion modeling and estimation in 2d and 3d * Learning and model-based approaches * Probabilistic frameworks for simultaneous segmentation, detection and tracking * Multi-sensor fusion/integration approaches * Advanced target tracking and data association methods * Advanced handling of occlusion, fragmentation, and merging * Multi-hypothesis model selection methods * Distributed sensors for people detection/tracking * Performance metrics and evaluation of people tracking systems * Applications: human-robot interaction, human activity recognition and understanding, intelligent cars, surveillance etc. IMPORTANT DATES --------------- * Submission of Manuscripts **NEW DEADLINE**: 15-August-2009 * Notification of Acceptance: 15-Sep-2009 * Submission of Final Paper: 15-Oct-2009 * Final Publication: 1-Jan-2010 SUBMISSION ---------- * Manuscripts should be submitted to http://www.editorialmanager.com/soro. Please select option "People Detection and Tracking" * The recommended paper length is 8-14 pages * Templates for Latex and Word: http://www.springer.com/engineering/robotics/journal/12369 ?detailsPage=contentItemPage&CIPageCounter=512809 (remove line break for full address) LINKS ----- * Up to date information about the special issue: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~omartine/stuff/IJSR_special_issue09.html * International Journal of Social Robotics: http://www.springer.com/engineering/robotics/journal/12369 * ICRA 2009 Workshop: http://srl.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/conferences/icra09ws Contact information: Kai O. Arras: arras at informatik.uni-freiburg.de Oscar Martinez Mozos: ommozos at unizar.es -- ----------------------------------------------- Oscar Martinez Mozos Robotics, Perception and Real Time Group Department of Computer Science and System Engineering Centro Politecnico Superior (CPS) Edificio Ada Byron C/Maria de Luna, 3 E-50018 Zaragoza Spain Email: omozos at gmail.com http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~omartine ----------------------------------------------- From sebastian.wrede at uni-bielefeld.de Fri Jul 31 12:41:49 2009 From: sebastian.wrede at uni-bielefeld.de (Sebastian Wrede) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:41:49 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IROS2009 Workshop on "Event-Based Systems for Robotics" Message-ID: <2608_1249069311_ZZg0B4b38~ZQv.00_4A7348FD.2060102@uni-bielefeld.de> Call for Abstracts IROS2009 TC-SOFT Workshop on Event-Based Systems for Robotics Deadline for Abstract Submission: 1st September 2009 Abstract ======== Have you ever thought that... * ... the robustness of robotic systems is inversely proportional to the number of software components involved? (and that the complexity is exponential?) * ... you keep being delayed in your research by having to spend lots of elbow grease retro-fitting existing algorithms to your systems? * ... the potential for software re-use in your systems should be high but somehow it just isn't happening? ... then that may be because of open scientific questions about the software construction of complex robotic applications. To explore possible solutions, the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Software Engineering for Robotics (TC-SOFT) is organizing a workshop on Event-Based Systems for Robotics at the IROS 09, to which we hereby invite you to submit abstracts. As event-based systems have been highly successful in other domains, we want to bring together researchers to discuss of the benefits and applicability of event-based architectures in the robotics domain. Furthermore, the workshop has the objective to raise the awareness of robotics and software engineering researchers for the application of event-based principles in robotics, to gather requirements that are specific for the robotics domain and to define further research questions in relation to the overall challenges for robotics architectures. In addition to these contributions, the workshop features a number of invited talks and will conclude with a lively discussion on the topic. The following invited speakers have confirmed so far: * Prof. Ulrik Pagh Schultz, Modular Robotics Lab, University of Southern Denmark * St?phane Magnenat, EPFL * Lorenzo Natale / Paul Fitzpatrick, Italian Institute of Technology, Genoa * Dr. Roland Philippsen, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Stanford University * Morgan Quigley, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Stanford University Relevant Topics =============== The topics of the workshop will include but will not necessarily be limited to, the following: * Design principles for EBS in robotics * Software infrastructures and toolkits * Complex event processing in robotic applications * Methods for modeling and formal analysis of EBS * Design patterns in robotic EBS * Event-based systems for robotics in context: comparison to other architectural styles * Applications and Experiences with event-based architectures in robotics Submission Guidelines ===================== Submissions should be 2-page abstracts, to be prepared according to the Instructions for the Preparation of Camera-Ready Contribution of IROS09 and sent via e-mail to Sebastian Wrede (swrede at cor-lab.uni-bielefeld.de) or Ingo L?tkebohle (iluetkeb at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de). The subject of the email should be EBS-RO09, and the body of the email should contain name and affiliation of the authors, title of the submission and name and email address of the contact author. Abstracts will be published in an open-access repository. Important Dates =============== 1st September 2009 Submission Deadline 15th September 2009 Notification of Acceptance 15th October 2009 IROS Workshop on Event-Based Systems for Robotics, St. Louis, MO -- Dr. Sebastian Wrede phone +49-521-106-5148 Research Institute for Cognition and Robotics (CoR-Lab), Bielefeld University http://www.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/~swrede/