From paolo.dario at sssup.it Mon Jun 1 09:38:42 2009 From: paolo.dario at sssup.it (Paolo Dario) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:38:42 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for PhD positions in Biorobotics at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy Message-ID: <4A240412.6040201@sssup.it> Dear colleague, we should like to draw to your attention the Call for Applications to the PhD Program (in Italian: "Perfezionamento") in Biorobotics of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy (www.sssup.it). The Program is coordinated by our team at the ARTS and CRIM Labs (www-arts.sssup.it and www-crim.sssup.it). As you know, Biorobotics is a new scientific and technological area with a unique interdisciplinary character. It derives its methodology mainly from the sectors of Robotics and Biomedical Engineering, but it includes knowledge from, and provides useful applications to, many sectors of engineering, basic and applied sciences (medicine, neuroscience, economics, law, bio/nanotechnologies in particular), and even humanities (philosophy, psychology, ethics). Biorobotics aims at increasing knowledge on how biological systems work, by analyzing them from a "biomechatronic" point of view; and at exploiting such knowledge in order to develop innovative methodologies and technologies, both for designing and building high performance bio-inspired machines and systems (at the macro, micro and nano scales), such as animaloid and humanoid robots, and for developing devices for biomedical applications, such as for minimally-invasive surgery and neuro-rehabilitation, and even for the development of new industrial products. The PhD Program in Biorobotics aims at educating highly competent researchers with the potential to stand as future leaders in the area of Biorobotics worldwide. The ARTS and CRIM Labs are recognized as pioneers in the field of Biorobotics. So we will offer the PhD Students in Biorobotics a vibrant, interdisciplinary, international environment carrying on very advanced research projects. The selected PhD students will join a class of numerous PhD students, and will be offered advanced courses as well as individual research projects in the framework of many international projects (www.octopus-project.eu, http://www.araknes.org/, http://www.vector-project.com/, http://www.lampetra.org/, http://www.theangelsproject.eu/, www.dustbot.org, http://www.hydronet-project.eu/, http://www.project-time.eu/, http://www.nanobiotact.org/, http://www.integ-micro.eu/, and many others). The PhD students will use our excellent facilities, equipped with state-of-the-art instruments and robotic platforms; they will carry on their individual research projects under the active tutorship of well-known leaders in Biorobotics; they will be part of a large interdisciplinary research team comprising more than 120 senior and junior researchers and students; they will have continuous access to a network of international and interdisciplinary partners; and they will actively participate in many international projects. ******************** The deadline for the Call is JUNE 11, 2009. Please refer to http://www.sssup.it/techschool for the details of the application. Please be sure to apply to the BIOROBOTICS CURRICULUM of the PhD Programme in Innovative Technologies of Info. & Com. Eng. and Robotics. ******************** Please note that the Applicants should submit, in addition to their education and academic records, a detailed Research Project, of no more than 3,000 words, which will describe the research activities that applicants would like to perform during the PhD course. The Research Project should be consistent with one of the main topics of the Biorobotics Curriculum, such as: microengineering and microrobotics, humanoid and biomimetic robotics, medical robotics (including rehabilitation, surgery, prosthetics), and related methods and components (control, sensors, actuators, materials, etc.) In addition to the current Call, a second Call for 10-15 PhD positions, specific for Biorobotics, will be issued within a few months by the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, with the same characteristics. We advise students to apply to the current open Call, and in case to re-submit their application to the next Call. We deeply encourage your students possessing a M.S. Degree to apply. Of course, we should be happy to consider those students, if their application is successful, as a link to your laboratory and as an opportunity to pursue active collaboration with you. Best regards, Paolo Dario -- Paolo Dario Professor of Biomedical Robotics IEEE Fellow Director, Polo Sant'Anna Valdera Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna Piazza Martiri della Libert?, 33 56127 Pisa - Italy CRIM & ARTS Labs Polo Sant'Anna Valdera Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna Viale Rinaldo Piaggio 34 56025 Pontedera (Pisa) - Italy Tel: +39050883420/102 Mobile: +393488863117 Fax: +39050883497 email:paolo.dario at sssup.it http://www-crim.sssup.it http://www-arts.sssup.it From urbano at deec.uc.pt Mon Jun 1 11:51:38 2009 From: urbano at deec.uc.pt (Urbano Nunes) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:51:38 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IROS09 Workshop on Planning, Perception and Navigation for Intelligent Vehicles Message-ID: <4A24233A.2090007@deec.uc.pt> *************************************************************************** 1st C A L L F O R P A P E R S 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: June 30, 2009 Notification: July 12, 2009 Final submission: July 25, 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, (UC, Portugal), http://www.isr.uc.pt/~urbano Christian Laugier (INRIA, France), http://emotion.inrialpes.fr/laugier Program Commitee (not closed) ********************* 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 --------------------- PAST WORKSHOPS (pdf 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 Michele.Sebag at lri.fr Mon Jun 1 15:28:57 2009 From: Michele.Sebag at lri.fr (sebag) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 00:28:57 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Robotics workshop at ECML PKDD Message-ID: [apologies for cross posting] Learning and Data Mining for Robotics: Call for Papers Workshop collocated with ECML-PKDD 2009, Sept. 7th, Bled, Slovenia http://www.i.kyushu-u.ac.jp/~suzuki/lemir.html Why ... What ... When ... Who... WHY: Designing robot controllers for an open world is among the grandest challenges relevant to Machine Learning and Cognitive Systems at large. The goal of the workshop is to pro-actively discuss the research agenda of Learning and Mining for Robotics: to agree on what can be considered as solved problems, to list the current scientific priorities, to propose milestones, to share ideas, know-how and links with actual robotic platforms. WHAT: Among the most critical tasks are the modeling of the robot itself (sensor/actuators), the modeling of the robot world (including other robots), the modeling of the task (reinforcement, imitation/apprenticeship, control), the design of experiments and active learning (non exclusive list, NEL). All contributions related to Bayesian and probabilistic robotics, reinforcement learning and apprenticeship learning, learning from sensor data and logs (NEL) are welcome. All contributions discussing issues such as: how to learn with/without a simulator, and how to face the reality gap; how to build controllers that are robust with respect to motor/sensor failures; how to derive self-driven criteria/goals for the robot; how to deal with swarm robotics, distributed decision making and frugal communication; how to endow the robot with an implicit memory; are equally welcome. Finally, all contributions related to the exploitation of the robotic logs in order to debug/assess/reverse engineer the controller are welcome. WHEN and HOW: Deadline: June 10th Send your research paper/position paper (Springer Verlag, < 10 pages) via http://www.i.kyushu-u.ac.jp/~suzuki/lemir.html Notification: June 30th Camera ready: Aug. 15th Workshop: Sept. 7th Style: http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-7-72376-0 WHO: chairs Einoshin Suzuki, Kyushu Univ. and Michele Sebag, CNRS PC Shin Ando, Gunma Univ. Jose L. Balcazar, TU Catalonia Aude Billard, EPFL Nicolas Bredeche, Univ. Paris-Sud Joao Gama, Univ. Porto Peter Grunwald, CWI Hitoshi Iba, Univ. of Tokyo Kristian Kersting, Fraunhofer IAIS Jan Peters, Max Planck Institute Tubingen Marc Schoenauer, INRIA Marc Toussaint, TU Berlin Takashi Washio, Osaka Univ. Workshop Web page: http://www.i.kyushu-u.ac.jp/~suzuki/lemir.html From jian.dai at kcl.ac.uk Tue Jun 2 06:19:26 2009 From: jian.dai at kcl.ac.uk (Dai, Jian) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 14:19:26 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Participation: ReMAR 2009 on 22-24 June in London Message-ID: <15C82B6C47B68847B2DC874B45CC671178CB0CECDF@KCL-MAIL03.kclad.ds.kcl.ac.uk> Dear Colleagues, I am pleased to invite you to participate in the ASME/IFToMM International Conference on Reconfigurable Mechanisms and Robots (ReMAR 2009) to be held at King's College London on 22-24 June 2009. The organizing committee highly encourage researchers and engineers in the areas of robotics, mechatronics, mechanisms, manufacturing and automation to attend the ReMAR 2009. The conference will have 7 symposia and 23 sessions with 108 presentations from 22 countries and regions and over 130 delegates (today's figure) being registered. Ten keynote speakers will present the research and topics on reconfigurable mechanisms, origami-inspired mechanisms, reconfigurable machines, reconfigurable robots, humanoid robots and reconfigurable manufacturing systems. The speeches will no doubt interest audience with their colorful background including current development and future research direction and ancient Chinese mechanisms. A reception will be held on Sunday and a banquet is to be held on Monday night. On Tuesday we shall have conference luncheon and cruising at River Thames and touring and listening to the debates at Houses of Parliaments. The conference shall conclude on Wednesday at noon time. A colorful social event has also been arranged by our event chair and the local arrangement team. The registration fee shall have different levels and registration on daily basis is also available in the conference website at www.remar2009.com Since late June and July are the eventful months in London, please book your accommodation as early as possible. The detailed accommodation information can be found from the ReMAR 2009 website. If you need further help in booking the accommodation, please contact remar2009 at kcl.ac.uk and copy to guowu.wei at kcl.ac.uk The hardcover book and CDROM proceedings are to be ready by mid-June. The Conference has received the overwhelming response with 168 full submissions and 108 papers were selected after the rigorous peer-review process. Each paper has at least three reviewers to make the recommendation and the acceptance rate is 64.3%. The final submissions have also been carefully prepared by all the authors of the accepted papers. These 108 papers are given from professionals who are working in this leading field of reconfigurable mechanisms, machines, robots and manufacturing systems The conference is sponsored by the ASME Control Group, Design Division and Mechanisms and Robotics Committee, by the IFToMM (International Federation of the Promotion of Mechanisms and Machines), and by the Automation and Robotics Society of the IEEE. The conference is a high-level review of the past ten-year development in reconfigurable mechanisms, machines, robots and manufacturing systems and their applications to domestic use, production, health, rescue and outer space exploration. In particular, the conference provides an international forum for presenting and discussing new mechanisms and robots developed in the past decade with their new properties of changing topological structure, therefore the mobility and for discussing their uses for domestic, hazardous, out-space and manufacturing environments with adaptability and reconfiguration. The conference also provides a forum to discuss the future direction of research in this leading field in both academic and industrial communities. The 7 symposia and 23 sessions are listed as follows: 1. Reconfiguration Theory 1.1. Reconfiguration Principles and Reviews 1.2. Variable Geometry and Characteristics 1.3. Reconfigurable Truss and Foldable Mechanisms 2. Reconfigurable Mechanism Topology and Design 2.1. Topology and Transformation 2.2. Synthesis Based on Reconfiguration Principles 2.3. Design of Reconfigurable Mechanisms 2.4. Type Synthesis of Multiple Operational Modes 3. Kinematics and Dynamics of Reconfigurable Mechanisms 3.1. Kinematic Analysis of Reconfigurable Mechanisms 3.2. Dynamic Analysis of Reconfigurable Mechanisms 3.3. Force and Torque Modelling of Reconfigurable Mechanisms 4. Bio-Reconfiguration Techniques and Biomedical Devices 4.1. Bio-Reconfiguration and Analysis 4.2. Biomedical Devices and Bio-Design 4.3. Bio-System 5. Origami-Inspired Reconfigurable Mechanisms 5.1. Artmimetic 5.2. Anatomy and Configuration 6. Analysis, Design and Control of Reconfigurable Robots 6.1. Modular Robots 6.2. Analysis and Design of Reconfigurable Robots 6.3. Metamorphic Robots and Applications 6.4. Reconfigurable Parallel Mechanisms 6.5. Control 7. Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems 7.1. Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems 7.2. Reconfigurable Fixtures and Manufacturing Devices Workshop 1 : Climbing and Modular Robots Workshop 2: Automatic Feeding and Transmission Best wishes, Professor Jian S Dai, Conference Chair of the ASME/IFToMM International Conference on Reconfigurable Mechanisms and Robots (ReMAR 2009), www.remar2009.com Chair in Mechanisms and Robotics CEng, IMechE Fellow, CertEd(HE) King's College London University of London Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK +44 (0) 20 7848 2321 www.kcl.ac.uk/cmms/jsd From mouri at gifu-u.ac.jp Wed Jun 3 03:25:55 2009 From: mouri at gifu-u.ac.jp (Tetsuya MOURI) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:25:55 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Advanced Registration 2: 9th International IFAC Symposium on Robot Control in Gifu (SYROCO2009) Message-ID: <200906031025.AA05695@robota.gifu-u.ac.jp> (apologies for multiple postings) Dear Colleague, SYROCO2009 - http://www.syroco2009.org/ (the 9th International IFAC Symposium on Robot Control) will be held in Gifu, Japan on September 9-12, 2009. SYROCO2009 will be held on the following schedule. July 1, 2009: Deadline for Advance Registration September 9-12, 2009: SYROCO 2009 New! Lecturer: Oussama Khatib (Stanford University) Title of Presentation: Human-Friendly Robotics Lecturer: Tsuneo Yoshikawa (Ritsumeikan University) Title of Presentation: Robot Hand Control for Grasping and Manipulation Lecturer: Thomas Mergner (University of Freiburg) Title of Presentation: Neurologically inspired control of stance in a humanoid robot New! Lecturer: Masaru Ogino (Toyota Motor Corporation, Hirose Plant) Title of Presentation: Next-Generation Robotics: Ushering in the Future Registration website has been opened. Please refer to the following website. http://www.syroco2009.org/index.php?page_name=registration Please make Advance Registration no later than July 1, 2009. Looking forward to your registration. Sincerely, Haruhisa Kawasaki National Organizing Committee Chair ***************************************************** SYROCO2009 9th International IFAC Symposium on Robot Control Nagaragawa Convention Center, Gifu, Japan September 9-12, 2009 http://www.syroco2009.org/ ***************************************************** From K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk Wed Jun 3 13:54:21 2009 From: K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk (K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk) Date: 03 Jun 2009 21:54:21 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Job Advert: Research Fellow/Assistant in Humanoid Robotics Message-ID: Apologies if you receive multiple copies ---------------- First announcement Research Fellow/Assistant in Humanoid Robotics Salary per annum: 20,226 - 27,999 GBP (depending on qualifications and experience) Adaptive Systems Research Group http://adapsys.feis.herts.ac.uk/ The University of Hertfordshire School of Computer Science Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences (www.herts.ac.uk) Reference number for post: EN8869 A postgraduate/postdoctoral Research Assistant/Fellow post is available in the EU Framework VII funded project RoboSkin (Skin-Based Technologies and Capabilities for Safe, Autonomous and Interactive Robots). This full-time research post will allow the postholder to pursue research into humanoid robotics as part of a European project. This multidisciplinary project consists of several European partners in Italy, UK and Switzerland. The UH team is involved in the development of skin-recognition algorithms for detecting interaction patterns in human-robot interaction games. The development of software for artificial skin on a humanoid robot as well as learning and adaptation algorithms, based on previous research expertise by the project team, forms a central part in the research. This particular post will focus on the implementation of skin recognition algorithms and architectures on the humanoid robot KASPAR including rigorous testing of the technical as well as human-robot interaction and interface aspects. Applicants should have a strong background in robotics hardware, interface design as well as Artificial Intelligence approaches towards robot control architectures. Experience in humanoid robotics is highly desirable. The postholder will be a member of the Adaptive Systems Research Group (http://adapsys.feis.herts.ac.uk/) at University of Hertfordshire in the School of Computer Science which includes 30 research staff members (postdocs and PhD students). The University of Hertfordshire ranks 27th in England for post-2008 RAE-funding in Computer Science and Informatics. The highly active and multidisciplinary research group has an excellent international research track record including research in human-robot interaction, social robotics and robot learning. Applicants for the post should have a strong postgraduate degree (MSc or PhD) in Computer Science or a related area. Applicants are expected to have strong qualifications and practical experience in robotics hardware and software aspect relevant to humanoid robotics, as well as excellent research experience in programming robotics hardware. Experience in human-robot interaction is desirable. Applicants are expected to work independently, but under guidance of and in close collaboration with other team members at UH and other project partner institutions. A postgraduate successful applicant will have the opportunity to pursue research towards a PhD for the duration of the post. The position is full-time. Work will be based at University of Hertfordshire and may include short stays at European partner institutions. The position is based on a fixed-term contract. Starting date: 1 July 2009, end date 30 April 2012. All formal applications must be made via the Human Resources Department at University of Hertfordshire: http://web-apps.herts.ac.uk/uhweb/apps/hr/research-vacancies.cfm The post will appear on the above website within the next few days. The above website will allow potential applicants to find out more information about the post, including a detailed job and person specification. Please consult this website in order to evaluate your suitability for the post. Closing date: 29/6/2009 From gaurav at usc.edu Wed Jun 3 15:13:30 2009 From: gaurav at usc.edu (Gaurav S. Sukhatme) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 15:13:30 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] RSS 2009 workshop on aquatic robots and ocean sampling Message-ID: <562c8ffd0906031513i35d6df5fu8399cb8c6271ed15@mail.gmail.com> Call for Participation --------------------------- A half-day workshop on 'Aquatic Robots and Ocean Sampling' will be held at RSS 2009 on Monday June 29, 2009. A tentative schedule is available at: http://robotics.usc.edu/~jnaneshd/rss-aquatic-new/ We invite participation in the workshop by all interested parties. There are a few speaking slots still available. If you are interested please send a plain text email (by June 15) to the organizers with a talk title and short abstract. The workshop will also feature a poster session. If you would like to bring a poster to display, please send the poster title and names of authors to the organizers by June 15. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gaurav Sukhatme, University of Southern California (gaurav at usc.edu) Kanna Rajan, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (kanna.rajan at mbari.org) From edb at gdl.cinvestav.mx Wed Jun 3 17:22:35 2009 From: edb at gdl.cinvestav.mx (Eduardo Bayro) Date: Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:22:35 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] =?windows-1252?q?CIARP_2009____Guadalajara?= =?windows-1252?q?=2C_M=E9xico=2C_submission_date_extended_to_21_June_2009?= =?windows-1252?q?=2C__=28Conf3erence_includes_topics=3A__robotics=2C_robo?= =?windows-1252?q?t_vision=2C_humanoids__and__an_accompanying_workshop_on_?= =?windows-1252?q?Humanoid_Robotics=29?= Message-ID: <4A2713CB.9090905@gdl.cinvestav.mx> SUBMISSION DUE DATE EXTENDED TO 21 JUNE 2009 Fourth Call for Papers 14th Iberoamerican Congress on Pattern Recognition CIARP 2009 with Workshop on Humanoid Robotics and Computational Advances of Intelligent Processing of Remote Satellite Imagery General Chairs Eduardo Bayro Corrochano CINVESTAV, Mexico Jan Olof Ecklundh KTH, Sweden http://www.gdl.cinvestav.mx/ciarp2009/ November 15th-18th 2009, Guadalajara, M?xico Venue: Hotel Misi?n Carlton Proceedigs LNCS, Springer Verlag Selected Papers for a Special Issue in Journal Pattern Recognition Letters Topics of interests ? Artificial Intelligence Techniques in PR ? Bioinformatics ? Clustering ? Computer Vision ? Data Mining ? DB, Knowledge Bases and Linguistic PR-Tools ? Discrete Geometry ? Clifford Algebra Applications in Perception Action ? Document Processing and Recognition ? Fuzzy and Hybrid Techniques in PR ? Image Coding, Processing and Analysis ? Kernel Machines ? Logical Combinatorial Pattern Recognition ? Mathematical Morphology ? Mathematical Theory of Pattern Recognition ? Natural Language Processing and Recognition ? Neural Networks for Pattern Recognition ? Parallel and Distributed Pattern Recognition ? Pattern Recognition Principles ? Robotics and humanoids ? Remote Sensing Applications of PR ? Satellite Image processing and radar ? Gognitive Humanoid Vision ? Shape and Texture Analysis ? Signal Processing and Analysis ? Special Hardware Architectures ? Statistical Pattern Recognition ? Syntactical and Structural Pattern Recognition ? Voice and Speech Recognition Workshops * CASI'2009 Workshop on Computational Advances of Intelligent Processing of Remote Satellite Imagery ,IEEE GRSS Technically Co-Sponsored/. General-Chair: Prof. Yuri Shkvarko, CINVESTAV, Unidad Guadalajara./ * Workshop on Humanoid Robotics, RAS M?xico Endorsed. Chairs: Prof. Vicente Parra, CINVESTAV. Unidad Saltillo, Robotics and Advanced Manufacturing, M?xico.Prof. Alfredo Wetzenfeld, ITAM, Robotica, Mexico Paper Submission Submission page it is now open!. Prospective authors are invited to contribute to the conference and workshops by electronically submitting a full paper in English of no more than 8 pages including illustrations, results and references, and must be presented at the conference in English. The papers should be submitted electronically before June 7th, 2009, through the CIARP 2008 webpage (http://www.gdl.cinvestav.mx/ciarp2009). The papers should be prepared following the instructions from Springer LNCS series. At least one of the authors must have registered for the paper to be published Important Dates (deadline extension) Submission of papers firm deadline June 21th, 2009 Notification of acceptance August 7th, 2009 Camera-ready August 21th, 2009 Registration IAPR Members Non-IAPR Before August 21th, 2008 400 USD 450 USD After August 21th, 2008 450 USD 500 USD Extra Conference Dinner 50 USD Registration fee includes: Proceedings, Ice-break Party, Coffee Breaks, Lunches, Conference Dinner, Tutorials and Cultural Program (1. tour colonial area by night, 2. Latin dance night, 3. folkloric dance spectacle, mariachi traditional concert with superb banquet in colonial romantic garden). Extra: organized tours to Puerto. Vallarta Tequila, archeological places, artisans markets, museums and traditional colonial churches and towns. Contact: ciarp09 at gdl.cinvestav.mx http://www.gdl.cinvestav.mx/ciarp2009/ From ffernand at inf.uc3m.es Thu Jun 4 07:30:10 2009 From: ffernand at inf.uc3m.es (Fernando Fernandez Rebollo) Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:30:10 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICAPS 2009: Summer School Message-ID: <4A27DA72.302@inf.uc3m.es> [apologies for multiple posting] CALL FOR PARTICIPATION ICAPS 2009 Summer School on Automated Planning and Scheduling ======================================================== September 16-18, 2009, Thessaloniki, Greece http://ie.technion.ac.il/~dcarmel/sschool/ General Information =================== Domain-independent planning is a thriving area of research, encompassing an increasingly diverse range of techniques and approaches. The development of basic planning technology has made important strides forward in the recent two decades. As a result, interest in the planning technology is growing rapidly, creating many opportunities for industrial and commercial applications. The Summer School on Planning and Scheduling is an intensive three-day educational and mentoring program for graduate students and young researchers. The school will bring together subject experts in order to introduce the foundations of automated planning and the broad range of current planning approaches, and to consider ways of developing and exploiting these to make planning a realistically usable tool for complex problem-solving. Likewise, we hope the school will also provide a lively forum for attendees to discuss their research. The school's program is aimed at PhD students and young academic researchers. For many students, especially those relatively at the beginning of the road, the summer school provides a unique opportunity to get into the field through a broad perspective on what the field is about, what are the grand challenges of the field, how it is connected to other areas of research, and how the techniques developed in the area can advance industrial applications. The previous summer schools on automated planning (that took place in 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2006) have been a great success. In order to ensure the success of the school, the registration will be restricted to 50 participants. Courses and Lecturers ===================== The school will contain a mixture of tutorial lectures and sessions driven by the attendees' activities. The lectures will be given by leading experts in the area of planning and scheduling: -- Hector Geffner (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) -- Eric Hansen (Mississippi State University) -- Malte Helmert (University of Freiburg) -- Derek Long (University of Strathclyde) -- Stephen S. Smith (Carnegie Mellon University) Currently we are planning to have six tutorial sessions of 3 hours each, two sessions per day, on the following topics: -- Planning as general problem solving: AI perspective and real-world applications (Hector Geffner) -- Computational complexity of planning (Malte Helmert) -- Planning as heuristic search: From basics to advanced methods (Hector Geffner and Malte Helmert) -- The interplay of planning and scheduling (Stephen S. Smith) -- Decision-theoretic planning (Eric Hansen) -- Building and evaluating AI planning and scheduling systems: From theory to practice (Derek Long) Additional activities will include: ** A poster session in which the students will present their own research plans, and will receive feedback both from the lecturers and organizers, as well as from the other attendees. ** Topic-focused discussion meetings with the lecturers at which the students will break into small groups according to the sub-areas of immediate research interest, each lead by a lecturer/organizer. Organization ============ The summer school is organized by Carmel Domshlak (Technion, Haifa, Israel), Maria Fox (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK), and Shlomo Zilberstein (University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, US). The local arrangements are made by the ICAPS-2009 organizers; questions related to local arrangements related to the summer school should be emailed to Carmel Domshlak (dcarmel at ie.technion.ac.il). Application and Important Dates =============================== Application to the summer school will require submission of a CV and an intention letter describing how the applicant's planned research is connected to the topics of automated planning and scheduling. Students will also be required to provide a recommendation letter from their research advisors (to be sent directly to Carmel Domshlak, dcarmel at ie.technion.ac.il). In order to ensure the success of the school, the registration will be restricted to 50 participants. In case of over-application, the preference will be given to students at the beginning of their research path. Important dates: ---------------- --- Application deadline: June 20, 2009 --- Notification: July 5, 2009 --- Registration: July 15, 2009 The application form for the summer school is available at http://ie.technion.ac.il/~dcarmel/sschool/application.txt. Application forms, together with the CVs, should be sent by email to Carmel Domshlak (dcarmel at ie.technion.ac.il). The accepted participants will be informed about the registration procedure on July, 5th. Accommodation and Registration fees =================================== The registration fee is 150 Euro and it covers: -- admission to all summer school courses, -- lunches and coffee breaks. The fee is non-refundable. A block of room for the school's participants for the four nights of September 15-19 has been allocated at the hotel Queen Olga. The price for the single room is 60 euros/night. The actual reservations at the hotel should be made directly by the participants by the registration due date of July 15th. Note that the financial support for the accommodation (see below) will be provided only for the accommodation in the designated hotel Queen Olga. Support ======= Every student accepted into the summer school will be eligible for a travel grant that will cover registration, accommodations, and partial travel expenses. Request for such financial support should be indicated on the application. Decisions about the size of the grants will be coordinated with the ICAPS-09 Doctoral Consortium organizers, and will be announced at the beginning of August, 2009. Fernando Fernandez Publicity Chair From rusu at willowgarage.com Thu Jun 4 14:38:46 2009 From: rusu at willowgarage.com (Radu Bogdan Rusu) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 23:38:46 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Papers - IROS 2009 Semantic Perception for Mobile Manipulation Message-ID: <832239ef0906041438n3ae8fb9dma77b36d89327a31e@mail.gmail.com> ---[ 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 Cheers, Radu. -- | Radu Bogdan Rusu | http://rbrusu.com/ From achim.lilienthal at oru.se Fri Jun 5 02:53:10 2009 From: achim.lilienthal at oru.se (Achim J. Lilienthal) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:53:10 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] =?iso-8859-1?q?PhD_and_Post-Doctoral_Positio?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ns_at_the_AASS_Learning_Systems_Lab=2C_=D6rebro=2C_Sweden?= Message-ID: <4A28EB06.5030205@oru.se> [Apologies if you receive multiple copies] Three PhD positions and two post-doctoral positions are available at the AASS Learning Systems Lab, ?rebro University, Sweden (http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/index.html) Applications can be sent immediately and will be considered until the positions are fixed. * PhD Position 1: "Motion Learning of Human Manipulation Skills". Full call: http://aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/announcements/PhD_Position_HANDLE_2009.pdf Contact Person: Dr. Boyko Iliev (e-mail: boyko.iliev at oru.se , Web: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/biv.html) This position is fully funded within the EU project HANDLE (http://www.handle-project.eu). * PhD Position 2: "Pollution Monitoring with Stationary and Mobile Gas Sensors". Full call: http://aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/announcements/PhD_Position-DIADEM_2009.pdf Contact Person: Achim J. Lilienthal (e-mail: achim.lilienthal at oru.se , Web: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/amll.html) This position is fully funded within the EU project Diadem (http://www.ist-diadem.eu/). * PhD Position 3: "Active Safety for Autonomous Transportation in Unstructured Environments". Full call: http://aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/announcements/PhD_Position-ALL4eHAM.pdf Contact Person: Achim J. Lilienthal (e-mail: achim.lilienthal at oru.se , Web: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/amll.html) This position is fully funded within the KKS project ALL-4-eHAM. * Post-doctoral Position 1: "Developing Human-Equivalent Manipulation Skills on a 5-Finger Dexterous Robot Hand" Full call: http://aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/announcements/Postdoc_Position-HANDLE.pdf Contact Person: Dr. Boyko Iliev (e-mail: boyko.iliev at oru.se , Web: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/biv.html) This position is fully funded within the EU project HANDLE (http://www.handle-project.eu). * Post-doctoral Position 2: "Pollution Monitoring with Mobile Gas Sensors" Full call: http://aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/announcements/Postdoc_Position-DHRS_CIM.pdf Contact Person: Achim J. Lilienthal (e-mail: achim.lilienthal at oru.se , Web: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/amll.html) This position is partially funded within the EU project DHRS-CIM. We are looking forward to *your* application! The AASS Learning Systems Lab The Centre for Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems (AASS Research Centre, http://aass.oru.se) carries out multi-disciplinary research at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, computer vision, computer science, and measurement technology. The research and human environment at AASS is young and enthusiastic. Researchers come from different countries and have different scientific and cultural backgrounds. AASS also frequently hosts international researchers and is involved in several international projects. The Learning Systems Lab is one of three research groups within AASS. Our research has its focus generally on the development of algorithms and robotic/sensor systems for real-world tasks. Major directions are Mobile Robot Olfaction, Robotic Map Learning, Robot Vision, Autonomous Transportation Systems, Programming-by-Demonstration and Tactile Exploration. Further information can be found at http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning. Currently, the Learning Systems Lab has a staff of 9 PhD students, 5 post-docs, 3 part-time professors and one associate professor. From denis.lalanne at UNIFR.CH Fri Jun 5 01:24:09 2009 From: denis.lalanne at UNIFR.CH (Denis Lalanne) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 10:24:09 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Demos ICMI-MLMI 2009, Boston Nov 2009 Message-ID: <4A28D629.8050508@unifr.ch> (We apologize for possible multiple copies.) ********************************************************* *** Call for Demos *** *** ICMI - MLMI 2009 *** *** MIT Media Lab, November 2-6, 2009 *** *** http://icmi2009.acm.org/ *** ********************************************************* The Eleventh International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces and Workshop on Machine Learning for Multi-modal Interaction will jointly take place in the Boston area during November 2-6, 2009. The main aim of ICMI-MLMI 2009 is to further scientific research within the broad field of multimodal interaction, methods and systems. The conference will take place at the MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts, USA. Demonstrations are the perfect opportunity to showcase recent implementations of novel and interesting technologies or interaction concepts. They can also serve to introduce commercial products not published in previous scientific publications. Demonstrations should be short, so that they can be presented several times. We particularly encourage demonstration of interactive systems and multimodal recognizers and sensors. A 1-2 page camera-ready description of the demonstration is required, which must be submitted electronically. Demo description(s) must be in PDF format, according to ACM publication format. Demo proposals should include a description with photographs and/or screen captures of the demonstration and, if possible, the URL of a site where a live version or video of the proposed demo is available. Please note that the accepted descriptions will be sent to the publisher. Proposals for demonstrations shall be submitted through the submission & review web site (http://precisionconference.com/~icmi). Upon acceptance, authors will negotiate with the Demo Chairs the infrastructure needed for their presentations. Important dates --------------- * Demo submission June 22nd, 2009 * Author notification July 20, 2009 * Camera-ready due August 20, 2009 * Conference Nov 2-4, 2009 Submission & review web site ---------------------------- * http://precisionconference.com/~icmi Demos chairs ------------ * Denis Lalanne (denis [dot] lalanne [AT] unifr dot [ch]), University of Fribourg, Switzerland * Enrique Vidal (evidal [AT] iti [dot] upv [dot] es), Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain From P.C.Breedveld at ewi.utwente.nl Fri Jun 5 05:44:34 2009 From: P.C.Breedveld at ewi.utwente.nl (P.C.Breedveld at ewi.utwente.nl) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 14:44:34 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICAR 2009 Workshop: "Port-based techniques in robot engineering" Message-ID: Call for participation ICAR 2009 Tutorial June 23, 2009 - Munich, Germany Title Port-based techniques in robot engineering Abstract In this tutorial workshop we will introduce the port-based approach to multidomain modeling and design of engineering systems in terms of the bond graph notation. Next we will show that this approach allows for integration of discipline-specific parts on the model level (during design phases) instead of on the code level (during realization and test phases). Cross-view design-change influences get specific attention, to allow for relaxation of the tension between several dependability issues (like reliability and robustness), while keeping design time (and thus design costs) under control. This yields a shorter design time, and a better quality product. The design work is conducted as a stepwise refinement process, using simulation (i.e. model execution) as means of testing on all levels in the design process and automatic generation of embedded software. It consists of four major steps: (1) dynamic behavior modeling of the machine; (2) control law design; (3) embedded (control) software design; (4) embedded software realization. This approach is extended to complex systems like robots by the introduction of multiports and their energy-based analysis techniques. The relation with the kinematics and dynamics of robot mechanisms is shown in terms of multibond graphs. It will be briefly shown how the port concept can be extended to multibody systems by defining the concept of "screw-ports". This will be done in an intuitive level by introducing concepts like screws and duality. The approach will be demonstrated by means of specific robotic applications. The design method is demonstrated by presenting the whole design trajectory using a demonstration setup, the "torsion bar", which we use in teaching. To insure first-time right deployment on-target of the control software, the software was tested first in a virtual prototype. Besides tests with simple test-benches, the dynamic systems model of step 1 is reused in a co-simulation experiment together with the software. The transition from virtual prototype to target implementation is done by replacing only the co-simulation interfaces with real-I/O. The resulting target implementation is first-time right. Program 9:00-10:00 Fundamentals of the port-based approach with an introduction to the bond graph notation (Peter Breedveld) 10:00-10:30 Coffee break with 20-sim demo's (Peter Breedveld) 10:30-11:30 Model-Driven Design Method for Embedded Control Software (Jan Broenink) 11:30-12:30 Multiports, energy-based analysis and the relation to kinematics in multibond notation (Peter Breedveld) 12:30-14:00 lunch 14:00-15:00 Extensions to multibody systems (Stefano Stramigioli) 15:00-15:45 Embedded Software Design Demo using co-simulation and the torsion bar, an educational set-up 15:45-16:15 Demo of the torsion bar during coffee break (Jan Broenink) 16:15-17:15 Examples of robot applications (Stefano Stramigioli) 17:15-18:00 Discussion Further information on the workshop can be found at: http://www.icar2009.org/workshopstutorials/ From scarpin at eng.ucmerced.edu Fri Jun 5 09:06:51 2009 From: scarpin at eng.ucmerced.edu (Stefano Carpin) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 09:06:51 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] USARSim Workshop at IROS 2009 Message-ID: <4A29429B.3000309@eng.ucmerced.edu> 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 10, 2009 - Notification of acceptance: August 1, 2009 - Final papers due: August 15, 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. From lillein46 at web.de Fri Jun 5 13:30:43 2009 From: lillein46 at web.de (Achim J. Lilienthal) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:30:43 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] =?iso-8859-1?q?PhD_and_Post-Doctoral_Positio?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ns_at_the_AASS_Learning_Systems_Lab=2C_=D6rebro=2C_Sweden?= Message-ID: <4A298073.3050102@web.de> [Apologies for the scrambled content of the same call in a previous version] Three PhD positions and two post-doctoral positions are available at the AASS Learning Systems Lab, ?rebro University, Sweden (http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/index.html) Applications can be sent immediately and will be considered until the positions are fixed. ****************************************************************************** * PhD Position 1: Motion Learning of Human Manipulation Skills ****************************************************************************** Full call: http://aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/announcements/PhD_Position_HANDLE_2009.pdf This position is fully funded within the EU project HANDLE (http://www.handle-project.eu). Contact Person: Dr. Boyko Iliev email: boyko.iliev at oru.se, Web: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/biv.html) ****************************************************************************** * PhD Position 2: Pollution Monitoring with Stationary and Mobile Gas Sensors ****************************************************************************** Full call: http://aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/announcements/PhD_Position-DIADEM_2009.pdf This position is fully funded within the EU project Diadem (http://www.ist-diadem.eu/). Contact Person: Achim J. Lilienthal email: achim.lilienthal at oru.se Web: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/amll.html ****************************************************************************** * PhD Position 3: Active Safety for Autonomous Transportation in Unstructured * Environments ****************************************************************************** Full call: http://aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/announcements/PhD_Position-ALL4eHAM.pdf This position is fully funded within a new KKS project ALL-4-eHAM. Contact Person: Achim J. Lilienthal email: achim.lilienthal at oru.se Web: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/amll.html ****************************************************************************** * Post-doctoral Position 1: Developing Human-Equivalent Manipulation Skills * on a 5-Finger Dexterous Robot Hand ****************************************************************************** Full call: http://aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/announcements/Postdoc_Position-HANDLE.pdf This position is fully funded within the EU project HANDLE (http://www.handle-project.eu). Contact Person: Dr. Boyko Iliev email: boyko.iliev at oru.se, Web: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/biv.html) ****************************************************************************** * Post-doctoral Position 2: Pollution Monitoring with Mobile Gas Sensors ****************************************************************************** Full call: http://aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/announcements/Postdoc_Position-DHRS_CIM.pdf This position is fully funded within a new KKS project ALL-4-eHAM. Contact Person: Achim J. Lilienthal email: achim.lilienthal at oru.se Web: http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning/amll.html We are looking forward to *your* application! The AASS Learning Systems Lab The Centre for Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems (AASS Research Centre, http://aass.oru.se) carries out multi-disciplinary research at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, computer vision, computer science, and measurement technology. The research and human environment at AASS is young and enthusiastic. Researchers come from different countries and have different scientific and cultural backgrounds. AASS also frequently hosts international researchers and is involved in several international projects. The Learning Systems Lab is one of three research groups within AASS. Our research has its focus generally on the development of algorithms and robotic/sensor systems for real-world tasks. Major directions are Mobile Robot Olfaction, Robotic Map Learning, Robot Vision, Autonomous Transportation Systems, Programming-by-Demonstration and Tactile Exploration. Further information can be found at http://www.aass.oru.se/Research/Learning. Currently, the Learning Systems Lab has a staff of 9 PhD students, 5 post-docs, 3 part-time professors and one associate professor. -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: Attached Message Part Url: http://duerer.usc.edu/pipermail/robotics-worldwide/attachments/20090605/9c260bf7/attachment.ksh From Trevor.Taylor at microsoft.com Fri Jun 5 19:15:23 2009 From: Trevor.Taylor at microsoft.com (Trevor Taylor) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 02:15:23 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] RSS 2009 - Tutorial on Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio Message-ID: Call for Participation ---------------------- Celebrating RSS's first visit to our home city, Seattle, Microsoft Research will host a no-cost evening tutorial on Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio at RSS 2009 (http://www.roboticsconference.org) at the University of Washington on the evening of Sunday June 28, 2009 at 6:30pm for 2 hours. Pizza or similar will be provided. For details please visit: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/robotics/dd875507.aspx Registration: The tutorial is free but registration is required. Early registration deadline is June 22, 2009. We cannot guarantee acceptance after the deadline. Please RSVP for catering and room capacity purposes by sending an e-mail with your name and affiliation (university or other employer) to roboedu at microsoft.com. Abstract: Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio (RDS) is a general-purpose software platform for developing applications that require a high level of concurrency in a distributed environment, especially typical of robotics. It has been designed so that it can easily interface with a wide variety of hardware devices. The architecture uses a lightweight service-oriented approach that scales well, enabling very high messaging throughput. This lecture-style tutorial provides an overview of RDS and its various components supplemented by numerous live demonstrations. The tutorial is based on the latest version of RDS 2008, released in November 2008. Sponsor: Stewart Tansley, PhD http://research.microsoft.com/~stansley Speakers: Trevor Taylor, PhD, Microsoft Robotics Group Pavel Khijniak, Microsoft Robotics Group From fabio.bonsignorio at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 05:53:52 2009 From: fabio.bonsignorio at gmail.com (Fabio Bonsignorio) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 14:53:52 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 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 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). 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 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 From bravi at cs.washington.edu Sun Jun 7 16:53:13 2009 From: bravi at cs.washington.edu (Ravi Balasubramanian) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:53:13 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: RSS Workshop on Understanding Human Hand for Advancing Robotic Manipulation Message-ID: <4A2C52E9.4020206@cs.washington.edu> Dear friends, Our workshop on understanding the human hand for advancing robotic manipulation is fast approaching. We will have 10 renowned speakers, and we have had a terrific response from different research communities (19 posters in all). We look forward to seeing you at the workshop. Please see below for details on participation. Thanks! Ravi --------------------- CALL FOR PARTICIPATION RSS 2009 Workshop (Full Day) on Understanding the Human Hand for Advancing Robotic Manipulation Website: http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/bravi/rssws/ When: Sunday, June 28, 2009 8:30 AM to 6 PM Where: Electrical Engineering Building, University of Washington Robotics: Science and Systems Conference Seattle, WA. htp://www.roboticsconference.org Workshop Introduction Recent advances in the human sciences have energized the field of robotics toward personal assistants and brain machine interface. There is an increased interest to solve the robotic manipulation question: Can we build robotic hands that can accomplish our daily manipulation tasks? The human hand is adept at many diverse tasks in varied contexts, including power and precision grasping, twisting, and tapping. But we still do not know what features of the human hand enable such capability. For example, do biomechanical features like the complex tendon-hood, synergistic muscle actuation, and bone shapes make the difference? Or is it the neural coding of movement? Importantly for robotics, we need to understand what features should be included in future robotic hands. This workshop is a forum for researchers to discuss manipulation viewed in light of the human hand?s features and hopes to push the state of the art of the robotic hand. We expect that the workshop will bring together researchers from diverse areas such as robotics, biomechanics, neuroscience, and anthropologists. Topics of Interest Topics addressed include but are NOT LIMITED to: -- human hand?s biomechanics, such as bones, tendon hood, and muscles structure and usage. -- neural control systems, learning, and representation of movement/action. -- sensory perception and feedback. -- robotic manipulation and haptics, such as grasping, dexterity analysis, sensitivity. -- evolution of the hand across species. -- human hand behavior/function measurements in different tasks. Speakers: Prof. Peter Allen (Columbia University) Prof. George Bekey (University of Southern California) Prof. Susan Lederman (Queen's University) Dr. Lynette Jones (MIT) Prof. Haruhisa Kawasaki (Gifu University) Prof. Gerry Loeb (University of Southern California) Prof. Marco Santello (Arizona State University) Prof. Veronica Santos (Arizona State University) Prof. Bruno Siciliano (Universit? degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) Prof. Francisco Valero-Cuevas (University of Southern California) Workshop Organizers Ravi Balasubramanian Post-doctoral Research Associate University of Washington and Intel Research Seattle Yoky Matsuoka Associate Professor University of Washington Dillon Eng Website and Proceedings Production Chair From hehu at csc.kth.se Mon Jun 8 06:00:45 2009 From: hehu at csc.kth.se (=?UTF-8?Q?Helge_H=C3=BCttenrauch?=) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 15:00:45 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for papers: Ro-man 2009 Workshop on mixed-initiative and context awareness Message-ID: <512F64491FDC48EE91296EC2D4A8E93C@nt.nada.kth.se> ** Apologies for cross-postings ** ************************************************************* WORKSHOP ON Improving Human-Robot Communication with Mixed-Initiative and Context-Awareness to be held at IEEE RO-MAN 2009, Robot and Human Interactive Communication Sep. 27 - Oct. 2, 2009, Toyama International Conference Center, Japan http://ro-man2009.org/html/FrontPage.html ************************************************************* Ro-Man 2009 - Workshop on Improving Human-Robot Communication with Mixed-Initiative and Context-Awareness Important Details: ------------------ Submission deadline: July 15, 2009 Notification of acceptance: July 31, 2009 Workshop date and location: September 28, 2009 - Toyama International Conference Center, Japan Workshop homepage: http://www.commrob.eu/ro-man/ ? Workshop background and goals: ------------------------------ This one-day workshop addresses mixed-initiative communication and context-awareness in human-robot interaction. Although these topics can be investigated in isolation, a combined view of both aspects is often lacking when designing a human-robot interface. In this way, a potential quality improvement of the user interface is neglected. As an illustration a service robot that is able to find and indicate products to the user in a supermarket [1] will require location awareness and the ability to communicate this place to users. Such context-awareness is also needed in order to decide which initiative and communication modality is meaningful for the user in a particular situation. In this workshop we attempt to take the concepts of mixed-initiative and context awareness into consideration in an integrated manner. As the field of HRI is diverse we would like to bring interested researchers and developers together to jointly gain more insights on the different challenging issues and possible design approaches to address them. Suggested Topics: ----------------- The topics suggested for this workshop include the following: 1. Using different spatial data (vision, 3D-sound, GPS) for context understanding, supporting mixed-initiative between robots and their users 2. Relevant scenarios for mixed-initiative and their requirements on context-awareness 3. Design and development of mixed-initiative and spatial context- aware (multimodal) user interfaces 4. Relevant applications and experiences of user interfaces based on context-awareness and mixed-initiative Submission: ----------- Position papers (maximum of 4 pages) or work-in-progress papers covering new research ideas and future trends must be submitted in electronic form (in PDF). Selection will be carried out by an international team of experts. A criterion for selection will be novelty of idea or solution presented and relevance to the topics of the workshop. The paper must address at least one of the workshop topics. The presented ideas need not be mature but should be able to generate constructive discussion for future development. Participants will be notified at the end of July. We kindly request invited contributors to give a 10-15 minute presentation on their main idea(s) as seeding points for discussions. Paper format: 2-4 pages in LNCS style (http://www.springer.com/comp/lncs/Authors.html) Submission procedure: Please use the paper submission interface http://www.commrob.eu/ro-man/SubmitPaper.php to upload your complete paper. You will be given an id/password which may later be used to access the system again, so be careful to remember it. Publication: The proceedings of the workshop will be print outs handed over to the workshop participants and CDs. Additionally, the proceedings are published on http://CEUR-WS.org and on the workshop webpage. References [1] Kaindl, H., Falb, J., Bogdan, C.: Multimodal communication involving movements of a robot. In: CHI 2008, Proceedings on User Interface Description Languages for Next Generation User Interfaces. (2008) Kind regards from the workshop organizing team! --- Helge H?ttenrauch, Ph.D. Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) S-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden skype: helgehuttenrauch From a.frisoli at sssup.it Mon Jun 8 08:12:49 2009 From: a.frisoli at sssup.it (Antonio Frisoli) Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:12:49 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PhD Studentships in Perceptual Robotics at Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy Message-ID: <4A2D2A71.60506@sssup.it> PhD Studentship in Perceptual Robotics, http://www.sssup.it/techschool PERCRO ? PERCeptual RObotics lab, Scuola Superiore Sant?Anna Pisa ? Italy, www.percro.org Four PhD student positions are available within the three-year residential PhD programme on ?Perceptual Robotics? within the International School of Doctorate on Innovative Technologie at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Pisa, starting on November 2009. The research area in Perceptual Robotics offers the opportunity to undertake in-depth research on the themes of presence and advanced haptic and robotic technologies for the interaction in Virtual Environments and in Teleoperation. Students will work in a multidisciplinary and collaborative environment with the opportunity of implementing and testing new ideas and concepts through the experimental facilities of the Scuola. ? Participation is open to EU (3 positions available in the Perceptual Robotics curriculum) and non-EU citizens (1 position available in the Perceptual Robotics curriculum). Knowledge of English is required as official language. ? Each Ph.D. student will be granted a 3 years scholarship by Sant?Anna School, which amounts to ? 14.500 per year + free meals at school?s canteens + campus facilities ? Applicants must hold a Master of Science (M.Sc.) degree or equivalent title in computer science, engineering, mathematics or the physical sciences. In particular, the 2009 research applications in the curriculum of Perceptual Robotics are solicited, in connection with ongoing activities in EU-funded international Research Projects, in the following areas: ? Design and analysis of digital representations to model and interact with human skills. Teleoperation and passivity-based control: study of new paradigms for master-slave teleoperation over large distances with particular emphasis of remote skill transfer and teaching; Contact persons: prof. Carlo Alberto Avizzano, carlo at sssup.it ? Robotic-assisted neurorehabilitation: application of robotic devices for neurorehabilitation of patients with motor impairments, investigation of sensory-motor control laws in human motor control and force control of upper limb robotic exoskeletons, Contact person: prof. Antonio Frisoli, a.frisoli at sssup.it ? Design and analysis of probabilistic control system for robotic and mobile robotic devices: development of new algorithms to model the environment using the robot sensors as well as new algorithms to provide robots and mobile platforms with increasing level of autonomy. Research solution may be experiment using the PERCRO robot facilities as well as the PERCRO mobile platforms; Contact person: prof. Emanuele Ruffaldi, e.ruffaldi at sssup.it ? Technologies for real-time 3D graphics rendering, Contact person: prof. Franco Tecchia, f.tecchia at sssup.it Deadlines and how to apply: - Candidates are requested to apply online at: www.sssup.it/phdapplicationonline by June 11, 2009, 12.00 pm GMT. In case of problems with the online application, please contact the PhD Administration Office (tel. +39 050 88.33.36/83, e-mail: techschool at sssup.it). - Please note that candidates who are interested in applying, should prepare a research proposal, which is part of the application file. Interested candidates are invited to e-mail directly the contact persons or PERCRO lab. at e-mail addresses above. - Please refer to http://www.sssup.it/techschool for the details of the application. -- ***************************************************************** Antonio Frisoli PhD, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering PERCRO Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna Polo Sant' Anna Valdera 56025 Pontedera Pisa tel.: +39 050 883080 / +39 050 883786 fax. +39 050 883333 E-mail: a.frisoli at sssup.it web-sites: www.percro.org www.sssup.it percro1.sssup.it/~antony ******************************************************************* From plagemann at stanford.edu Mon Jun 8 09:19:07 2009 From: plagemann at stanford.edu (Christian Plagemann) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 09:19:07 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Participation: RSS/PASCAL2 Workshop on Regression in Robotics Message-ID: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Call for Participation RSS'09/PASCAL2 Workshop on Regression in Robotics -- Approaches and Applications Sunday, June 28, 2009, Seattle, WA, USA Co-located with Robotics: Science & Systems, RSS 2009 Sponsored by PASCAL2 Network of Excellence http://www.robreg.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear colleagues, we invite you to attend this full-day workshop, to be held on Sunday, June 28, 2009 in Seattle at the University of Washington campus. The workshop will feature invited speakers, selected poster presentations and a moderated panel discussion. Please note the following recent updates: - As a core PASCAL2 event, the workshop program will be be videotaped and archived online. - We are pleased to announce that a Pascal Best Poster Presentation Award of US$ 350 will be given to the authors of a selected poster. Results will be determined by a panel of judges *and* by popular vote. - After the workshop, we invite all participants to an informal Robot Learning Cocktail Night organized jointly with the RSS workshop on "Bridging the gap between high-level discrete representations and low-level continuous behaviors". Please refer to http://www.robreg.org for a more detailed program schedule. Invited Speakers: ** Pieter Abbeel, University of California at Berkeley ** Dieter Fox, University of Washington ** Raia Hadsell, Carnegie Mellon University ** Andreas Krause, California Institute of Technology ** Jan Peters, Max-Planck Institute of Biological Cybernetics ** Rajesh Rao, University of Washington ** Nick Roy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Description: Function approximation from noisy data is a central task in robot learning. Relevant problems include sensor modeling, manipulation, control, and many others. A large number of regression methods have been proposed from statistics, machine learning and control system theory to address robotics-related issues such as online updates, active sampling, high dimensionality, non-homogeneous noise and missing features. However, with minimal communication and collaboration between communities, work is sometimes reproduced or re-discovered, making research progress challenging. Our goal is to draw researchers from the different communities of robotics, control systems theory and machine learning into a discussion of the relevant problems in function approximation to be learned in robotics. We would like to develop a common understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of different regression approaches and to derive practical guidelines for selecting a suitable approach to a given problem. In addition, we would like to discuss two key points of criticism in current robot learning research. First, data-driven machine learning methods do, in fact, not necessarily outperform models designed by human experts and we would like to explore what regression problems in robotics really have to be learned. Second, regression methods are typically evaluated using different metrics and data sets, making standardized comparisons challenging. Goal & Topics: The workshop will address topics such as the following: *** Approaches: Which learning approaches have been applied successfully to solve regression problems in robotics or have a high potential for doing so? *** Problem settings: Which robot learning problems contain regression or function approximation as a central component? What are the specific aspects that make the problem challenging? *** Theoretical foundations: How can challenging requirements such as online updates, active sampling, high dimensionality, non-homogeneous noise and missing features be addressed? *** Benchmarking and evaluation: What are suitable methods for evaluation of regression methods? What metrics are being used and, subsequently, which should be used? Which benchmark data sets are available and which are missing? Workshop Organizers: Christian Plagemann Stanford University plagemann at stanford.edu Jo-Anne Ting University of Edinburgh jting at ed.ac.uk Sethu Vijayakumar University of Edinburgh sethu.vijayakumar at ed.ac.uk From hirai at se.ritsumei.ac.jp Mon Jun 8 21:46:07 2009 From: hirai at se.ritsumei.ac.jp (Shinichi Hirai) Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:46:07 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Post-Doctoral Position at Ritsumeikan Univ., Japan Message-ID: <4A2DE90F.1090505@se.ritsumei.ac.jp> [Apologies if you receive multiple copies] Dear Colleagues, One post-doctoral position relating to medical robotics is available at the Department of Robotics, Ritsumeikan University, Japan. (http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/se/~hirai/index-e.html) We are looking for a post-doctoral fellow focusing on one of the followings: -- Computer vision: analysis of MRI/CT volumetric images, estimation of deformation fields from MRI/CT images. -- Mechanics: soft tissue modeling considering nonlinearity, identification of deformation model of soft tissues. -- Robotics: dynamic analysis of soft-fingered manipuation, analysis of human hand grasping and manipulation. This position is funded by R-GIRO program on "Virtual Cooperative Environment for Tele-Surgery" and JSPS Grant in Aid for Scientific Research (No.20246049) "Soft Tissue Mechanics in Human Dexterity via Internal Sensing". See the following for detail: (http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/se/~hirai/project/GASR2008-e.html) Contract should be updated every one year. Contract update will be decided by performance. This position is available up to March 2014. Interested candidates with a Ph.D in a relevant field can apply by sending a letter of motivation along with their documents (CV, copy of Ph.D diploma, a list of publications, copy of key papers (within 5), and at least two academic references) by E-mail or postal mail. E-mail address: hirai at se.ritsumei.ac.jp Postal address: Shinichi Hirai Dept. Robotics, Ritsumeikan Univ. Kusatsu, Shiga 525-8577, Japan. It is not necessary to be familiar with Japanese language but proficiency in English is mandatory. Applications can be sent from now and will be considered until the position is fixed. Thank you for your consideration. Best regards, Shinichi Hirai -- Shinichi Hirai Dept. Robotics, Ritsumeikan Univ. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Associate Editor http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/se/~hirai/ From ffernand at inf.uc3m.es Wed Jun 10 07:29:56 2009 From: ffernand at inf.uc3m.es (Fernando Fernandez Rebollo) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:29:56 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICAPS 2009: Doctoral Consortium Message-ID: <4A2FC364.5020003@inf.uc3m.es> [apologies for multiple posting] ******************************************************** ICAPS 2009 DOCTORAL CONSORTIUM. CALL FOR PARTICIPATION http://icaps09.uom.gr/consortium/consortium.htm ******************************************************** The Organizing Committee of the 19th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS'09) invites Ph.D. students to apply for the Doctoral Consortium. The aim of the Doctoral Consortium is to provide a forum for students to discuss their work with other students and senior researchers working in the same area. The Doctoral Consortium will feature a full day workshop on September 19th where all accepted papers will be given a short time slot for oral presentation in small, themed clusters of common interest with students and senior researchers. Participants will have further opportunity to present at the poster session of the main conference. Application requirements ************************* We encourage submissions from Ph.D. students who are already working on their dissertations. Preference will be given to students who are far enough along to have formulated their dissertation topic. Applicants should submit an extended abstract of four (4) pages maximum. The submission should be in AAAI style and sent as a PDF file by email to Antonio Garrido (agarridot at dsic dot upv dot es). It should describe original work that is part of the doctoral work of the student. We encourage the submission of work that is still in progress. Students who wish to participate in the Doctoral Consortium and have a full paper describing their work accepted to the technical programme of ICAPS'09 are not required to submit a short version of their paper as an extended abstract. They may simply send an email to Antonio Garrido (agarridot at dsic dot upv dot es) explaining that they wish to participate in the Doctoral Consortium. The title, author list, and abstract of the paper should be included. Such students will present their work at the Doctoral Consortium only if not scheduled for oral presentation at the main conference. In addition, all applicants should submit their resume as a PDF file, together with a brief statement of at most two (2) pages describing their position in the doctoral process and an approximate outline of the thesis proposal. Important dates ************************* * Submission deadline: June 26, 2009 * Notification date: July 22, 2009 * Final versions due: August 10, 2009 * Doctoral Consortium: September 19, 2009 Program Committee ************************* Daniel Borrajo Ronen Brafman Daniel Bryce Minh Binh Do Carmel Domshlak Fernando Fernandez Hector Geffner Patrick Haslum Malte Helmert Joerg Hoffmann Ari Kristinn Jonsson Sven Koenig Ugur Kuter Derek Long Angelo Oddi Kanna Rajan Roman van der Krogt Gerard Verfaillie Petr Vilim DC Program chairs ************************* Eva Onaindia, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Spain Antonio Garrido, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Spain Fernando Fernandez From raj_madhavan at yahoo.com Wed Jun 10 14:07:53 2009 From: raj_madhavan at yahoo.com (Raj Madhavan) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:07:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [Deadline Extended to June 17th]: 2009 Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems Workshop (PerMIS'09) Message-ID: <121438.48269.qm@web50507.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Due to multiple requests, the deadline for paper submissions and special session proposals has been extended to June 17th. CALL FOR PAPERS 2009 Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems Workshop (PerMIS?09) September 21-23, 2009 http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/PerMIS_2009/ GENERAL CHAIR Elena Messina, NIST PROGRAM CHAIR Raj Madhavan, ORNL/NIST PUBLICITY CHAIR E. Tunstel, JHU-APL USA SPONSORS NIST, DARPA, ACM, IEEE (W/NV Robotics and Automation Chapter) & IEEE RAS-TC on Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking of Robotic and Automation Systems The Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems workshop is the only one of its kind dedicated to defining measures and methodologies of evaluating performance of intelligent systems. Started in 2000, the PerMIS series focuses on applications of performance measures to practical problems in commercial, industrial, homeland security, and military applications. It has proved to be an excellent forum for discussions and partnerships, dissemination of ideas, and future collaborations between researchers, graduate students, and practitioners from industry, academia, and government agencies. The main theme of the ninth iteration of the workshop, PerMIS?09, seeks to address the question: "Does performance measurement accelerate the pace of advancement for intelligent systems?" In addition to the main theme, as in previous years, the workshop will focus on applications of performance measures to practical problems in commercial, industrial, homeland security, and military applications. Topic areas include, but are not limited to: * Defining and measuring aspects of a system: The level of autonomy Human-robot interaction Collaboration & coordination Taxonomies Biologically inspired models * Evaluating components within intelligent systems: Sensing and perception Knowledge representation, world models, ontologies Planning and control Learning and adapting Reasoning * Infrastructural support for performance evaluation: Testbeds and competitions for intercomparisons Instrumentation and other measurement tools Simulation and modeling support * Technology readiness measures for intelligent systems * Benchmarks and applied performance measures in various domains, e.g., Industrial and manufacturing systems Intelligent transportation systems Emergency response robots (e.g., search and rescue, bomb disposal) Homeland security systems Defense robotics Intelligent systems for hazardous environments (e.g., nuclear remediation) Smart grid Space robotics Medical robotics & assistive devices The Proceedings of PerMIS are indexed by INSPEC, Compendex, ACM Digital Library, and are released as a NIST Special Publication. Selected papers from past workshops have been published as special issues with the Journal of Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering (PerMIS?04), the Journal of Field Robotics (PerMIS?06), and as a Springer Edited Book Volume (PerMIS?08). LOCATION Washington, D.C. (The workshop will be held at NIST, Gaithersburg MD 20899) SUBMISSION INFORMATION Prospective authors are requested to submit a draft paper (max. 8 pages) or an extended abstract (1-2 pages) for review. Invited session proposals can also be submitted as draft papers but should contain 1) a session title and a brief statement of purpose, 2) name and affiliation of the organizer(s), and 3) a preliminary list of speakers. All submissions must be written in English, starting with a succinct statement of the problem, the results achieved, their significance, and a comparison with previous work. Papers are to be submitted at http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/PerMIS_2009/submission.htm/ using the specified templates. IMPORTANT DATES Submission of full papers June 17, 2009 Proposal for invited sessions June 17, 2009 Notification of acceptance July 24, 2009 Final papers due August 21, 2009 From chenli at uestc.edu.cn Wed Jun 10 20:38:30 2009 From: chenli at uestc.edu.cn (chen li) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:38:30 +0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Faculty Position: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) Message-ID: Faculty Position: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) The Intelligent Systems Institute, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, at Chengdu, China, invites applications for faculty positions in Intelligent Control, Machine Vision, Robotics, Artificial Intelligent, Game Engine, and Human Machine Interaction. The advertisement is for faculty positions at all levels: Assistant, Associate, and Full Professors. Applicants must hold a Ph.D. degree and have a strong commitment to undergraduate/graduate engineering education and research. Applications with a curriculum vitae and names of at least three references should be sent to the Li Chen at email address chenli[at]uestc.edu.cn. The website of University of Electronic Science and Technology of China is www.uestc.edu.cn From ming.xie at robotics.sg Wed Jun 10 21:28:56 2009 From: ming.xie at robotics.sg (ming.xie at robotics.sg) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:28:56 +0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for papers ICIRA2009: Closing date of paper submissions is coming soon Message-ID: <20090611122856.xxo8bx9ickwwo8gg@www.robotics.sg> The Second International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications will be held in the tropical city, Singapore, between 16 and 18 December 2009. The winter climate in Singapore is nice as the temperature will be within the range of 25 to 32 degrees of Celsius. The emphasis of this year?s conference is on ?Robot intelligence for achieving digital manufacturing and intelligent automations?. And, we have the following confirmed keynote speakers: Professor Sadayuki Tsugawa, Meijo University, Japan Dr. Zhengyou Zhang, Microsoft Research, USA Dr. Yongkiang Koh, ST Kinetics Ltd, Singapore ICIRA conference series will publish the conference proceedings in the Springer?s Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence/Computer Science. All published papers will be indexed in EI. We warmly invite you to contribute quality papers to ICIRA2009 through the online submission system (http://myreview.robotics.sg). For more details, please visit: http://icira2009.robotics.sg The paper submission deadline is 15 June 2009. For those who need more time to prepare for the submissions, the closing date is extended to 30 June 2009. General Chairs: Ming Xie, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Youlun Xiong, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China Program Chairs: Caihua Xiong, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China Honghai Liu, University of Portsmouth, UK Zhencheng Hu, Kumamoto University, Japan From samir.bouabdallah at mavt.ethz.ch Thu Jun 11 06:05:31 2009 From: samir.bouabdallah at mavt.ethz.ch (Bouabdallah Samir) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:05:31 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IROS 2009 Workshop on Micro Aerial Vehicles from Technologies to Commercialization: Ready or not ready? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20B3DFB65FB4244A869D91798B18FC9003168EAC@EX2.d.ethz.ch> apologies for multiple postings ======================================================================= CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: IROS'2009 Workshop ======================================================================= Half-day workshop on: Micro Aerial Vehicles from Technologies to Commercialization: Ready or not ready? In conjunction with IROS'09. October 2009, St. Louis, MO, USA ======================================================================= MOTIVATION and OBJECTIVES ========================= The field of Micro Aerial Vehicles is gaining an important interest from the scientific, industrial and hobbyist communities. These flying systems can be of high value in surveillance, search, rescue and many other missions. The multidisciplinary nature of MAVs makes it challenging for a research group to master the numerous related scientific problems. Therefore, workshops which regroup scientists from different disciplines of aerial vehicles represent an excellent opportunity to exchange ideas and discuss progress and challenges. The proposed workshop is such an opportunity. It will focus on several research questions on fixed-wing, rotary-wing and other types of MAVs, especially identifying mature and promising technologies that will bridge the gap between research and market-ready MAVs. The workshop shall also help to identify current and future challenges and review future research directions. This event will be the meeting place for aerial-robotic researchers who are interested in theoretical and practical problems of MAVs. IMPORTANT DATES ================ July 13th, 2009 -- Extended abstract / poster submission July 31st, 2009 -- Notification of acceptance August 17th, 2009 -- Camera ready extended abstract / poster submission LIST of TOPICS ============ * Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAV) design and concepts * MAV control strategies * MAV navigation algorithms * Smart sensors for MAVs * Innovative actuators for MAVs * Smart materials for MAVs * Miniature power sources for MAVs SUBMISSIONS ============ Prospective participants should submit an extended abstract (max. 2 pages) describing recent and innovative work. An MS word template is available on the website (see below). A similar Latex template can be used. Authors of selected extended abstracts will be invited to give an oral presentation. All submissions are due in PDF format to Samir Bouabdallah, samir.bouabdallah(AT)ieee.org. INVITED SPEAKERS ================ * Daniela Rus (MIT) * George Vachtsevanos (Georgia Tech) * Tarek Hamel (UNICE) * Eric Frew (Univ. of Colorado) * Jean Christoph Zufferey (EPFL) PROGRAM COMMITTEE ==================== * Clark Taylor (BYU) * Dario Floreano (EPFL) * Tarek Hamel (UNICE) * Bernard Mettler (UMN) * Robert Wood (HARVARD) * Christian Bermes (ETHZ) * Roland Siegwart (ETHZ) ORGANIZERS (IEEE Technical Committee on Aerial Robotics and UAVs - TCAR) ================================================================= Samir Bouabdallah (contact person) Autonomous Systems Lab - ETH Z?rich, Switzerland Phone: +41 44 632 89 06 Fax: +41 44 632 11 81 Email: samir.bouabdallah(AT)ieee.org Kimon Valavanis Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Denver, CO 80208, USA Phone: (303) 871-2586 Fax: (303) 871-2194 Email: kimon.valavanis(AT)du.edu WEBSITE ======= http://www.flyingrobots.org/mavws2009/ From jneira at unizar.es Thu Jun 11 10:29:47 2009 From: jneira at unizar.es (=?windows-1252?Q?Jos=E9_Neira?=) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:29:47 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for papers: Special Issue of the Jorunal of Field Robotics Message-ID: <4A313F0B.8060008@unizar.es> -------------------------------------------------------- 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 ? 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 ICRA 2009 workshop page http://webdiis.unizar.es/~neira/icra2009/ ------------------------------------------------------- For comments, suggestions, or requests, please send email to Cyrill Stachniss , Stefan Williams , or Jose Neira . From rvoyles at du.edu Thu Jun 11 12:01:58 2009 From: rvoyles at du.edu (Richard Voyles) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:01:58 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] SSRR 2009 Submission Deadline Extended: IEEE Safety, Security and Rescue Robots Workshop Message-ID: <78BCFE0CC1D14CB0AA45EFCE05C8A3C3@richardd620> The full paper submission deadline has been extended to July 2, 2009. Please see the website below for details. Please join us in Denver!! ???????????????????????????????? CALL FOR PAPERS 2009 IEEE International Workshop on Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics ???????????????????????? Hosted by the University of Denver ???? ???????????????????????????November 3-6, 2009 ????????????????????????????? Denver, Colorado, USA Paper submissions due: July, 2, 2009 Decisions by: August 15, 2009 http://www.engr.du.edu/ssrr2009 The 2009 IEEE International Workshop on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics is dedicated to identifying and solving the key issues necessary to field capable robots across a variety of challenging applications. This seventh workshop in the series will address both the research challenges posed by search and rescue scenarios and the design of deployable robotic systems that satisfy user-defined requirements. It will create a unique opportunity for development and exchange of research ideas and technical solutions. As always, emergency responders and other expected users will be involved in presentations and discussions to ensure the practical relevance of technology developments for actual usage. Topics for papers and demonstrations include: Robot performance requirements and technical solutions for applications of SSRR (urban search and rescue, CBRN hazard detection/mitigation, explosive ordinance disposal, physical security, surveillance, etc) ? Locomotion for ground, aerial, aquatic, indoor, and collapsed structures ? Perception for navigation, hazard detection, and victim identification ? Mapping of complex environments (2-D, 3-D, GIS integration, etc) ? Manipulation capabilities (hazards, payloads, obstacles, doors, etc) ? Communications for reliable data transfer (tether management, radio, etc) ? Intelligent behaviors to improve robot performance and survivability ? Human-robot interfaces for improved remote situational awareness ? Autonomous search and exploration ? Multi-robot teams and mixed human-robot teams ? Training methods and other personnel issues ? Safety standards of robots and systems ? Evaluation and performance metric of robotic systems ? Emerging technologies (sensors, power sources, micro robots, etc) ? Emergency management issues related to robotics ? Mechanisms, Mechatronics, and Embedded Control Denver is situated on the edge of the Rocky Mountains, a major transportation hub separating the mountains from the Great Plains. Boulder, 30 km to the northwest, sits nearly on the intersection of the Continental Divide (the string of snow-capped 4300m peaks that divide the nation?s watershed) and the front range foothills, creating idyllic mountain vistas and accessible, cosmopolitan living. Known for its natural beauty, excellent skiing, and world-class rock climbing, the Denver metro area is a destination for travelers the world over _______________________________________________________ 2390 S. York Street? | (303) 871-2481 CMK 200??????????????| rvoyles at du.edu Denver, CO? 80208??? | www.du.edu/~rvoyles From M.Blanco at soton.ac.uk Fri Jun 12 06:37:29 2009 From: M.Blanco at soton.ac.uk (Blanco M.) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:37:29 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] FW: IFREMER/FREESUBNET vacancy announcement - underwater image mosaicking In-Reply-To: <192D488CA70B8E4CB773643511A7CF186CDB6F700E@UOS-CL-EX7-L4.soton.ac.uk> References: <192D488CA70B8E4CB773643511A7CF186CDB6F700E@UOS-CL-EX7-L4.soton.ac.uk> Message-ID: <192D488CA70B8E4CB773643511A7CF186CDB6F7011@UOS-CL-EX7-L4.soton.ac.uk> A postgraduate research position is open at Ifremer?s Underwater Systems Department for an early stage researcher (ESR) to develop image processing and sensor fusion algorithms for underwater image mosaicking. The candidate will join the European research training network FreesubNET and contribute to the development of a challenging underwater exploration application, with tasks including: ? AUV (Autonomous Unerwater Vehicle) based image acquisition ? Image processing ? Sensor fusion ? Mosaicking and georeferencing of collected heterogeneus data Final testing and evaluation will based on a hardware-in-the-loop implementation using the dedicated facilities and vehicles at Ifremer?s Toulon base. The successful candidate will be also offered the possibility to contribute to further development activities carried out at IFREMER in the field of underwater robotics. Contact Dr. Lorenzo BRIGNONE via email to Other vacancies with FREESUBNET are available at . Regards, Max Blanco, Ph.D. Marie Curie Research Fellow Freesubnet Project School of Engineering Sciences University of Southampton SO17 1BJ T: +44.23.8059 6524 F: +44.23.8059 3299 E: m.blanco at soton.ac.uk S: fsn.blanco W: www.freesubnet.eu From hirata at irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp Fri Jun 12 06:57:32 2009 From: hirata at irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp (Yasuhisa Hirata) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:57:32 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Advanced Robotics : Vol. 23, No. 7-8 issue Message-ID: <4A325ECC.3060706@irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp> ************************************************************************ The Official International Journal of the Robotics Society of Japan Advanced Robotics Volume 23, Numbers 7-8, 2009 Biomimetic 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/f0020007 Table of Contents Preface pp. 785-786(2) Authors: Ma, Shugen; Low, Kin Huat; Wang, Zhidong Underwater Navigation for Long-Range Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Using Geomagnetic and Bathymetric Information pp. 787-803(17) Authors: Kato, Naomi; Shigetomi, Toshihide Gait Planning for Steady Swimming Control of Biomimetic Fish Robots pp. 805-829(25) Authors: Low, K.H.; Zhou, Chunlin; Zhong, Yu Development of a New Buoyancy Control Device for Underwater Vehicles Inspired by the Sperm Whale Hypothesis pp. 831-846(16) Authors: Shibuya, Koji; Kawai, Kota Reptile-Inspired Biomimetic Modeling Control Actuated by Behaviors pp. 847-864(18) Authors: Jia, Wenchuan; Chen, Xuedong; Huang, Qingjiu; Sun, Yi; Luo, Xin; Xu, Jiaqiang Modular Universal Unit for a Snake-Like Robot and Reconfigurable Robots pp. 865-887(23) Authors: Ye, Changlong; Ma, Shugen; Li, Bin; Wang, Yuechao Design and Realization of a Novel Modular Climbing Caterpillar Using Low-Frequency Vibrating Passive Suckers pp. 889-906(18) Authors: Zhang, Houxiang; Wang, Wei; Gonz?lez-G?mez, Juan; Zhang, Jianwei Control Strategy for a Snake-Like Robot Based on Constraint Force and Verification by Experiment pp. 907-937(31) Authors: Watanabe, Kouki; Iwase, Masami; Hatakeyama, Shoshiro; Maruyama, Takehiko Beyond Biomimetics: Towards Insect/Machine Hybrid Controllers for Space Applications pp. 939-953(15) Authors: Benvenuto, Antonella; Sergi, Fabrizio; Di Pino, Giovanni; Seidl, Tobias; Campolo, Domenico; Accoto, Dino; Guglielmelli, Eugenio Attitude Estimation of a Biologically Inspired Robotic Housefly via Multimodal Sensor Fusion pp. 955-977(23) Authors: Campolo, Domenico; Schenato, Luca; Pi, Lijuan; Deng, Xinyan; Guglielmelli, Eugenio Design of Bio-inspired Flexible Wings for Flapping-Wing Micro-sized Air Vehicle Applications pp. 979-1002(24) Authors: Agrawal, Arun; Agrawal, Sunil K. Design of and Experiments on a Dragonfly-Inspired Robot pp. 1003-1021(19) Authors: Dileo, Christopher; Deng, Xinyan 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 jacaste at unizar.es Fri Jun 12 09:08:43 2009 From: jacaste at unizar.es (Jose A. Castellanos) Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:08:43 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [RSS09] Robotics, Science and Systems 2009 Web Proceedings are now available Message-ID: <4A327D8A.7010601@unizar.es> Dear colleages, It is a great pleasure for me to anounce you that the on-line proceedings of the forthcoming Robotics, Science and Systems (RSS'09) conference are now openly accesible at (http://www.roboticsproceedings.org/). The conference will take place from June 28th until July 1st in Seattle, Washington. I hope we could meet there and enjoy both the beautiful landscape and the cutting-edge technical program of the conference. See you in Seattle. Yours, Jose A. Castellanos RSS 2009 Publications Chair http://robotics.washington.edu/rss2009/ From llw at jhu.edu Sun Jun 14 10:45:27 2009 From: llw at jhu.edu (Louis L. Whitcomb) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:45:27 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] HROV Nereus: Robot Explores the Mariana Tranch Message-ID: <4A353737.8020405@jhu.edu> Dear Robotics Colleagues: On June 1, 2009 we completed our first 10,900 meter depth dive with our new Nereus robotic underwater robot vehicle at 11 22.1N 142 35.478E in the Mariana Trench in the Western Pacific. This 26 hour dive was comprised of a 8.5 hour descent to 10,900m, a 10.75 hour bottom interval during which we had live video via fiber-tether multi-gigabit optical telemetry and performed geological and biological sampling with Nereus's robotic arm under the direction of our science party, and a 6.5 hour autonomous ascent to the surface. We conducted a total of seven dives on this expedition, two of which were to the bottom of the Mariana Trench at 10,900 meters depth. The Nereus project team is from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. Navy, and the University of Hawaii. Some project-related links are below. Best Regards, Louis L. Whitcomb Dana R. Yoerger Andrew D. Bowen Michael V. Jakuba James C. Kinsey Stephen C. Martin Sarah E. Webster and the entire Nereus Engineering and Scientific Team NSF and WHOI Press Releases: http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=114913&org=NSF&from=news http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7545&tid=282&cid=57586&ct=162 Press: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/12/AR2009061201711.html http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090610/full/459764f.html http://www.usnews.com/articles/science/environment/2009/06/03/sub-explores-oceans-deepest-trench.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,524958,00.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8080324.stm HROV Nereus Project web site: http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=10076 Recent IEEE/MTS Oceans conference paper (PDF): http://robotics.me.jhu.edu/~llw/ps/2008_Oceans_Nereus_Overview.pdf 2005 news item in Nature about nereus (PDF): http://robotics.me.jhu.edu/~llw/ps/2005_Nature_437612a.pdf 2004 MTS Journal paper: http://robotics.me.jhu.edu/~llw/ps/2004_MTS_HROV_Paper.pdf 2003 Scientific American news item: http://robotics.me.jhu.edu/~llw/ps/2003_Scientific_American_News_Scan_December_2003.pdf -- ------------------------------------------------------------- Louis L. Whitcomb, Ph.D. Director, Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science 115 CSEB / 3400 North Charles Street Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 21218-2681 llw at jhu.edu, 410-516-6724, fax: 410-516-5553 ------------------------------------------------------------- From d.cernea at jacobs-university.de Sun Jun 14 13:39:57 2009 From: d.cernea at jacobs-university.de (Cernea, Daniel) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:39:57 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Summer School on Robotics Message-ID: <58BED9760CCDC140B2B4397ABE8A778F9B5D6CEE73@SXCHCL01.jacobs.jacobs-university.de> Call for Participation: --- IURS Summer School on Robotics --- July 01-10, 2009 - New Delhi, India http://www.iurs.org/education.html Deadline for registration: June 15, 2009 (later registration is available in exceptional cases) Robotics is a field that draws upon concepts from many different areas and as such it can be hard to start working in this area without proper introduction to related concepts. Towards this goal, IURS, a non-profit research organization, building on its history of conducting summer courses for 3 years is now further extending its summer course concept to teach students not only theoretical concepts of robotics, but also practical methods. During the course the students will work in small teams to make their own robots, program them and compete against other teams. Each student participant will also be provided with a robotics kit that they may take home along with them to work on further. All concepts taught will include practical exercises to strongly reinforce the concepts of robotics, embedded systems, computer vision and machine intelligence. The topics that will be covered in this summer school include: - Introduction to Robotics - Robotic Locomotion - Introduction to Microcontrollers - Sensors and Sensor Arrays - Autonomous Systems - Computer Vision - Communication Systems Registration Early registration for Indian residents is Rs. 8,500 and they may use the registration form online to register. Foreign residents must contact Anuj Sehgal at anuj at iurs.org or Shekhar Mehta at shekhar at iurs.org for registration instructions. The registration charges will be US$ 280 for the entire summer school and assistance in securing accommodation for the period will also be provided. In case you have any further questions, please reply to this email and I will be happy to answer them. Warm Regards, Daniel Cernea ____________________ Dipl.-Ing. Daniel CERNEA Master Student in Smart Systems Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH Phone : +49 (0)421 7086 344 Mobile: +49 (0)176 8501 9201 Stader Landstra?e 46 | 28719 Bremen | Germany From F.Wahl at tu-bs.de Mon Jun 15 03:25:00 2009 From: F.Wahl at tu-bs.de (F. Wahl) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:25:00 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] German Workshop on Robotics 2009 - Proceedings are now available on the Web Message-ID: <4A36217C.9000500@tu-bs.de> ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please feel free to forward this message to interested colleagues. We apologize if you receive this email more than once. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Dear colleagues and friends, I am very pleased to announce that the proceedings for the German Workshop on Robotics 2009 (GWR'09) are openly accessible at http://www.gwr09.org Besides this on-line access, the proceedings are available as a hardcover book published by Springer: http://www.springer.com/engineering/robotics/book/978-3-642-01212-9 In case of any inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact me at any time. Very best, Friedrich Wahl Chair GWR'09 -- Institute for Robotics http://www.rob.cs.tu-bs.de and Process Control Technical University of Braunschweig Muehlenpfordtstrasse 23 38106 Braunschweig GERMANY ************************************ * German Workshop on Robotics 2009 * Tel: (+49) 531 391-7450 * refer to: http://www.gwr09.org/ * Fax: (+49) 531 391-7445 ************************************ From marco.dellavedova at gmail.com Mon Jun 15 06:26:04 2009 From: marco.dellavedova at gmail.com (Marco Della Vedova) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:26:04 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for participation at CyberRescue@RTSS09 Message-ID: <4A364BEC.4060801@gmail.com> --------------------------------- We apologize for multiple copies. --------------------------------- RTSS 2009 - Real-Time Systems Symposium http://www.rtss.org Students Design Competition CyberRescue at RTSS2009 December 1, 2009 Washington, DC, USA http://robot.unipv.it/cyberrescue-RTSS09/ *** The problem Coordination of a multi-robot system of mobile units for a rescue mission. *** Description The design competition proposed for RTSS 2009 develops around a simulated multi-robot rescue mission. Each team is composed by five mobile autonomous agents that need to find a specific spot in a maze (target) and join there. This challenge falls in the foraging class, one of the canonical testbeds for cooperative robotics, and raises challenges in real-time control for adequate navigation, real-time ad-hoc communication within the team, topology management to keep connectivity, and others that have been addressed by the real-time systems community at large, in the recent years. To make a team and to participate to this challenge is a great way to test skills in real-time programming for both efficient robot navigation and effective ad-hoc communication needed for their cooperation. Complete details, rules and tools are all available at http://robot.unipv.it/cyberrescue-RTSS09/ *** How to participate The interested teams are required to send us an email as soon as possible: this is important for us to plan the event. Contacts information are on the webpage. We require a manifestation of interest by the end of September. All teams will be asked to submit a team report (2-4 pages) and to prepare a short on-site presentation (10-12 minutes). The team reports will be compiled in a proceedings volume and published on the web. Two types of participation are possible: on-site participation and remote participation. The on-site participation requires the team to be present in the event location (Washington DC), and allows to participate to the conference workshops. The remote participation allows the teams to remotely present their proposal in a video-conference during the event, while the actual race will be performed using pre-built simulated robots that must be sent to the organizers in advance. The prizes for the first 3 best teams will be announced later. Stay tuned, we will keep you posted. CyberRescue Organization Team PS: Please forward to interested colleagues. From jiang at gradschool.uni-luebeck.de Mon Jun 15 00:45:19 2009 From: jiang at gradschool.uni-luebeck.de (Chaoqun Jiang) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:45:19 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] =?iso-8859-15?q?PhD_positions_in_Neuroengine?= =?iso-8859-15?q?ering=2C_Robotics_and_Navigation=2C_University_of_L=FCbec?= =?iso-8859-15?q?k=2C_Germany?= Message-ID: <4A35FC0F.4070709@gradschool.uni-luebeck.de> The Graduate School for Computing in Medicine and Life Sciences (http://www.gradschool.uni-luebeck.de/) at the University of L?beck invites applications for 3-year PhD scholarships in the fields of Brain Imaging, Robotics, Brain Plasticity, Navigation Methods, Neuroanatomy, Human-Computer Interfacing, Minimal Invasive Interventions, Computing in Structural and Cell Biology. Project details can be found at http://www.gradschool.uni-luebeck.de/?q=node/5. *Application deadline: June 30, 2009.* Requirements: Candidates are expected to have a master's degree (or its equivalent) in computer science, mathematics or engineering. Prior experiences in scientific publishing (during the university study or industry employment) are of advantage. Please prepare all the necessary documents and submit your application online: http://www.gradschool.uni-luebeck.de/?q=node/20. For further information, send email to: management at gradschool.uni-luebeck.de or visit our website at http://www.gradschool.uni-luebeck.de/. -- Graduate School for Computing in Medicine and Life Sciences University of L?beck Ratzeburger Allee 160 23538 L?beck, Germany Tel.+49 451 500 5670 Fax +49 451 500 5202 jiang at gradschool.uni-luebeck.de http://www.gradschool.uni-luebeck.de From d.cernea at jacobs-university.de Sun Jun 14 13:43:04 2009 From: d.cernea at jacobs-university.de (Cernea, Daniel) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:43:04 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Summer School on Advanced Intelligent Systems - Registration Deadline Approaching Message-ID: <58BED9760CCDC140B2B4397ABE8A778F9B5D6CEE74@SXCHCL01.jacobs.jacobs-university.de> Call for Participation: --- IURS Summer School on Advanced Intelligent Systems --- July 01-10, 2009 - New Delhi, India http://www.iurs.org/summer2009adv.html Deadline for registration: June 25, 2009 Intelligent systems find applications in practically every field of study. With growing interest in robotics, wireless sensor networks, machine learning and other areas and also the boundaries between these different fields reducing due to many crossover concepts. It is now important for researchers from one of these fields to at least have an understanding of not only theoretical, but practical concepts from these areas as well. Towards this goal, IURS, a non-profit research organization, building on its history of conducting summer courses for 3 years is now also organizing an advanced intelligent systems summer school. At this school, students will not only get to hear lectures that teach them concepts from areas of intelligent systems, but they will also participate in practical exercises to learn about methods and practices as well. Furthermore, at the end of the summer school they will work along with the faculty on research projects that will have publishable goals. The topics that will be covered in this summer school include: - Sensor Networks - Robotic Sensing - Localization and Mapping - Computer Vision - Image Processing - Machine Learning - Applications of concepts The final project shortlisted at the moment involves (but is not limited to): - 3D point cloud registration - Robot localization - Map building - Uncertainty visualization - Invariant feature extraction from 3D point clouds Registration Registration for Indian residents is Rs. 6,500 and they may use the registration form online to register. Foreign residents must contact Anuj Sehgal at anuj at iurs.org or Shekhar Mehta at shekhar at iurs.org for registration instructions. The registration charges will be US$ 250 for the entire summer school and assistance in securing accommodation for the period will also be provided. In case you have any further questions, please reply to this email and I will be happy to answer them. Warm Regards, Daniel Cernea ____________________ Dipl.-Ing. Daniel CERNEA Master Student in Smart Systems Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH Phone : +49 (0)421 7086 344 Mobile: +49 (0)176 8501 9201 Stader Landstra?e 46 | 28719 Bremen | Germany From bhaskara at willowgarage.com Mon Jun 15 11:35:48 2009 From: bhaskara at willowgarage.com (Bhaskara Marthi) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:35:48 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CALL FOR PAPERS: ICAPS'09 Workshop on Bridging The Gap Between Task And Motion Planning Message-ID: <6f3c23d70906151135j32799cf5l3adfbfa32ae379b@mail.gmail.com> CALL FOR PAPERS: ICAPS'09 Workshop on Bridging The Gap Between Task And Motion Planning WHEN/WHERE: September 19/20, 2009 in Thessaloniki, Greece (co-located with 19th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling) DATES: June 23, 2009: Submission deadline for papers for all workshops July 22, 2009: Notification of accept/reject for workshop submissions September 19 or 20, 2009: Workshop ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Maxim Likhachev, University of Pennsylvania Bhaskara Marthi, Willow Garage Inc. Conor McGann, Willow Garage Inc. David E. Smith, NASA Ames Research Center ABSTRACT: It has been a longstanding goal of AI and robotics to build autonomous vehicles that can move around on land, in the sea, and in the air and interact with the physical world to achieve their goals. In recent years, the increasing availability of capable mobile platforms (ground vehicles, submersibles, small helicopters and small UAVs), manipulators, and high-precision sensors, coupled with advances in perception, localization and planning algorithms, have brought us much closer to achieving this goal. Robotic platforms have demonstrated autonomous navigation in large complex spaces for prolonged periods of time while robotic manipulators have demonstrated autonomous manipulation of objects in cluttered spaces. However, effective, task-oriented motion inevitably requires a principled approach to integrating task planning and motion planning that is capable of operating in real-time in dynamic and complex environments. Historically, general but discrete task planning has been considered extensively in the AI community while specialized continuous motion planning has been the focus in robotics. The goal of this workshop is to encourage the interaction of ideas between researchers in these fields, to make researchers in one community aware of the research issues faced by those in the other, to find synergy in the research approaches, and to establish promising directions for future research on task and motion planning integration. The topics of interest include (but are not limited to) the following: * Combining geometric, kinematic, and dynamic constraints with reasoning about tasks, time and resources * Integration of discrete and continuous representations * Efficient planning in high-dimensional continuous spaces * Hierarchical/multi-level planning architectures * Incremental techniques for online motion and task planning * Techniques for integrating task and manipulation planning * Planning with compliant motion * Planning for cooperative manipulation by multiple effectors * Planning for whole body control We encourage papers that demonstrate results for task achievement in either simulation or on real mobile platforms. PAPER SUBMISSION: Papers should conform to the AAAI style guide, with a maximum length of 10 pages (8 pages preferred). We also welcome the submission of 2-3 page position papers. Submission site is http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=btamp09 . TRAVEL FUNDING: Limited travel funding from Willow Garage will be available to presenters based on merit and need. PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Rachid Alami, LAAS/CRNS Michael Beetz, Technische Universitaet Muenchen Wolfram Burgard, University of Freiburg Sachin Chitta, Willow Garage Rosen Diankov, Carnegie Mellon University Minh Do, Xerox PARC Alberto Finzi, University di Roma ``La Sapienza'' Brian Gerkey, Willow Garage Kaijen Hsiao, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ari Jonsson, University of Reykyavik Lydia Kavraki, Rice University Sven Koenig, University of Southern California Jean-Claude Latombe, Stanford University Tomas Lozano Perez, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Erion Plaku, Johns Hopkins University Nico Meuleau, NASA Roland Phillipsen, Stanford University Ioan Sucan, Rice University David Wettergreen, Carnegie Mellon University Jason Wolfe, University of California, Berkeley From adrianb at kth.se Sun Jun 14 15:51:04 2009 From: adrianb at kth.se (Adrian Bishop) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:51:04 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Papers (Deadline Approaching) - Symposium on Information Driven Spatial Representations Message-ID: Call for Papers - Symposium on Information Driven Spatial Representations Deadline - 30th June 2009 (visit the conference website http://www.issnip.org/2009/ or http://www.issnip.org/2009/guide.html) --------------- The Symposium on Information Driven Spatial Representations will be held in conjunction with the 5th International Conference on Intelligent Sensors, Sensor Networks, and Information Processing (ISSNIP), in Melbourne, Australia during 7th-10th of December, 2009. This symposium will focus on novel representations and uses of space in wireless sensor networks and autonomous systems. Wireless sensor networks and autonomous systems are naturally spatially aware systems. That is, the functions performed by such systems inherently require the system to maintain some form of spatial representation. The manner in which space is represented, and used, can drastically affect the functional performance of any spatially aware system. The purpose of this symposium is to highlight novel research related to spatially aware systems. In particular, we invite contributions on topics including, but not limited to: - Geometric localization and tracking methods; - Sensor placement and movement strategies to improve localization performance; - Stochastic geometry and property analysis of random sensor networks; - Novel spatial representations and mapping algorithms for autonomous systems; - Efficient spatial representations for large-scale and 3D mapping; - Spatial representations for cognitive robotics, human-robot interaction and spatial reasoning; - Novel coordinate representations or coordinate transforms for spatially aware systems; - Sensor array configuration optimization for enhanced sensing; - Control and planning on spatially interesting manifolds; - Novel spatial representations for (distributed) geometric control of mobile multi-agent systems. Articles should be submitted to the symposium via the ISSNIP conference submission website by June 30th, 2009. Visit the website, http://www.issnip.org/2009/, for further submission guidelines and author instructions (or email the chairs). Papers are to be submitted via the EDAS submission system (linked from http://www.issnip.org/2009/guide.html) and authors should follow the link for this particular symposium once inside the EDAS system. --------------- Symposium Co-Chairs: Pubudu N. Pathirana, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia (pubudu.pathirana at deakin.edu.au) Adrian N. Bishop, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden (adrian.bishop at ieee.org) Technical Program Committee: Peter Brotchie (Geelong Hospital) Mark Campbell (Cornell University) Jia Fang (Yale University) Patric Jensfelt (Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)) Sisil Kumarawadu (University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka) Thrishantha Nanayakkara (Harvard University) Jayanta C. Panditaratne (Hewlett Packard, USA) Andrey V. Savkin (University of New South Wales (UNSW)) Andreas Savvides (Yale University) Mike Smith (University of Calgary) Joachim Speidel (University of Stuttgart) Lanka Udawatte (University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka) From nishimura at jeap.org Mon Jun 15 21:38:38 2009 From: nishimura at jeap.org (Nishimura) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:38:38 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP IROS 2009 Workshop "Synergistic Intelligence: approach to human intelligence through understanding and design of cognitive development" Message-ID: <20090616133000.DFA5.E95AB80@jeap.org> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Workshop Synergistic Intelligence: approach to human intelligence through understanding and design of cognitive development to be held in conjunction with IROS 2009 October 11 to 15, 2009 St. Louis, MO, USA Call for Papers/Participation ------------------------------------------------------------------------- MOTIVATION AND OBJECTIVES ------------------------- Emergence of higher order cognitive functions through learning and development is one of the greatest challenges in trying to make artificial systems much more intelligent since existing systems are of limited capability even in fixed environments. Related disciplines are not simply robotics and AI but also brain science, neuroscience, cognitive science, developmental psychology, sociology, and so on, and we share this challenge. An obvious fact is that we have too poor and little knowledge and too superficial implementations based on such knowledge to declare that we have only one unique solution to the mystery. The first step to conquer this situation is to discuss how higher order cognitive functions are acquired involving the context and dynamics of the whole system instead of separately realizing each higher order function as a single module. A promising approach is a synthetic one based on both the explanation theory and more importantly the design theory that is expected to fill in the gap between the existing disciplines instead of staying at one closed discipline, and to provide new understanding of human cognitive development. This WS first revisits the cognitive developmental robotics (Asada et al. 2001) that aims at providing new understanding how human's higher cognitive functions develop by means of a synthetic approach, and expands discussion toward the principle of cognitive development. Next, several speakers including not only confirmed but also ones whose papers are submitted and accepted present their position papers with some experimental results. Finally, panel discussion on the new research direction of understanding and designing body, brain, and mind will be held. Related web pages http://www.jeap.org/ TOPICS ------ The principal topics of this workshop are - cognitive developmental robotics - learning and development - emergence of cognitive functions - emergence of dynamic motions - artificial muscles - physical interaction - social interaction - scaffolding by caregiver - mutual imitation - contingency INTENDED AUDIENCE ----------------- Robotics researcher in learning and development, humanrobot interaction, cognitive robotics, social behavior, brainbased robotics. TENTATIVE SCHEDULE ------------------- 09:00-09:30 An overview of the project and the purpose of the WS by Asada 09:30-10:00 Physio-SI by Associate Prof. Koh Hosoda, Osaka Univ. 10:00-10:30 Perso-SI by Prof. Yasuo Kuniyoshi, The Univ. of Tokyo 10:30-10:45 Coffee break 10:45-11:15 Socio-SI by Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro, Osaka Univ. 11:15-11:45 SI-mech by Prof. Toshio Inui, Kyoto Univ. 11:45-13:00 Lunch 13:00-15:30 paper presentation selected from the general submissions (5-6 papers) 15:30-15:45 Coffee break 15:45-17:00 Panel discussion ORGANIZER --------- Minoru ASADA - Research Director, ASADA Synergistic Intelligence Project, Japan Science and Tecnology Agency - Professor, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University DEAD LINE --------- August 01 2009 Submission of contributions August 05 2009 Notification of acceptance August 10 2009 Final paper submission October 11 2009 Workshop FORMATS ------- We suggest using the IROS 2009 formats, which you find on http://www.iros09.mtu.edu/index.php/Papers CONTACT ------- NISHIMURA Ken Asada Synergistic Intelligence Project Japan Science and Tecnology Agency From jmh at cs.utah.edu Tue Jun 16 07:09:34 2009 From: jmh at cs.utah.edu (John Hollerbach) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:09:34 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJRR OnlineFirst articles for 29 May to 15 June 2009 Message-ID: <4A37A79E.6000507@cs.utah.edu> New IJRR OnlineFirst articles have been made available (for the period 29 May 2009 to 15 June 2009): 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 published 15 June 2009, 10.1177/0278364909339077 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909339077v1 An Ultrasound-Based Localization Algorithm for Catheter Ablation Guidance in the Left Atrium Aditya Koolwal, Federico Barbagli, Christopher Carlson, and David Liang The International Journal of Robotics Research published 8 June 2009, 10.1177/0278364909105332 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909105332v1 A Robotic Neural Interface for Autonomous Positioning of Extracellular Recording Electrodes Michael T Wolf, Jorge G Cham, Edward A Branchaud, Grant H Mulliken, Joel W Burdick, and Richard A Andersen The International Journal of Robotics Research published 8 June 2009, 10.1177/0278364908103788 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364908103788v1 MRI-based Medical Nanorobotic Platform for the Control of Magnetic Nanoparticles and Flagellated Bacteria for Target Interventions in Human Capillaries Sylvain Martel, Ouajdi Felfoul, Jean-Baptiste Mathieu, Arnaud Chanu, Samer Tamaz, Mahmood Mohammadi, Martin Mankiewicz, and Nasr Tabatabaei The International Journal of Robotics Research published 8 June 2009, 10.1177/0278364908104855 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364908104855v1 The Epi.q-1 Hybrid Mobile Robot Giuseppe Quaglia, Daniela Maffiodo, Walter Franco, Silvia Appendino, and Riccardo Oderio The International Journal of Robotics Research published 4 June 2009, 10.1177/0278364909336806 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909336806v2 A Leader-Follower Formation Control of Multiple Nonholonomic Mobile Robots Incorporating Receding- Horizon Scheme Jian Chen, Dong Sun, Jie Yang, and Haoyao Chen The International Journal of Robotics Research published 28 May 2009, 10.1177/0278364909104290 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909104290v2 From tpadir at gmail.com Tue Jun 16 07:53:11 2009 From: tpadir at gmail.com (Taskin Padir) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:53:11 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: IEEE Int. Conf. on Technologies for Robot Applications (2-week notice) Message-ID: <4A37B1D7.7090200@wpi.edu> We would like to remind you that the deadline for abstract submissions is in 2 weeks. --------------------------- IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Practical Robot Applications (TePRA) November 9-10, 2009 Greater Boston Area, Massachusetts, USA www.ieeerobot-tepra.org 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. www.ieeerobot-tepra.org IMPORTANT DATES July 1, 2009: Submission of abstracts August 15, 2009: Notification of acceptance September 15, 2009: Submission of final contributions Email: info at ieeerobot-tepra.org Website: www.ieeerobot-tepra.org -- Taskin Padir, Ph.D. Robotics Engineering Electrical and Computer Engineering Worcester Polytechnic Institute Ph. +(508)831-6427 From Thorsteinn.Rognvaldsson at hh.se Mon Jun 15 13:45:52 2009 From: Thorsteinn.Rognvaldsson at hh.se (=?utf-8?Q?Thorsteinn_R=C3=B6gnvaldsson?=) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:45:52 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Assistant professorship for intelligent vehicles Message-ID: <666219401.3804861245098752070.JavaMail.root@tomlin.hh.se> Halmstad University is, in collaboration with Volvo Technology, looking for a young researcher in the field of autonomous intelligent vehicles. The position is described more at http://www.hh.se/english/abouttheuniversity/vacantpositions (click on link "more" related to professorships in information technology) Halmstad University is on the west coast of Sweden, with 11 500 students, and is known for innovation and research in close collaboration with the industry. Within the IT area there are more than 30 researchers with a PhD degree, 13 of which are professors. The research environment Halmstad Embedded and Intelligent Systems Research, EIS, has about 80 employees, of which 20 are PhD students. The research is well established internationally and is performed in co-operation with leading Swedish multinational companies as well as research based growth companies. An assistant professorship position can be promoted to a permanent professorship (lectureship) within four years if the research and teaching performance is excellent. For questions, please contact Thorsteinn Rognvaldsson (denni at hh.se). From ryad.benosman at upmc.fr Tue Jun 16 05:38:07 2009 From: ryad.benosman at upmc.fr (R.B Benosman) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:38:07 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 3rd Symposium on Language and Robots - LANGRO'2009 (second call) In-Reply-To: <4A327D8A.7010601@unizar.es> References: <4A327D8A.7010601@unizar.es> Message-ID: <5A081BAE-EAF1-41BC-AC76-B976774E0D79@upmc.fr> ------------- SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS --------- =================================================================== 3rd Symposium on Language and Robots - LANGRO'2009 September 9-11, Paris, France http://isir.robot.jussieu.fr/langro09/ =================================================================== Aims and Scope and Topics ------------------------- This symposium, organized by the Distributed Language Group (DLG), aims to explore synergies and identify areas of collaboration between robotics and the language sciences. As starting point for the discussions, a perspective is proposed in which language is seen as a dynamic and distributed cognitive process. This edition will also enquire into and discuss links between language and neurons and the possible existence of a "neural theory of language" that can be applied to intelligent biorobotics. The origins, evolution and acquisition of language and its role in human societies have long been studied by philosophers, linguists, psychologists, neuroscientists and cognitive scientists. In recent years, a distributed view of cognition and language has emerged. Control of embodied action is seen as an emergent property of a distributed system composed of brain, body and environment. Language ceases to be a formal underlying system and, instead, becomes a heterogeneous set of culturally distributed processes. As a representation, language is a cultural product, perpetually open- ended and incomplete, and partly ambiguous. Language acquisition and evolution involve not only internal, but also cultural, social and affective processes. In this context, many research questions open up: How does language transform human cognitive processes? How is language grounded in perception and action? In what ways does human phenomenology depend on linguistic experience? Can a distributed perspective on language clarify the nature of silent rehearsal (internal thought processes)? How does this relate to consciousness? How is language used to achieve joint experience? What is the embodied basis of cognition and social semiosis? While the language sciences have, until now, focused on language in human societies, the robotics and artificial intelligence communities are becoming increasingly active in developing user-friendly robots. These machines are flexible, adaptable and easy to command and instruct. As artificial agents, they need to cognitively interpret perception and action, accumulate and manipulate semantic information for decision-making and interact with human subjects using natural language. The symposium will explore the following issues: * How can robots ground and use language for practical applications? * How can robots be used for empirical work in the language sciences? * How can robots engage with distributed language ? * What does robotics imply for the language sciences? * What questions do roboticists want to ask the language sciences? * How can the language sciences contribute to the theoretical and practical study of how humans interact with robots? * How can the language sciences evolve to address societies that include robots? With the growth of research in neuroscience, questions on the following issues are especially welcome: * Can a neural theory of language exist? If so, what would it look like? If not, how can linguistics be linked with neuroscience? * What is the possible basis of neural semantics? How can that connect to the interaction-based/distributed perspective on language? * How can the neuroscience of language inspire new developments in robotics robots? We invite papers that address these questions. To encourage interaction, we welcome speakers from a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds. Keynote speackers ----------------------------------- we have the following confirmed keynote speakers: Bob Port, Indiana University, USA Tom Ziemke, University of Sk?vde, Sweden Simon Thorpe, Centre de Recherche Cerveau et Cognition, France Ren? Doursat, Institut des Syst?mes complexes, France Jean Pierre ROLL, Departement of Neurosciences, Marseille, France Symposium format. ----------------- The symposium will be a 3 days event that gathers researchers from a wide range of backgrounds. The symposium format includes a number of Invited Speakers and a public call for papers. After the symposium, participants will be invited to submit a paper to a special issue of the journal "Adaptive Behavior". Important Dates --------------- Deadline for paper submission EXTENDED: June 31, 2009 Notification of paper acceptance: July 28, 2009 Deadline for final versions: August 15, 2009 Conference dates: September 9-11, 2009 Submission and Reviewing Process -------------------------------- Authors are invited to submit either an abstract or a full-length paper. Full papers can have a length of between 6 and 10 pages, abstracts can have a maximum length of 2 pages. Submitted abstracts and papers will be refereed and selected for half- hour oral presentations on the basis of quality and relevance to the issues the symposium is addressing. Submission should be sent to langro2009 (at isir.fr) in either MS Word or Adobe PDF format. All papers will be reviewed by, at least, three members of the Publication ----------- Accepted papers will be included in the proceedings and will be made accessible through the web. Copies of the proceedings will be available at the symposium. Papers of higher quality will be selected for publication in the special issue of Adaptive Behaviour Journal published by SAGE Publicatiion. Organizers ------------------------- Ryad Benosman, ryad.benosman at upmc.fr (University Pierre and Marie Curie) Remi Van Trijp, remi at csl.sony.fr, 5, (SONY CSL) Sio-Hoi Ieng, sio-hoi.ieng at upmc.fr, (University Pierre and Marie Curie) Angelo Arleo, angelo.arleo at upmc.fr, (University Pierre and Marie Curie) Program Committee ----------------- Luis Seabra Lopes, (Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal) Tony Belpaeme, (University of Plymouth, United Kingdom) Stephen Cowley, (University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom) Michael L. Anderson, (University of Maryland) Luc Steels, (SONY CSL) Ryad Benosman, (University Pierre and Marie Curie) Remi Van Trijp, (SONY CSL) Sio-Hoi Ieng, (University Pierre and Marie Curie) Angelo Arleo, (University Pierre and Marie Curie) From ffernand at inf.uc3m.es Wed Jun 17 01:49:27 2009 From: ffernand at inf.uc3m.es (Fernando Fernandez Rebollo) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:49:27 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICAPS 2009: Last Call for Workshop Papers Message-ID: <4A38AE17.9000009@inf.uc3m.es> 19th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling ICAPS-2009, http://icaps09.icaps-conference.org/ September 19-23, 2009, Thessaloniki, Greece [apologies for multiple posting] The Organizing Committee of the 19th International Conference on Automated Planning & Scheduling (ICAPS'09) invites paper submissions to the ICAPS-2009 Workshops. ICAPS-2009 workshop program consists of 10 workshops listed below. Submission deadlines for all workshops is uniform and at midnight June 23th Pacific Time; please check the web pages of the workshops for potential deadline extensions. Workshop List: WS1: 4th International workshop on Planning and Plan Execution for Real-World Systems co-chairs: Felix Ingrand and Frederic Py Web: http://www.mbari.org/autonomy/ICAPS09-workshop/ WS2: COPLAS'09: Workshop on Constraint Satisfaction Techniques for Planning and Scheduling Problems co-chairs: Miguel Salido and Roman Bartak Web: http://www.dsic.upv.es/~msalido/workshop-icaps09/index.html WS3: International Workshop on Intelligent Security co-chairs: Mark Boddy and Stefan Edelkamp Web: http://www.tzi.de/~edelkamp/secart/ WS4: AI P&S for Ontologies and Semantic Web co-chairs: Juan Fernandez, Laura Sebastia and Paolo Traverso Web: http://decsai.ugr.es/~faro/Workshop09 WS5: Verification and Validation of Planning and Scheduling Systems co-chairs: Saddek Bensalem, Klaus Havelund Kim and Guldstrand Larsen Web: http://www-vvps09.imag.fr/ WS6: Workshop on Planning and Learning co-chairs: Amanda Coles, Andrew Coles, Sergio Jimenez Celorrio, Susana Fernandez Arregui and Tomas de la Rosa Web: http://www.plg.inf.uc3m.es/learning-icaps09/ WS7: SPARK: Scheduling and Planning Applications woRKshop co-chairs: Luis Castillo, Gabriella Cortellessa and Neil Yorke-Smith Web: http://decsai.ugr.es/~lcv/SPARK/09/index.htm WS8: Workshop on Heuristics for Domain-independent Planning co-chairs: Carmel Domshlak, Malte Helmert and Joerg Hoffmann Web: http://ie.technion.ac.il/~dcarmel/heuristics-icaps09/ WS9: Bridging The Gap Between Task And Motion Planning co-chairs: Maxim Likhachev, Bhaskara Marthi, Conor McGann and David E. Smith Web: http://people.csail.mit.edu/bhaskara/icaps09-ws/ WS10: Generalized Planning: Macros, Loops, Domain Control co-chairs: Christian Fritz, Sheila McIlraith, Siddharth Srivastava and Shlomo Zilberstein Web: http://www.cs.umass.edu/~siddhart/genplan09 You can find more details for all workshops through their web-sites, that are accessible through the conference's site: http://icaps09.icaps-conference.org/workshops/workshops.htm. The workshop program will run prior to the main conference September 19 and 20, 2009. Paper length for each event is on the workshops web site. All workshops will use the ICAPS09 format available at http://www.aaai.org/Publications/Author/author.php Important Dates: * Workshop Paper Submission: June 23th, 2009 (check the web pages of the workshops for potential deadline extensions) * Camera-ready proceedings: August 8th, 2009 * Workshops: September 19th and 20th, 2009 Workshop Program Chairs: * Kanna Rajan, Principal Researcher for Autonomy, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, California * Ioannis Vlahavas, Professor Dept. of Informatics Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Workshop Local Organizing Chair: * Dimitris Vrakas, Lecturer, Dept. of Informatics Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Fernando Fernandez Publicity Chair From hayward at cim.mcgill.ca Thu Jun 18 02:40:23 2009 From: hayward at cim.mcgill.ca (Vincent Hayward) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:40:23 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Post Doctoral Position at McGill University Message-ID: A postdoctoral position to be held at McGill University (Montreal) in collaboration with Universit? Pierre & Marie Curie (Paris) is available immediately in the area of nonlinear control systems. Novel approaches to the design of controllers for underactuated mechanical systems will be investigated. Specific applications include locomotion control of humanoid robots. We anticipate to explore approaches based on approximations of the controllability Lie algebras of such systems alongside with approximate energy shaping. Familiarity with geometric (Lie algebraic) nonlinear control, controlled Lagrangian, as well as passivity-based approaches will be helpful. Please provide a CV, a brief statement of research interests, and two or three references to Hannah Michalska and Vincent Hayward From iida at csail.mit.edu Wed Jun 17 11:19:09 2009 From: iida at csail.mit.edu (Fumiya Iida) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:19:09 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Posdoc/PhD Positions at ETH Zurich, Bio-Inspired Robotics Laboratory Message-ID: <4A39339D.2060800@csail.mit.edu> ----------------------------------------------- Posdoc/PhD Open Positions Bio-Inspired Robotics Laboratory (Director: Fumiya Iida) Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) Switzerland http://www.iris.ethz.ch/ ----------------------------------------------- Posdoc/PhD positions will be available from August 2009 at my new research group, Bio-Inspired Robotics Laboraotory, Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ), Switzerland. The research interests of the Bio-Inspired Robotics Lab lie at the intersection of robotics and biology. Through abstraction of the design principles of biological systems, we develop core competences which are the design and control of dynamic mechatronics systems, bionic sensor technologies, and computational optimization techniques. Our main goals are to contribute to a deeper understanding of adaptivity and autonomy of animals through the investigation of dynamic robots, and to engineer novel robotic applications which are more adaptive, resilient, and energy efficient. These positions belong to a new government funded research project, "Bio-Inspired Motor Control for Underactuated Robotic Systems", in which we tackle with the problems of design optimization in underactuated systems, control optimization of "dynamics programmability", and dynamic embodied cognition. For more information about the background of this project, please visit my website: http://people.csail.mit.edu/iida/ (1) Requirements Applicants should have diploma/master degrees in one of the following disciplines, but degrees from the other areas are also considered if relevant. * Mechanical, Electronic, Control Engineering, Robotics * Physics, Biology, Biomechanics * Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence (2) Conditions * Main duty includes research activities, lab organization, and teaching assistant * Starting August 2009 or at your earliest convenience * These positions will be fully funded based on the SNF/ETHZ regulations (3) To Apply Please send an email to Fumiya Iida (iida at csail.mit.edu) with your cv and a brief introduction of your research interests and plans. The selection process will be closed as soon as the positions are filled. -- Fumiya IIDA Dr. sc. nat. Robot Locomotion Group Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Massachusetts Institute of Technology 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA Office: 32-380 Phone: +1-617-253-7095 Fax: +1-617-253-0778 URL: http://people.csail.mit.edu/iida/ e-mail: iida at csail.mit.edu From Kazuhito.Yokoi at aist.go.jp Thu Jun 18 17:25:40 2009 From: Kazuhito.Yokoi at aist.go.jp (Kazuhito Yokoi) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:25:40 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Humanoids2009: Call for Papers Message-ID: <20090619091626.21A5.D16997B0@aist.go.jp> Dear potential contributors of Humanoids2009, Humanoids2009 will have the FIRM deadline of paper submission, as stated in the web, Wednesday June 24th 23:59:59. PST (US Pacific Time). All authors should submit a (draft) paper before the deadline, we are closing the submission of new papers and registration of new authors. However the submitted papers are still allowed to be updated until Friday July 3rd 23:59:59 PST (US Pacific Time). ********************************************************************* - Paper Submission (draft paper): June 24th 23:59:59 PST (US Pacific Time) FIRM - Paper Modifications are allowed until July 3rd 23:59:59 PST. ********************************************************************* ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2009 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids09) Paris, France - December 7-10, 2009 http://www.humanoids2009.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The 9th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots will take place on December 7-10, 2009 in the historical and living "Quartier Latin" of Paris, France. The conference will start at the Paris 6 University, take a walk to the Ecole de Medecine and end with a special day at the prestigious historical College de France. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Scope: Humanoid Robotics is an increasing research topic stimulated both by the perspective of highly challenging applications in servicing robotics and by renewing fundamental research topics in Robotics at large such as Mechatronics, Control, Decision Making and Human-Robot Interaction. More than that Humanoid Robotics opens synergetic researches towards Life and Human Science. Such openness will constitute the special theme of Humanoids09. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Topics: Papers as well as suggestions for tutorials and workshops from academic and industrial communities and government agencies are solicited in all areas of humanoid robots. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: . Design and control of humanoid robots . Humanoid robot platforms for applications . Software and hardware architecture, system integration . Whole-body motion planning and control . Stability and dynamics for humanoid robots . Perception, action and cognition for humanoid robots . Learning strategies for humanoid robots . Humanoid grasping and manipulation . Human motion imitation by humanoids . Human-humanoid interaction . Planning, localization and navigation . Human body and behavior modeling . Neuro-robotics and humanoids Contributed papers will be presented either at the single track oral session or during the poster sessions. All contributed papers will appear without distinction in the proceedings of the conference. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Special day: A special day will be organized in the prestigious historical College de France. It will be dedicated to a set of invited keynote lectures focusing on the openness of Humanoid Robotics research towards Life and Human Sciences. Lecturers will include the following speakers: . Alain Berthoz, College de France, Paris . Olivier Faugeras, Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris . Francesco Lacquaniti, Universita degli Studi di Roma "Tor Vergata" . Yoshi Nakamura, The University of Tokyo . Stephan Schaal, University of Southern California, Los Angeles ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Important Dates . June 1st, 2009 - Proposals for Tutorials/Workshops . June 24th, 2009 - Submission of full-length papers . September 1st, 2009 - Notification of Paper Acceptance . October 1st, 2009 - Submission of final camera-ready papers . December 7th, 2009 - Workshop and tutorials at Paris 6 University . December 8-9th, 2009 - Conference at Ecole de Medecine . December 10th, 2009 - Keynote lectures --- College de France ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Paper Submission: Submitted papers MUST BE in Portable Document Format (PDF). Papers must be written in English. Six (6) camera-ready pages, including figures and references, are allowed for each paper. Up to two (2) additional pages are allowed for a charge of 80 EUROS for each additional page. Papers over 8 pages will NOT be reviewed/accepted. Detailed instructions for paper submissions and format can be found at: http://www.humanoids2009.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Organizing committee General Conference Chair Jean-Paul Laumond - LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France Keynote Lecture Chair Alain Berthoz - College de France, Paris, France Program Chair Kazuhito Yokoi - AIST, Tsukuba, Japan Program co-Chairs Tamim Asfour - Karlsruhe University, Germany George Lee - Purdue University, USA Workshop and Tutorial Chairs Fethi Ben Ouezdou --- LISV, Versailles, France Dennis Hong --- Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, USA Award Chair Oussama Khatib --- Stanford University, USA Local Chair Philippe Bidaud --- ISIR, Paris, France Financial Chair Nicolas Mansard --- LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France Webmaster and Publication Chair Anthony Mallet --- LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France Conference Secretary Eiichi Yoshida --- AIST, Tsukuba, Japan ------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking forward to seeing you in Paris ! Kazuhito Yokoi, Program Chair --------------------------------------------------------------- Kazuhito YOKOI, Ph.D Leader, Humanoid Research Group Deputy Director Intelligent Systems Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) Central 2, 1-1-1 Umezono, Tsukuba, 305-8568 Japan Phone: +81-29-8617283 Fax: +81-29-8615444 URL: http://www.aist.go.jp/ From nunolau at ua.pt Thu Jun 18 12:45:51 2009 From: nunolau at ua.pt (Nuno Lau) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:45:51 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for participation at CyberRescue@RTSS09 Message-ID: <9C59D7EAA7AF43BDA1EE6E716A0B4D20@fcportugal4> --------------------------------- We apologize for multiple copies. --------------------------------- RTSS 2009 - Real-Time Systems Symposium http://www.rtss.org Students Design Competition CyberRescue at RTSS2009 December 1, 2009 Washington, DC, USA http://robot.unipv.it/cyberrescue-RTSS09/ *** The problem Coordination of a multi-robot system of mobile units for a rescue mission. *** Description The design competition proposed for RTSS 2009 develops around a simulated multi-robot rescue mission. Each team is composed by five mobile autonomous agents that need to find a specific spot in a maze (target) and join there. This challenge falls in the foraging class, one of the canonical testbeds for cooperative robotics, and raises challenges in real-time control for adequate navigation, real-time ad-hoc communication within the team, topology management to keep connectivity, and others that have been addressed by the real-time systems community at large, in the recent years. To make a team and to participate to this challenge is a great way to test skills in real-time programming for both efficient robot navigation and effective ad-hoc communication needed for their cooperation. Complete details, rules and tools are all available at http://robot.unipv.it/cyberrescue-RTSS09/ *** How to participate The interested teams are required to send us an email as soon as possible: this is important for us to plan the event. Contacts information are on the webpage. We require a manifestation of interest by the end of September. All teams will be asked to submit a team report (2-4 pages) and to prepare a short on-site presentation (10-12 minutes). The team reports will be compiled in a proceedings volume and published on the web. Two types of participation are possible: on-site participation and remote participation. The on-site participation requires the team to be present in the event location (Washington DC), and allows to participate to the conference workshops. The remote participation allows the teams to remotely present their proposal in a video-conference during the event, while the actual race will be performed using pre-built simulated robots that must be sent to the organizers in advance. The prizes for the first 3 best teams will be announced later. Stay tuned, we will keep you posted. CyberRescue Organization Team PS: Please forward to interested colleagues. From omozos at googlemail.com Thu Jun 18 01:40:19 2009 From: omozos at googlemail.com (Oscar Martinez) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:40:19 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 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 ppayeur at site.uOttawa.ca Wed Jun 17 11:52:14 2009 From: ppayeur at site.uOttawa.ca (Pierre Payeur) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:52:14 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2nd CFP - ROSE 2009 - IEEE Intl Workshop on RObotic and Sensors Environments Message-ID: [Our apologies if you receive multiple copies of this announcement.] C A L L F O R P A P E R S - ROSE 2009 ***2 weeks left for Manuscript Submission to ROSE 2009*** ROSE 2009 - IEEE International Workshop on RObotic and Sensors Environments - Lecco (Lake Como), Italy, 6-7 November 2009 http://rose.ieee-ims.org =============================================================== Important dates: PAPER SUBMISSION: 3 July 2009 Notification : 21 August 2009 Final manuscript: 11 September 2009 --------------------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS The focus of the ROSE conference series is on sensing and perception modalities, as well as their impact on autonomous robotics and intelligent systems development and applications. Papers are solicited on all aspects of Sensing Systems and Technologies for Robotics and Industrial Automation, Human-Robot Cooperation, Multimodal or Distributed Sensing, and Perception Technologies. These include but are not limited to: sensor controlled system operation; collaborative manufacturing; inspection and quality control; human and robot interaction; robot teach-in; tele-operation; robot manipulation; mobile robotics; emergent applications; rescue robots; swarm robotics; robot sensors and vision; environment monitoring; intelligent sensing; machine vision and image processing; 3D sensing and modeling; signal processing and sensor fusion; new sensor technologies, distributed or wireless sensor networks. Submit your extended abstract (4-6 pages) or draft version of full paper electronically as a PDF-format file using the web submission form available at: http://rose.ieee-ims.org Accepted papers will be published in ROSE 2009 Proceedings and be included in IEEE Xplore. SPECIAL ISSUE of IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement Authors of accepted papers that will be presented at the conference will also be eligible to submit a technically extended version of their manuscript for publication in a Special Issue of IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement. ROSE 2009 is sponsored by the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society, and organized by the following technical committees: TC-15 Virtual Systems in Measurements TC-22 Intelligent Measurement Systems TC-27 Human-Computer Interface and Interaction TC-28 Instrumentation for Robotics and Automation TC-30 Security and Contraband Detection General Chairs: Cesare Alippi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy Pierre Payeur, University of Ottawa, Canada Technical Program Chairs: Andrea Bonarini, Politecnico di Milano, Italy Pinhas Ben-Tzvi, The George Washington University, USA ------------- Best regards, Pierre Payeur & Cesare Alippi ROSE 2009 - General Chairs From ryagoda at gmail.com Tue Jun 16 12:19:46 2009 From: ryagoda at gmail.com (Rosemarie Yagoda) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:19:46 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CALL FOR PAPERS FOR SPECIAL ISSUE OF JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE ENGINEERING AND DECISION MAKING Message-ID: <49A464B3-6933-4757-A76C-C1E0DBF71971@gmail.com> CALL FOR PAPERS FOR SPECIAL ISSUE OF JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE ENGINEERING AND DECISION MAKING Improving Human-Robot Interaction in Complex Operational Environments: Translating Theory into Practice The last decade has seen an unprecedented proliferation in the use of robots in a broad range of complex domains such as urban search-and- rescue, military operations (e.g., explosive ordinance disposal, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), scientific exploration in underwater and space expeditions, law enforcement (e.g., bomb squads), manufacturing, and healthcare (e.g., tele-robotic surgery). Remotely controlled ground, aerial, sea surface, and underwater robotic vehicles are being utilized as tools to safely extend the sensory and psychomotor capabilities of humans to remote environments. More importantly, with the ever-increasing technological sophistication in their design and capabilities, robots are becoming more than mere tools but rather quasi-team members whose tasks and behaviors have to be integrated with the task requirements and expectations of their human teammates. Accordingly, in the past decade, the scientific research community has focused considerable attention on developing a better understanding of the technical and social issues that affect human-robot interaction (HRI), particularly in the context of teams. To increase the utility of this growing body of work, researchers must be able to translate their theories and empirical findings into practical, useful guidance for improving HRI across various domains. In turn, these findings could potentially generate new research, such as further empirical validation of proposed design recommendations in different contexts and the development and validation of theoretical and quantitative models of human performance in HRI. The goal of this special issue, therefore, will be to present practical, useful recommendations, that are theoretically-based and empirically-validated, for the design of systems and processes to support HRI in complex operational environments as well as delineate a 'research roadmap' that highlights areas warranting further investigation. We invite theoretical, methodological, and empirical papers that address issues including (but not limited to) the following topic areas: ? Sensor Interpretation and Integration: information visualization; object recognition; motion awareness, etc. ? Manipulation: tele-operation and motor control such as during mine removal, USAR, and RSTA, etc. ? Navigation: local and global spatial comprehension; robot localization; motion awareness; cognitive maps, etc. ? Planning: decision-making; task prioritization; contingency planning; dynamic re-planning, etc. ? Multiple Robot Operations: operator-to-robot ratio; attention (focused and divided); task switching; situation awareness; adaptive automation, etc. ? Team Performance: human-human group dynamics; collaboration and coordination; shared situation awareness, etc. ? Trust and Acceptance: human-robot group dynamics; anthropomorphism; system reliability, etc. ? Technological Issues: system capabilities and limitations; latency; bandwidth; use of multiple modalities, etc. ? Research Issues: scaled real-world testbeds vs. simulated virtual environments; platform-specific vs. platform-general considerations (e.g., UGV vs. UAV); metrics / measures and benchmarks; individual differences, etc. All contributors are asked to include in their manuscripts a final section that explicitly and succinctly demonstrates how their research findings can be translated into practice. This section should be formatted as a bulleted list of guidelines, lessons learned, or implications for practice, with a brief rationale that explains and supports each statement. Manuscripts should be prepared according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Review the JCEDM ?Information for Contributors? webpage [http://www.hfes.org/web/PubPages/JCEDMauthorinfo.pdf ] for more specific instructions. Manuscripts should be no more than 25?30 double-spaced pages. The title page, abstract, and author biographies do not count toward the page limit. The closing date for submissions is 15 November 2009. Please let us know by 15 October 2009 if you are planning to submit a paper. Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to cedm.journal at satechnologies.com , with emails entitled ?Submission for Improving Human-Robot Interaction in Complex Operational Environments.? Please direct inquiries regarding the suitability of work to the Special Issue Guest Editors (see contact information below). For technical questions (e.g., formatting, review status, etc.), please contact Haydee Cuevas, the Administrative Liaison. Special Issue Guest Editors Jennifer M. Riley SA Technologies jennifer at satechnologies.com Patricia L. McDermott Alion Science & Technology pmcdermott at alionscience.com Douglas J. Gillan North Carolina State University djgillan at gwced.ncsu.edu Administrative Liaison Haydee M. Cuevas SA Technologies haydee.cuevas at satechnologies.com From stephane.doncieux at isir.upmc.fr Fri Jun 19 09:56:56 2009 From: stephane.doncieux at isir.upmc.fr (Stephane Doncieux) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:56:56 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IROS'09 Workshop on Evolutionary Design of Robots: extended deadline Message-ID: <4A3BC358.7040509@isir.upmc.fr> Apologies for cross posting. Extended deadline: July, 10th, 2009 CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS Half-day workshop: "Exploring New Horizons in Evolutionary Design of Robots (EvoDeRob)" to be held as part of the IEEE-IROS conference (IROS 2009) October 11, afternoon, St Louis, Missouri USA http://www.isir.fr/evoderob EXTENDED PAPER SUBMISSION DEADLINE: July, 10th, 2009 ------------------------------- SUBMISSION GUIDELINES Authors should submit a 2 to 8 pages article (IEEE double column format) describing the poster to evoderob at isir.fr All accepted papers will be published in the CD proceedings of the IROS workshops. Authors will have the opportunity to present the main lines of their contributions during a poster spotlight session and will have to prepare a poster to encourage specific scientific discussion. ------------------------------- INVITED TALKS: * "Resilient machines", J. Bongard * "Abandoning Objectives and the Search for Novelty", K. Stanley * "Evolutionary algorithms for the design of complex robotics systems", Ph. Bidaud ------------------------------- DESCRIPTION Robot design usually follows a reductionist approach where mechanics, electronics, control loops and software are designed in sequential order, without much ?feedback? from higher level components. While impressive results have been achieved with this methodology, and it is arguably the best suited to human engineers, it neglects numerous situations in which, for instance, a minor change in mechanics can substantially simplify software and/or electronics. Conversely, evolution allows living organisms to take full advantage of interactions across levels, because it provides a automatic and integrated design process that relies only on the effectiveness of its results as a whole. Loosely inspired by nature, Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) now provide mature optimization tools that have successfully been applied to the design of many artifacts, from antennas to complete robots. In robotics, it has culminated in the Evolutionary Robotics research field. Modular robotics, swarm robotics or any robot with non-conventional mechanics (high redundancy, dynamic motion, multi-modality) are challenging robotics applications for which such an integrated approach could prove useful. The workshop will present the most recent fundamental developments of ER, including some not yet transferred to real robotics applications. It also aims at facilitating discussions on ER applications between researchers of the field and potential users. Compared to the main conference, the emphasis will be on fundamental issues rather than on practical implementations. ------------------------------- LIST OF TOPICS * Benchmarks & applications in evolutionary robotics (ER): o what robotics application challenges for future work? o what could be the killer app of ER? * Methodological issues related to ER use in the context of automatic engineering: fitness, genotype, phenotype, selection pressure, algorithm design o bootstrap & premature convergence o genotype and phenotype abstraction level in relation to the problem to be solved o statistical tools relevant in the context of population-based dynamics o models of ecological evolution * Multi-objective approaches * Diversity and novelty in evolutionary robotics * Modularity in genotype, phenotype and selection pressure * Evolution and development * Behavior description * On-line evolutionary robotics * Evolution of swarm robotics ------------------------------- ORGANIZATION * S. Doncieux, Univ. Pierre et Marie Curie, ISIR/CNRS, France. * N. Bredeche, Univ. Paris-Sud, TAO/INRIA, LRI/CNRS, France. * J.-B. Mouret, Univ. Pierre et Marie Curie, ISIR/CNRS, France. ------------------------------- PROGRAM COMMITEE * J. Bongard, University of Vermont. USA. * A.E. Eiben, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands. * E. Haasdijk, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands. * J.-A. Meyer, Univ. Pierre et Marie Curie, ISIR/CNRS, France. * A. Philippides, University of Sussex, UK. * M. Schoenauer, TAO/INRIA, France. ------------------------------- IMPORTANT DATES * Submission deadline: July, 10th, 2009 (EXTENDED DEADLINE) * Notification of acceptance: July, 31st, 2009 * Camera-ready: August, 15th, 2009 * Workshop: October, 11th, pm ------------------------------- CONTACT evoderob at isir.fr From soro at brl.ac.uk Sun Jun 21 15:20:25 2009 From: soro at brl.ac.uk (soro at brl.ac.uk) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:20:25 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Safety in Human Robot Interaction / International Journal of Social Robotics (Springer). Message-ID: <2872b21ba0.21ba02872b@brl.ac.uk> Dear Colleague, I would like to invite you to contribute to the special issue on ?Safety in Human Robot Interaction? (submission deadline 15 Sep. 2009) http://www.brl.uwe.ac.uk/news/call.pdf of the International Journal of Social Robotics (Springer): http://www.springer.com/engineering/robotics/journal/12369 With reference to the above-titled, please find under the links above the Call for Papers for this special issue. I would appreciate if you could reply to this email, at your earliest convenience, if you and your team could support the Special Issue. Thank you for your consideration in advance, and I look forward to hearing from you soon. Sincerely ======================================================================== Dr. Guido Herrmann & Professor Chris Melhuish, Bristol Robotics Laboratory A joint laboratory of the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England e-mail: soro at brl.ac.uk Webpage: http://www.brl.ac.uk/ http://www.brl.uwe.ac.uk/news/index.html ======================================================================== This email was independently scanned for viruses by McAfee anti-virus software and none were found From hanafiah at nuem.nagoya-u.ac.jp Sun Jun 21 02:02:05 2009 From: hanafiah at nuem.nagoya-u.ac.jp (Hanafiah Yussof) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:02:05 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP IRIS2010: International Symposium on Robotics and Intelligent Sensors Message-ID: <200906210902.AA02376@P3C.nuem.nagoya-u.ac.jp> [We apologize if you receive multiple copies of this email] _____________________________________________________________________ CALL FOR PAPERS International Symposium on Robotics and Intelligent Sensors IRIS2010 http://ns1.ohka.cs.is.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~iris_admin March 8-9, 2010, Nagoya, Japan _____________________________________________________________________ The Graduate School of Information Science, Nagoya University is pleased to announce the first International Symposium on Robotics and Intelligent Sensors (IRIS2010) that will be held in Nagoya University, Japan from 8th to 9th March 2010. The Organizing Committee of IRIS2010 invites submissions of unpublished manuscript related with robotics and intelligent sensors to IRIS2010. For the most up to date information, please visit the conference website: http://ns1.ohka.cs.is.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~iris_admin *Aim and Scope* IRIS2010 is intended to provide technical forum and discussion related with robotics and sensors. The symposium is aimed to bring together students, researchers, scientists, engineers and practitioners to present their latest research findings, ideas, developments and applications related to the various aspects of developmental robots, robot applications, development of intelligent sensors, sensor networks, sensor application in robotics, human sensing, human psychophysics and human-robot interaction. Detailed covered topics can be found on the symposium website. IRIS 2010 will include keynote addresses by eminent scientists as well as special, regular and poster sessions. *Important Dates* September 15, 2009: Submission of abstract (Two pages of paper abstract including text, figures, tables and references) October 31, 2009: Notification of acceptance January 15, 2010: Submission of camera-ready papers (Four pages of final camera-ready papers) January 31, 2010: Early registration *Awards* IRIS2010 will feature the following awards: 1) Best Robotic Paper Award 2) Best Intelligent Sensor Paper Award For each award, finalists are being selected by the Technical Program Committee in consultation with the International Advisory Committee. The finalists will be notify in February 2010 or later. The winner will be chosen at the conference based on both the technical content and presentation. *Journals* The authors of selected best papers will be invited to submit extended versions of their papers after the conference for possible publication at the following journals: 1) International Journal of Social Robotics (Springer publication) 2) International Journal on Smart Sensing and Intelligent Systems *Committees* General Chairs: Masahiro Ohka (Nagoya Univ.) Hanafiah Yussof (Nagoya Univ./UiTM) Secretary: Hanafiah Yussof (Nagoya Univ./UiTM) Organizing Chairs: Genci Capi (Toyama Univ.) Mitsuhiro Yamano (Yamagata Univ.) Abdullah Chami (Nagoya Univ.) Ahmed Jaffar (UiTM) Yuji Kawabe (Nagoya Univ.) International Advisory Committee (IAC): Subhas Chandra Mukhopadhyay (Massey Univ. New Zealand) Shuzi Sam Ge (NU Singapore) Yasuhisa Hirata (Tohoku Univ. Japan) Yasuo Nasu (Yamagata Univ. Japan) Shamsudin Mohd Amin (UTM Malaysia) Ahmad Faris Ismail (IIUM Malaysia) Mohd Rizal Arshad (USM Malaysia) Zahari Taha (UM Malaysia) Marzuki Khalid (CAIRO UTM Malaysia) Camille-Alain Rabbath (DRDC Canada) Maki Habib (AUC Egypt) Ravinder Dahiya (IIT Italy) (Application for IAC is still open. Please contact the conference secretary) 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 contact the conference secretary at hanafiah at nuem.nagoya-u.ac.jp for further details. Email: iris_admin at nuem.nagoya-u.ac.jp, hanafiah at nuem.nagoya-u.ac.jp (Secretariat) Website: http://ns1.ohka.cs.is.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~iris_admin Best regards, Hanafiah Yussof Secretariat IRIS 2010 Nagoya University Japan http://ns1.ohka.cs.is.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~iris_admin ============================================================= Dr. Hanafiah Yussof JSPS Posdoctoral Fellow Nagoya University Graduate School of Information Science Department of Complex Systems Science Furo-cho Chikusa-ku Nagoya 464-8601, Japan E-mail: hanafiah at nuem.nagoya-u.ac.jp hanafi3013 at hotmail.com Tel: +81-52-789-4251, Fax: +81-52-789-4800 or 3129 http://ns1.ohka.cs.is.nagoya-u.ac.jp/ohka_lab2/index_eng.html ============================================================= From wt at barrett.com Mon Jun 22 09:40:50 2009 From: wt at barrett.com (William T. Townsend) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:40:50 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] RSS Workshop on WAM arms Message-ID: <200906221727.n5MHRwR08411@usc.edu> If you are already coming to RSS in Seattle this year, please feel welcome to attend this 1/2-day RSS workshop on creative uses of the WAM arm, which will include 8 distinguished speakers from around the globe. The workshop website is http://www.barrett.com/RSS09/workshop/ Regards, William (Bill) T. Townsend President & CEO wt at barrett.com Ph USA +617-252-9000 x25 Fx USA +617-252-9021 http://www.barrett.com Barrett Technology, Inc. -- Advanced Robot Arms and Hands 625 Mount Auburn Street Cambridge, MA 02138-4555 USA From fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com Tue Jun 23 02:54:56 2009 From: fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com (Fabio Bonsignorio) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:54:56 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Participation and on-line proceedings: 2009 Robotics: Science and Systems Workshop on GOOD EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY IN ROBOTICS Message-ID: Apologies for multiple postings --------------------------------------------------------- Dear All, this is to invite you to attend the RSS2009 Workshop on GOOD EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY IN ROBOTICS. It will be an highly interactive workshop on a hot topic. Check the on-line (pre) proceedings openly accesible at http://www.heronrobots.com/EuronGEMSig/GEMSIGRSS09Program.html See you in Seattle! You will find the program here below All the best Fabio CALL FOR PARTICIPATION 2009 Robotics: Science and Systems Workshop on GOOD EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY IN ROBOTICS Full-day workshop held in conjuntion with the 2009 Robotics: Science and Systems Conference in Seattle, WA, USA on June 28. http://www.roboticsconference.org/index.html Rationale and goals As the complexity of current robotic and embodied intelligent systems grows, it is more and more necessary to define proper experimental approaches and benchmarking procedures. The Special interest group on Good Experimental Methodology was formed by EURON in response to a wide perception -- evidenced by some 90 responses to an email call for interest -- that roboticists could do much better at performing and, particularly, reporting experimental work. A major output of the Special Interest Group is a set of guidelines for good experimental (reporting) practice, which we believe supports the community's wish to produce better experimental work. Equally significant is a series of workshops on Benchmarking and Good Experimental Methodology held at major Robotics conferences. Good experimental work is not novel in robotics: there are many good experimental scientists in our community. However, uniformly good experimental work and reporting has not yet been achieved. The evidence of community interest in the topic mentioned above suggests that the community is willing to take steps to improve in this area. Thus we propose to take the work of good experimental robotics groups and use it to illustrate high-quality experimental work and reporting The workshop will draw out the strengths (and weaknesses) of presented work and encourage sharing and adoption of good practices. It will mix invited and regular presentations and will encourage the discussion and interaction between the participants List of topics - Design of Experiments in Robotics - Execution of Experiments in Robotics - Reporting Experiments in Robotics - Examples of Good Practice - Evaluation of Experimental Robotics Work - Proposals for Promotion of Good Experimental Work Format: The workshop will consist of presentations interleaved with a significant amount of additional time for discussions between the presentations and at the end of the full day single track sessions. Proceedings: The workshop will generate proceedings; selected contributions may be invited to submit to a journal special issue on good experimental robotics. PROGRAM Sunday, June 28th 2009 Coffee at 8:00 and registration Session 1: 9:00 - 10:30 9:00 - 9:10 Introduction 9:10 - 09:30 Publishing Identifiable Experiment Code And Configuration Is Important, Good and Easy Jens Wawerla Richard T. Vaughan School of Computing Science, Simon Fraser University 9:30 - 9:50 Toward a Science of Robotics: Goals and Standards for Experimental Research L. Takayama Willow Garage 9:50 -10:10 Experiment Design for Large Multi-Robot Systems J. McLurkin Computer Science and Engineering University of Washington 10:10 - 10:30 Towards Establishing Clinical Credibility for Rehabilitation and Assistive Robots Through Experimental Design Katherine M. Tsui Holly A. Yanco University of Massachusetts Lowell Break: 10:30 - 11:00 Session 2: 11:00 - 12:30 11:00 - 11:20 Experimental Identification of Friction and Dynamic Coupling in a Dual Actuator Testbed D. Rabindran D. Tesar Robotics Research Group Department of Mechanical Engineering The University of Texas at Austin, USA 11:20 - 11:40 Good Experimental Methodologies for Mobile Robot Olfaction Lino Marques Institute of Systems and Robotics University of Coimbra 11:40 - 12:00 A Proposal of a Set of Metrics for Collective Movement of Robots I. Navarro F. Mat?a Intelligent Control Group Universidad Politecnica de Madrid 12:00 - 12:20 A Traceable Inertial Calibration Parameter Estimation Procedure Suited for Mobile Robots Surya P. N. Singh Australian Centre for Field Robotics, at the School of Aerospace, Mechanical, and Mechatronic Engineering University of Sydney 12:20 - 13:00 : Discussion Lunch: 13:00 - 2:00 Session 3: 2:00 - 3:30 2:00 2:10 Morning recap 2:10-2:30 Datasets for the Evaluation of Multi-Sensor Perception in Natural Environments with Challenging Conditions Thierry Peynot and Steve Scheding ARC Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems Australian Centre for Field Robotics The University of Sydney 2:30 - 2:50 Acquisition of 2-D ground truth data in multirobot experiments M. Delaine Anderson The University of Alabama 2:50 - 3:10 Evaluating the Performance of Robot Mapping Systems E. Olson, University of Michigan M. Kaess, MIT 3:10 - 3:30 Evaluation of Adaptive Technology Algorithms in Small Robotic Platforms M. Farmer,J. Pippine, C. Sullivan,C. Valdez,A. Watson System Planning Corporation Break: 3:30 - 4:00 Session 4: 4:00 - 5:30 4:00 - 4:30 Defining the requisites of a replicable robotics experiment F.P. Bonsignorio Heron Robots A.P Del Pobil University Jaume I Castellon J. Hallam South Denmark University Odense 4:30 - 5:45: Discussion 5:45 - 6:00: Wrap-up Relates workshops: Previous workshops on the related topic of Benchmarking have been organized successfully at IROS (and one is being organized at next IROS in St. Louis) and RSS conferences. Workshop Organizers: Fabio Bonsignorio, Heron Robots, Italy, Angel P. del Pobil, Universitat Jaume I, Spain, John Hallam, University of Southern Denmark, -- Fabio P. Bonsignorio Ceo Heron Robots s.r.l. Via R.Ceccardi 1/18 I-16121 Genova Italy www.heronrobots.com -- 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 hcrs at cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de Tue Jun 23 08:42:51 2009 From: hcrs at cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de (HCRS'09 - CITEC, Bielefeld University) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:42:51 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Second CFP - 3rd Int. Workshop on Human Centered Robotic Systems (HCRS'09) Message-ID: <4A40F7FB.5070106@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de> [* apologies for multiple postings*] Second Call for Papers 3rd International Workshop on HUMAN CENTERED ROBOTIC SYSTEMS (HCRS'09) http://www.cit-ec.de/hcrs Bielefeld University Nov. 19/20 2009 AIMS and SCOPE HCRS09 is the third in a series of workshops bringing together researchers from robotics, human-machine interaction and cognitive sciences. Submissions are invited from all topics pertinent to Human Centered Robotic Systems, including but not limited to * Attentive Systems * Robot Learning and Teaching * Situated Communication * Robot Vision * Social Robots * Human Factors * Bio-inspired Approaches * Manipulation * Cognitive Robot Architectures and Memory SUBMISSION DETAILS We invite submissions of six pages (maximum 8). Workshop submission is electronic in pdf format. The conference proceedings will be published. At least one author per accepted paper must register for the workshop and present the contribution. Further details concerning paper submission will be available at the conference web site. IMPORTANT DATES Paper Submission July 17th (extended) Acceptance Notification August 26th Camera Ready Submission September 17th HCRS'09 Workshop November 19th - November 20th LOCAL ORGANIZERS Helge Ritter, Gerhard Sagerer, Jochen Steil CONFIRMED KEYNOTE SPEAKERS Minoru Asada (Osaka University) Giulio Sandini (University of Genova) Oliver Brock (TU of Berlin, University of Massachusetts Amherst) -------------------------------------------------------------------- HCRS'09 Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) Bielefeld University Universitaetsstr. 21-23 33615 Bielefeld -------------------------------------------------------------------- Phone.: +49-521-106 6562 Fax : +49-521-106 6560 Mail: hcrs at cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de Web: http://www.cit-ec.de/hcrs -------------------------------------------------------------------- From p.salvini at sssup.it Mon Jun 22 01:24:46 2009 From: p.salvini at sssup.it (Pericle Salvini) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:24:46 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CALL FOR PAPERS SPECIAL ISSUE OF ADVANCED ROBOTICS Message-ID: <5C2F98BD287146BCB3048F63C52C9788@dustbotpc> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this email Please, distribute this announcement to anyone interested ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- ADVANCED ROBOTICS Call for Papers Special Issue on Legal and Safety Constraints and Solutions for Service Robots Deployment in Outdoor Public Environments Editors: Dr. Pericle Salvini (Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy) Prof. Cecilia Laschi (Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy) To be published in Vol. 24, No. 10 (August 2010) SUBMISSION DEADLINE: September 30, 2009 In the last decades, impressive technological achievements have been accomplished as regards to autonomous mobile robots in outdoor public environments. Robust and dependable systems for navigation, environmental perception, obstacle avoidance and localisation have been successfully integrated into several kinds of robotic platforms. At the same time, advances in the field of human-robot interaction have brought robots and human beings as closer as ever. These two trends have given birth to new application scenarios for service robots in human inhabited environments, such as autonomous transportation of objects and people, guiding, etc. However, this new robot generation poses unprecedented challenges to the current legal system and to the design of safety requirements. If not overcome, such challenges may become serious hindrances to the robots commercialization in the near future. The purpose of this special issue is to address, in an interdisciplinary way, the main problems brought about by the actual deployment of this new robot generation, pointing out constraints as well as possible solutions. Papers on all aspects relevant to robot legal and safety issues are invited, including - but not limited to - the following topics: - Strategies for safety and dependability in human-robot interaction and navigation - Novel methodologies for risk evaluation - Legal issues for robot deployment in urban settings (e.g. traffic law, privacy, autonomy and liability, etc.) - Robot insurance - Safety standards and certification - Case studies analysis Submission: Pdf format file of the complete manuscript should be sent by September 30, 2009 to the office of Advanced Robotics, the Robotics Society of Japan through our homepage (www.advanced-robotics.org). Sample form of the manuscript is available at the homepage, too. Additionally, please send the same file to Prof. Cecilia Laschi (cecilia.laschi at sssup.it), and Dr. Pericle Salvini (p.salvini at sssup.it) for the confirmation. __________________ Pericle Salvini ARTS Lab Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna Polo Sant'Anna Valdera, Viale Rinaldo Piaggio, 34 56025 Pontedera (PI) Italy Tel. +39 050 883422 Fax. +39 050 883497 E-mail: p.salvini at sssup.it From Calgary at iasted.org Mon Jun 22 16:24:45 2009 From: Calgary at iasted.org (Calgary) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:24:45 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IASTED RA 2009 in MIT--Deadline July 1 Message-ID: Dear Sir/Madam, Please find below the updated Call for Paper for the IASTED conference on Robotics and Applications (RA 2009) which is to be held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, November 4 - 6, 2009. You are encouraged to submit a paper for the conference by the paper submission deadline of July 1, 2009, and to pass word on to colleagues who may be interested in submitting a paper as well. I would also invite you to share your expertise by planning a tutorial or organizing a special session regarding your current research. For more details, please see the conference webpage: http://www.iasted.org/conferences/home-664.html Once again, thank you for your assistance. We look forward to working with you in the coming months to make this conference a success. We are confident that RA 2009 will be a stimulating and informative event. Ailin Zhu Conference Planner International Association of Science and Technology for Development Building B6, Suite #101, 2509 Dieppe Avenue S.W. Calgary , AB Canada T3E 7J9 Phone: +1 403 288 1195 Fax: +1 403 247 6851 Email: calgary at iasted.org Web Site: www.iasted.org *********************************************************************** ***RA-2009 CALL FOR PAPERS*** The 14th IASTED International Conference on Robotics and Applications ~RA 2009~ November 4 - 6, 2009 Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA **CONFERENCE CHAIR Prof. H. Harry Asada Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA **KEYNOTE SPEAKER "A Retrospective Look at the DARPA Urban Challenge" Prof. John Leonard Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA **URL: http://www.iasted.org/conferences/home-664.html **IMPORTANT DATES: Submissions (papers, sessions, tutorials) due: July 1, 2009 Notification of acceptance: August 1, 2009 Final manuscript due: August 28, 2009 Registration and full payment: August 28, 2009 **CONTACT INFORMATION: Ms. Ailin Zhu, RA-2009 Planner B6, Suite 101, 2509 Dieppe Avenue SW Calgary, Alberta Canada T3E 7J9 Tel: 403-288-1195 Fax: 403-247-6851 Email: calgary at iasted.org Web Site: www.iasted.org *********************************************************************** From jmh at cs.utah.edu Tue Jun 23 11:50:31 2009 From: jmh at cs.utah.edu (John Hollerbach) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:50:31 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJRR OnlineFirst articles for the period 15-22 June 2009 Message-ID: <4A4123F7.2010408@cs.utah.edu> New IJRR OnlineFirst articles have been made available (for the period 15-22 June 2009): Nanonewton Force Sensing and Control in Microrobotic Cell Manipulation Xinyu Liu, Keekyoung Kim, Yong Zhang, and Yu Sun The International Journal of Robotics Research published 22 June 2009, 10.1177/0278364909340212 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909340212v1 Metastable Walking Machines Katie Byl and Russ Tedrake The International Journal of Robotics Research published 22 June 2009, 10.1177/0278364909340446 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909340446v1 Probabilistic Models of Object Geometry with Application to Grasping Jared Glover, Daniela Rus, and Nicholas Roy The International Journal of Robotics Research published 22 June 2009, 10.1177/0278364909340332 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909340332v1 Friction-Induced Velocity Fields for Point Parts Sliding on a Rigid Oscillated Plate Tom Vose, Paul Umbanhowar, and Kevin M. Lynch The International Journal of Robotics Research published 22 June 2009, 10.1177/0278364909340279 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909340279v1 Bounding With Active Wheels and Liftoff Angle Velocity Adjustment James Andrew Smith, Ioannis Poulakakis, Michael Trentini, and Inna Sharf The International Journal of Robotics Research published 17 June 2009, 10.1177/0278364909336807 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909336807v1 From Calgary at iasted.org Tue Jun 23 13:03:42 2009 From: Calgary at iasted.org (Calgary) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:03:42 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IASTED RTA 2009 in Beijing--Deadline July 3 Message-ID: Dear Esteemed Colleague, Please find below the updated Call for Paper for the IASTED conference on Robotics, Telematics and Applications (RTA 2009) which is to be held in Beijing, October 12 - 14, 2009. You are encouraged to submit a paper for the conference by the paper submission deadline of July 3, 2009, and to pass word on to colleagues who may be interested in submitting a paper as well. I would also invite you to share your expertise by planning a tutorial or organizing a special session regarding your current research. For more details, please see the conference webpage: http://www.iasted.org/conferences/home-661.html Once again, thank you for your assistance. We look forward to working with you in the coming months to make this conference a success. We are confident that RTA 2009 will be a stimulating and informative event. Ailin Zhu Conference Planner International Association of Science and Technology for Development Building B6, Suite #101, 2509 Dieppe Avenue S.W. Calgary , AB Canada T3E 7J9 Phone: +1 403 288 1195 Fax: +1 403 247 6851 Email: calgary at iasted.org Web Site: www.iasted.org *********************************************************************** ***RTA-2009 CALL FOR PAPERS*** The IASTED International Conference on Robotics, Telematics and Applications ~RTA 2009~ October 12 - 14, 2009 Beijing, China **CONFERENCE CHAIR Prof. Ken Chen (PR China) Director, Robotics and Automation Laborotary, Department of Precision Instruments and Machanology, Tsinghua University, PR. China **KEYNOTE SPEAKER "Precision Telematics and Micro-manipulation" Prof. Tong Heng Lee (Singapore) Professor & Cluster Head (Control Systems) Dept of ECE, National University of Singapore Deputy Editor-in-Chief, IFAC Mechatronics International Journal **COLLABORATING ORGANIZATIONS Tsinghua University, PR China **URL: http://www.iasted.org/conferences/home-661.html **IMPORTANT DATES: Submissions (papers, sessions, tutorials) due: July 3, 2009 Notification of acceptance: July 29, 2009 Final manuscript due: August 21, 2009 Registration and full payment: August 28, 2009 Ms. Ailin Zhu, RTA-2009 Conference Planner RTA-2009 Planner B6, Suite 101, 2509 Dieppe Avenue SW Calgary, Alberta Canada T3E 7J9 Tel: 403-288-1195 Fax: 403-247-6851 Email: calgary at iasted.org Web Site: www.iasted.org *********************************************************************** From srikanth.saripalli at asu.edu Tue Jun 23 12:59:31 2009 From: srikanth.saripalli at asu.edu (Srikanth Saripalli) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:59:31 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Participation: RSS 2009 Workshop on Autonomous Flying Vehicles Message-ID: Our Workshop on Autonomous Flying Vehicles at RSS 2009 is fast approaching. Please see below (or check http://robotics.asu.edu/rssuav) for details on participation -Sri ---------------------------------- CALL FOR PARTICIPATION RSS 2009 Workshop on Autonomous Flying vehicles: Fundamentals and Applications Website :http://robotics.asu.edu/rssuav/ When: Monday June 29th, 8:30 AM - Noon (Half Day) Where: RSS 2009 (www.roboticsconference.org) Objectives of the Workshop: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) by nature are complex dynamical systems that present several challenges in design, dynamics, estimation, guidance and control. Various researchers have worked on problems ranging from design and control of UAVs to obstacle avoidance, path planning. Because of the diverse nature of research involved in developing UAVs, there is not much interaction between various researchers. For example, obstacle avoidance and path planning algorithms differ significantly depending on whether the UAV is a fixed wing aircraft or a rotorcraft. Similarly control algorithms for a fixed wing vehicle are vastly different from those of an Airship. Multi-UAV control and coordination aspects pose a completely different set of problems. The objective of the workshop is to bring together several experts in different disciplines interested in this problem, but who normally do not interact with each other. Specific topics include: ?Dynamics and control ?Navigation ?Collision avoidance ?Mission planning ?Multi-aircraft coordination ?Adversarial settings ?Novel sensing and state estimation methods ?Applications: mapping, search and rescue, inspection, patrolling The proposed workshop is intended to better understand design, development, guidance and navigation of UAVs in complex, feature-rich environments. The workshop will include talks by a number of researchers in these fields. A key goal of the workshop is to provide a venue to allow discussion and cross-pollination of ideas, on the often very different approaches used in various fields. Speakers: Sylvain Bertrand (ONERA) Alberto Elfes (NASA/JPL) Jonathan How (MIT) Karl Hedrick (UC Berkeley) Vijay Kumar (UPenn) Russ Tedrake (MIT) Claire Tomlin (UC Berkeley) Sanjiv Singh (CMU) Organizers: Pieter Abbeel (UC Berkeley) Srikanth Saripalli (Arizona State University) -------------------------- From kumar at seas.upenn.edu Tue Jun 23 13:14:53 2009 From: kumar at seas.upenn.edu (Vijay Kumar) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:14:53 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICRA 2010: Call for Papers Message-ID: 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) May 3-8, 2010 Anchorage, Alaska, USA http://www.icra2010.org The 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation will be held in Anchorage, Alaska, May 3 - 8, 2010. The theme of the conference is "50 Years of Robotics,? reflecting on the amazing achievements of the field and the broad impact of robotics and automation research, development and education. ------------------------------------------------------------ IMPORTANT DATES Submission of all contributions: September 15, 2009 (this is a strict deadline with no extensions) Notification of acceptance: January 7, 2010 All final contributions due: February 8, 2010 ------------------------------------------------------------ PAPERS Prospective authors should submit their papers electronically in PDF format. Six pages in the standard ICRA format are allowed for each paper, including figures. A maximum of two additional pages is permitted at extra charge. Each paper can be accompanied by a short (1-2 minute) video. Each accepted paper may also be accompanied by a hardcopy poster for display and presentation at the conference venue. Detailed instructions for paper submission via PaperPlaza are available at www.icra2010.org. INVITED SESSIONS Invited sessions on new topics or innovative applications will be considered, consisting of four to six related papers submitted through the regular review process. Prospective organizers should include a brief statement of purpose for the sessions as well as the abstracts of the papers to be included. VIDEOS Videos of 1.5 to 3 minutes illustrating new and exciting results are sought for special video sessions. Videos should be submitted via the PaperPlaza system. Details are available at www.icra2010.org. WORKSHOPS AND TUTORIALS Proposals for half-day or full-day tutorials and workshops should be submitted according to the instructions at www.icra2010.org. EXHIBITS There will be an exhibition site at the conference. Information for prospective exhibitors is available at www.icra2010.org. ROBOT CHALLENGES The conference will feature Robot Challenge Competitions, designed to encourage participation by teams working in diverse areas of robotics. More information is available at www.icra2010.org. ANCHORAGE Embraced by six mountain ranges and warmed by a maritime climate, Anchorage is alive year round with adventure, spectacular wilderness, recreation, seasonal festivities, and sporting events. See links from www.icra2010.org for more information. Vijay Kumar ICRA 2010 Program Chair From ECCCheah at ntu.edu.sg Tue Jun 23 21:00:27 2009 From: ECCCheah at ntu.edu.sg (CHEAH Chien Chern) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:00:27 +0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Job Opening for Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Robotics Message-ID: <4EA83AA20D28A8418A9ABFD14F5843C20314003E2D@EXCHANGE31.staff.main.ntu.edu.sg> Job Opening for Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Robotics The Division of Control and Instrumentation, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore has a vacancy for tenure-track assistant professor to candidates with the minimum qualification as following: A Ph.D degree from a reputable university on topics of robotics and intelligent systems or related areas; a track record of competitive research experience in terms of good journal publications and research grants; good command of English and able to teach at undergraduate and post graduate levels. Nanyang Technological University is a research-intensive university in Singapore. The Division of Control and Instrumentation, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering has a faculty with expertise ranging from control and applications, robotics, computer vision, machine learning, biomedical engineering and more. For information of the division, you can visit http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/eee/eee4/staff_acad.asp. Application Procedure Suitably qualified candidates are invited to submit a completed application. Please refer to the Guidelines for Submitting an Application for Faculty Appointment http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/eee/eee4/jobopening/Guidelines.pdf.? The post applied for should be clearly stated. Electronic submission of application is encouraged and can be forwarded to: Dr. C.C. Cheah School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering Nanyang Technological University 50 Nanyang Avenue Block S1 Singapore 639798 Singapore? E-mail:? EEE4SSR at ntu.edu.sg? Application closes when the positions are filled. From bhaskara at willowgarage.com Tue Jun 23 14:52:14 2009 From: bhaskara at willowgarage.com (Bhaskara Marthi) Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:52:14 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICAPS'09 Workshop on Bridging The Gap Between Task And Motion Planning: extended deadline Message-ID: <6f3c23d70906231452q6c843f4ah1e720031a470b784@mail.gmail.com> CALL FOR PAPERS: ICAPS'09 Workshop on Bridging The Gap Between Task And Motion Planning WHEN/WHERE: September 19/20, 2009 in Thessaloniki, Greece (co-located with 19th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling) DATES: *June 29, 2009*: Submission deadline for papers for all workshops July 22, 2009: Notification of accept/reject for workshop submissions September 19 or 20, 2009: Workshop ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: Maxim Likhachev, University of Pennsylvania Bhaskara Marthi, Willow Garage Inc. Conor McGann, Willow Garage Inc. David E. Smith, NASA Ames Research Center ABSTRACT: It has been a longstanding goal of AI and robotics to build autonomous vehicles that can move around on land, in the sea, and in the air and interact with the physical world to achieve their goals. In recent years, the increasing availability of capable mobile platforms (ground vehicles, submersibles, small helicopters and small UAVs), manipulators, and high-precision sensors, coupled with advances in perception, localization and planning algorithms, have brought us much closer to achieving this goal. Robotic platforms have demonstrated autonomous navigation in large complex spaces for prolonged periods of time while robotic manipulators have demonstrated autonomous manipulation of objects in cluttered spaces. However, effective, task-oriented motion inevitably requires a principled approach to integrating task planning and motion planning that is capable of operating in real-time in dynamic and complex environments. Historically, general but discrete task planning has been considered extensively in the AI community while specialized continuous motion planning has been the focus in robotics. The goal of this workshop is to encourage the interaction of ideas between researchers in these fields, to make researchers in one community aware of the research issues faced by those in the other, to find synergy in the research approaches, and to establish promising directions for future research on task and motion planning integration. The topics of interest include (but are not limited to) the following: * Combining geometric, kinematic, and dynamic constraints with reasoning about tasks, time and resources * Integration of discrete and continuous representations * Efficient planning in high-dimensional continuous spaces * Hierarchical/multi-level planning architectures * Incremental techniques for online motion and task planning * Techniques for integrating task and manipulation planning * Planning with compliant motion * Planning for cooperative manipulation by multiple effectors * Planning for whole body control We encourage papers that demonstrate results for task achievement in either simulation or on real mobile platforms. PAPER SUBMISSION: Papers should conform to the AAAI style guide, with a maximum length of 10 pages (8 pages preferred). We also welcome the submission of 2-3 page position papers. Submission site is http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=btamp09 . TRAVEL FUNDING: Limited travel funding from Willow Garage will be available to presenters based on merit and need. PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Rachid Alami, LAAS/CRNS Michael Beetz, Technische Universitaet Muenchen Wolfram Burgard, University of Freiburg Sachin Chitta, Willow Garage Rosen Diankov, Carnegie Mellon University Minh Do, Xerox PARC Alberto Finzi, University di Roma ``La Sapienza'' Brian Gerkey, Willow Garage Kaijen Hsiao, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ari Jonsson, University of Reykyavik Lydia Kavraki, Rice University Sven Koenig, University of Southern California Jean-Claude Latombe, Stanford University Tomas Lozano Perez, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Erion Plaku, Johns Hopkins University Nico Meuleau, NASA Roland Phillipsen, Stanford University Ioan Sucan, Rice University David Wettergreen, Carnegie Mellon University Jason Wolfe, University of California, Berkeley -- Bhaskara Marthi Research Scientist Willow Garage Inc. 650-475-2856 From ffernand at inf.uc3m.es Wed Jun 24 06:51:31 2009 From: ffernand at inf.uc3m.es (Fernando Fernandez Rebollo) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:51:31 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICAPS 2009 Workshop on AI P&S for Ontologies and Semantic Web: DEADLINE EXTENSION!! Message-ID: <4A422F63.8000207@inf.uc3m.es> [Apologies if you receive this CFP multiple times] ==================================================== LAST CALL FOR PAPERS - DEADLINE EXTENSION!! The ICAPS 2009 Workshop on AI P&S for Ontologies and Semantic Web Thessaloniki, Greece September 19/20th, 2009 http://decsai.ugr.es/~faro/Workshop09/index.html Workshop Description: ===================== Ontologies and Semantic Web are two topics often interrelated, that share a common angle. Both fields are interested in providing a knowledge-based, semantic layer for interpreting and reasoning about information and processing services made publicly available either in the web or in intranets. In the last years, Artificial Intelligence Planning and Scheduling (AI P&S) techniques have addressed new challenges in terms of knowledge representation, being able to work with enriched domains, as well as in terms of new models for plan generation and execution. The combination of all these fields, AI P&S + Ontologies + Semantic Web, might add value to each one of them. In this sense, this workshop is aimed to explore, on the one hand, the use of ontology-based knowledge models in AI P&S either for knowledge representation, for knowledge interchange or for accessing large data collections in the web or in (possibly heterogeneous) legacy databases. On the other hand, it is also focused on the use of AI P&S techniques as the core technology to put in practice the potential of semantic web concepts. Specially, the workshop will be interested in covering research and development fields where AI P&S plays a crucial role in either the semantic description or the intelligent management of services and processes, like Grid and Business Process Management (BPM) Systems. The workshop will be interested on receiving research work (theoretical developments or practical applications) on the following issues: * Ontology-based models and AI P&S o Definition of planning ontologies that overcome drawbacks detected on the real application of standard planning languages (such as PDDL) o Use of ontologies as the basis for knowledge exchange between different components of intelligent systems (like multiagent systems), where planning is a core technology o Planning applications that use ontology concepts for their development o Integration of ontology editing tools with planning systems o Derivation of planning domain models from existing ontological knowledge o Planning and Scheduling ontologies for the Semantic Web * AI P&S techniques for Semantic web services (including Grid and BPM Systems) o Relationships between planning languages and standard languages for modelling services and business processes o Automatic and mixed-initiative composition of services o Execution monitoring and workflow repair o Interleaving information gathering for planning and workflow management o Plan verification and plan quality for services and workflows o AI P&S for distributed/SOA-based BPM Important Dates: ===================== * Submission Deadline: EXTENDED!! June 30th, 2009 midnight Pacific Time * Notifications and Technical Program: July 22nd, 2009 * Camera-Ready Paper Submissions: August 3rd, 2009 * Edited Working Notes: August 8th, 2009 * Workshop Date: September 19/20th, 2009 Submission Procedure: ===================== We ask authors to submit technical papers in PDF format. Papers should be formatted in accordance with the AAAI style template and may be at most 8 pages long, including figures and bibliography. Visit the url http://www.aaai.org/Publications/Author/author.php for formatting instructions. Please note that all submitted papers will be carefully peer-reviewed by multiple reviewers, and that low-quality or off-topic papers will not be accepted. Also note that all workshop participants must register for the main ICAPS-09 conference Organizing Committee ===================== * Juan Fernandez Olivares. University of Granada, Spain (faro at decsai.ugr.es) * Laura Sebastia. Technical University of Valencia, Spain (lstarin at dsic.upv.es) * Paolo Traverso. ITC-IRST, Italy (traverso at fbk.eu) Program Commitee: ================= Jose Luis Ambite. University of Southern California (USA) Nick Bassiliades. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) Jim Blythe. University of Southern California (USA) Luis Castillo. University of Granada (Spain) Oscar Corcho. Technical University of Madrid (Spain) Oscar Garci?a. IActive Intelligent Solutions (Spain) Juan Fdez-Olivares. University of Granada (Spain) Yolanda Gil. University of Southern California, (USA) Juan Miguel Gomez. University Carlos III (Spain) Jana Koehler. IBM Research Zurich (Switzerland) Lee McCluskey. University of Huddersfield (U.K.) Sheila McIlraith. University of Toronto (Canada) Miguel Rebollo. Technical University of Valencia (Spain) Bernd Schattenberg. University of Ulm (Germany) Laura Sebastia. Technical University of Valencia (Spain) Evren Sirin. Clark & Parsia, LLC (USA) Biplav Srivastava. IBM Indian Research Lab (India) From murray at cds.caltech.edu Thu Jun 25 12:54:40 2009 From: murray at cds.caltech.edu (Richard Murray) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:54:40 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Online edition: A Mathematical Introduction to Robotic Manipulation Message-ID: <1E9AF9FC-637D-4F2D-9582-D785C0CA5456@cds.caltech.edu> The first edition of "A Mathematical Introduction to Robotic Manipulation" by Richard Murray, Zexiang Li and Shankar Sastry is now available online as a PDF download: http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~murray/mlswiki The copyright is held by CRC Press, but individuals can download the book in PDF format for personal use. A second edition is being prepared and will also be available online. The wiki will be getting built up over the next several months and will contain chapter summaries, frequently asked questions, supplemental exercises and other material related to the book and its use in courses. Comments and suggestions are welcome. Richard M. Murray Control and Dynamical Systems California Institute of Technology http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~murray From ffernand at inf.uc3m.es Fri Jun 26 07:56:21 2009 From: ffernand at inf.uc3m.es (Fernando Fernandez Rebollo) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:56:21 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICAPS 2009: Extended Workshop submission deadlines Message-ID: <4A44E195.6090006@inf.uc3m.es> 19th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling ICAPS-2009, http://icaps09.icaps-conference.org/ September 19-23, 2009, Thessaloniki, Greece [apologies for multiple posting] Submission deadlines of several Workshops of the 19th International Conference on Automated Planning & Scheduling (ICAPS'09) have been extended to June 28th. The list of Workshops with extended deadlines is: WS1: 4th International workshop on Planning and Plan Execution for Real-World Systems co-chairs: Felix Ingrand and Frederic Py Web: http://www.mbari.org/autonomy/ICAPS09-workshop/ WS4: AI P&S for Ontologies and Semantic Web co-chairs: Juan Fernandez, Laura Sebastia and Paolo Traverso Web: http://decsai.ugr.es/~faro/Workshop09 WS5: Verification and Validation of Planning and Scheduling Systems co-chairs: Saddek Bensalem, Klaus Havelund Kim and Guldstrand Larsen Web: http://www-vvps09.imag.fr/ WS6: Workshop on Planning and Learning co-chairs: Amanda Coles, Andrew Coles, Sergio Jimenez Celorrio, Susana Fernandez Arregui and Tomas de la Rosa Web: http://www.plg.inf.uc3m.es/learning-icaps09/ WS8: Workshop on Heuristics for Domain-independent Planning co-chairs: Carmel Domshlak, Malte Helmert and Joerg Hoffmann Web: http://ie.technion.ac.il/~dcarmel/heuristics-icaps09/ WS10: Generalized Planning: Macros, Loops, Domain Control co-chairs: Christian Fritz, Sheila McIlraith, Siddharth Srivastava and Shlomo Zilberstein Web: http://www.cs.umass.edu/~siddhart/genplan09 You can find more details for all workshops through their web-sites, that are accessible through the conference's site: http://icaps09.icaps-conference.org/workshops/workshops.htm. The workshop program will run prior to the main conference September 19 and 20, 2009. Paper length for each event is on the workshops web site. All workshops will use the ICAPS09 format available at http://www.aaai.org/Publications/Author/author.php Important Dates: * Extended Workshop Paper Submission: June 28th, 2009 (check the web pages of the workshops for deadline extensions) * Camera-ready proceedings: August 8th, 2009 * Workshops: September 19th and 20th, 2009 Workshop Program Chairs: * Kanna Rajan, Principal Researcher for Autonomy, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, California * Ioannis Vlahavas, Professor Dept. of Informatics Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Workshop Local Organizing Chair: * Dimitris Vrakas, Lecturer, Dept. of Informatics Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Fernando Fernandez Publicity Chair From solis at kurenai.waseda.jp Wed Jun 24 22:00:33 2009 From: solis at kurenai.waseda.jp (Jorge SOLIS) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:00:33 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CfP IROS2009 Workshop on Biologically-Inspired Robots (October 11th, 2009) Message-ID: <001f01c9f551$dec83a70$9c58af50$@waseda.jp> Dear Colleagues, In the framework of the coming IROS 2009 conference a full-day workshop on "Biologically-Inspired Robots" is being organized on October 11th, 2009. For further details, please access: www.bio.waseda.ac.jp/IROS_Workshop/index.htm Looking forward to received 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. Submission Deadline: - July 14, 2009: Paper (or Extended Abstract) Submission deadline - July 21, 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 tpadir at WPI.EDU Wed Jun 24 17:40:21 2009 From: tpadir at WPI.EDU (Taskin Padir) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:40:21 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: 2009 IEEE Int. Conf. on Technologies for Robot Applications (Deadline Extended!) Message-ID: <4A42C775.6020301@wpi.edu> Dear Colleagues, Abstract submission deadline for 2009 TePRA has been extended until July 15, 2009. --------------------------- 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 jmh at cs.utah.edu Fri Jun 26 10:15:58 2009 From: jmh at cs.utah.edu (John Hollerbach) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:15:58 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJRR July 2009 issue Message-ID: <4A45024E.9060400@cs.utah.edu> A new issue of The International Journal of Robotics Research is available online: 1 July 2009; Vol. 28, No. 7 The below Table of Contents is available online at: http://ijr.sagepub.com/content/vol28/issue7/?etoc Hand Posture Subspaces for Dexterous Robotic Grasping Matei T. Ciocarlie and Peter K. Allen The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 851-867 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/7/851 Control for Actuator Arrays Mark Bedillion and William Messner The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 868-882 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/7/868 Scaling Inertia Properties of a Manipulator Payload for 0-g Emulation of Spacecraft Farhad Aghili and Mehrzad Namvar The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 883-894 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/7/883 Position Tracking for Non-linear Teleoperators with Variable Time Delay Emmanuel Nu?o, Luis Basa?ez, Romeo Ortega, and Mark W. Spong The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 895-910 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/7/895 Hybrid Adaptive Vision?Force Control for Robot Manipulators Interacting with Unknown Surfaces Antonio C. Leite, Fernando Lizarralde, and Liu Hsu The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 911-926 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/7/911 From gerkey at willowgarage.com Fri Jun 26 13:34:35 2009 From: gerkey at willowgarage.com (Brian Gerkey) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:34:35 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for participation: RSS workshop on mobile manipulation Message-ID: <08DFF937-D305-4502-9EE2-B3123684CBFD@willowgarage.com> To all RSS attendees: Please come by the Mobile Manipulation workshop on Sunday, June 28th. We have a great lineup of paper presentations and invited speakers. We're aiming for lively discussions about the presented work, and we cordially invite everyone to participate. Details on the workshop, including the schedule, are available at: http://www.willowgarage.com/rss09mm brian. From alfredo at itam.mx Sat Jun 27 11:44:06 2009 From: alfredo at itam.mx (alfredo at itam.mx) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:44:06 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] LARS 2009 - July 13th 2009 Deadline for Paper Submission Message-ID: <2297.131.247.116.107.1246128246.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 From gaurav at usc.edu Sat Jun 27 20:37:07 2009 From: gaurav at usc.edu (Gaurav S. Sukhatme) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:37:07 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Autonomous Robots 27(1) TOC Message-ID: <562c8ffd0906272037w62fa12euad3d92a6027f7848@mail.gmail.com> Volume 27 Number 1 of Autonomous Robots (special issue on Robot Learning - Part A) is now available at the SpringerLink website (http://www.springerlink.com/content/0929-5593). SpringerLink allows free access to all paper abstracts. Full access (PDF) is by individual or institutional subscription. Thanks to the guest editors, Jan Peters and Andrew Ng for their work in putting this issue together. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Autonomous Robots 27(1) Table of Contents ------------------------------------------------------------------- Guest editorial: Special issue on robot learning, Part A Author(s): Jan Peters, Andrew Y. Ng DOI: 10.1007/s10514-009-9122-2 pp. 1-2 On-line learning and modulation of periodic movements with nonlinear dynamical systems Author(s): Andrej Gams, Auke J. Ijspeert, Stefan Schaal, Jadran Lenar?i? DOI: 10.1007/s10514-009-9118-y pp. 3-23 Learning to search: Functional gradient techniques for imitation learning Author(s): Nathan D. Ratliff, David Silver, J. Andrew Bagnell DOI: 10.1007/s10514-009-9121-3 pp. 25-53 Reinforcement learning for robot soccer Author(s): Martin Riedmiller, Thomas Gabel, Roland Hafner, Sascha Lange DOI: 10.1007/s10514-009-9120-4 pp. 55-73 GP-BayesFilters: Bayesian filtering using Gaussian process prediction and observation models Author(s): Jonathan Ko, Dieter Fox DOI: 10.1007/s10514-009-9119-x pp. 75-90 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Gaurav S. Sukhatme Editor-in-Chief Autonomous Robots http://robotics.usc.edu/~gaurav From rawseeds at elet.polimi.it Mon Jun 29 13:00:33 2009 From: rawseeds at elet.polimi.it (The Rawseeds Project) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:00:33 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] multisensor datasets from project Rawseeds are online Message-ID: Dear all, the Rawseeds project (http://www.rawseeds.org/) is an EU-funded effort aimed at building a high-quality "Benchmarking Toolkit" for Simultaneous Localization And Mapping. The first element of the Toolkit, i.e., a set of 11 multisensor datasets, can be reached from: http://www.rawseeds.org/home/category/benchmarking-toolkit/datasets/ All of the datasets include data from 4 LRF, a trinocular stereo rig, a panoramic camera, an IMU, sonars (indoors only), a low-cost monocular camera, and classical odometry. Rawseeds' datasets cover indoor, outdoor and mixed environments. Each of them includes the full output of the sensors during an uninterrupted exploration session 20+ minutes long, plus suitable ground truth data covering part of the explored areas: RTK GPS for outdoor datasets, and ~10cm-precision data in a "ground truth area" for indoor datasets. Sensor streams and ground truth data are time-synchronized and have been subjected to extensive validation. In a few weeks the second part of the Benchmarking Toolkit will be published. It is a set of problems, called "Benchmark Problems", which use our datasets as their input. The key point is that each BP includes a set of precisely defined *performance metrics*, to be used to evaluate the output of any algorithm which solves the BP. The description of such an algorithm, together with the value of the performance metrics and other associated information, is called a "Benchmark Solution". Rawseeds' BPs are presently focused on SLAM, but other types of problems might be proposed in the future. The third - and final - part of the Benchmarking Toolkit will be a set of Benchmark Solutions based on state-of-the-art algorithms. These are intended as examples and references for users: in fact, as soon as they are online, Rawseeds will start asking the robotics community for the submission of new BSs. Any algorithm which complies with the specifications of a BS will be published along with the other BSs. The key point is this: as all BSs associated to the same BP include their own values for the performance metrics defined by the BP, so *benchmarking of algorithms for autonomous robotics, and quantitative comparison between different algorithms, will become feasible*. This is, indeed, the goal of Rawseeds. Publishing an algorithm (in the form of a BS) on Rawseeds' website will be a good way to give it visibility *and*, at the same time, will make its performances immediately and quantitatively comparable with those of established algorithms. So we hope to quickly gather a good number of users/contributors. By the way, transforming an existing algorithm into a BS is a straightforward process; and a flexible Intellectual Property Management system has been defined. More information about Rawseeds and its Benchmarking Toolkit can of course be found on the project's website, http://www.rawseeds.org/ along with a contact form, a forum, and more. We hope to see you there! The Rawseeds Consortium From erlars at erlars.org Mon Jun 29 14:58:45 2009 From: erlars at erlars.org (ERLARS Workshop) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:58:45 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2nd CFP: ERLARS 2009 - Evolutionary and Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Robot Systems (IROS 2009 Workshop) Message-ID: [Apologies if you receive this more than once!] THE SUBMISSION HAS BEEN OPENED ************************************************************************ 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 5, 2009 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 5, 2009: Paper submission deadline * August 10, 2009: Notification of paper acceptance * August 23, 2009: Camera ready paper submission * October 15, 2009: Workshop takes place Workshop Chairs Nils T Siebel Cognitive Systems Group, Institute of Computer Science, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel Kiel, Germany Josef Pauli Intelligent Systems Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Duisburg-Essen Duisburg, Germany Programme Committee Andrew Barto (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA) Peter D?rr (EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland) Christian Igel (Ruhr-Universit?t Bochum, Germany) Yohannes Kassahun (DFKI Lab Bremen, University of Bremen, Germany) Takanori Koga (Yamaguchi University, Japan) Tim Kovacs (University of Bristol, UK) Jun Ota (University of Tokyo, Japan) Josef Pauli (University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany) Jan Peters (MPI for Biological Cybernetics, T?bingen, Germany) Daniel Polani (University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK) Marcello Restelli (Politecnico di Milano, Italy) Stefan Schiffer (RWTH Aachen University, Germany) Juergen Schmidhuber (Swiss AI Lab IDSIA, Lugano, Switzerland) Marc Toussaint (TU Berlin, Germany) Nils T Siebel (Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Germany) Jeremy Wyatt (University of Birmingham, UK) ************************************************************************ More information on the workshop website: http://www.erlars.org/ ************************************************************************ From wt at barrett.com Mon Jun 29 16:38:17 2009 From: wt at barrett.com (William T. Townsend) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:38:17 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Immediate Robotics-Engineer Opening at Barrett. Message-ID: <20090629233815.C9DBB47DA1@barracuda.barrett.com> Immediate Opening for Robotics Engineer -- 2009-June-29 Barrett Technology, Inc. has an immediate opening for a robotics engineer at its Cambridge, MA, headquarters. Required qualifications: * B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or other relevant discipline * C, C++, and Linux proficiency * Experience with dynamics and control mathematics Additional qualification desired: * M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or other relevant discipline * Robot-specific geometric representations, such as coordinate systems, kinematics, Jacobians, etc. Please contact: Bill Townsend wt at barrett.com Brian Zenowich bz at barrett.com Regards, William (Bill) T. Townsend, PhD President & CEO wt at barrett.com Ph USA +617-252-9000 x25 Fx USA +617-252-9021 http://www.barrett.com Barrett Technology, Inc. -- Advanced Robot Arms and Hands 625 Mount Auburn Street Cambridge, MA 02138-4555 USA From mouri at gifu-u.ac.jp Mon Jun 29 23:09:03 2009 From: mouri at gifu-u.ac.jp (Tetsuya MOURI) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:09:03 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Advanced Registration 3: 9th International IFAC Symposium on Robot Control in Gifu (SYROCO2009) Message-ID: <200906300609.AA06455@robota.gifu-u.ac.jp> (apologies for multiple postings) Dear Colleague, SYROCO2009 - http://www.syroco2009.org/ (the 9th International IFAC Symposium on Robot Control) will be held in Gifu, Japan on September 9-12, 2009. SYROCO2009 will be held on the following schedule. July 1, 2009: Deadline for Advance Registration September 9-12, 2009: SYROCO 2009 Lecturer: Oussama Khatib (Stanford University) Title of Presentation: Human-Friendly Robotics Lecturer: Tsuneo Yoshikawa (Ritsumeikan University) Title of Presentation: Robot Hand Control for Grasping and Manipulation Lecturer: Thomas Mergner (University of Freiburg) Title of Presentation: Neurologically inspired control of stance in a humanoid robot Lecturer: Masaru Ogino (Toyota Motor Corporation, Hirose Plant) Title of Presentation: Next-Generation Robotics: Ushering in the Future Registration website has been opened. Please refer to the following website. http://www.syroco2009.org/index.php?page_name=registration Please make Advance Registration no later than July 1, 2009. Looking forward to your registration. Sincerely, Haruhisa Kawasaki National Organizing Committee Chair ***************************************************** SYROCO2009 9th International IFAC Symposium on Robot Control Nagaragawa Convention Center, Gifu, Japan September 9-12, 2009 http://www.syroco2009.org/ ***************************************************** From Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at Tue Jun 30 05:28:47 2009 From: Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at (Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:28:47 +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/ 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 by 01 Nov 2009: http://www.editorialmanager.com/soro/?. The Editorial Board is committed to speedy review, fast publication, and high scientific impact.?? From jakebeal at bbn.com Tue Jun 30 14:22:22 2009 From: jakebeal at bbn.com (Jake Beal) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:22:22 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Reminder: Spatial Computing Workshop deadline is July 10th Message-ID: Reminder: the submission deadline for this year's Spatial Computing Workshop is July 10th, 2009. We expect this workshop to be of interest to many robotics researchers, as prime examples of spatial computers include robotic swarms and modular robotics. The workshop is to be held on September 14th, 2009 at this year's IEEE International Conference on Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems. The Call for Papers is attached below, and more information is available at: http://scw09.spatial-computing.org/ Thanks, -Jake Beal (on behalf of the organizing committee) [Apologies if you recieve multiple copies of this CFP] CALL FOR PAPERS: Spatial Computing Workshop 2009 DESCRIPTION Many self-organizing or self-adaptive systems are "spatial computers"-collections of local computational devices distributed through a physical space, in which: * the difficulty of moving information between any two devices is strongly dependent on the distance between them, and * the "functional goals" of the system are generally defined in terms of the system's spatial structure. Systems that can be viewed as spatial computers are abundant, both natural and man-made. For example, in wireless sensor networks and animal or robot swarms, inter-agent communication network topologies are determined by the distance between devices, while the agent collectives as a whole solve spatially-defined problems like "analyze and react to spatial temperature variance" or "surround and destroy an enemy." Similarly, in reconfigurable microchip platforms, moving data between adjacent logic blocks is much faster than moving it across the chip, which in turn favors problems with spatial structure like stream processing. In biological embryos, each developing cell's behavior is controlled only by its local chemical and physical environment, but the eventual structure of the organism is a global property of the cellular arrangement. Moreover, a variety of successful established techniques for self-organization and self-adaptation arise from explicitly spatial metaphors, e.g., self-healing gradients. On the other hand, not all spatially distributed systems are spatial computers. The Internet and peer-to-peer overlay networks may not in general best be considered as spatial computers, both because their communication graphs have little relation to the Euclidean geometry in which the participating devices are embedded, and because most applications for them are explicitly defined independent of network structure. Spatial computers, in contrast, tend to have more structure, with specific constraints and capabilities that can be used in the design and analysis of algorithms. The goal of this workshop is to explicitly identify the idea of "spatial computing" as a theme in self-organizing and self-adaptive systems, and further to develop the study of spatial computation as a subject in its own right. We believe that progress towards identifying common principles, techniques, and research directions - and consolidating the substantial progress that is already being made - will benefit all of the fields in which spatial computing takes place. And, as the impact of spatial computing is recognized in many areas, we hope to set up frameworks to ensure portability and cross-fertilization between solutions in the various domains. We are soliciting submissions on any aspect of spatial computing. Examples of topics of interest include, but are by no means limited to: * Languages for programming spatial computers and describing spatial tasks and patterns * Methods for compiling global programs to local rules that produce the desired global effect * Characterization of spatial self-organization phenomena as algorithmic building blocks * Characterization of error in spatial computers (e.g., error from approximating continuous space with networks of devices) * Analysis of tradeoffs between system parameters (e.g., communication radius vs. device memory consumption) * Studies of the relationship between time, propagation of information through the spatial computer, and computational complexity * Application of spatial computing principles to novel areas, or generalization of area-specific techniques * Device motion in spatial computing algorithms (e.g. the relationship between robot speed and gradient accuracy in multi-robot swarms) We encourage authors to submit papers in one of two formats: (1) Papers that develop "unifying" principles or techniques in spatial computing - these papers should be suitable in format and quality for a conference track, but avoid incrementalism. (2) Papers that demonstrate how a technique or problem from a specific area of application can usefully be generalized - these papers should be a combination of review paper and position paper, presenting the material from one area in a form comprehensible to researchers of another area, as well as a coherent technical argument generalizing the material to other areas. Although our interests are broad, we discourage authors from submitting reviews of particular application areas unless the paper explicitly connects the material to the larger technical issues of spatial computing. FORMAT AND SUBMISSION Papers should be no longer than 6 pages in standard IEEE two-column format. All manuscripts should be submitted in PDF form to scw09 at spatial-computing.org. Please direct all questions to scw09 at spatial-computing.org. IMPORTANT DATES July 10, 2009: Submission deadline August 5, 2009: Acceptance notification: September 14, 2009: Workshop held at IEEE SASO in San Francisco, CA, USA. ORGANIZATION Organizers: * Dr. Jacob Beal (BBN Technologies, USA) * Dr. William Butera (Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, USA) * Dr. Marco Mamei (Universita di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy) * Prof. Olivier Michel (Univ. Paris 12, France) Program Committee: * Dr. Jonathan Bachrach (Makani Power, USA) * Prof. Cristian Borcea (New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA) * Prof. Daniel Coore (University of West Indies, Mona, Jamaica) * Prof. Andre deHon (U Penn, USA) * Prof. Murat Demirbas (SUNY Buffalo, USA) * Prof. Giovanna Di Marzo Serugendo (Univ. London, UK) * Prof. Chris Dwyer (Duke, USA) * Dr. Rene Doursat (Institut des Systemes Complexes, France) * Dr. Seth Gilbert (EPFL, Switzerland) * Prof. Frederic Gruau (University Paris Sud, France) * Prof. David Hales (University of Bologna, Italy) * Prof. Mark Jelasity (Hungarian Academy of Sciences and University of Szeged, Hungary) * Prof. Pietro Lio' (University of Cambridge, UK) * Prof. Ulrik Pagh Schultz (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark) * Dr. Antoine Spicher (Univ. Paris 12, France) * Prof. Gerald Jay Sussman (MIT, USA) * Prof. Christof Teuscher (Portland State University, USA) * Prof. Ron Weiss (Princeton, USA) * Dr. Danny Weyns (K.U.Leuven, Belgium) * Dr. Eiko Yoneki (University of Cambridge, UK) * Chih-Han Yu (Harvard, USA) * Prof. Franco Zambonelli (Universita di Modena, Italy) From A.Nijholt at EWI.UTWENTE.NL Tue Jun 30 11:43:26 2009 From: A.Nijholt at EWI.UTWENTE.NL (A.Nijholt at EWI.UTWENTE.NL) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:43:26 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2nd CfP Use of Context in Vision Processing Workshop Message-ID: 2nd Call for Papers Workshop on Use of Context in Vision Processing (UCVP) http://hmi.ewi.utwente.nl/ucvp09 in conjunction with Eleventh International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces and Workshop on Machine Learning for Multi-modal Interaction (ICMI-MLMI 2009) http://icmi2009.acm.org/ Boston, USA, November 2-6, 2009 Background. The Workshop on Use of Context in Vision Processing (UCVP) offers a timely opportunity for the exchange of recent work on employing contextual information in problems of Computer Vision. Recent efforts in defining ambient intelligence applications based on user-centric concepts, the advent of technology in different sensing modalities, as well as the expanding interest in multi-modal information fusion, situation-aware and dynamic vision processing algorithms have created a common motivation across different research disciplines to utilize context as a key enabler of application-oriented vision. Improved robustness, efficient use of sensing and computing resources, dynamic task assignment to different operating modules, as well as adaptation to event and user behavior models are among the benefits a vision processing system can gain through the utilization of contextual information. Aims and scope. UCVP aims to address the opportunities in incorporating contextual information in algorithm design for single or multi-camera vision systems, as well as systems in which vision is complemented with other sensing modalities, such as audio, motion, proximity, occupancy, and others. The objective of the workshop is to gather high-quality contributions describing leading-edge research in the use of context in vision processing. The workshop further aims to stimulate interaction among the participants through a panel discussion. Topics of interest to the workshop include: * Sources of context (multi-camera networks, multi-modal sensing systems, long-term observation, behavior models, spatial or temporal relationships of objects and events, interaction of user with objects, internet resources as knowledge-base for context extraction) * User-centric context (demographic information, activity, user's emotional state, stated preferences, explicit and implicit interfaces, interaction between users) * Uses of context (context-driven event interpretation, active vision, multi-modal activation, service provision and switching based on context, response and interaction with user, detection of abnormal behavior, active sensing, task assignment to different sensing modules, guided vision based on high-level reasoning, user behavior modeling, applications in smart environments, human-computer interfaces) The workshop aims to encourage collaboration between researchers in different areas of computer vision and related disciplines. In addition, by introducing topics of emerging applications in smart environments, multi-camera networks, and multi-modal sensing as sources of context in vision, the workshop aims to extend the notion of context-based vision processing to include high-level and application-driven information extraction and fusion. Paper submission. The workshop solicits original and unpublished papers that address a wide range of issues concerning the use of context in vision processing. Authors should submit papers not exceeding six (6) pages in total in ACM format (http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html). Submissions must be sent in PDF to the following email address: ucvp09 at cs.utwente.nl. Accepted papers will be presented at the workshop and will appear in the ACM Digital Libraries. A hardcopy proceedings will be available during the workshop. At least one author of each paper must register and attend the workshop to present the paper. Important dates. Paper submission: July 15, 2009 Author notification: September 1, 2009 Camera-ready due: September 25, 2009 Workshop: November 5, 2009 Registration. Please note that registration is needed in order to include an accepted paper to the proceedings. Please refer to the main ICMI 2009 website for more details. Organizing team. Hamid Aghajan (Stanford University, USA) Ralph Braspenning (Philips Research, The Netherlands) Yuri Ivanov (MERL, USA) Louis-Philippe Morency (USC, USA) Anton Nijholt (University of Twente, The Netherlands) Maja Pantic (Imperial College, London UK; University of Twente, The Netherlands) Ming-Hsuan Yang (Univ. of California Merced, USA) Program committee Stan Birchfield, Clemson University, USA Yang Cai, CMU, USA Tanzeem Choudhury, Dartmouth College, USA Bill Christmas, University of Surrey, UK Maurice Chu, PARC, Palo Alto, USA David Demirdjian, MIT, USA Abhinav Gupta, University of Maryland, USA Ronald Poppe, TU Delft, The Netherlands Paolo Remagnino, Kingston University, UK Neil Robinson, Heriot-Watt University, UK Michael S. Ryoo, ETRI, Korea Stan Sclaroff, Boston University, USA Rainer Stiefelhagen, University of Karlsruhe, Germany YingLi Tian, CCNY, New York Fernando de la Torre, CMU, USA From cristian.secchi at unimore.it Tue Jun 30 09:07:00 2009 From: cristian.secchi at unimore.it (Cristian Secchi) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:07:00 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] DEADLINE EXTENSION: Special Issue on Design and Control Methodologies in Telerobotics Message-ID: <003601c9f99c$d05e1190$711a34b0$@secchi@unimore.it> Dear Colleague, Due to a large number of requests, we have decided to extend the deadline for the submission of manuscripts to the Special Issue on Design and Control Methodologies in Telerobotics, to appear on the Elsevier Mechatronics journal, to July 15th. The new time schedule is: EXTENDED: July 15th 2009, 1st submission deadline September 30th 2009, Notification of 1st review October 31st 2009, 2nd submission January 31st 2009, Final notification February 28th 2009, Final revision due Target Publication date: May 2010 ------- EXTENDED DEADLINE ------- Despite of the fact that telerobotics was one of the first applications of robotics, it still poses several challenges to the robotics community. A proper design of the whole telerobotic system has a big impact on its usability and also enhances the possibility of reproducing multi-modal feedback from the remote environment. A human-centered design of the system can exploit the user perception capabilities to maximize the feeling of telepresence in a telerobotic system. The problem of improving the design of telerobotic systems is still open and it represents an area of active research. Furthermore, the problem of controlling a telerobotic system is of paramount importance and a predominant strategy has not emerged yet. Varying environment and human operator impedances are only some of the challenges in this context. The possibility of using packet switched communication channels (e.g. the Internet) for joining master and slave devices increases the flexibility of telemanipulation systems, however the innate control problems associated with telerobotics become harder due to the unreliability (time delay and packet loss) of the communication medium. The purpose of this Special Issue is to publish the latest work about design and control methodologies in telerobotics. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: ? Design of telerobotic systems ? Control strategies for stabilizing bilateral teleoperators ? Conceptual frameworks for evaluating transparency in Teleoperation ? Analysis and control of teleoperation systems over packet switched networks ? Human factors in design and control of teleoperation systems ? Control of multimodal teleoperation systems ? Experimental validation and comparison of control methodologies for teleoperation ? Control of semi-autonomous telerobotic systems Articles must be based on original research, although extended versions of conference papers may be acceptable if they contain new material. Complete articles should be submitted by the deadline of June 30th 2009. Papers will be subject to the full review process, with decisions expected by September 30th 2009. Guest Editors C. Secchi (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy), cristian.secchi at unimore.it N. Chopra (University of Maryland, USA), nchopra at umd.edu A. Peer (Technische Universit?t M?nchen), Angelika.Peer at tum.de The special issue is organized by the IEEE-RAS Technical Committee on Telerobotics (http://telerob.org). In case you are interested to join the TC please send an e-mail to one of the guest editors. Timeline EXTENDED: July 15th 2009, 1st submission deadline September 30th 2009, Notification of 1st review October 31st 2009, 2nd submission January 31st 2009, Final notification February 28th 2009, Final revision due Target Publication date: May 2010 Submission instructions All manuscripts should follow the general guidelines for authors of Mechatronics. Manuscripts should not have been published or be under consideration at other journals. Please submit your paper through the submission site of Mechatronics. To ensure that all manuscripts are correctly identified for inclusion into the special issue, it is important that you select ?Special Issue: Design Control Methodology? when they reach the ?Article Type? step in the submission process. Best Regards Cristian Secchi, Angelika Peer and Nikhil Chopra -- Cristian Secchi, MSc, Phd DISMI - University of Modena and Reggio Emilia Via G. Amendola 2, Morselli Building 42122 Reggio Emilia Italy tel: (+39) 0522 522235 fax: (+39) 0522 522609 e-mail: cristian.secchi at unimore.it Web: http://www.dismi.unimore.it/Members/csecchi From giorgio.metta at iit.it Tue Jun 30 16:09:17 2009 From: giorgio.metta at iit.it (Giorgio Metta) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 01:09:17 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJCAI manipulation challenge and iCub Message-ID: <02ab01c9f9d7$cb679d60$6236d820$@metta@iit.it> Dear reader, This is to draw your attention to the "IJCAI 2009 Robotics Exhibition and Workshop on Mobile Manipulation Challenge" to be held in Pasadena, CA, next July 13th-16th. More information is available from: http://www9.cs.tum.edu/people/rusu/ijcai09/ In particular, among the many fine demonstrations, I'd like to advertize the RobotCub European project. The RobotCub team will have a full humanoid robot on show. RobotCub is an Integrated Project funded by European Commission through its Cognitive Systems and Robotics Unit (E5) under the Information Society Technologies component of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6). The RobotCub project has two main goals: (1) to create a new advanced humanoid robot ? the iCub ? to support Community research on embodied cognition, and (2) to advance our understanding of several key issues in cognition by exploiting this platform in the investigation of cognitive capabilities. The iCub is a 53 degree-of-freedom humanoid robot of the same size as a three and a half year-old child. It can crawl on all fours and sit up. Its hands allow dexterous manipulation and its head and eyes are fully articulated. It has visual, vestibular, auditory, and haptic sensory capabilities. The iCub is an open systems platform: mechanics, electronics, and software. Users and developers in all disciplines, from psychology, through cognitive neuroscience, to developmental robotics, can use it and customize it freely under a GPL license. It is intended to become the research platform of choice, so that people can exploit it quickly and easily, share results, and benefit from the work of other users. Several copies of the iCub are now available in many research institutions across Europe and a lively community of users and developers has been established. More information is available from our home page: http://www.robotcub.org At IJCAI you'll get the chance to talk to some of the developers and designers behind the iCub, to see the robot, touch it, look at the technology, tactile/skin, electronics, drawings, etc. Looking forward to meet you there! Giorgio Metta Italian Institute of Technology Via Morego, 30 16163 Genoa, Italy Ph: +39 010 7178-1411????????????????????? Fax: +39 010 7170-817 URL: http://pasa.liralab.it