From jeedward at yahoo.com Sun Mar 1 13:14:04 2009 From: jeedward at yahoo.com (Ed) Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 13:14:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IICAI-09 Call for papers: special session on Intelligent Robotics Message-ID: <89782.9862.qm@web45912.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> IICAI-09 Call for papers: special session on Intelligent Robotics ? The?special session on Intelligent Robotics at 4th Indian International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IICAI-09) will be held in Tumkur (near Bangalore), India during December 16-18 2009. The conference consists of paper presentations, special workshops, sessions, invited talks and local tours, etc.? We invite draft paper submissions. Please see the website: http://www.iiconference.org ??for more details of the conference. ? Sincerely ? ? Edward Publicity Committee From a.birk at jacobs-university.de Mon Mar 2 01:09:03 2009 From: a.birk at jacobs-university.de (Andreas Birk) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 2009 10:09:03 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICRA Planetary Exploration Challenge 2009 Message-ID: <49ABA22F.2070909@jacobs-university.de> [apologies for multiple postings] Dear all, regarding three frequent questions for the ICRA Planetary Exploration Challenge (see below for the Call for Participation): 1) Can my team participate just with tele-operation: YES, teams doing tele-operation are very welcome; special locomotion capabilities are of interest for the challenge. 2) Does our robot has to be weather-proof: NO, the demo is outside but nobody is expected to perform during rain or other conditions that are not suited for the team. There is also an indoor arena and the schedule will be set cooperatively among all teams. 3) Is there travel support: YES, there is support generously provided by IEEE RAS. If you are interested in participating please read the call below and get in touch with me asap. Best regards, Andreas Birk -------- Original Message -------- ====================================================================== Call for Participation ====================================================================== Planetary Exploration Challenge International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2009 Kobe, Japan, May 12 ? 17, 2009 ====================================================================== Planetary exploration through intelligent mobile robots is a fascinating endeavor. The tremendous success of the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity already shows the potential of this field where nevertheless many open problems remain. First of all, there are a large variety of different planetary environments and possible missions that are of scientific interest. Accordingly, various locomotion and manipulation challenges exist for planetary exploration robots. Second, communication delays or even dropouts make standard teleoperation very challenging. Intelligent autonomous functions are hence of tremendous interest to facilitate robot control. The ICRA Planetary Exploration Challenge consists of different mission components that reflect these open problems. A description of the challenges planned for this event can be found at Teams interested in participation are welcome to make suggestions for the challenges. The event will be a demonstration of state of the art research relevant to planetary exploration, especially in form of robot designs and intelligent autonomous functions. Teams interested in participating should send an email with subject ?Planetary Exploration Challenge, ICRA 2009? to Andreas Birk ( a.birk @ jacobs-university.de ) by 28. February 2009 with following information: * Team Name * Affiliation * Team Leader * Email * Team size (number of team members) For further information, please visit -- ======================================================= Prof. Dr. Andreas Birk ======================================================= Jacobs University School of Engineering and Science Research 1, Campus Ring 12, 28759 Bremen, Germany http://robotics.jacobs-university.de/ ======================================================= From alonzo at cmu.edu Mon Mar 2 13:06:32 2009 From: alonzo at cmu.edu (Alonzo Kelly) Date: Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:06:32 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Deadline Extended to March 15th for FSR 2009 Message-ID: <49AC4A58.9080301@cmu.edu> The deadline for submissions to FSR 2009 has been extended to Sunday March 15th Midnight Pacific Standard Time. Evidently there were several other conferences including IROS whose deadlines were extended to collide directly with ours. We have a large number of requests for extensions that can only be accommodated equitably by extending the deadline for all. Authors who have already submitted may feel free to submit improvements to their papers if they desire. As a reminder, the conference will be held on MIT campus July14-16. We are taking every measure to make sure it remains affordable, especially for students. More details on the conference are included below. ================================== CALL FOR PAPERS The 7th International Conference on Field and Service Robotics (FSR?09) July 14-16 2009 Cambridge Massachusetts, USA. http://www.rec.ri.cmu.edu/fsr09 IMPORTANT DATES 27 February 2009 Receipt of full length papers <>> 18 May 2009 Acceptance and Invitation 15 June 2009 Submission of Camera Ready Manuscripts 14-16 July2009 Conference DESCRIPTION The 7th International Conference on Field and Service Robotics (FSR'09) will be held in Cambridge Massachusetts, USA on July 14-16 2009. The conference will provide a forum for researchers, professionals and manufacturers to exchange up-to-date technical knowledge and experience. In addition to the technical sessions, there will be plenary and invited sessions. We invite papers describing original work in a number of technical areas, including: ? Mining, Agriculture and Forestry Robotics ? Construction Robots ? Search and Rescue Robotics ? Cleaning, Floor and Lawn Care Robotics ? Security Robotics ? Medical and Health Care Robotics ? Entertainment Robotics ? Autonomous Vehicles for Land, Air and Sea ? Planetary Surface Exploration Robots ? Intelligent Automobiles We also invite papers on technologies related to the above applications. SELECTED PAPERS FOR JOURNAL PUBLICATION Selected papers will be considered for publications on the following journals: - Special issue of the International Journal of Robotics Research - Special issue of the Journal of Field Robotics In addition, a book version of the Conference Proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag in their STAR series. CONFERENCE LOCATION The conference will be held on the MIT campus in Cambridge. In addition to reserved blocks in nearby hotels, we expect to be able to offer campus accommodation as a lower cost alternative. SUBMISSION PROCEDURE Prospective authors should consult the conference web site for details of paper format and submission procedure. PROGRAM COMMITTEE Hajime Asama: U Tokyo, Japan Martin Beuhler: IRobot, USA Wolfram Burgard: U Freiburg, Germany Raja Chatila: LAAS/CNRS, France Henrik Christensen: Georgia Tech, USA Peter Corke: CSIRO, Australia Toshio Fukuda: Nagoya University, Japan Aarne Halm: Helsinki U of Tech, Finland John Hollerbach: U of Utah, USA Andrew Howard: JPL / Cal Tech, USA Satoshi Kagami: AIST, Japan Oussama Khatib: Stanford U, USA Simon Lacroix: LAAS, France Christian Laugier: INRIA, France John Leonard: MIT, USA Agostino Martinelli: INRIA, France David P Miller: U Oklahoma, USA Eduardo Nebot: U Sydney, Australia Paul Newman: U Oxford, England, Liam Pedersen: NASA Ames, USA Erwin Prassler: U App Sci Bonn, Germany Jonathan Roberts: CSIRO, Australia Daniela Rus:, MIT, USA Miguel Angel Salichs: Univ. Carlos III, Spain Roland Siegwart: ETH Zurich, Switzerland Sanjiv Singh: Carnegie Mellon U, USA Salah Sukkarieh: U Sydney, Australia Gaurav S Sukhatme: U Southern California, USA Satoshi Tadokoro: Tohoku U, Japan Chuck Thorpe: CMU, Qatar Sebastian Thrun: Stanford, USA Takashi Tsubouchi: U of Tsukuba, Japan Arto Visala: Helsinki U of Tech, Finland David Wettergreen: CMU, USA Kazuya Yoshida: NAISY, Japan Shin?Ichi Yuta: U of Tsukuba, Japan Alex Zelinsky: CSIRO Australia Uwe Zimmer: ANU, Australia ORGANIZERS AND CONTACT INFO Alonzo Kelly - CMU, USA (alonzo at cmu.edu) Karl Iagnemma - MIT, USA (kdi at MIT.EDU) Andrew Howard - JPL, USA (Andrew.B.Howard at jpl.nasa.gov) From edb at gdl.cinvestav.mx Tue Mar 3 07:10:14 2009 From: edb at gdl.cinvestav.mx (Eduardo Bayro) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:10:14 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Special Issue on "Cognitive Humanoid Vision" International Journal of Humanoid Research Message-ID: <49AD4856.4060002@gdl.cinvestav.mx> Special Issue on "Cognitive Humanoid Vision" to be published in the** International Journal of Humanoid Robotics (IJHR) http://www.worldscinet.com/ijhr/mkt/callforpapers_details.shtml#active *Submission Schedule:* Submission deadline July 1, 2009 Notification: September 1, 2009. Final manuscript due: October 1, 2009 Publication: December 2009 * * *Details for submission:* Submissions should comply with the publication guidelines for the /International Journal of Humanoid Robotics/(http://www.worldscinet.com/ijhr/mkt/guidelines.shtml). Please submit papers at http://www.worldscinet.com/ijhr/ijhr.shtml with a note "Paper for Special Issue on Cognitive Humanoid Vision?. Guest Editors: Prof. Eduardo Bayro-Corrochano, CINVESTAV, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Guadalajara, M?xico, edb at gdl.cinvestav.mx and Prof. Ales Leonardis, Visual Cognitive Systems Laboratory , Faculty of Computer and Information Science , University of Ljubljana , _ales.leonardis at fri.uni-lj.si_ Following the two successful workshops the first on ?Active Vision of Humanoids? that took place in Pittsburgh, PA at the conference Humanoids?2007, November 29, http://planning.cs.cmu.edu/humanoids07/index.shtml and the second on ?Cognitive Humanoid Vision? held at IEEE-RAS Humanoids?2008 in Daejeon, South Korea, December, 1, _http://humanoids2008.org/_ we solicit papers for a special issue devoted to the topic cognitive humanoid vision. *Special Issue Theme * In the middle eighties pioneers brought into play the concept of active vision. This accompanied the thoughts of researchers and developers of vision systems up to know. On the other hand research in neuroscience, cognitive robotics and humanoids is showing the need for more understanding about the brain function and the human vision system. Recently at the Workshop ?The Active Vision of Humanoid Robots? (Humnoids?2007, Pittsburgh)* *the wording Action Vision was introduced to relate vision with an expected action when we are looking for the foundations of a cognitive architecture. Definitively, it appears that we need a broad conceptual framework to bring together all those new ideas and efforts for vision to push forward the design and development of intelligent perception action systems.** The visual manifold carries enormous amount of information which can not be exhaustively processed in real time with current technology. So, the obvious WWWW questions are: what, where, when and with which procedures we should look at. The rapid growing in research interests like to understand how the brain works by building humanoids, shows clearly that our current thoughts, theory, algorithms and hardware are by far still insufficient to cope with the high algorithmic complexity involved by the image processing to tackle in real time fundamentals problems like the correspondence problem other our na?ve predisposition to stick with processing in Euclidean metric in apparently obvious subspaces. The attempt of this workshop goes beyond Active Vision or Action Vision, it proposes as study topic the Cognitive Humanoid Vision as a much more general framework to develop a real time vision system for humanoids. The Workshop goal is to gather researchers confronted with the challenge to develop real time algorithms for cognitive vision. The traditional robot architectures are calling for a cognitive architecture to embodied the sophistication required for an intelligent machine. In this regard, the traditional concept of active vision evolves to a concept the /action vision and /further to/ cognitive humanoid vision/, as this is the way how the visual processing is tight with a reactive behaviour as by humans confronted with dynamic changes of all sort in their environment. In this workshop we expect contributions and a debate with focus on following key issues: - visual architecture for a cognitive architecture - Feature extraction, grouping, 3D contours, visuo-motor representations - Segment the scene into surfaces? - How build models of objects and events in space and time? - How integrate cue information - Visuo-motor representations: how build and use them - Priming models to bottom up information - Model base segmentation, prospective anticipation - Conscious reality instead of physical reality - Perception of spatial layout - Software for a basic visual front-end for humanoids - Nature of the information that the humanoid should extract from images and video - A language for processing the semantics of the meaning of the visual manifold - Information extracting and learning at middle level vision Papers addressing such topics or others relevant to the design of humanoid's vision system, should be submitted before the first of July for a target publication date of end 2009. From thierry.fraichard at inrialpes.fr Wed Mar 4 04:07:20 2009 From: thierry.fraichard at inrialpes.fr (Thierry Fraichard) Date: Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:07:20 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Contribution - Newsletter IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Algorithms for Planning and Control of Robot Motion Message-ID: <49AE6EF8.50507@inrialpes.fr> Dear Colleagues, The next edition of the Newsletter of the IEEE Robotics And Automation Technical Committee on Algorithms for Planning and Control of Robot Motion will be published at the end of March. We welcome your contributions to this newsletter. If you would like to announce or report on an interesting event (workshop, summer school...), write a book review or a paper synopsis, present an emerging field, report on an application of motion planning in industry, or on anything that may be of interest to our committee, please let us know before March 15th please. We thank you in advance for your contribution (it does not have to be long, simple ASCII text is fine). For your information, we recall hereafter the scope of the Algorithms for Planning and Control of Robot Motion committee (see also http://robotics.cs.umass.edu/tc-apc). Regards, Thierry Fraichard, Hadas Kress-Gazit & Jyh-Ming Lien (Newsletter Editors) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Scope of the Algorithms for Planning and Control of Robot Motion Committee As modern robots address real-world problems in dynamic, unstructured, and open environments, novel challenges arise in the areas of robot control algorithms and motion planning. These challenges stem from an increased need for autonomy and flexibility in robot motion and task execution. Adequate algorithms for control and motion planning will have to capture high-level motion strategies that adapt to sensor feedback. The technical committee for Algorithms for planning and Control of Robot Motion promotes algorithms research, both basic and application-driven, towards these objectives. Priority areas include: 1. consideration of sensing modalities and uncertainty in planning and control algorithms; 2. development of representations and motion strategies capable of incorporating feedback signals; 3. motion subject to constraints, arising from kinematics, dynamics, and nonholonomic systems; 4. addressing the characteristics of dynamic environments; 5. developing control and planning algorithms for hybrid systems; 6. understanding the complexity of algorithmic problems in control and motion planning; 7. encouraging the application of planning algorithms in novel application areas. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From hirata at irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp Thu Mar 5 04:42:59 2009 From: hirata at irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp (Yasuhisa Hirata) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:42:59 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Advanced Robotics : Vol. 23, No. 3 issue Message-ID: <49AFC8D3.2040000@irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp> ************************************************************************ The Official International Journal of the Robotics Society of Japan Advanced Robotics Volume 23, Number 3, 2009 Regular Issue ************************************************************************ 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/2009/00000023/00000003 Table of Contents Heuristic-Based Dynamic Route Planning Method for a Homogeneous Multi-robot Team pp. 269-287(19) Authors: Yazici, Ahmet; Sipahioglu, Aydin; Parlaktuna, Osman Sound Localization During Head Movement Using an Acoustical Telepresence Robot: TeleHead pp. 289-304(16) Authors: Toshima, Iwaki; Aoki, Shigeaki Robot Head Pose Detection and Gaze Direction Determination Using Local Invariant Features pp. 305-328(24) Authors: Ruiz-Del-Solar, Javier; Loncomilla, Patricio On the Experiment Design for Direct Dynamic Parameter Identification of Parallel Robots pp. 329-348(20) Authors: Diaz-Rodriguez, Miguel; Iriarte, Xabier; Mata, Vicente; Ros, Javier Humanoid Robot Motion Recognition and Reproduction pp. 349-366(18) Authors: Chalodhorn, Rawichote; MacDorman, Karl F.; Asada, Minoru Impact Force Reduction of Manipulators Using a Dynamic Acceleration Polytope and Flexible Collision Detection Sensor pp. 367-383(17) Authors: Jeong, Seonghee; Takahashi, Takayuki These are the relevant links to Advanced Robotics: http://www.rsj.or.jp/AR/index_e.html [Advanced Robotics Home Page] http://www.rsj.or.jp/AR/Subscribe_e.html [How to Subscribe] http://www.rsj.or.jp/AR/Submit_e.html [Paper Submission] -- Shigeki Sugano (Waseda University, Japan) Editor-in-Chief, Advanced Robotics Takashi Yoshimi (Toshiba Corporation, Japan) Committee Chair of RSJ International Journal e-info at rsj.or.jp From raj.madhavan at nist.gov Tue Mar 3 12:13:45 2009 From: raj.madhavan at nist.gov (Raj Madhavan) Date: Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:13:45 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Participation: Virtual Manufacturing Automation Challenge Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090303151325.0256dd48@mailhub.mel.nist.gov> ====================================================================== Call for Participation ====================================================================== The Virtual Manufacturing Automation Challenge International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2009 Kobe, Japan, May 12 ? 17, 2009 ====================================================================== Teams are solicited for participation in the upcoming NIST/IEEE Virtual Manufacturing Automation Competition (VMAC). This includes both a national competition that will be held in late March'09 (NIST in Gaithersburg, MD, USA) and an international competition that will be held in May'09 at ICRA'09 (Kobe, Japan). Relevant details on the competition and how to participate follow. Additional information is available from the VMAC website at http://vmac.hood.edu/ and from the ICRA 2009 competitions website at http://icra.wustl.edu/. If interested, send an email to robosim at nist.gov. BACKGROUND Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and forklifts represent integral components of today?s manufacturing processes. They are widely used on factory floors for intra-factory transport of goods between conveyors and assembly sections, parts and frame movements, and truck-trailer loading/unloading. Automating these systems to operate in unstructured environments presents an exciting area of current research in robotics and automation. Unfortunately, the traditional entry barrier into this research area is quite high. Researchers need an extensive physical environment, robotic hardware, and knowledge in research areas ranging from mobility and mapping to behavior generation and scheduling. An accepted approach to lowering this entry barrier is through the use of simulation systems and open source software. It is our belief that competitions are an effective means of stimulating interest and participation among students by providing exciting technological problems to tackle. VISION FOR THE FUTURE The long-term goal of this competition is to present a full factory buffer-zone problem. This problem will involve a heterogeneous team of forklifts, unit loaders, and Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) that will cooperatively clear pallets from a temporary storage location and deliver needed supplies throughout the factory. Using a metrics-driven competition model, advancements in the various technologies comprising the AGV control system are quantified, helping the community gauge as well as target progress. It is our belief that these competitions will serve as a model for establishing a university-community focused on a real-world practical problem. The scenario begins with a truck unloading pallets into the buffer zone. A team of autonomous forklifts must move the pallets from the buffer zone to sorted storage shelves located a short distance away. Once loaded on the shelves, the pallet?s contents become available for distribution to users in the factory. The scenario continues with a parts request coming from a factory user. A robotic arm must take a package from the shelves and load it onto a conveyor where an AGV will be able to load the package for delivery. The AGV must then navigate through a dynamic factory environment to deliver the goods. Anticipated challenges include, traffic management, fine driving skills (for docking with pallets and conveyor stations), route planning, THIS YEAR'S COMPETITION This year?s competition will present a more modest scenario. A team of unit loaders will be tasked with transporting packages from a loading station to several different unloading stations. The unit loaders will be required to dock with the loading/unloading stations and interact with a conveyor system to load packages. The vehicle will then need to determine the package?s destination (through an RFID tag), and transport the package to the correct unloading station. Challenges will include fine autonomous vehicle control, path planning, and traffic management. Multiple paths will exist from the loading station to the unloading station. There will be a trade-off between path length and path traversal difficulty. More information on USASim and MOAST are available from www.sourceforge.net/projects/usarsim and www.sourceforge.net/projects/moast. A sample simulated world for this scenario exists on the sourceforge USARSim website. It may be accessed through this link (https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=145394&package_id=168955). The map package is called DM-VMAC1-3.31 and both .exe and .zip versions are available. A complete interface to the conveyor system of the factory is not yet complete. Until then, directions for command-line based interactions are included with the map distribution. COMPETITION REQUIREMENTS Requirements include the following: EMBODIMENT * This is a virtual competition; the competition will involve multiple simulated robots * The simulation engine that is used is Epic Game?s UnReal 2004 w/ Karma physics * The socket level interface to the game engine is USARSim Control * Teams will be fully autonomous * Teams will accept high-level commands (e.g. init, mission start) over a Neutral Messaging Language (NML) connection (See www.sourceforge.net/projects/moast for communications definitions) * Teams have the option of controlling robots via USARSim ASCII socket or using simWare middleware (an NML based middleware) * Teams have the option of using as much of the MOAST control system (last year?s winning code base) as they desire PARTICIPATION * Remote participation will be allowed -- Details are still being worked out -- We are looking for volunteers to help in this effort * All code used in the competition becomes open source after the competition -- You cannot participate until you deliver your source code * Teams are expected to publish their contributions at a scientific conference -- Last year, special session held at the Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems (PerMIS) Workshop: http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/PerMIS_2008/ INTERESTED? If you are interested in participating, submit a succinct statement to robosim at nist.gov describing 1) how you expect to benefit from your participation, and 2) why you should be selected (emphasize skills and experience with respect to the requirements of the competition). Please be sure to also include the following information: * Team Name * Affiliation * Team Leader * Email * Phone * Team size (number of individuals) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Raj Madhavan, Ph.D. Intelligent Systems Division National Institute of Standards and Technology 100 Bureau Drive, Mail Stop 8230 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8230. Tel: (301) 975-2865 Fax: (301) 990-9688 URL: http://aser.ornl.gov/madhavan/ From Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at Fri Mar 6 00:56:28 2009 From: Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at (Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at) Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 09:56:28 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Participation: Online survey on Human-Robot Interaction Message-ID: Ladies and gentlemen, As integral survey in WP3 "Robotic- CWE interfaces and evaluation of impacts" of the FP6 project ROBOT at CWE http://www.robot-at-cwe.eu/ we are publishing an online questionnaire. The purpose of this survey is to gain first valuable insights on how humanoid robots are experienced. The survey is also a part of my thesis entitled "Validation of an Evaluation Framework for Human-Robot Interaction. The impact of Usability, Social Acceptance, User Experience and Societal Impact on Collaboration with humanoid Robots". We would appreciate it if you would spare some time to complete our survey. To participate please click on the according link below or copy it into your web browser. English Survey: http://icts.uni-salzburg.at/survey_new/surveyadds/en/ French Survey: http://icts.uni-salzburg.at/survey_new/surveyadds/fr/ Spanish Survey: http://icts.uni-salzburg.at/survey_new/surveyadds/esp/ German Survey: http://icts.uni-salzburg.at/survey_new/surveyadds/ger/ Thank you for your time! Astrid Weiss Mag. Astrid Weiss Research and Teaching Assistent HCI & Usability Unit ICT&S Center - Center for Advanced Studies and Research in Information and Communication Technologies & Society University of Salzburg Sigmund-Haffner-Gasse 18 5020 Salzburg, Austria Phone: +43.662.8044.4812, Fax: +43.662.6389.4800 E-Mail: astrid.weiss at sbg.ac.at www.icts.uni-salzburg.at From edb at gdl.cinvestav.mx Fri Mar 6 06:34:37 2009 From: edb at gdl.cinvestav.mx (Eduardo Bayro) Date: Fri, 06 Mar 2009 08:34:37 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] =?windows-1252?q?14th_Iberoamerican_Congress?= =?windows-1252?q?_on_Pattern_Recognition__CIARP_2009____Guadalajara=2C_M?= =?windows-1252?q?=E9xico_=28includes_topics=3A__robotics=2C_robot_vision?= =?windows-1252?q?=2C_humanoids=29?= Message-ID: <49B1347D.5090400@gdl.cinvestav.mx> Second Call for Papers 14th Iberoamerican Congress on Pattern Recognition CIARP 2009 Chairs Eduardo Bayro Corrochano CINVESTAV, Mexico Jan Olof Ecklundh KTH, Sweden http://www.gdl.cinvestav.mx/ciarp2009/ November 15th-18th 2009, Guadalajara, M?xico Venue: Hotel Misi?n Carlton Proceedigs LNCS, Springer Verlag Selected Papers for a Special Issue in Journal Pattern Recognition Letters Topics of interests ? Artificial Intelligence Techniques in PR ? Bioinformatics ? Clustering ? Computer Vision ? Data Mining ? DB, Knowledge Bases and Linguistic PR-Tools ? Discrete Geometry ? Clifford Algebra Applications in Perception Action ? Document Processing and Recognition ? Fuzzy and Hybrid Techniques in PR ? Image Coding, Processing and Analysis ? Kernel Machines ? Logical Combinatorial Pattern Recognition ? Mathematical Morphology ? Mathematical Theory of Pattern Recognition ? Natural Language Processing and Recognition ? Neural Networks for Pattern Recognition ? Parallel and Distributed Pattern Recognition ? Pattern Recognition Principles ? Robotics and humanoids ? Remote Sensing Applications of PR ? Satellite Image processing and radar ? Gognitive Humanoid Vision ? Shape and Texture Analysis ? Signal Processing and Analysis ? Special Hardware Architectures ? Statistical Pattern Recognition ? Syntactical and Structural Pattern Recognition ? Voice and Speech Recognition Paper Submission Prospective authors are invited to contribute to the conference by electronically submitting a full paper in English of no more than 8 pages including illustrations, results and references, and must be presented at the conference in English. The papers should be submitted electronically before June 7th, 2009, through the CIARP 2008 webpage (http://www.gdl.cinvestav.mx/ciarp2009). The papers should be prepared following the instructions from Springer LNCS series. At least one of the authors must have registered for the paper to be published Important Dates Submission of papers before June 7th, 2009 Notification of acceptance August 1th, 2009 Camera-ready August 21th, 2009 Registration IAPR Members Non-IAPR Before August 21th, 2008 400 USD 450 USD After August 21th, 2008 450 USD 500 USD Extra Conference Dinner 50 USD Registration fee includes: Proceedings, Ice-break Party, Coffee Breaks, Lunches, Conference Dinner, Tutorials and Cultural Program (1. tour colonial area by night, 2. Latin dance night, 3. folkloric dance spectacle, mariachi traditional concert with superb banquet in colonial romantic garden). Extra: organized tours to Puerto. Vallarta Tequila, archeological places, artisans markets, museums and traditional colonial churches and towns. Contact: ciarp09 at gdl.cinvestav.mx http://www.gdl.cinvestav.mx/ciarp2009/ From nikolaus at csail.mit.edu Thu Mar 5 19:21:18 2009 From: nikolaus at csail.mit.edu (Nikolaus Correll) Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 22:21:18 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CfP: 4th Int. Conference on Nano-Networks Message-ID: <172f50ee0903051921w146f8963lf1cbb330b8651a85@mail.gmail.com> Call for Papers 4th Int. Conference on Nano-Networks October 18-20, 2009, Luzern, Switzerland www.nanonets.org CALL FOR PAPERS SCOPE: The Nano-Net conference positions itself at the intersection of two worlds, namely, emerging nanotechnologies on one side, and Information & Communication Technologies on the other side. One of the standing questions that this conference addresses is: What are the new communication paradigms that derive from the transition from micro- to nano-scale devices? The convergence of nano-technologies with established and novel engineering disciplines such as communication and network theory, sensors and actuators, and biomedical engineering is expected to radically shift our notions about efficient system and network design. Nano- Net provides a unique multidisciplinary forum for the discussion of novel techniques in modeling, design, simulation, and fabrication of nano-scale systems. PAPERS: The conference invites original technical papers that have not been published and are not currently under review for publication elsewhere. Contributions addressing subjects pertaining to nanotechnology and networking are solicited. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to the following: 1. Emerging nano-devices and fabrication technologies CNTs, nanowires, nanoparticles, graphene devices, molecular processing and self-assembly, nano-patterning, emerging 3D-interconnects technologies, memristor, embedded memory technologies 2. Modeling and simulation of nano-devices and systems Physical characterization and modeling of nanodevices, interconnects, CAD for nano-devices and communication, power/thermal modeling in nano-devices and systems 3. Nano-materials, nano-photonics Coatings and surfaces, dendrimers, production techniques and applications in nanoelectronics, energy storage, catalysis, optical modulators and switches, optical and wireless interconnects, optical tweezers, photonic band-gaps, surface plasmons and collective excitations, and applications 4. Nano-electronics and architectures Processor and memory architecture in the nano-age, new computing paradigms, array processing nano-fabrics, routing and addressing issues, NoC performance and trade-off analysis, hybrid CMOS-nano systems, quantum electronics, molecular electronics 5. Reliability and fault-tolerance Self-healing properties of nano-systems and networks, yield issues, reconfigurability, (life time) diagnosis and test, design for reliability, bio-inspired circuits and architectures 6. Nano-networks Information theory aspects of nano-networks, network architectures and topologies, nanocoding, applications of complex network theory, modeling of nano/bio communication channels, wireless nanoscale transmitters and receivers 7. Nano-bio paradigms and applications Nano-bio paradigms and applications: new paradigms linking nanotechnology and biology for nano-networks and related applications 8. Nanosensor Self-Organization Nano-robotics, swarm behavior in nano networks, nano-bio networks, modeling and simulation of nano-networks 9. Nano-mechatronics Nano-robotics, nano-sensors, nano-fluidics, nano-filtration, arrays of nanomechatronic systems, molecular motors, NEMS, nanometrology 10. Emerging topics in nano-technologies Nano-toxicology and safety, standardization and regulatory issues, social and ethical aspects, clean and green technologies, economic and industrial development SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS: Prospective authors are encouraged to submit a PDF version of the full paper in English. Papers are limited to 5 pages (regular papers), or 2 pages (work-in-progress papers), and must fulfill the submission details listed at: http://www.nanonets.org/ (submission guideline); the Author's Kit for the LNICST style listed at: http://www.nanonets.org/ (author?s kit). Presentation will be either oral or in poster format, as deemed appropriate by the Technical Program Committee. PUBLICATION: All submitted papers will be subject to a rigorous peer-review. Accepted papers will be published by Springer in the Nano-Net Conference Proceedings, and made available online through Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNICST). Selected high-quality papers will be reviewed for journal publication. WORKSHOP & TUTORIAL PROPOSALS: Proposals for Special Sessions, Panel Sessions, and Tutorials are encouraged. Potential Workshop and Tutorial organizers should submit a proposal of at most 5 pages, including scope/motivation of the session/tutorial, list of invited papers (still subject to peer-review) and shortbio of the organizer(s). Workshops and tutorial proposals should be submitted by e-mail to: alexandre.schmid at epfl.ch. From prybski at cs.cmu.edu Mon Mar 9 07:20:29 2009 From: prybski at cs.cmu.edu (Paul E. Rybski) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 2009 10:20:29 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] postdoc position at The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University Message-ID: <49B525AD.4010202@cs.cmu.edu> Immediate opening for a postdoctoral fellow at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Our research group is looking for a talented researcher whose responsibilities would primarily include the research and development of a real-time 3D person tracking system for an industrial assembly task. Our project is examining methods by which robots and humans can work together in close proximity to jointly assemble complex parts. To do so, the robots in the workcell need accurate information as to the positions of the people and their limbs at all times to ensure their safety. We are looking for researchers who have experience with: * 3D perception systems such as multi-camera arrays, stereo cameras, and flash lidars. * Detecting/tracking people's bodies, heads, and limbs. This is an exciting 3 year project which will provide opportunities for both basic research as well as development/deployment of fully functional prototypes. Carnegie Mellon University offers competitive postdoctoral salaries and the Pittsburgh area has recently been recognized as one of the most livable cities in the United States. Please send all resumes and references to: Reid Simmons From ayanna.howard at ece.gatech.edu Mon Mar 9 14:25:10 2009 From: ayanna.howard at ece.gatech.edu (Ayanna Howard) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:25:10 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICRA 2009 HRI Challenge Message-ID: ICRA 2009 HRI Challenge * Are you ? actively involved in research related to Human-Robot Interaction? * Would you like to evaluate your interaction methodologies within a pubic venue? * Would you just like to show off your cool robot platform as it interacts with people? Then the HRI Challenge is for you. HRI is now a major research field in robotics. The ICRA'09 HRI Challenge aims at demonstrating state-of-the-art research in HRI, as well as provide a realistic setting for evaluation of your interaction methodology. The ICRA'09 Human-Robot Interaction Challenge is one of 3 ICRA?09 Challenges. It will take place during ICRA'09 at the Conference Site. RULES AND PARTICIPATION: In order to leave the floor open to any team working in HRI, there is no specific requirements on the robot platform or on the experimental context. We accept any robot from wheel-based platforms to humanoids. We accept any type of experiments from social interaction to learning via human interaction. This venue provides a unique opportunity to challenge your research ? the design is up to you!! EVALUATION: The effectiveness of a robot engaging in HRI must be evaluated by human users who get the chance to interact with the robot for a sufficient period of time. Thus, the robots' behavior will be evaluated by your audience ? i.e. participants at the conference venue. CONTACT: Teams interested in participating should send an email with subject ?HRI Challenge, ICRA 2009? to Ayanna Howard (ayanna.howard at ece.gatech.edu) by March 30, 2009 with the following information: Team Name, Affiliation, Description of Robot and Experiment, Space Requirements, Team Leader, Email, and Team size (number of team members). From terry.huntsberger at jpl.nasa.gov Mon Mar 9 16:13:37 2009 From: terry.huntsberger at jpl.nasa.gov (Terry Huntsberger) Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 16:13:37 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] LAB-RS 09 Last CFP Message-ID: <9A2A301A-2631-4D2D-A109-A0D078768626@jpl.nasa.gov> ***** LAST CALL FOR PAPERS - NOTE DATE CHANGES ******* 2nd ECSIS Symposium on Learning and Adaptive Behavior in Robotic Systems, July 22-24, 2009 Iasi, Romania http://www.labrs.info/labrs09.html Papers due (6- pages) April 9, 2009 Publication by IEEE Computer Society Press. The focus of the 2009 symposium is learning and adaptive behavior in robots working within environments in close proximity to other robots and humans. LAB-RS Topics Technologies * Robot learning * Dynamics of learning * Learning in real environments * Adaptive behaviors * Bio-inspired algorithms and technologies * Neural networks * Evolutionary algorithms * Adaptive information processing * Cooperative and collaborative robotics * Collaborative learning * Soft computing techniques * Dynamic and reinforcement learning * Legged locomotion * Flying robots * Hybrid and adaptive architectures * Adaptive multi-robot behaviors * Adaptive information processing * Socially adaptive robots * Sensory-control for learning/adaptive robots Application areas * Autonomous ground vehicles * Unmanned Aerial Vehicles * Unmanned Underwater Vehicles * Industrial Robots * Construction Robots * Humanoids and Actroids * Human-centric systems * Security robots * Training systems (modelling, simulation, virtual environments) * Cooperative and collaborative robotics * Entertainment robots * Educational robots * Agricultural robots * Medical robots, therapy and surgical applications * Space robotics Co-located events: ISRIS 2009 (July 22-26) http://www.isris.info/isris09.html International School in Robotics and Intelligent Systems ISRIS 2009 Focus theme: Assistive robots and systems for healthcare and rehabilitation and ARTIPED 2009 (July 24-26) http://www.artiped.info/artiped09.html International Symposium on Assistive and Recuperative Technologies for Injured, ill, Pregnant, Elderly and people with Disabilities ------------------------------------- Opinions are mine and may not reflect policy of NASA, Caltech or JPL ------------------------------------- Terry Huntsberger http://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Terrance_Huntsberger MS 198-219 Jet Propulsion Laboratory 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena, CA 91109 PH: (818) 354-5794 CELL: (818) 648-0645 FAX: (818) 393-5007 From Peter.Corke at csiro.au Mon Mar 9 23:54:15 2009 From: Peter.Corke at csiro.au (Peter.Corke at csiro.au) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:54:15 +1100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] UAV research positions at CSIRO Brisbane Message-ID: We're growing the team, our particular interest is autonomous helicopters with onboard laser and stereo sensing. All the details at: https://recruitment.csiro.au/asp/job_details.asp?RefNo=2009%2F99 peter. From paolo.fiorini at univr.it Tue Mar 10 03:01:29 2009 From: paolo.fiorini at univr.it (Paolo Fiorini) Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:01:29 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Post-Doc position in bio-robotics at Univ. of Verona, Italy In-Reply-To: <49B1347D.5090400@gdl.cinvestav.mx> References: <49B1347D.5090400@gdl.cinvestav.mx> Message-ID: <49B63A79.3020807@univr.it> ============================================================ Job: Postdoc position at the University of Verona, Italy Duration: 1 years, renewable (by mutual consent) up to 3 years Topics: Signal processing, robotics, and control Language requirement: English ============================================================ The Robotics Laboratory Altair at the University of Verona (http://metropolis.sci.univr.it) is seeking applicants for a postdoctoral position. The bulk of the research to be carried out will be in the context of the EU FP7 project FILOSE (http://www.biorobotics.ttu.ee/tikiwiki_filose/tiki-index.php), and is concerned with studying robotic fish sensing and locomotion. The project aims at developing basic knowledge and technical validation of the interaction between the fish lateral line sensing and its muscular structure. Candidates must have a strong research record and a solid background in signal processing and filtering. The task will be to analyze the data generated by the artificial lateral line, to identify the hydrodynamic environment, and to control the navigation behavior of the robotic fish. Experience with control systems, robotics, and identification is highly desirable. ============================================================ How to apply ============================================================ Please send your CV and letters of recommendation to Paolo Fiorini (paolo.fiorini at univr.it), and to Maarja Kruusmaa (maarja.kruusmaa at biorobotics.ttu.ee). If you have any questions related to the position, please don't hesitate to contact prof. Fiorini by e-mail. This is an excellent opportunity for someone interested in an academic career and in professional growth. By working in this project, you will be exposed to robotics applications related to biology, microtechnology, mechatronics and control. Postdoc salaries at UNIVR are competitive, and Verona is a great city to live in. Knowledge of Italian is useful, but not necessary. -- Prof. Paolo Fiorini, Department of Computer Science, University of Verona Ca' Vignal 2 - Strada Le Grazie 15, 37134 VERONA - Italy Ph: +39 045 802 7963 -- Fax: +39 045 802 7068 http://www.sci.univr.it/~fiorini From tavares at fe.up.pt Sun Mar 8 12:38:45 2009 From: tavares at fe.up.pt (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Jo=E3o_Manuel_R._S._Tavares?=) Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 19:38:45 -0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] =?iso-8859-1?q?ECCOMAS_VipIMAGE_2009_-_submi?= =?iso-8859-1?q?ssion_DEADLINE_APPROACHING?= Message-ID: <012a01c9a025$7ec7d7b0$7c578710$@up.pt> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------- (Apologies for cross-posting) International ECCOMAS Thematic Conference VipIMAGE 2009 - II ECCOMAS THEMATIC CONFERENCE ON COMPUTATIONAL VISION AND MEDICAL IMAGE PROCESSING 14-16th October 2009, FEUP, Porto, Portugal www.fe.up.pt/~vipimage DEADLINE APPROACHING We would appreciate if you could distribute this information by your colleagues and co-workers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------ Dear Colleague, This is a gently reminder that the deadline for abstracts submissions to International Conference VipIMAGE 2009 - II ECCOMAS THEMATIC CONFERENCE ON COMPUTATIONAL VISION AND MEDICAL IMAGE PROCESSING is March 15th, 2009 (www.fe.up.pt/~vipimage). Possible Topics (not limited to) ? Image Processing and Analysis ? Segmentation, Tracking and Analyze of Objects in Images ? 3D Vision ? Signal Processing ? Data Interpolation, Registration, Acquisition and Compression ? Objects Simulation ? Virtual Reality ? Software Development for Image Processing and Analysis ? Computer Aided Diagnosis, Surgery, Therapy and Treatment ? Computational Bioimaging and Visualization ? Telemedicine Systems and their Applications Invited Lecturers ? Alejandro Frangi - Pompeu Fabra University, Spain ? Christos E. Constantinou - Stanford University School of Medicine, USA ? Demetri Terzopoulos - University of California, USA ? Joaquim A. Jorge - Instituto Superior T?cnico, Portugal ? Jos? Carlos Pr?ncipe - University of Florida, USA ? Lionel Moisan - Universit? Paris V, France ? Tony Chan - University of California, USA Thematic Sessions Proposals to organize Thematic Session within VipIMAGE 2009 are mostly welcome. The organizers of the selected thematic sessions will be included in the conference scientific committee and will have a reduced registration fee. They will be responsible for the dissemination of their thematic session, may invite expertise researches to have invited keynotes during their session and will participate in the review process of the submitted contributions. Proposals for Thematic Sessions should be submitted by email to the conference co-chairs (tavares at fe.up.pt, rnatal at fe.up.pt). Confirmed Thematic Sessions (not yet closed) - Computer Vision in Robotics - Texture Image Analysis: Methods and Applications - Processing and Classification of Satellite Imagery - Small Animal Imaging: Trends and Techniques - Imaging of Biological Flows: Trends and Challenges Publications The proceedings book is going to be published by the Taylor & Francis Group, as happened with VipIMAGE 2007 (ISBN: 9780415457774). The organizers will encourage the submission of extended versions of the accepted papers to related International Journals; in particular for special issues dedicated to the conference. One possibility already confirmed is the International Journal for Computational Vision and Biomechanics (IJCV&B). As what happened with VipIMAGE 2007, the organizers are going to edit a book to be published by SPRINGER (ISBN: 978-1-4020-9085-1), under the Computational Methods in Applied Sciences series, with invited works from the most important ones presented in the conference. Awards "best paper award" and "best student paper award" are going to be given to the author(s) of two papers presented at the conference, selected by the Organizing Committee based on the best combined marks from the Scientific Committee and Session Chairs. Important dates ? Submission of extended abstracts: March 15, 2009 ? Lectures and Final Papers: June 15, 2009 We are looking forward to see you in Porto next October. Kind regards, Jo?o Manuel R. S. Tavares Renato Natal Jorge (conference co-chairs) PS. For further details, please see the conference website at: www.fe.up.pt/~vipimage From wenhui.wang at canterbury.ac.nz Tue Mar 10 12:33:18 2009 From: wenhui.wang at canterbury.ac.nz (Wenhui Wang) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:33:18 +1300 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: IEEE ICCA2009 Message-ID: <5C219901621A4787BFC91C4191FBA32D@canterbury.ac.nz> Welcome to Christchurch, New Zealand. *************************** Call for Papers The 7th IEEE International Conference on Control & Automation (ICCA?09) December 9-11, 2009 Christchurch, New Zealand http://www.ieee-icca.org http://uav.ece.nus.edu.sg/~icca09/ *************************** ICCA2009 is to create a forum for scientists and practicing engineers throughout the world to present the latest research findings and ideas in the areas of control and automation. ICCA Proceedings are included in EI Compendex, IEEE Xplore and ISI Proceedings (ISTP). Christchurch, Garden City --------------- The city of Christchurch is famous for natural beauty and a wealth of things to do. Christchurch has a lively entertainment scene, strong cultural heritage. In 1996, Christchurch was acknowledged as the outstanding garden city from 620 international entries and in 1997, was judged Overall Winner of Major Cities in the Nations in Bloom International Competition to become 'Garden City of the World'! Topics of interest include but not limited to --------------- ? Modeling of Complex Systems ? Linear Systems ? Robust and H Control ? Nonlinear Systems and Control ? Fuzzy and Neural Systems ? Estimation and Identification ? Fault Detection ? Process Control & Instrumentation ? Motion Control ? Flexible Manufacturing Systems ? Integrated Manufacturing ? Factory Modeling and Automation ? Petri-Nets and Applications ? Micro and Nano Systems ? Sensor networks and networked control ? Optimal Control ? Discrete Event Systems ? Adaptive Control ? Learning Systems ? Intelligent and AI Based Control ? Real-time Systems ? Sensor/data fusion ? Robotics ? Automated Guided Vehicles ? Control Education ? Control Applications ? Process Automation ? Man-machine Interactions ? Smart Structures ? Multi-agent systems Important Dates ------------------ Deadline for Manuscript Submissions: April 1, 2009 Notification of Acceptance: July 1, 2009 Submission of Final Manuscripts: September 1, 2009 Conference: December 9?11, 2009 ------------------ Sincerely, Dr. Wenhui Wang Lecturer, Mechatronics Programme Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Canterbury Private Bag 4800, Christchurch 8140 New Zealand Tel: 64-3-364-2987 ext. 7492 Fax: 64-3-364-2078 http://www.mech.canterbury.ac.nz/people/Wang.shtml From monica.reggiani at gmail.com Wed Mar 11 02:32:45 2009 From: monica.reggiani at gmail.com (Monica Reggiani) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:32:45 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] last CfP: ICAR 2009 - extended deadline: March 23, 2009 Message-ID: <956760ea0903110232h28c3aa28mb0d35784518ecb4@mail.gmail.com> ** Apologies for cross-postings. ** ** Please send to interested colleagues and students.** Due to the IROS09 deadline extension, and to several requests, the submission deadline has been extended by 10 days until ********* Monday, March 23, 2009. ********* ==================================================== CALL FOR PAPERS 14th International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR 2009) Munich, Germany, June 22nd to 26th, 2009 Theme: Able Robots http://www.icar2009.org/ http://www.icar2009.org/download/ICAR2009_CPF.pdf ****** NEW PAPER SUBMISSION DEADLINE: March 23, 2009 ****** Sponsored by the German Robotics Society (DGR) Technically Co-sponsored by IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) =========================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------ CONFERENCE THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ The theme of ICAR 2009 will be "able robots", where "able" is the lexical intersection of "cap-able", "depend-able", "measur-able", "afford-able". These adjectives stand as synonyms for four rather fundamental and important features of robots which are supposed to deliver useful and economically competitive services in everyday environments under everyday conditions. Robots need to be "cap-able" of performing functions, which are considered to be of real use to a customer. These functions and capabilities have to be shown in a "depend-able" manner 24 hours per day, 7 days per week and 52 weeks per year. Service robots, which have become products, have become "measur-able" because their price performance ratio determines their competitiveness. Measurability of functions, components, system designs is needed to develop competitive service robot products. Finally, attention must be paid not only to the development of high technology but also to "afford-able" technology, which leads to a competitive price performance ratio of the eventual service robotics products. We solicit original high-quality contributions particularly, but not exclusively addressing the following scientific and technological issues: * cap-able * motion planning and navigation, reactive and sensor-based planning, visual navigation, mapping and localization, robot control, kinematics and dynamics, behavior based systems, robot architectures, distributed robot systems, sensing and perception, scene understanding, situation awareness, force and tactile sensing, haptics, sensor fusion, visual servoing, tracking, manipulation, mobile manipulation, grasping, reasoning, learning, interaction, service robotics, domestic robotics, home automation, field and service robotics * afford-able * low-cost localization, low-cost sensing and 3D perception, low-cost wide-area navigation, low-cost collision detection and obstacle avoidance, low-cost manipulation and grasping, low-cost actuation, low-cost coverage, low-cost robot design * measur-able * performance measures and procedures, benchmarks, experimental robotics, standards * depend-able * robust autonomy, error recovery, remote diagnosis and monitoring, self-modeling, self-monitoring, self-repair Special sessions will be organized for the following topics (amongst others): * disposable robots * robotic learning by experimentation ------------------------------------------------------------ SUBMISSION OF PAPERS ------------------------------------------------------------ Authors are encouraged to submit their papers electronically in PDF format through http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icar2009 The page limit for submission is six pages in the double-column publication format (including figures, tables, and references). A maximum of two additional pages are permitted at an extra charge payable at the time of submitting the final, camera ready version of the paper. At least one author of each accepted paper should attend the conference to present the paper. For detailed up-to-date information and step-by-step instructions, please visit the official ICAR website: http://www.icar2009.org/authorsarea/ ------------------------------------------------------------ IMPORTANT DATES ------------------------------------------------------------ Paper Submission Deadline: March 23, 2009 (EXTENDED) Notification of Acceptance: April 25, 2009 Camera-ready Paper Submission: May 1, 2009 ------------------------------------------------------------ COMMITTEES ------------------------------------------------------------ * Honorary Chairs Rolf Dieter Schraft, Fraunhofer IPA Gerd Hirzinger, DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics * General Chair Erwin Prassler, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg Univ. of Applied Sciences * Program Chair Paolo Fiorini, Univ. of Verona * Workshop and Tutorial Chair Gerhard Kraetzschmar, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg Univ. of Applied Sciences * Publicity Chair Monica Reggiani, Univ. of Padua * Financial Chair Rainer Bischoff, KUKA Roboter GmbH * Publication Chair Martin H?gele, Fraunhofer IPA * Industrial Liaison Chair Gisbert Lawitzky, Siemens AG * Local Organizer Corinna Noltenius, GPS Gesellschaft f?r Produktionssysteme GmbH * International Steering Committee J. Angeles (Canada) A.K. Bejczy (USA) A. Casals (Spain) P. Dario (Italy) B. Espiau (France) G. Giralt (France) J.O. Gray (UK) G. Hirzinger (Gemany) O. Khatib (USA) G. Sandini (Italy) R.D. Schraft (Gemany) J. Trevelyan (Australia) Y. Umetani (Japan) ------------------------------------------------------------ VENUE ------------------------------------------------------------ All sessions and activities of the ICAR 2009 conference will be held at the Munich Marriott Hotel, Berliner Strasse 93, Munich, Germany. ------------------------------------------------------------ FURTHER INFORMATION ------------------------------------------------------------ Inquiries may be sent by e-mail message to the general chair: Erwin Prassler, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences E-Mail: erwin.prassler at fh-brs.de Detailed information on the Conference is available at the Conference web page: http://www.icar2009.org/ From P.H.Veltink at utwente.nl Wed Mar 11 09:10:41 2009 From: P.H.Veltink at utwente.nl (P.H.Veltink at utwente.nl) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:10:41 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Ph.D. student vacancy at University of Twente In-Reply-To: <631BC9B0-EE93-46F5-B34E-36BECB65F082@jan-peters.net> References: <631BC9B0-EE93-46F5-B34E-36BECB65F082@jan-peters.net> Message-ID: In the BSS group (http://bss.ewi.utwente.nl/) of the University of Twente (http://www.utwente.nl/en/) there is a Vacancy for a Ph.D. student position in the research project ?PowerSensor? This project is financially supported by the Dutch Technology Foundation STW (Technologiestichting STW ? project number 10333) The ?PowerSensor? project It is the objective of the PowerSensor project to develop modalities for quantitative assessment of the dynamic interactions between the human body or a robot and it?s environment during arbitrary movements using sensing systems on the interface. It involves the development of miniature sensors, sensor configurations and algorithms. The potential of this new method will be demonstrated in representative applications in ergonomics, rehabilitation, sports and robotics in close collaboration with selected users (further information: see next page). The Ph.D. student will develop measurement technology and algorithms for signal analysis. He/she will work in the Biomedical Signals and Systems (BSS) chair. The PowerSensor project is performed in collaboration with the Transducers Science and Technology (TST) chair (http://tst.ewi.utwente.nl/ ) What we ask: An MSc or comparable degree in engineering or physics with demonstrated abilities in the fields of measurement technology, systems and control and signal analysis; Affinity with biomedical engineering, human motor control and 3D kinematics and kinetics; Good control of the English language in written and spoken form; Ability to perform research work in a team. What we offer: Gross monthly salary for the PhD position range from ? 2.042,- gross per month in the first year up to ? 2.612,- gross per month in the fourth year. In addition to this, we offer a holiday allowance (amounts to 8%), an end-of-year bonus of one extra month, various sporting and cultural facilities at reduced rate, medical insurance at a reduced rate etc. Contact For more information please contact Prof. Peter Veltink (p.h.veltink at utwente.nl ) Applications should be in our possession, no later than 1 April 2009 Please send your applications to: bss at ewi.utwente.nl and mention vacancy number 09/039 From asaffio at aass.oru.se Wed Mar 11 11:18:14 2009 From: asaffio at aass.oru.se (Alessandro Saffiotti) Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:18:14 +0100 (CET) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP - Intelligent Environments special session Message-ID: [ Apologies for cross posting ] The International Conference on Intelligent Environments (see below) will include this year a special session on "Domestic Robotics and Smart Device Ecologies" that may be of interest to the readers of this mailing list. See the description at: http://intelligentenvironments.org/conferences/ie09/specialsessions/05 Sincerely, Alessandro Saffiotti --------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW EXTENDED SUBMISSION DEADLINE! 5th International Conference on Intelligent Environments July 20-21, 2009 (workshops day: July 19) Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain http://intelligentenvironments.org/conferences/ie09/ The 5th International Conference on Intelligent Environments (IE?09) will be held at the Technical University of Catalonia, Castelldefels, Barcelona, Spain. It is the next edition in a series of highly successful conferences that were organized in Colchester (UK), Athens (Greece), Ulm (Germany) and Seattle (USA) in the past four years. The conference provides a collaborative forum for scientists, researchers and engineers from both industry and academia to present theoretical and practical results of Intelligent Environments research and their application in various domains and disciplines, such as Ambient Intelligence, Human-Computer Interaction, Knowledge Management, Domestic and Rehabilitation Robotic systems, Smart sensors and actuators, Space and Architecture, Art and Design, Cultural Aspects, Social Sciences, Legal and Ethical Aspects, Smart and Virtual Environments. The conference program includes two invited lectures and hosts special sessions of full papers and short papers describing PhDs and posters. Workshops will be organized on a separate day. Information for authors and submission guidelines and templates are available at the conference web site. Use of the IE09 template is mandatory, and only papers following the instructions provided will be considered for inclusion in the proceedings, which, both for the main conference and workshops, will be published by IOS Press under ISBN. General Chairs Dolors Royo (Technical University of Catalonia, Spain) Angelica Reyes (Technical University of Catalonia, Spain) Leandro Navarro (Technical University of Catalonia, Spain) Program Chairs Victor Callaghan (University of Essex, UK) Achilles Kameas (Hellenic Open University and CTI, Greece) Important dates Paper submission: 3 April 2009 Paper acceptance: 24 April 2009 Paper final submission: 10 May 2009 Early bird registration: 5 June 2009 In cooperation with AAAI - The Association for the Advancement of AI Sponsored by UPC Agencia de Gestio d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca --------------------------------------------------------------------- From mmxie at ntu.edu.sg Wed Mar 11 17:52:19 2009 From: mmxie at ntu.edu.sg (Xie Ming (Assoc Prof)) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 08:52:19 +0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] New Book in Robotics: HAPTICS FOR TELEOPERATED SURGICAL ROBOTIC SYSTEMS Message-ID: <93859E1D3F846D4C918E01B2094A2A360520CDFE@EXCHANGE21.staff.main.ntu.edu.sg> New Frontiers in Robotics - Vol. 1 HAPTICS FOR TELEOPERATED SURGICAL ROBOTIC SYSTEMS by M Tavakoli (Harvard University, USA), R V Patel (University of Western Ontario, Canada), M Moallem (Simon Fraser University, Canada) & A Aziminejad (University of Western Ontario, Canada) An important obstacle in Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is the significant degradation of haptic feedback (sensation of touch) to the surgeon about surgical instrument's interaction with tissue. This monograph is concerned with devices and methods required for incorporating haptic feedback in master-slave robotic MIS systems. In terms of devices, novel mechanisms are designed including a surgical end-effector (slave) with full force sensing capabilities and a surgeon-robot interface (master) with full force feedback capabilities. Using the master-slave system, various haptic teleoperation control schemes are compared in terms of stability and performance, and passivity-based time delay compensation for haptic teleoperation over a long distance is investigated. The monograph also compares haptic feedback with visual feedback and with substitution for haptic feedback by other sensory cues in terms of surgical task performance. Contents: Introduction; Sensorized Surgical Effector (Slave); Haptic User Interface (Master); Unilateral Teleoperation Control; Bilateral Teleoperation Control; Substitution for Haptic Feedback: Bilateral Teleoperation Control Under Time Delay. Readership: Researchers in robotics, teleoperation, haptics, virtual reality, sensor technology, human machine interaction, and minimally invasive surgery and therapy. Key Features: The first book dedicated to the incorporation of haptic interaction in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery. Design of novel mechanisms such as a fully sensorized laparoscopic instrument and a fully force-reflective surgeon-robot interface. Design of control algorithms for stable and high-fidelity haptic teleoperation including long-distance teleoperation, which has potential applications in telesurgery From hashimoto at iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp Fri Mar 13 08:26:21 2009 From: hashimoto at iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp (Hideki HASHIMOTO) Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:26:21 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Early registration for ICRA2009 Message-ID: <7.0.0.16.2.20090314001631.0a496610@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp> Dear Potential participants for ICRA2009 The due date for early registration is March 24( until 24:00:00 Japan Standard Time) . You can save your registration fee. Please visit http://www.icra2009.org/travel/registration.html Hideki HASHIMOTO (Univ. of Tokyo) ICRA2009 Publicity Chair From hadaskg at cornell.edu Fri Mar 13 09:07:58 2009 From: hadaskg at cornell.edu (Hadas Kress-Gazit) Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:07:58 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for participation - ICRA 2009 workshop - Formal Methods in Robotics and Automation Message-ID: *Call for Participation* ICRA 2009 workshop - "Formal Methods in Robotics and Automation" http://web.mae.cornell.edu/hadaskg/ICRA09/index.html Full day workshop to be held on May 12th, 2009 in Kobe, Japan. *Motivation and objective:* ** How can we *guarantee* robots will never cause harm? How can we prove that complicated mechanical systems, controlled by computers and programmed by people will *always* behave as expected, under changing conditions and in a variety of uncertain environments? How do we formalize what such behaviors are? Recent work in robotics and automation draws on ideas and methodologies developed by the formal methods community for verifying logic circuits and software systems. While these ideas form a good foundation, dealing with physical robots requires taking into account the dynamics and uncertainty of the robot as well as the world, thus adding a substantial level of complexity. This full day workshop brings together leading researchers in the field to discuss the state of the art as well as the challenges that must be addressed in order to create safe and reliable systems that can be proven to be correct, either by design or by verification. *Intended audience:* Researchers and students interested in verification of robotic and automation systems, formal task representation and controller synthesis as well as researchers from industry that may suggest further challenges that should be addressed by this community *Speakers*: Calin Belta ? Boston University Julia Braman* *? California Institute of Technology Magnus Egerstedt ? Georgia Institute of Technology Lydia Kavraki ? Rice University Eric Klavins ? University of Washington Hadas Kress-Gazit - Cornell University Sayan Mitra - University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign George Pappas - University of Pennsylvania Claire Tomlin ? Stanford University, UC Berkeley -- ========================= Hadas Kress-Gazit Assistant Professor Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Cornell University 210 Upson Hall Phone: 607-255-1592 http://web.mae.cornell.edu/hadaskg/ From john at mmmi.sdu.dk Sat Mar 14 13:44:33 2009 From: john at mmmi.sdu.dk (John Hallam) Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 21:44:33 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Natural and Biomimetic Mechanosensing Conference, Dresden, Oct 2009 Message-ID: <20090314204433.GE2645@israfel.sconet> CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT I am delighted to annouce the following conference. Apologies if you get more than one copy of this; but please circulate it to interested parties who may have been missed by this once-off mailshot. NATURAL AND BIOMIMETIC MECHANOSENSING CONFERENCE ------------------------------------------------ Organized by the IST-FET Integrated Project CILIA (cilia-bionics.org) which is funded by the European Comission, the Conference ?Natural and Biomimetic Mechanosensing? (NBM) will be held in Dresden, Germany, October 26-28 2009. The conference is dedicated to the identification of common principles underlying the widespread use in Nature of arrays of mechano-sensory structures for the extraction of meaning from environmental signals under adverse conditions. A second focus will be on engineered systems derived from those principles. To subscribe to the Conference Newsletter and receive updates and further occasional information, please write an email to: NBMconference at fz-juelich.de More information can also be found on the conference web site http://www.cilia-bionics.org/nbm_conference Best wishes, John Hallam From danik at nada.kth.se Sun Mar 15 08:23:34 2009 From: danik at nada.kth.se (Danica Kragic) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:23:34 +0100 (MET) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 5 postodoctoral positions at the Centre for Autonomous Systems Message-ID: The Centre for Autonomous Systems (CAS) and Computational Vision and Active Perception Laboratory (CVAP) at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden announces 5 postdoctoral positions in the following fields: -------------------------------------------------- Sensor Guided Object Grasping and Manipulation Spatial Modeling, Navigation and SLAM Fault diagnosis and recovery Reasoning and Planning Active vision systems Systems integration -------------------------------------------------- CAS performs research in autonomous systems including mobile robot systems for domestic and field applications. Research at CVAP considers all aspects of computer vision and machine learning. More information can be found at: www.csc.kth.se/cvap www.cas.kth.se Tasks ----- The candidates will work in the context of various national and European research projects such as GRASP (www.grasp-project.eu), CogX(cogx.eu), PACO-PLUS (www.paco-plus.org). The focus of the research will depend on the background of the candidate and personal initaitive. The research environment will offer possibilities for strong international collaboration. Requirements ------------ Candidates should have a Ph.D. or equivalent in one of the areas of Computer Science, Automatic Control, Mathematics, Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learaning. Candidates are also expected to be experienced with programming in C++ and Matlab. The appointment will be full time for a period of one year to three years. Application and further information ------------------------------------ Applications should include a letter of motivation, a curriculum vitae, a list of publications, and the names and contact information of two referees. For more information, contact dani at kth.se. The applications should be sent by email to dani at kth.se. ******************************************************************* Danica Kragic Professor, Director of the Centre for Autonomous systems CAS-CVAP-KTH Phone: +46 (0)8 790 6729 SE-100 44 Stockholm, SWEDEN Fax: +46 (0)8 723 0302 WWW: http://www.csc.kth.se/~danik Email:dani at kth.se From tapus at usc.edu Sun Mar 15 13:59:09 2009 From: tapus at usc.edu (Adriana Tapus) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:59:09 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: ARTIPED - International Symposium on Assistive and Recuperative Technologies for Injured, ill, Pregnant, Elderly and people with Disabilities Message-ID: Dear all, We invite you to submit papers with new results, overviews of on-going research or state-of-the art reviews for the interdisciplinary meeting: The International Symposium on Assistive and Recuperative Technologies for Injured, ill, Pregnant, Elderly and people with Disabilities ARTIPED www.artiped.info/artiped09.html to be held in Iasi, Romania, July 23-25, 2009 focus: technologies benefiting from the revolution in robotics and prosthetic devices. A special focus of the 2009 ARTIPED is on technologies benefiting from the revolution in robotics and prosthetic devices. Thus, special sessions will be organized on the following topics: * Therapeutic and surgery robots for minimally invasive and remote operation procedures; * Assistive and caregiving robotics and systems; * Endoprosthetic devices, technologies and procedures for restoring functionality * Exoprosthetic devices, technologies and procedures, exoskeletons and other systems for restoring mobility; * Prosthetic technologies for systems for coping with perception, control and communication impairments (hearing, speech, and vision assistive systems, brain-machine interfaces and control, neuro-robotics), * Robotics and automation in genetic/stem cell/tissue engineering, intelligent information processing in new devices and robots, Broader areas of interest in which submissions are also sought are the development and use of * new materials and structures, procedures, robotics and prosthetic devices, information technologies supporting diagnostic and intervention, computerized diagnostic, monitoring and therapy, organ/tissue/blood/marrow preservation /banks; * biotechnologies, managed healthcare, neuro-robotics, biofeedback devices, bioinformatics, human genetic engineering, genetic technologies for therapy and enhancement; * new techniques and technologies in neurosurgery, brain implants, neuro/brain-machine interfaces and control, stem cells engineering, tissue engineering, artificial and bio-artificial organs, novel medical devices and systems, etc. ARTIPED will take place immediately after the Second International Symposium on Learning and Adaptive Behaviours in Robotic Systems, LAB-RS 09, part of the ATEQUAL Conference, Advanced Technologies for Enhanced Quality of Life (www.atequal.info/atequal09.html). This interdisciplinary meeting will bring together researchers in advanced technologies, from assistive robotics to breakthrough genetic therapies, that are revolutionizing healthcare, and that offer promises in assistance to elders, and cures for previously incurable diseases. The meeting will foster scientific exchange within this confluence field, bringing together technical scientists, life scientists and medical doctors to share latest knowledge, present new techniques, and discuss future avenues in using technology to enhance quality of life. General Chairs Paul Botez Gr. T. Popa University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Ia?i, Romania Adrian Lobontiu, Henri-Mondor Hospital, France Paul Dan Sirbu, Gr. T. Popa University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Ia?i, Romania Program Chairs Adrian Stoica, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, USA Important dates Paper submission: 9 April 2009 Paper acceptance: 6 May 2009 Camera Ready: 27 May 2009 Early bird registration: 30 May 2009 ____________________________________ Dr. Adriana Tapus Publicity Chair Email: tapus at usc.edu Webpage: http://www-robotics.usc.edu/~tapus From dzsong at cs.tamu.edu Sun Mar 15 14:09:46 2009 From: dzsong at cs.tamu.edu (Dezhen Song) Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:09:46 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Special issue on networked robots submission deadline extended to Apr. 2, 2009 Message-ID: Journal of Intelligent Service Robotics Announcing: Special Issue on Networked Robots: Serving the Society A "networked robot" is a robotic device connected to a communications network such as the Internet or LAN. Communication medium could be wired or wireless. Further, various protocols may be used for each level of the network. Many new applications of networked robots are now being developed ranging from automation to exploration. There are two subclasses of Networked Robots: 1) Tele-operated, where human supervisors send commands and receive feedback via the network. Such systems support research, education, and public awareness by making valuable resources accessible to broad audiences. 2) Autonomous, where robots and sensors exchange data via the network. In such systems, the sensor network extends the effective sensing range of the robots, allowing them to communicate with each other over long distances to coordinate their activity. The robots in turn can deploy, repair, and maintain the sensor network to increase its longevity, and utility. Networked robots pose a number of technical challenges related to network noise, reliability, congestion, fixed and variable time delay, stability, passivity, range and power limitations, deployment, coverage, safety, localization, sensor and actuation fusion, privacy, security, and user interface design. New capabilities arise frequently with the introduction of new hardware, software, and protocol standards. In this special issue, the research topics are focused on addressing algorithmic and system challenges when the networked robots are used in service applications. Possible Topics: Communication Variable time delays, packet effects Protocol design for networked robots Security, Privacy Low Latency Video, Tactile Coordination, Algorithms Collaborative, distributed control, formation, swarm intelligence Deployment, localization, mobility Mapmaking and network self-organization Systems and Applications Human interfaces, human-robot interaction Power management Hybrid architectures, interoperability Hardware (sensors, power, size, cost) Paper Submission: Deadline for paper submission: 2 Apr. 2009 Paper reviews returned to authors: 15 May 2009 Deadline for camera ready papers: 15 June 2009 Expected journal publication date: July 2009 Authors should submit an electronic copy of their paper using editorial manager system. Click here to submit the paper. Please indicate the paper is for the special issue on networked robots during submission. Please send inquiries and submissions to: Dezhen Song, dzsong at cs.tamu.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Special Issue Editors: Nak Young Chong, School of Information Science, JAIST, Japan Norihiro Hagita, ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communicatuon Laboratories, Japan Volkan Isler, Computer Science Dept., Univ. of Minnesota, USA Klaus Schilling, Computer Science Dept., the University of Wrzburg, Germany, Dezhen Song, Computer Science and Engineering Dept., Texas A&M University, USA ------------------------------------------------------------------ Dezhen Song, PhD Email: dzsong at cs.tamu.edu Assistant Professor Rm. 311C H.R. Bright Building Department of Computer Science 3112 TAMU Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843 Phone: (979)845-5464(O) http://faculty.cs.tamu.edu/dzsong ------------------------------------------------------------------ From james.morrison at kaist.edu Sun Mar 15 20:06:41 2009 From: james.morrison at kaist.edu (James Morrison) Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:06:41 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Special Issue on Equipment & Operations Automation in the Semiconductor Industry: IEEE Robotics and Automation Society TASE Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society has approved a special issue of the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (IEEE TASE)! The issue focuses on Equipment and Operations Automation in the Semiconductor Industry and is scheduled for publication mid 2010. Example topics of interest include the scheduling of wafer handling robots to optimize cluster tool throughput, design of equipment and robot structure, factory modeling, decision support systems and the control of robotics for system and/or equipment productivity. Papers addressing topics from the theory and application of robotics and automation in the semiconductor industry are welcome. A more extensive list containing topics of interest is provided below. Important dates follow: - June 1, 2009: PAPER SUBMISSION DEADLINE. - September 15, 2009: Completion of the first round paper review. - January 1, 2010: Completion of the second round paper review. - March 1, 2010: Final manuscripts due. - July 1, 2010: Tentative publication date. The CFP is available at http://xs3d.kaist.edu/TC-SMA. We welcome high quality papers from both industry and academia. Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following: - Decision technologies for equipment automation (e.g., scheduling of wafer handling robots) - Design concepts for equipment and related automation (e.g., equipment and wafer handling robot structure) - Design for manufacturing (DFM) - Factory modeling, analysis and performance evaluation - Algorithms for planning, scheduling and coordination - Wafer release and dispatch policies - Equipment productivity improvement - Automated material handling systems (AMHS) - Factory/cell/equipment-level controller design - Manufacturing execution systems (MES) - Advanced process control (APC) - Decision support systems (DSS) - Yield enhancement systems and e-Diagnosis - Data mining for yield and production improvement - Equipment engineering systems (EES) - Fully automated factory and remote operation center - Mobile and wireless applications (RFID) - Agent based intelligent systems - Engineering chains and supply chains - Factory of the future - Benchmark and case studies - Automation in 300mm prime/450mm wafer generations (e.g., issues in robotics for future wafer size generations) I look forward to your contribution! Best regards, Jim ========================================================================================= James R. Morrison, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, KAIST, South Korea Co-chair of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Technical Committee on Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation ========================================================================================= E-mail: james.morrison at kaist.edu, TEL: +82-42-350-3127 xS3D Lab homepage: http://xs3d.kaist.edu IEEE Technical Committee on Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation: http://xs3d.kaist.edu/TC-SMA ========================================================================================= From rsiegwart at ethz.ch Mon Mar 16 03:22:21 2009 From: rsiegwart at ethz.ch (Siegwart Roland) Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:22:21 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CfP: ISRR 2009 - 14th International Symposium on Robotics Research, August 31 - September 3, 2009, Lucerne, Switzerland Message-ID: ========================================= ISRR 2009 - Call for Paper 14th International Symposium on Robotics Research August 31 - September 3, 2009, Lucerne, Switzerland Deadline for Paper Submission: March 31, 2009 --- http://www.isrr2009.ethz.ch/ --- ========================================= Objective: The goal of the ISRR Symposia is to bring together active leading robotics researchers and pioneers from academia, government, and industry to assess and share their views and ideas about the state of the art in robotics, and to discuss promising new avenues for future research. All participants are kindly asked to convey the single track and highly interactive spirit of ISRR and take part in all sessions so that a stimulating and dynamic discussion can be established. As the flagship symposium of the International Foundation of Robotics Research (IFRR), this 14th edition of ISRR follows up on a long history of extraordinary meetings. Symposium Format: The Symposium will be held in an informal setting with a limited number of participants to encourage close technical and personal interactions. During the four-day Symposium, approximately 45 papers will be presented. The meeting will be organized as a single track meeting, and contributions that cover all aspects of robotics research are solicited. Sessions will be organized in themes, and all sessions will provide ample opportunity for discussion. As in previous years, the proceedings of the Symposium will be published as a Springer STAR series book. Attendance will be limited. Priority is given to authors and invited participants. Venue: The symposium will be held in Lucerne, one of the most charming and picturesque cities in Switzerland at the boarder of the Lace of Lucerne. Lucerne is easy to reach by direct trains from Zurich Airport. Paper Solicitation: Papers representing authoritative reviews of established research areas as well as papers reporting on new areas and pioneering work are sought for presentation at the Symposium. In addition to the open call, a well selected number of leading researchers will be solicited to contribute by personal invitation. Each submission will be reviewed by members of the Symposium Program Committee. The quality of the papers and the related presentations are a central priority for ISRR. Authors new to ISRR are particularly encouraged to submit. Submission Procedure: Papers must be submitted in LaTeX format according to the template for the Springer STAR series proceedings downloadable from the submission webpage. Papers may not exceed 16 pages in this format. All papers must be submitted electronically in PDF format through the online submission system found on the symposium webpage. Important Dates: - March 31, 2009: Submission of papers - May 31, 2009: Notification of paper acceptance - July 15, 2009: Submission of final camera-ready papers - July 15, 2009: Deadline for early registration - August 31, 2009: Start Conference (Evening Reception) - September 3, 2009: End Conference (Lunch time) Main Sponsor: International Foundation of Robotics Research http://www.ifrr.org/ Committee: General Co-Chairs: Roland Siegwart, ETH Zurich Gerd Hirzinger, DLR Germany Program Co-Chairs: Tomomasa Sato (Asia/Oceania) Henrik Christensen (Americas) Raja Chatila (Europa/Africa) Publication Chair Cedric Pradalier Web Master Ralf K?stner Conference Office Cornelia Della Casa Luciana Borsatti International Foundation of Robotics Research http://www.ifrr.org/ President Oussama Khatib Executive Officers Hirochika Inoue Gerd Hirzinger Takeo Kanade Honorary Officers Ruzena Bajcsy Rod Brooks George Giralt Bernie Roth Officers Robert Bolles Herman Bruyninckx Raja Chatila Henrik Christensen Paolo Dario Rudiger Dillmann Shigeo Hirose John Hollerbach Ray Jarvis Makoto Kaneko Dan Koditschek Tomomasa Sato Yoshiaki Shirai Roland Siegwart _________________________ Prof. Dr. Roland Siegwart Autonomous Systems Lab Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems ETH Z?rich, CLA E 33 Tannenstrasse 3 CH-8092 Z?rich, Switzerland Office: +41 44 632 23 58 Fax: +41 86 079 214 49 27 Mobile: +41 79 214 49 27 E-Mail: rsiegwart at ethz.ch WWW: www.asl.ethz.ch ******************************************** International Symposium on Robotics Research ISRR 2009 - http://www.isrr2009.ethz.ch ******************************************** From salah at acfr.usyd.edu.au Mon Mar 16 16:11:24 2009 From: salah at acfr.usyd.edu.au (Salah Sukkarieh) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:11:24 +1100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Videos and Presentations of the SLAM Summer School 2009 Message-ID: <015101c9a68c$872b1670$95814350$@usyd.edu.au> The 4th Summer School in Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) was hosted by the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, University of Sydney on 20-23 January 2009. Presentations and video recordings can be found here: http://www.acfr.usyd.edu.au/education/summerschool.shtml From felix at laas.fr Tue Mar 17 06:55:35 2009 From: felix at laas.fr (Felix Ingrand) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:55:35 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Two postdoc positions (2 years) LAAS and Verimag : Toward a validated and verifiable architecture for autonomous robots Message-ID: <2E1D686A-3336-4E6D-AF12-165AED90804E@laas.fr> Two Post-doctoral positions at LAAS-CNRS and Verimag, Toulouse/Grenoble, France Title: Toward a validated and verifiable architecture for autonomous robots Subject: In recent years, LAAS and VERIMAG have joined their know-how and efforts to develop a new architecture methodology which embed some formal verification techniques and enable the synthesis of robot controller which are correct by construction. This new methodology relies on two paradigms. On one side, the VERIMAG BIP component based design approach which allows the deployment of embedded real-time systems and one the other side the LAAS architecture and its development tools : in particular GenoM, which lays down an open framework where one can harness the BIP approach. BIP is a software framework for modeling heterogeneous real-time components. The BIP component model is the superposition of three layers: the lower layer describes the behavior of a component as a set of transitions (i.e. a finite state automaton extended with data); the intermediate layer includes connectors describing the interactions between transitions of the layer underneath; the upper layer consists of a set of priority rules used to describe scheduling policies for interactions. Such a layering offers a clear separation between component behavior and structure of a system (interactions and priorities). From a BIP model, one can synthesize a controller which is "correct by construction", and associated with the BIP engine, will only fire and run the valid interaction in the system. The obtained BIP model can also be used off-line to check general safety properties by computing behaviors and interactions invariants. The LAAS/GenoM methodology is based on the encapsulation of each basic functionality of the robot in a module. All these modules are built by instantiating a unique generic canvas. Each module is specified by providing the following information: the internal functional data structure (IfDS), the list of services (started with requests) provided by this module, the list of posters (if any) exported by this module and the list of execution tasks with their respective activation period. As a first step, we have already combined the two approaches and are now able to synthesize a complete BIP controller of the functional level of an exploration rover (DALA, an iRobot ATRV) [Bensalem et al. 09]. Our goals are now to: - improve the current GenoM/BIP integration in the following directions: + development of a real-time BIP Engine + development of a distributed BIP Engine + development of a high level "langage" to specify and check properties in the BIP model - develop the use of BIP at a higher level in the robot architecture (deliberation layer): + model of the supervision component + model of the planning/plan execution component + model of the situations recognition component. - develop of an abstracted functional representation to integrate functional components written with other frameworks Each of these research venues will be both examined and studied at VERIMAG from the V&V point of view and at LAAS from the robotics point of view. Hence we are looking for two postdocs (one for each site) for 2 years each. The postdoc whose background will be closer to robotics will be at LAAS, and the one whose background is more in the V&V field will be at Verimag. Both postdocs will do cross regular visits at the other places and will take part in a number of projects related to this research topics. Requirements: PhD in a related field (embedded real time system, robot control architecture, temporal planning with contraint based approach, model based software architecture, formal validation and verification, etc). Starting date: Spring 2009 Duration: 2 years Applicants should send: - a resume/bio - pointers to their most important publications and/or their PhD (French or English documents) - recommendation letter(s) Contacts: F?lix Ingrand (felix at laas.fr) Phone: +33 5 61 33 78 04 LAAS-CNRS, RIS group 7 avenue du Colonel Roche 31077 Toulouse Cedex 4, France Saddek Bensalem (saddek.bensalem at imag.fr) Phone: +33 4 56 52 03 71 VERIMAG Centre ?quation - 2, avenue de Vignate 38610 GI?RES Salary: 2500 Euros/month [Bensalem et al. 09] Toward a More Dependable Software Architecture for Autonomous Robots Saddek Bensalem, Matthieu Gallien, F?lix Ingrand, Imen Kahloul and Thanh-Hung Nguyen Special issue on Software Engineering for Robotics of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (March 2009). -- Felix From jneira at unizar.es Tue Mar 17 10:17:35 2009 From: jneira at unizar.es (=?windows-1252?Q?Jos=E9_Neira?=) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:17:35 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Final Program: ICRA'09 Workshop on Visual Mapping and Navigation in Outdoor Environments Message-ID: <49BFDB2F.8040902@unizar.es> =============================================================== Final Program of ICRA Workshop on "Visual Mapping and Navigation in Outdoor Environments" Kobe, Japan, May 12 http://webdiis.unizar.es/~neira/icra2009 =============================================================== This full-day workshop will be held at ICRA 2009 in Kobe, on Tuesday, May 12 2009, 9:00-17:00. Final program: 9:00 - 9_05 Inauguration 9:05 - 9:30 Kurt Konolige, Willow Garage View-Based maps 9:30 - 9:55 Paul Newman, University of Oxford Outdoor Navigation. Mapping and Understanding with Vision and Laser 9:55 - 10:20 Davide Scaramuzza, ETH Zurich Fast Relative Motion Estimation from a Single Feature Correspondence by Exploiting Nonholonomic Constraints 10:20 - 10:45 Coffee 10:45 - 11:10 Juan D. Tard?s, University of Zaragoza Monocular and Stereo SLAM in Large Environments 11:10 - 11:35 Martin Adams, Nanyang Technological Institute A Random Set Approach to SLAM 11:35 - 12:00 Gabe Sibley, University of Oxford A Relative Formulation for Scalable Real-time 6DOF Visual SLAM 12:00 - 13:30 Lunch 13:30 - 13:55 J.M.M. Montiel, University of Zaragoza EKF-based Sequential Bayesian Structure From Motion 13:55 - 14:20 Maren Bennewitz, University of Freiburg Learning Efficient Policies for Vision-based Navigation 14:20 - 14:45 Albert Huang, MIT Finding Multiple Lanes with Vision and Lidar 14:45 - 15:10 Coffee 15:10 - 15:35 Salah Sukkarieh, University of Sydney Multi-Dimensional Mapping, Tracking and Classification using Inertial/Vision/GPS on a UAV 15:35 -16:00 Ryan Eustice, University of Michigan Monocular Vision-Based SLAM for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles: An Application to Autonomous Ship Hull Inspection 16:00 - 16:25 Stefan Williams and Ian Mahon, University of Sydney Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping and Dense Stereoscopic Seafloor Reconstruction using an AUV 16:25 - 17:00 Discussion and concluding remarks For details on registration, please see the workshop home page. -- Jose Neira ---------------------------------------------------- Departamento de Inform?tica e Ingenier?a de Sistemas Centro Polit?cnico Superior Universidad de Zaragoza Edificio Ada Byron Mar?a de Luna 1 E-50018 Zaragoza, Spain Fax: (34) 976 761 914; Voice: (34) 976 761 947; Office D.1.19 Email: jneira at unizar.es; URL: http://webdiis.unizar.es/~neira From tapus at usc.edu Tue Mar 17 22:30:32 2009 From: tapus at usc.edu (Adriana Tapus) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 22:30:32 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: ISRIS Summer School Message-ID: Attention: Researchers interested in Assistive Robots and Systems for Healthcare and Rehabilitation (graduate students, postdocs, etc) International School in Robotics and Intelligent Systems, Iasi, Romania, July 22-26 www.isris.info/isris09.html (The first round of applications will be evaluated March 23rd.) Subject areas: Prosthetic Technologies, Recuperative Systems, Exoskeletons,Therapeutic/Surgery Robotics,Assistive and Caregiving Robotics, Bio-signal collection and information processing, Intelligence for robotics and prosthetic devices. Confirmed lecturers include: 1. Prof. Paolo Fiorini, University of Verona, Italy 2. Dr. Edward Tunstel, Applied Physics Lab, John Hopkins University, USA 3. Prof. Alberto Rovetta, Politechnico di Milano, Italy (Neuromotor rehabilitation with biorobotics device) 4. Prof Jos Vander Sloten, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, (Musculoskeletal biomechanics, Computer integrated surgery) 5. Prof Dirk Lefeber, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium (From Conventional to Bionic Prosthetics, Exoskeletons for gait rehabilitation, Compliant actuators for robots in direct contact with humans) 6. Dr. Fr?d?ric Colledani, CEA, France (Exoskeletons for rehabilitation and assistance of impaired people, Surgicobot: Surgeon assistance and guidance for avoiding critical regions, On the acquisition, interpretation, storing and transfer of surgeon skills) 7. Dr. Adriana Tapus, University of Southern California, USA (Human robot interaction, Socially assistive robotics) 8. Prof Paul Botez, MD, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Iasi,Romania (Orthopedic Surgery, Prosthetic arthroplasty of the hip, Prosthetic arthroplasty of the knee) 9. Prof Adrian Lobontiu, MD,Henri Mondor Hospital, Paris 12 University, France (Endoluminal Surgery, Robotic Surgery - cardiac, urology, general surgery and vascular surgery-, Tele-Surgery) 10. Prof Dragos Arotaritei, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Iasi, Romania (Soft computing,Robotics and nano manipulators, Optimization Techniques) 11. Prof Tughrul Arslan, University of Edinburgh,UK ( Microelectronics design of low-power high performance processing integrated systems, Micro and nano-systems: for medical devices: - Design aspects for a hearing aid, - Design aspects for an ingestible electronic pill for real time analytical measurements of the gastrointestinal tract) 12. Dr. Adrian Stoica, NASA-JPL (Roadmaping medical and healthcare robotic systems, Ethical aspects of medical and healthcare robotics, Collaborative projects) ____________________________________ ISRIS is held as part of the ATEQUAL (Advanced Technologies for Enhanced Quality of Life) Interdisciplinary Forum: (www.atequal.info/atequal09.html). This interdisciplinary meeting aims to bring together researchers in advanced technologies, from assistive robotics to breakthrough genetic therapies, that are revolutionizing healthcare, and that offer promises in assistance to elders, and cures for previously incurable diseases. The meeting will foster scientific exchange between technical scientists, life scientists and medical doctors who will share latest knowledge, present new techniques, and discuss future avenues in using technology to enhance quality of life. School Directors: Ioan Doroftei,Tech UnivIasi, Romania Ayanna Howard, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA Adrian Stoica, NASA-JPL, Caltech,USA Applicants should submit a CV and a short (up to one page) description of research interests to Adrian.stoica at jpl.nasa.gov, with subject ISRIS 2009 Application. Applications will be reviewed in the order received. The school will be limited to 40 students. The first round of applications will be evaluated March 23rd. To secure a place it is advised to apply early. The registration fee for ISRIS is 500 Euros __________________________________ Dr. Adriana Tapus Publicity Chair Email: tapus at usc.edu Webpage: http://www-robotics.usc.edu/~tapus From dana at ynl.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp Wed Mar 18 02:36:43 2009 From: dana at ynl.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp (Dana Kulic) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:36:43 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CALL FOR POSTER SUBMISSIONS: RSS Workshop on combining discrete and continuous representations for robotics Message-ID: <7565A9456BC6402C8B64D955305602E1@danalaptop> CALL FOR POSTER SUBMISSIONS RSS 2009 Workshop on bridging the gap between high-level discrete representations and low-level continuous behaviors http://learning-robots.de/TC/RSS2009 Sunday, June 28, 2009 in Seattle, WA? As part of the Robotics: Science and Systems Conference (www.roboticsconference.org) Important Dates April 20, 2009 Poster Abstract Submission Deadline May 15, 2009 Notification of Acceptance June 28, 2009 Workshop Introduction Recently, robotics researchers have been investigating the modeling of human and robot behavior in terms of motion primitives. This research direction, based on biological and neuroscience findings, posits that human behavior is composed of motor primitive units, which can be acquired by a robot through imitation learning or practice. Motion primitives offer an approach for discretizing continuous behavior, representing a "bottom-up" approach for organizing robot behavior.? On the other hand, in AI and planning fields, there has been a longstanding area of research in planning and acting in the discrete domain, or through modeling changes in the world as an instantaneous change in discrete state. This approach can be thought of as a "top-down" approach for organizing robot behavior. In this workshop, we hope to bring together researchers from both areas to discuss approaches for "bridging the gap" and combining continuous domain approaches with discrete representations. Topics of Interest We invite poster submissions from researchers working on combining discrete representations with continuous behaviors for robotic systems.? Specific topics of interest include: ? -????????? motion primitive representations and task abstractions -????????? learning and parsing sequences and plans of motion primitives -????????? imitation learning and learning from observation based on motion primitives -????????? hierarchical reinforcement learning -????????? apprenticeship learning of composed tasks -????????? hybrid task control -????????? hierarchical organization of behaviors -????????? learning operator conditions for primitives -????????? plan recognition -????????? plan generation and modification Submission Guidelines Authors should submit a 1-2 page abstract of their poster by email to postersubmissions at learning-robots.de, by April 20, 2009. Workshop Organizers Dana Kuli? Department of Mechano-Informatics University of Tokyo dana at learning-robots.de Pieter Abbeel Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science University of California at Berkeley pabbeel at cs.berkeley.edu Jan Peters Department for Empirical Inference and Machine Learning Max Planck Institute of Biological Cybernetics mail at jan-peters.net From mmxie at ntu.edu.sg Mon Mar 16 18:19:29 2009 From: mmxie at ntu.edu.sg (Xie Ming (Assoc Prof)) Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:19:29 +0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] New robotics book announcement: DYNAMICS AND ROBUST CONTROL OF ROBOT-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION Message-ID: <93859E1D3F846D4C918E01B2094A2A360520D075@EXCHANGE21.staff.main.ntu.edu.sg> New Frontiers in Robotics - Vol. 2 DYNAMICS AND ROBUST CONTROL OF ROBOT-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION By Miomir Vukobratovic ("Mihajlo Pupin" Institute, Belgrade, Serbia), Dragoljub Surdilovic (Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems & Design Technology IPK, Berlin, Germany), Yury Ekalo (St Petersburg Electrotechnical University, Russia) & Dusko Katic ("Mihajlo Pupin" Institute, Belgrade, Serbia) This book covers the most attractive problem in robot control, dealing with the direct interaction between a robot and a dynamic environment, including the human-robot physical interaction. It provides comprehensive theoretical and experimental coverage of interaction control problems, starting from the mathematical modeling of robots interacting with complex dynamic environments, and proceeding to various concepts for interaction control design and implementation algorithms at different control layers. Focusing on the learning principle, it also shows the application of new and advanced learning algorithms for robotic contact tasks. The ultimate aim is to strike a good balance between the necessary theoretical framework and practical aspects of interactive robots. Contents: Control of Robots in Contact Tasks: A Survey; A Unified Approach to Dynamic Control of Robots; Impedance Control; Practical Synthesis of Impedance Control; Robust Control of Human-Robot Interaction in Haptic Systems; Intelligent Control Techniques for Robotic Contact Tasks. Readership: Researchers, academics and graduate students in robotics and automated systems, dynamical systems, artificial intelligence and fuzzy logic. Key Features * Presents a unified approach to dynamic control of robots on the basis of a generalized dynamic model of environment * Covers the stabilization of robot interacting with the dynamic environment considering critical contact transition and time delay effects * Tackles compliance control concepts in industrial robotic systems, including planning and programming issues (more at: http://www.worldscibooks.com/compsci/7017.html) From yoshikawa at jeap.org Thu Mar 19 01:26:04 2009 From: yoshikawa at jeap.org (Yuichiro Yoshikawa) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:26:04 +0900 (LMT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Participant: Workshop on "Human Robot Interaction: Cognitive factors and their applications" in ICRA 2009 Message-ID: <20090319.172604.103730574.yoshikawa@jeap.org> (Apologies for multiples copies) We fixed the program of this workshop. Please check it out. ========================================================================== Call for Participation for IEEE ICRA'09 ICRA Workshop on "Human Robot Interaction: Cognitive factors and their applications" Kobe, Japan, May 13th ( 9:00 - 12:00 ) http://www.ed.ams.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp/link/icra2009/WorkshopICRA2009HRI.htm =========================================================================== --------- Overview --------- The aim of this half day workshop is to discuss the state-of-the-art in human-robot interaction and bridges several approaches related to human-robot interaction, especially robot development and human behavior understanding. Roughly speaking, Japan and Korea are leading in the development of humanoids and USA and European countries are leading in cognitive architecture of the robots and human behavior understanding. It is important to bridge to these activities and establish a seamless research area. Throughout the workshop, we will focus on the core scientific questions as well as key engineering issues related to the design, implementation and use of such robots for a broad range of applications ranging from health care, to construction, to planetary exploration. Leading researchers will present their experiences and lessons learned from real-world systems. The workshop will culminate in a panel discussion to identify key scientific and technical challenges. This workshop is designed to benefit researchers and students who are interested in developing interactive robots and the state-of-the-art in the close interdisciplinary and internationally collaborative research areas. -------- Program -------- Session 1: Developing robots that have interactive functions 9:00- 9:25 Hiroshi Ishiguro, "Studies on Interactive Robots" 9:25- 9:50 Kazuhiro Kosuge, "(TBA)" 9:50-10:15 Shigeki Sugano, "Human Robot Interaction, Developing robots that have interactive functions, Human Symbiotic Robot Design Session2: Understanding humans by using the interactive robots 10:20-10:45 Gerhard Sagerer, Britta Wrede, and Katharina J. Rohlfing, "Towards Contingency in Human-Robot Interaction as a Basis for Learning" 10:45-11:10 Nikolaos Mavridis, "Approaches towards Natural Language Communication for Interactive Robots" 11:10-11:35 Kevin Gold, "Building Child-Like Robotic Word Learners" 11:35-12:00 Yuichiro Yoshikawa, "Modeling Socializing Process based on Mutually Excitatory Structure" --------------- List of topics --------------- *Discuss design elements required for socially intelligent robots including appearance, social cognition, human modeling, communication, interaction, and social learning *Review common problems, challenges, and potential solutions *Identify core scientific questions pertaining to the realization of intelligent robot teammates *Identify directions for future research and potential applications *Educate the audience on the difficulties inherent in human-robot interaction, especially designing to support human social intelligence and interaction *Foster technical discussion among leading researchers --------------- Registrations --------------- Please see the registration page which will appear soon at ICRA2009 HP. http://www.icra2009.org/ Workshop organizers Hiroshi Ishiguro, Cecilia Laschi, Cynthia Breazeal, Yasuchi Nakauchi, and Yuichiro Yoshikawa ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yuichiro Yoshikawa Asada Synergistic Intelligence Project, ERATO, JST, Japan Dept. of Adaptive Machine Systems, Graduate School of Eng., Osaka Univ. 401 FRC-1, Graduate School of Eng., Osaka Univ. 2-1 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, Japan 565-0871 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From gmarani at gmail.com Thu Mar 19 01:27:29 2009 From: gmarani at gmail.com (Giacomo Marani) Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:27:29 -1000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IEEE RAM: Special Issue on Marine Robotics Systems Message-ID: <99595a960903190127k50524c3fr31ac3b93b5a4c56e@mail.gmail.com> Apologize for multiple posting. ----------------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR PAPERS IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine Special Issue on Marine Robotics Systems Homepage: http://www.ieee-ras.org/issue/show/id/13 ----------------------------------------------------------- *** Introduction *** In the last decade, the marked progress in marine technologies and robotics has led to massive improvements of a new and very active area of applied research: Marine Robotics. The state of the art and some achievements in this area are particularly new. This special issue, organized by the Marine Robotics Technical Committee of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (http://webuser.unicas.it/MarineRoboticsTC), is intended to address recent advances, related works and future research directions. *** Scope, description and more information *** Recent advances in sensors, computers, communications, and information systems have provided a solid background for a rapid development of sophisticated technologies in Marine Robotics, yielding to new advanced underwater operations to be carried on. At this stage of development, we are starting to see innovative researches, ranging from installations of underwater data networks to vehicles for autonomous manipulation, to replace many underwater intervention tasks that are today still performed using manned submersibles or Remotely Operated Vehicles in teleoperation mode. Papers of this special issue will be focused on the following main topics: - AUV for underwater intervention, with particular attention to solution and application examples of autonomous underwater manipulation systems. - Remotely operated vehicle for underwater intervention: state of the art and solutions for associated robotic manipulation system - Underwater target localization and tracking for manipulation, rescue, defense - Localization techniques for AUV vehicles, Mapping, Sensor Data Processing - Advances in underwater data networking systems for underwater vehicles data communication Papers should not exceed the maximum length of 8 final typeset pages. *** Deadlines *** Journal: IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine http://www.ieee-ras.org/ram Call for papers: March 11, 2009 Full paper submission deadline: June 01, 2009 First review: October 01, 2009 Final review: November 15, 2009 Publication is targeted to: March 2010 For detailed submission information please refer to: http://www.ieee.org/organizations/pubs/magazines/submit.htm *** Guest Editors *** *Giacomo Marani* University of Hawaii Mechanical Engineering Department Honolulu, United States Phone: +1 (808) 956-2863 Fax: +1 (808) 956-2373 marani at hawaii.edu http://gmarani.org *Gianluca Antonelli* Universita degli Studi di Cassino Dip. di Automazione, Elettromagnetismo, Ingegneria dell'Informazione e Matematica Industriale Cassino (FR), Italy antonelli at unicas.it http://webuser.unicas.it/antonelli *Dr. Junku Yuh* Korea Aerospace University (KAU) President Korea, Republic of junkuyuh at hotmail.com http://www.hangkong.ac.kr/english/ *** Links *** IEEE Robotics and Automation Society http://www.ieee-ras.org/ IEEE RAS Marine Robotics Technical Committee http://webuser.unicas.it/MarineRoboticsTC IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine http://www.ieee-ras.org/ram IEEE RAM CALL FOR PAPERS and Special ISSUE http://www.ieee-ras.org/ram/special_issues From kanda at atr.jp Thu Mar 19 09:09:47 2009 From: kanda at atr.jp (Takayuki Kanda) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 01:09:47 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Videos: RO-MAN2009: Deadline extended Message-ID: <005701c9a8ad$223b73e0$66b25ba0$@jp> ========================================================== Submission Deadline extended to: March 25, 2009 ========================================================== *** Call for Videos *** ** Important Dates ** Mar. 25'09 Submission of video and full-length paper or summary Jun. 15'09 Notification of video acceptance Jul. 15'09 Submission of final version video and paper ********************* 18th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN2009) Toyama, Japan, Sep. 27 - Oct. 2, 2009 "Interaction Design based on Robotics for Our Society" RO-MAN 2009 will be held in Toyama, Japan, during Sep. 27 to Oct.2, 2009. RO-MAN addresses fundamental issues in coexistence of robots and humans from psychological and philosophical aspects over interaction and communication mechanisms to technological systems and architectures. In this RO-MAN, the following three kinds of video sessions will be held in addition to the ordinary oral session and interactive oral session. Videos provide an effective way to clearly present your work and idea. Exciting videos are sought for these sessions. ** Video Session Category ** In this session, videos are evaluated based on technical novelty and importance. A full-length technical paper in RO-MAN format is also required for this video contribution. This session solicits videos presenting novel idea, artistic interests, creative design of robot system, etc. A one-page summary is required to explain the work in the video. This session focuses on "interaction" between human and real mechanical systems, such as robots, and/or software systems. Both technical videos and artistic videos are cordially invited for this session. A one-page summary is also required. ** Best Video Award ** This award is presented for each category based on each evaluation criteria. ** Video Submission ** 1.5-3 minutes video is required. Accepted videos will be published on a DVD and distributed to conference attendees. For the detailed information, please visit the website http://ro-man2009.org. From plagemann at stanford.edu Thu Mar 19 10:51:59 2009 From: plagemann at stanford.edu (Christian Plagemann) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:51:59 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Contributions: RSS/PASCAL2 Workshop on Regression in Robotics Message-ID: -------------------------------------------------------- CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS Workshop on Regression in Robotics -- Approaches and Applications June 28, 2009, Seattle, WA, USA http://www.robreg.org Co-located with Robotics: Science & Systems Sponsored by PASCAL2 network of excellence -------------------------------------------------------- Dates: April 24, 2009: Submission of poster abstracts May 8, 2009: Notification of acceptances June 28, 2009: Workshop Description: Function approximation from noisy data is a central task in robot learning. Relevant problems include sensor modeling, manipulation, control, and many others. A large number of regression methods have been proposed from statistics, machine learning and control system theory to address robotics-related issues such as online updates, active sampling, high dimensionality, non-homogeneous noise and missing features. However, with minimal communication and collaboration between communities, work is sometimes reproduced or re-discovered, making research progress challenging. Our goal is to draw researchers from the different communities of robotics, control systems theory and machine learning into a discussion of the relevant problems in function approximation to be learned in robotics. We would like to develop a common understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of different regression approaches and to derive practical guidelines for selecting a suitable approach to a given problem. In addition, we would like to discuss two key points of criticism in current robot learning research. First, data-driven machine learning methods do, in fact, not necessarily outperform models designed by human experts and we would like to explore what regression problems in robotics really have to be learned. Second, regression methods are typically evaluated using different metrics and data sets, making standardized comparisons challenging. Goal & Topics: We invite abstract submissions from researchers working on machine learning, robotics and/or control theory with a general interest in regression and function approximation. Ideally, submissions should contribute to one or several of the following topics: **Approaches: Which learning approaches have been applied successfully to solve regression problems in robotics or have a high potential for doing so? **Problem settings: Which robot learning problems contain regression or function approximation as a central component? What are the specific aspects that make the problem challenging? **Theoretical foundations: How can challenging requirements such as online updates, active sampling, high dimensionality, non-homogeneous noise and missing features be addressed? **Benchmarking and evaluation: What are suitable methods for evaluation of regression methods? What metrics are being used and, subsequently, which should be used? Which benchmark data sets are available and which are missing? Submission Details: Interested parties should send an abstract in PDF form of up to 2 pages to submission at robreg.org by Friday, April 24, 2009. Accepted abstracts will take the form of poster presentations and a selection will be chosen for additional short talks. Travel Funding: With the generous support of Pascal2, we can also offer travel funding for students, and interested parties should indicate their interest in their email submission. 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 pad at ethics.ubc.ca Thu Mar 19 11:04:07 2009 From: pad at ethics.ubc.ca (Peter Danielson) Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:04:07 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Robot Ethics Survey Message-ID: Colleagues, Our research group welcomes your participation in our new survey on ethics and robots: Engage with others on the issues robotics raises from the nursing home to the battlefield. http://www.yourviews.ubc.ca/en/Robot_Ethics_Welcome Please feel free to pass this invitation on. Thanks in advance, Peter Danielson NERD leader GELS ARCH Project W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics Univ of Brit. Columbia pad at ethics.ubc.ca 227 - 6356 Agric. Rd. Vancouver, Canada http://gels.ethics.ubc.ca/Members/pad From tilbury at umich.edu Sat Mar 21 11:32:21 2009 From: tilbury at umich.edu (Dawn Tilbury) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2009 14:32:21 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdoc at Ground Robotics Research Center, Univ. of Michigan Message-ID: The Ground Robotics Research Center http://grrc.engin.umich.edu was launched in 2008 with funding from the US-Army TARDEC. Based at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, GRRC participants from multiple universities and companies work together on research projects to advance technologies in unmanned ground vehicles. A postdoc position is available for a project that is developing methods and techniques to improve reliability of robotic systems. Since robotics has grown up out of a hobbyist mindset, insufficient attention has historically been paid to ensuring reliability under difficult and uncertain operating conditions in the field. There are three parallel approaches currently being taken in this project, although other approaches may be considered in the future. The first approach analyzes field failure data and maintenance record data and also uses simulation models to identify and predict the most important components from a reliability perspective. The second approach looks at how robots can be re-designed and/or how manufacturing techniques and acceptance sampling tests can be adapted in order to improve reliability. The third approach accepts that failures will occur, and develops on-line control approaches that can help a robot reconfigure itself (or its control architecture) to continue operating in a degraded mode to complete the desired mission. We are looking for a candidate who has a PhD in mechanical or electrical engineering and some experience in robotics. Useful skills would include some knowledge of simulation packages (such as Matlab, Simulink, Adams, etc.), statistical data analysis methods, mechanical design, or manufacturing process quality assurance. Excellent written and oral communication skills are required. Interested candidates should send a cover letter, CV, and the names and contact information for three references to Prof. Dawn Tilbury and/or Prof. Galip Ulsoy (ulsoy at umich.edu). Applications received before April 6 will receive full consideration. The position will start in Summer or Fall of 2009, and will be a one-year position with a possibility to renew for a second year. -- Dawn Tilbury University of Michigan Professor and Associate Chair, Mechanical Engineering Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science 3124 GGBrown, 2350 Hayward St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2125 Phone: (734) 936-2129 Fax: (734) 647-3170 http://www-personal.umich.edu/~tilbury tilbury at umich.edu From kanda at atr.jp Fri Mar 20 21:30:24 2009 From: kanda at atr.jp (Takayuki Kanda) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2009 13:30:24 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Papers: RO-MAN2009: Deadline extended In-Reply-To: <005701c9a8ad$223b73e0$66b25ba0$@jp> References: <005701c9a8ad$223b73e0$66b25ba0$@jp> Message-ID: <014501c9a9dd$c1133da0$4339b8e0$@jp> Ro-Man2009's deadline for full paper is also extended to March 25. ========================================================== Submission Deadline extended to: March 25, 2009 ========================================================== *** Call for Papers *** 18th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN2009) Toyama, Japan, Sep. 27 - Oct. 2, 2009 "Interaction Design based on Robotics for Our Society" RO-MAN 2009 will be held in Toyama, Japan, during Sep. 27 to Oct.2, 2009. RO-MAN addresses fundamental issues in coexistence of robots and humans from psychological and philosophical aspects over interaction and communication mechanisms to technological systems and architectures. Authors will have choice of ordinary "oral session" or "interactive oral session" that requires 1 min. of plenary talk, poster and exhibition of robots/systems. Toyama city is located in the center of Japan, and surrounded by beautiful nature such as the Japan Sea and Alps. One can travel to the three big cities, Tokyo, Osaka, or Nagoya in only a few hours by JR train. There are international flights to Seoul, Vladivostok, Dalian and Shanghai. Please visit the website http://ro-man2009.org for the detailed information. ** Important Dates ** Feb. 15 '09 Proposals for special sessions and workshops/tutorials Feb. 28'09 Notification of special sessions and workshops/tutorials Mar. 25'09 Submission of full-length paper and/or video Jun. 15'09 Notification of paper acceptance Jul. 15'09 Submission of camera-ready final papers *** Robot Week in Toyama, Japan *** - Japan Robot Festival: Sep. 25-27, 2009 - IEEE RO-MAN: Sep. 27-Oct. 2, 2009 ** Relevant Topics ** Fundamental Interaction Components - Auditory cognition: cognition/interpretation of voice, sound, or language - Brain Machine Interface - Haptic interaction - Motion planning and navigation in the vicinity of humans - Novel interfaces and interaction modalities - Robot software architecture and development tool - Visual sensing and cognition: gesture, posture, face, facial expression Intelligence and Emotion - Context awareness and intention understanding - Intelligent Space - Knowledge and inference processing - Machine learning and adaptation in human-robot interaction - Motivations and emotions in robots Social/Ethical/Aesthetic Issues - Evaluation methods and new methodologies - Human factors and ergonomics in human-robot interaction - Innovative robot designs for human-robot interaction - Sociality/personality of robots or virtual characters Case Studies and Applications - Androids and other applications - Assistive robotics for supporting the elderly or people with special needs - Robotic companions and social robots - Robots in art, education and entertainment - Virtual and augmented tele-presence applications From kenji at ieee.org Thu Mar 19 23:49:23 2009 From: kenji at ieee.org (Kenji Suzuki) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:49:23 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Participation: ICRA2009 Workshop on Cybernics Message-ID: <49C33C73.2080503@ieee.org> -------------------------------------------------------------- Call for Participation -------------------------------------------------------------- 3rd International Workshop on Cybernics Half-day Workshop, 09:00-12:00, May 13, 2009 ICRA2009: International Conference on Robotics and Automation Kobe, Japan -------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.cybernics.tsukuba.ac.jp/IWC2009/ -------------------------------------------------------------- We wish to announce the ICRA2009 workshop "Cybernics: fusion of human, machine and information systems", to be held at the ICRA2009 in Kobe. This half-day workshop containing research presentations and open discussions for Cybernics. Cybernics is a new interdisciplinary field for studying technologies that enhances, strengthens, and supports physical and cognitive functions of humans. Firstly, several keynotes are addressed by world-leading professionals specialized in assistive technology and rehabilitation robotics. Then, there will be ample discussion slots where participants can share their opinions with speakers. Furthermore, we plan to invite an industrial partner, a venture firm, Cyberdyne who prepares for putting a robot suit HAL into the market. Scientific Schedule 09:00-09:30 Opening & Special talk The grand challenge of Cybernics Yoshiyuki Sankai (University of Tsukuba, Japan) 09:30-09:55 Invited Talk I Modular robotics in rehabilitation Henrik Hautop Lund (Technical University of Denmark, Denmark) 09:55-10:20 Invited Talk II Structurally embodied intelligence for human-robot interaction Dino Accoto and Eugenio Guglielmelli (Universit? Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Italy) 10:20-10:35 (Coffee Break) 10:35-11:00 Invited Talk III Medical robotics in theory and practice Stefano Stramigioli (University of Twente, The Netherlands) 11:00-11:25 Industrial session Business models for assistive robotics in global market Philip J. Wijers (Cyberdyne Europe, The Netherlands) 11:25-12:00 Panel and wrap-up meeting (All presenters and organizers) Scope One of several important perspectives in Cybernics is the design of a seamless interface for interaction between the inside and outside of the human body. Thus the study of human-robot interaction in diverse aspects such as physical, neuro-physiological, and cognitive levels is a central theme. We believe that Cybernics will play a significant role to cope with aging society on state-of-the-art technologies. However, considering the final goal to contribute to people and society, we have to get down to wide range of issues besides technological aspects. Therefore, it is very important to promote inter-relations between medicine, engineering and humanity, and thus we incorporate broad expertise such as ethics, legislation, security and human society. Intended audience The workshop is designed to attract scientists and students having background in robotics or computer science and interests in assistive technology and rehabilitation robotics, such as wearable or exoskeleton robots for the purpose of rehabilitation and medical welfare. In addition, the scope of workshop is also of interest to clinicians or physical therapists having some experience in assistive technology. Please find the most recent update: http://www.cybernics.tsukuba.ac.jp/IWC2009/ We look forward to seeing you in Kobe. Workshop Organizers Yoshiyuki Sankai, Fumihide Tanaka, and Kenji Suzuki University of Tsukuba --- Kenji Suzuki kenji at ieee.org University of Tsukuba, Japan http://www.iit.tsukuba.ac.jp/~kenji/ From lpreis at fe.up.pt Fri Mar 20 01:36:57 2009 From: lpreis at fe.up.pt (Luis Paulo Reis) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 08:36:57 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: IROBOT'2009 Thematic Track on Intelligent Robotics - Aveiro, Portugal Message-ID: <9313fc130903200136u1943d7bbi4c6a80ab79558f4e@mail.gmail.com> Call for papers ====================================================== IROBOT'2009 Thematic Track on Intelligent Robotics http://www.fe.up.pt/~irobot a track of EPIA'2009 - Portuguese Conference on Artificial Intelligence http://epia2009.appia.pt/ October 12-15, 2009 Aveiro, Portugal --------------------------- IROBOT'2009 is a thematic track dedicated to Intelligent Robotics, integrated in the 2009 Portuguese Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Its main purpose is to bring together researchers, engineers and other professionals interested in the application of AI techniques in real and simulated robotics, to discuss current work and future directions. The IRobot'2009 track will especially target the theme ?Cognitive versus Reactive approaches ? hybridization is the solution??. A related aspect will be explored, consisting on analyzing these models from the point of view of stringent applications of mobile robots, in particular in robotic competitions. ?Are the theoretical models of any use when real time competition is the goal?? These topics will be the subject of panel discussions led by well known researchers with vast experience in robotics and their different applications, in particular, mobile robot competitions. Nevertheless, other aspects will be addressed as well and a non exhaustive list of topics that may be addressed is suggested next. Topics of Interest ----------------------- AI Planning for robotics Autonomous vehicles Cognitive Robotics Computer vision and object recognition Coordination in robotics Evolutionary robotics and reactive intelligence Human-robots interfaces Learning and adaptation in robotics Mobile robot performance measures Modelling and simulating complex robots Multi-Robot systems Field Robots Real-time reactivity Robot behaviour engineering Robot Expressiveness and Emotional Awareness Robotic surveillance Sensor fusion Simulation and virtual reality systems in robotics Important dates --------------------- * Deadline for paper submission: April 15, 2009 * Notification of paper acceptance: May 31, 2009 * Deadline for final versions: July 15, 2009 * Conference dates: October 12-15, 2009 Publication -------------- Papers of higher quality will be selected for publication in a book published by Springer, in the LNAI series. All other accepted papers will be published in the local thematic track proceedings. Registration in the EPIA Conference is mandatory to attend IROBOT thematic track. Submission instructions -------------------------------- Submissions must follow the guidelines specified in the conference site (http://epia2009.web.ua.pt/cfp.asp). The Springer LNCS format must be used (instructions in http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html/). The length of submitted full papers must not exceed 12 pages. Authors must remove their names from the submitted papers, and should take reasonable care not to indirectly disclose their identity. Organizing Committee ------------------------------ Luis Paulo Reis - University of Oporto, Portugal Luis Correia - University of Lisbon, Portugal Antonio J.R. Neves - University of Aveiro, Portugal Program Committee --------------------------- Ant?nio Jos? Neves - Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Ant?nio Paulo Moreira - Universidade do Porto, Portugal Armando J. Pinho - Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Armando Sousa - Universidade do Porto, Portugal Augusto Loureiro da Costa - UFBA, Salvador, Brazil Carlos Carreto - Instituto Polit?cnico da Guarda, Portugal Cesar Analide - Universidade do Minho, Portugal Eduardo Silva - Instituto Sup. Engenharia do Porto, Portugal Enrico Pagello - University of Padua, Italy Fernando Lobo Pereira - Universidade do Porto, Portugal Fernando Os?rio - Universidade S?o Paulo/SC, Brazil Fernando Ribeiro - Universidade do Minho, Portugal Flavio Tonidandel - Centro Univ. FEI, S?o Bernardo do Campo, Brazil Gabriella Sanniti Di Baja - Istituto di Cibernetica CNR, Italy Guy Theraulaz ? CRCA, University of Toulouse III: Paul Sabatier, France Hans-Dieter Burkhard - Humboldt-Universit?t, Germany Huosheng Hu - University of Essex, UK Jacky Baltes - University of Manitoba, Canada Jorge Dias - Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal Jose Miguel Sanchiz - University Jaume I, Spain Lu?s Correia - Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal Lu?s Paulo Reis - Universidade do Porto, Portugal Luis Seabra Lopes - Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Marco Dorigo - Universit? Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium Maria Isabel Ribeiro - Instituto Superior T?cnico, Portugal Martin Riedmiller - University of Osnabrueck, Germany Mikhail Prokopenko - CSIRO ICT Centre, Australia Nuno Lau - Universidade de Aveiro Paulo Gon?alves - Instituto Polit?cnico de Castelo Branco, Portugal Paulo Oliveira - Instituto Superior T?cnico, Portugal Paulo Urbano - Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal Reinaldo Bianchi - IIIA-CSIC, Barcelona, Spain Stephen Balakirsky - National Institute of Standards & Technology, USA Urbano Nunes - Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal Xiaoping Chen - University of Science and Technology, China ====================================================== -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Luis Paulo Reis Homepage: Http://www.fe.up.pt/~lpreis ------------------------------------------------------------------ Member of the Directive Board of LIACC - Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science Lab. Professor at FEUP - Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal Tel. +351 225081829 / +351 919455251 / Fax. +351 225081443 ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Don't close your eyes unless you can dream. Don't open your eyes unless you can believe!" ------------------------------------------------------------------ From monica.reggiani at unipd.it Fri Mar 20 02:26:29 2009 From: monica.reggiani at unipd.it (Monica Reggiani) Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:26:29 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Final CfP: ICAR 2009 submission deadline is only a few days away. Message-ID: <956760ea0903200226i53fc6c25mc2ec8b4c9f2d795d@mail.gmail.com> [ Apologies for cross-postings] *** PAPER SUBMISSION DEADLINE: March 23, 2009 *** ============================ CALL FOR PAPERS 14th International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR 2009) Munich, Germany, June 22nd to 26th, 2009 Theme: Able Robots http://www.icar2009.org/ http://www.icar2009.org/download/ICAR2009_CPF.pdf Sponsored by the German Robotics Society (DGR) Technically Co-sponsored by IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) =================================== ------------------------------------------------------------ CONFERENCE THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ The theme of ICAR 2009 will be "able robots", where "able" is the lexical intersection of "cap-able", "depend-able", "measur-able", "afford-able". These adjectives stand as synonyms for four rather fundamental and important features of robots which are supposed to deliver useful and economically competitive services in everyday environments under everyday conditions. Robots need to be "cap-able" of performing functions, which are considered to be of real use to a customer. These functions and capabilities have to be shown in a "depend-able" manner 24 hours per day, 7 days per week and 52 weeks per year. Service robots, which have become products, have become "measur-able" because their price performance ratio determines their competitiveness. Measurability of functions, components, system designs is needed to develop competitive service robot products. Finally, attention must be paid not only to the development of high technology but also to "afford-able" technology, which leads to a competitive price performance ratio of the eventual service robotics products. We solicit original high-quality contributions particularly, but not exclusively addressing the following scientific and technological issues: * cap-able * motion planning and navigation, reactive and sensor-based planning, visual navigation, mapping and localization, robot control, kinematics and dynamics, behavior based systems, robot architectures, distributed robot systems, sensing and perception, scene understanding, situation awareness, force and tactile sensing, haptics, sensor fusion, visual servoing, tracking, manipulation, mobile manipulation, grasping, reasoning, learning, interaction, service robotics, domestic robotics, home automation, field and service robotics * afford-able * low-cost localization, low-cost sensing and 3D perception, low-cost wide-area navigation, low-cost collision detection and obstacle avoidance, low-cost manipulation and grasping, low-cost actuation, low-cost coverage, low-cost robot design * measur-able * performance measures and procedures, benchmarks, experimental robotics, standards * depend-able * robust autonomy, error recovery, remote diagnosis and monitoring, self-modeling, self-monitoring, self-repair Special sessions will be organized for the following topics (amongst others): * disposable robots * robust autonomy * robotic learning by experimentation ------------------------------------------------------------ SUBMISSION OF PAPERS ------------------------------------------------------------ Authors are encouraged to submit their papers electronically in PDF format through http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icar2009 The page limit for submission is six pages in the double-column publication format (including figures, tables, and references). A maximum of two additional pages are permitted at an extra charge payable at the time of submitting the final, camera ready version of the paper. At least one author of each accepted paper should attend the conference to present the paper. For detailed up-to-date information and step-by-step instructions, please visit the official ICAR website: http://www.icar2009.org/authorsarea/ ------------------------------------------------------------ IMPORTANT DATES ------------------------------------------------------------ Paper Submission Deadline: March 23, 2009 (EXTENDED) Notification of Acceptance: April 25, 2009 Camera-ready Paper Submission: May 1, 2009 ------------------------------------------------------------ COMMITTEES ------------------------------------------------------------ * Honorary Chairs Rolf Dieter Schraft, Fraunhofer IPA Gerd Hirzinger, DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics * General Chair Erwin Prassler, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg Univ. of Applied Sciences * Program Chair Paolo Fiorini, Univ. of Verona * Workshop and Tutorial Chair Gerhard Kraetzschmar, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg Univ. of Applied Sciences * Publicity Chair Monica Reggiani, Univ. of Padua * Financial Chair Rainer Bischoff, KUKA Roboter GmbH * Publication Chair Martin H?gele, Fraunhofer IPA * Industrial Liaison Chair Gisbert Lawitzky, Siemens AG * Local Organizer Corinna Noltenius, GPS Gesellschaft f?r Produktionssysteme GmbH * International Steering Committee J. Angeles (Canada) A.K. Bejczy (USA) A. Casals (Spain) P. Dario (Italy) B. Espiau (France) G. Giralt (France) J.O. Gray (UK) G. Hirzinger (Gemany) O. Khatib (USA) G. Sandini (Italy) R.D. Schraft (Gemany) J. Trevelyan (Australia) Y. Umetani (Japan) ------------------------------------------------------------ VENUE ------------------------------------------------------------ All sessions and activities of the ICAR 2009 conference will be held at the Munich Marriott Hotel, Berliner Strasse 93, Munich, Germany. ------------------------------------------------------------ FURTHER INFORMATION ------------------------------------------------------------ Inquiries may be sent by e-mail message to the general chair: Erwin Prassler, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences E-Mail: erwin.prassler at fh-brs.de Detailed information on the Conference is available at the Conference web page: http://www.icar2009.org/ From isler at cs.umn.edu Sun Mar 22 08:05:04 2009 From: isler at cs.umn.edu (Volkan Isler) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 10:05:04 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] International Workshop on Robotic Wireless Sensor Networks Message-ID: <49C653A0.1020307@cs.umn.edu> Hi everyone, We are pushing the deadline for the workshop to April 10. Also, please see below for an updated list of invited talks. Volkan Isler ----------- International Workshop on Robotic Wireless Sensor Networks http://hinrg.cs.jhu.edu/RWSN09/Home in conjunction with the International Conference on Distributed Computing in Sensor Systems (DCOSS) http://www.dcoss.org/ Summary In the last decade, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been successfully deployed to perform numerous automation tasks such as environmental monitoring, surveillance and inventory tracking. By introducing actuation capabilities (in particular controlled-mobility), robots have the potential to improve the capabilities of existing WSNs significantly. Recent advances in robotics as well as the availability of inexpensive robotic platforms have made it feasible to develop hybrid networks in which multiple mobile robots interact with each other and other static sensors to perform complex tasks. On the other hand, design and implementation of such hybrid systems bring forth new algorithmic and systems challenges related to coordination, planning, and resource management. The goal of this workshop is to explore the algorithmic and systems aspects at the intersection of robotics and sensor networks. We seek work in a variety of areas including: * Development of hardware and software platforms * Experiences from deployments * Resource allocation algorithms * Novel research challenges and applications * Localization and route planning * Sensor tasking, control and planning Confirmed Speakers * William Kaiser, UCLA * Gaurav Sukhatme, USC Dates * Submission Deadline: April 10, 2009 * Workshop Date: June 10, 2009 Program Co-Chairs * Andreas Terzis, Johns Hopkins University * Volkan Isler, University of Minnesota Program Committee * Jorge Cortes, U.C. San Diego * Rafael Fierro, U. New Mexico * Eric W. Frew, U. Colorado * Jie Gao, SUNY Stony Brook * Tian He, U. Minnesota * Sonia Martinez, U.C. San Diego * Yasamin Mostofi, U. New Mexico * Andreas Savvides, Yale * Leo Selavo, University of Latvia * Dezhen Song, Texas A & M Comments or questions to: rwsn09 at hinrg.cs.jhu.edu From msh at aber.ac.uk Mon Mar 23 05:20:34 2009 From: msh at aber.ac.uk (Martin Huelse) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:20:34 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] FinalCall::Int. summer research camp on Autonomous Intelligent Robots Message-ID: <49C77E92.7060704@aber.ac.uk> #################################################################### Application deadline: April 5th 2009 #################################################################### CALL for PARTICIPANTS INTERNATIONAL SUMMER RESEARCH CAMP on AUTONOMOUS INTELLIGENT ROBOTS, (AIR 2009) Aberystwyth University, UK, June 23rd to 30th 2009 http://users.aber.ac.uk/msh/AIR/ #################################################################### We invite applications for participation in a one-week research camp on Autonomous Intelligent Robots, AIR 2009, at Aberystwyth University, UK, starting June 23rd 2009, ending June 30th. OBJECTIVES The Summer Research Camp is aimed at PhD students and young researchers in the fields of computer science, robotics, autonomous systems, machine vision, biologically inspired robotics, machine learning and engineering, but is open to interested students in biology, psychology and neuroscience etc. with a reasonable background and skills in robotics and programming. AIR is intended as a platform for work exchange, for meeting other students and learning from each other by working in small robotic related research projects of a maximum of five people. It is an unique opportunity to see their own research from a different angle and to gain the valuable experience of applying competence and skills in new domains. "Adaptation on different time scales" is the focus theme. During the first two days we will have a Symposium on this topic, where invited speakers and researchers from Aberystwyth University present their views on this topic and related work. During the symposium participants can briefly present their background as well. Starting on the third day participants will work in research projects. Every day there will be a closing session where each team presents briefly the current state of their project. The final presentation of the projects finishes the research camp. PROJECTS - Short and long-term changes in the appearance of things - Artificial Endocrine System - Embodied visual memory based on sensory-motor learning - RunBot: Learning to walk, to run and walk again INVITED SPEAKERS - Andrew Adamatzky, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. - Guido Bugmann, University of Plymouth, UK. - Jeremy Wyatt, University of Birmingham, UK. The APPLICATION PROCESS has started! In order to apply, send a brief CV and a Letter of Interest (both documents max. 2 pages) describing your (1) current research activities (PhD-project, or research you are involved in etc.), (2) programming skills and (3) which projects your are interested to work in and why. Please, indicate 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice from the projects listed, since particular projects might be full already. We also need to receive a short letter of recommendation from your supervisor if you are a PhD-student. Please provide all documents in pdf-format and send them via email to Martin Huelse, email: msh at aber.ac.uk FEE - GBP 500.00 for students - GBP 650.00 for non-students Fee includes all accommodation and catering (breakfast, lunch, dinner) for the full week. Fees can be invoiced to university departments. MORE INFORMATION ... and details about the research camp in general as well as brief descriptions of the research projects can be found on our websites: http://users.aber.ac.uk/msh/AIR/ For further questions please contact: Martin Huelse Email: msh at aber.ac.uk Phone: (+441970) - 622441 From an at ua.pt Mon Mar 23 16:33:57 2009 From: an at ua.pt (Antonio J. R. Neves) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:33:57 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] VipIMAGE 2009 - Thematic Session on Computer Vision in Robotics: Call for papers In-Reply-To: <1ced01c9a716$c93c4860$5bb4d920$@up.pt> References: <1ced01c9a716$c93c4860$5bb4d920$@up.pt> Message-ID: <49C81C65.9040903@ua.pt> (Apologies for cross-posting) International ECCOMAS Thematic Conference VipIMAGE 2009 - II ECCOMAS THEMATIC CONFERENCE ON COMPUTATIONAL VISION AND MEDICAL IMAGE PROCESSING, Thematic Session on Computer Vision in Robotics 14-16th October 2009, FEUP, Porto, Portugal http://paginas.fe.up.pt/~vipimage/Sessions/VipIMAGE2009_ThematicSession_CV_Robotics.pdf Abstract submission deadline extended to 6th April We would appreciate if you could distribute this information by your colleagues and co-workers. -------------------------------------------------------- Dear Colleague, We are pleased to announce the deadline for abstract submission to the Thematic Session on Computer Vision in Robotics to be held on the II ECCOMAS THEMATIC CONFERENCE ON COMPUTATIONAL VISION AND MEDICAL IMAGE PROCESSING (VipIMAGE 2009) to April 6 (http://paginas.fe.up.pt/~vipimage). Possible Topics (not limited to): ? Autonomous robots ? AI approaches to computer vision ? Color vision for Robotics ? Geometrical models of robotic scenes ? Image analysis and scene understanding for robotics ? 3D vision in robotics ? Motion analysis, visual navigation and active vision in Robotics ? Multi-camera sensing and Multi-target tracking applications in Robotics ? Real-time vision systems ? Robot perception and vision systems ? Self-localization using vision ? Sonar and acoustical imaging ? Soccer robot?s vision ---------------------------------------------------------- Publications: The proceedings book is going to be published by the Taylor & Francis Group, as happened with VipIMAGE 2007 (ISBN: 9780415457774). The organizers will encourage the submission of extended versions of the accepted papers to related International Journals; in particular for special issues dedicated to the conference. One possibility already confirmed is the International Journal for Computational Vision and Biomechanics (IJCV&B). As what happened with VipIMAGE 2007, the organizers are going to edit a book to be published by SPRINGER (ISBN: 978-1-4020-9085-1), under the Computational Methods in Applied Sciences series, with invited works from the most important ones presented in the conference. ---------------------------------------------------------- Awards: "best paper award" and "best student paper award" are going to be given to the author(s) of two papers presented at the conference, selected by the Organizing Committee based on the best combined marks from the Scientific Committee and Session Chairs. ---------------------------------------------------------- Important dates: ? Submission of extended abstracts: April 6, 2009 (extended) ? Lectures and Final Papers: June 15, 2009 We are looking forward to see you in Porto next October. Kind regards, Lu?s Paulo Reis Ant?nio J. R. Neves Armando J. Pinho Armando Sousa -- Ant?nio J. R. Neves, Ph.D. Invited Auxiliary Professor Signal Processing Lab, DETI / IEETA University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal http://www.ieeta.pt/~an From bravi at cs.washington.edu Mon Mar 23 18:49:34 2009 From: bravi at cs.washington.edu (Ravi Balasubramanian) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:49:34 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: RSS Workshop on Understanding Human Hand for Advancing Robotic Manipulation Message-ID: <49C83C2E.6000503@cs.washington.edu> Please post to the mailing list. --------------------------------------------- CALL FOR ABSTRACTS RSS 2009 Workshop (Full Day) on Understanding the Human Hand for Advancing Robotic Manipulation Website: http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/bravi/rssws/ When: Sunday, June 28, 2009 8:30 AM to 6 PM Where: Robotics: Science and Systems Conference Seattle, WA. htp://www.roboticsconference.org Important Dates April 29, 2009: Abstract Submission Deadline May 18, 2009: Notification of Acceptance June 28, 2009: Workshop Workshop Introduction Recent advances in the human sciences have energized the field of robotics toward personal assistants and brain machine interface. There is an increased interest to solve the robotic manipulation question: Can we build robotic hands that can accomplish our daily manipulation tasks? The human hand is adept at many diverse tasks in varied contexts, including power and precision grasping, twisting, and tapping. But we still do not know what features of the human hand enable such capability. For example, do biomechanical features like the complex tendon-hood, synergistic muscle actuation, and bone shapes make the difference? Or is it the neural coding of movement? Importantly for robotics, we need to understand what features should be included in future robotic hands. This workshop is a forum for researchers to discuss manipulation viewed in light of the human hand?s features and hopes to push the state of the art of the robotic hand. We expect that the workshop will bring together researchers from diverse areas such as robotics, biomechanics, neuroscience, and anthropologists. Topics of Interest Topics addressed include but are NOT LIMITED to: -- human hand?s biomechanics, such as bones, tendon hood, and muscles structure and usage. -- neural control systems, learning, and representation of movement/action. -- sensory perception and feedback. -- robotic manipulation and haptics, such as grasping, dexterity analysis, sensitivity. -- evolution of the hand across species. -- human hand behavior/function measurements in different tasks. Abstract Submission Guidelines Authors should submit a 1-2 page abstract of their poster by email to bravi at cs.washington.edu by April 29, 2009. The accepted abstracts will be published as part of the workshop proceedings and be presented as posters at the workshop. Several eminent speakers have already been confirmed: Prof. Peter Allen (Columbia University) Prof. George Bekey (University of Southern California) Prof. Susan Lederman (Queen's University) Dr. Lynette Jones (MIT) Prof. Haruhisa Kawasaki (Gifu University) Prof. Gerry Loeb (University of Southern California) Prof. Marco Santello (Arizona State University) Prof. Veronica Santos (Arizona State University) Prof. Bruno Siciliano (Universit? degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) Dr. Mandayam Srinivasan (MIT) Workshop Organizers Ravi Balasubramanian Post-doctoral Research Associate University of Washington and Intel Research Seattle Yoky Matsuoka Associate Professor University of Washington From goldberg at ieor.berkeley.edu Tue Mar 24 12:46:39 2009 From: goldberg at ieor.berkeley.edu (Ken Goldberg) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:46:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Algorithmic Automation Workshop at RSS Message-ID: Call for Participation: Workshop on Algorithmic Automation http://robotics.mech.northwestern.edu/~murphey/RSSAlgorithmicAutomationWorkshop.html In conjunction with the Robotics: Systems and Sciences Conference (RSS) Sunday 28 June 2009 Seattle WA We welcome participation from researchers, students, and industrial experts and will encourage lively discussion among all participants. Our goal is to bring together researchers to present "algorithmic" approaches to automation and discuss open research questions that can benefit the quality and productivity of manufacturing. Algorithms are a fundamental component of automation systems: they control or reason about motion and perception in the physical world. They receive input from noisy sensors, consider geometric and physical constraints, and perform repetitive operations using imprecise actuators. Unfortunately, automation for manufacturing today is where computer technology was in the early 1960's, a patchwork of ad-hoc solutions lacking a rigorous scientific methodology. Computer aided design (CAD) has progressed a long way toward elegant modeling of mechanical parts and behavior. What's needed is a framework for the systematic design of automated manufacturing systems that handle these parts. Automation is amenable to formal specification, analysis, and synthesis. The abstraction of these operations and resulting analysis can facilitate improving the integrity, reliability, interoperability, and maintainability of manufacturing systems. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: * Robust, Realistic Mechanics Simulation Algorithms for Mfg * Robot Learning Algorithms for Mfg Operations * Algorithms for Repetitive Sensing * Grasping, Fixturing, Caging * Feeding, Sorting, Singulating * Casting, Molding * Assembly and Disassembly * Part Behavior Modeling (Friction, Dynamics, Deformation, Tolerancing) * Machining and Tool Path Generation * Rapid prototyping * Part Design for Feeding/Casting/etc. * Modular Hardware Devices and Systems * Foundations o computational geometry o data structures o controllability o complexity and completeness Organizers: Ken Goldberg, UC Berkelely Vijay Kumar, University of Pennsylvania Todd Murphey, Northwestern U. Frank van der Stappen, U Utrecht Confirmed Speakers: Karl Bohringer (UW), Gary Bradski (Willow Garage), Erica Fuchs (CMU), Jeff Trinkle, (RPI), Lydia Kavraki, (Rice University), Raju Mattikalli (Boeing), Robert Tilove, (General Motors Research) There will be ample time for discussion and we can arrange short presentations by attendees on new work. Details on the workshop can be found online: http://robotics.mech.northwestern.edu/~murphey/RSSAlgorithmicAutomationWorkshop.html For more information please contact the organizers at: Ken Goldberg , Vijay Kumar Todd Murphey , Frank van der Stappen , From rsiegwart at ethz.ch Tue Mar 24 15:06:21 2009 From: rsiegwart at ethz.ch (Siegwart Roland) Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:06:21 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ISRR 2009 - Deadline Extended to April 15 Message-ID: ISRR 2009 - Call for Paper 14th International Symposium on Robotics Research August 31 - September 3, 2009, Lucerne, Switzerland New Deadline for Paper Submission: April 15, 2009 --- http://www.isrr2009.ethz.ch/ --- =================================================== Objective: The goal of the ISRR Symposia is to bring together active leading robotics researchers and pioneers from academia, government, and industry to assess and share their views and ideas about the state of the art in robotics, and to discuss promising new avenues for future research. All participants are kindly asked to convey the single track and highly interactive spirit of ISRR and take part in all sessions so that a stimulating and dynamic discussion can be established. As the flagship symposium of the International Foundation of Robotics Research (IFRR), this 14th edition of ISRR follows up on a long history of extraordinary meetings. Symposium Format: The Symposium will be held in an informal setting with a limited number of participants to encourage close technical and personal interactions. During the four-day Symposium, approximately 45 papers will be presented. The meeting will be organized as a single track meeting, and contributions that cover all aspects of robotics research are solicited. Sessions will be organized in themes, and all sessions will provide ample opportunity for discussion. As in previous years, the proceedings of the Symposium will be published as a Springer STAR series book. Attendance will be limited. Priority is given to authors and invited participants. Venue: The symposium will be held in Lucerne, one of the most charming and picturesque cities in Switzerland at the boarder of the Lace of Lucerne. Lucerne is easy to reach by direct trains from Zurich Airport. Paper Solicitation: Papers representing authoritative reviews of established research areas as well as papers reporting on new areas and pioneering work are sought for presentation at the Symposium. In addition to the open call, a well selected number of leading researchers will be solicited to contribute by personal invitation. Each submission will be reviewed by members of the Symposium Program Committee. The quality of the papers and the related presentations are a central priority for ISRR. Authors new to ISRR are particularly encouraged to submit. Submission Procedure: Papers must be submitted in LaTeX format according to the template for the Springer STAR series proceedings downloadable from the submission webpage. Papers may not exceed 16 pages in this format. All papers must be submitted electronically in PDF format through the online submission system found on the symposium webpage. Important Dates: - April 15, 2009: Submission of papers - May 31, 2009: Notification of paper acceptance - July 15, 2009: Submission of final camera-ready papers - July 15, 2009: Deadline for early registration - August 31, 2009: Start Conference (Evening Reception) - September 3, 2009: End Conference (Lunch time) Main Sponsor: International Foundation of Robotics Research http://www.ifrr.org/ Committee: General Co-Chairs: Roland Siegwart, ETH Zurich Gerd Hirzinger, DLR Germany Program Co-Chairs: Tomomasa Sato (Asia/Oceania) Henrik Christensen (Americas) Raja Chatila (Europa/Africa) Publication Chair Cedric Pradalier Web Master Ralf K?stner Conference Office Cornelia Della Casa Luciana Borsatti International Foundation of Robotics Research http://www.ifrr.org/ President Oussama Khatib Executive Officers Hirochika Inoue Gerd Hirzinger Takeo Kanade Honorary Officers Ruzena Bajcsy Rod Brooks George Giralt Bernie Roth Officers Robert Bolles Herman Bruyninckx Raja Chatila Henrik Christensen Paolo Dario Rudiger Dillmann Shigeo Hirose John Hollerbach Ray Jarvis Makoto Kaneko Dan Koditschek Tomomasa Sato Yoshiaki Shirai Roland Siegwart _________________________ Prof. Dr. Roland Siegwart Autonomous Systems Lab Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems ETH Z?rich, CLA E 33 Tannenstrasse 3 CH-8092 Z?rich, Switzerland Office: +41 44 632 23 58 Fax: +41 86 079 214 49 27 Mobile: +41 79 214 49 27 E-Mail: rsiegwart at ethz.ch WWW: www.asl.ethz.ch From jmh at cs.utah.edu Thu Mar 26 10:20:22 2009 From: jmh at cs.utah.edu (John Hollerbach) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:20:22 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJRR April 2009 Issue Message-ID: <49CBB956.6010505@cs.utah.edu> A Nanorobotics special issue of The International Journal of Robotics Research is available online: 1 April 2009; Vol. 28, No. 4 The below Table of Contents is available online at: http://ijr.sagepub.com/content/vol28/issue4/?etoc Editorial: Special Issue on Current State of the Art and Future Challenges in Nanorobotics Constantinos Mavroidis and Antoine Ferreira The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 419-420 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/28/4/419 Computational Studies of a Protein-based Nanoactuator for Nanogripping Applications Gaurav Sharma, Constantinos Mavroidis, Kaushal Rege, Martin L. Yarmush, and David Budil The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 421-435 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/421 Multiscale Design and Modeling of Protein-based Nanomechanisms for Nanorobotics Mustapha Hamdi and Antoine Ferreira The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 436-449 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/436 Residue Level Three-dimensional Workspace Maps for Conformational Trajectory Planning of Proteins Christopher Madden, Peter Bohnenkamp, Kazem Kazerounian, and Horea T. Ilies The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 450-463 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/450 Towards Microcantilever-based Force Sensing and Manipulation: Modeling, Control Development and Implementation Reza Saeidpourazar and Nader Jalili The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 464-483 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/464 A Scaled Bilateral Control System for Experimental One-dimensional Teleoperated Nanomanipulation Cagdas D. Onal and Metin Sitti The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 484-497 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/484 Real-time Rigid-body Visual Tracking in a Scanning Electron Microscope Bradley E. Kratochvil, Lixin Dong, and Bradley J. Nelson The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 498-511 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/498 Algorithms and Software for Nanomanipulation with Atomic Force Microscopes A.A.G. Requicha, D.J. Arbuckle, B. Mokaberi, and J. Yun The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 512-522 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/512 Automated Nanomanufacturing System to Assemble Carbon Nanotube Based Devices King Wai Chui Lai, Ning Xi, Carmen Kar Man Fung, Jiangbo Zhang, Hongzhi Chen, Yilun Luo, and Uchechukwu C. Wejinya The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 523-536 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/523 Nanofabrication, Nanoinstrumentation and Nanoassembly by Nanorobotic Manipulation Toshio Fukuda, Masahiro Nakajima, Pou Liu, and Haitham ElShimy The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 537-547 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/537 Meeting the Challenge of Building Diamondoid Medical Nanorobots Robert A. Freitas, Jr The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 548-557 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/548 Nanorobot for Brain Aneurysm Adriano Cavalcanti, Bijan Shirinzadeh, Toshio Fukuda, and Seiichi Ikeda The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 558-570 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/558 Flagellated Magnetotactic Bacteria as Controlled MRI-trackable Propulsion and Steering Systems for Medical Nanorobots Operating in the Human Microvasculature Sylvain Martel, Mahmood Mohammadi, Ouajdi Felfoul, Zhao Lu, and Pierre Pouponneau The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 571-582 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/4/571 From tavares at fe.up.pt Fri Mar 27 12:53:24 2009 From: tavares at fe.up.pt (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Jo=E3o_Manuel_R._S._Tavares?=) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:53:24 -0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] FINAL REMINDER: ECCOMAS VipIMAGE 2009 Submission deadline: April 6 Message-ID: <283501c9af15$b0708d30$1151a790$@up.pt> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------- (Apologies for cross-posting) International ECCOMAS Thematic Conference VipIMAGE 2009 - II ECCOMAS THEMATIC CONFERENCE ON COMPUTATIONAL VISION AND MEDICAL IMAGE PROCESSING 14-16th October 2009, FEUP, Porto, Portugal www.fe.up.pt/~vipimage Abstract submission deadline is April 6, 2009. We would appreciate if you could distribute this information by your colleagues and co-workers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------- Dear Colleague, This is a final reminder that the deadline for abstracts submission for the II ECCOMAS THEMATIC CONFERENCE ON COMPUTATIONAL VISION AND MEDICAL IMAGE PROCESSING (VipIMAGE 2009) is April 6 (www.fe.up.pt/~vipimage). Possible Topics (not limited to) ? Image Processing and Analysis ? Segmentation, Tracking and Analyze of Objects in Images ? 3D Vision ? Signal Processing ? Data Interpolation, Registration, Acquisition and Compression ? Objects Simulation ? Virtual Reality ? Software Development for Image Processing and Analysis ? Computer Aided Diagnosis, Surgery, Therapy and Treatment ? Computational Bioimaging and Visualization ? Telemedicine Systems and their Applications Invited Lecturers ? Alejandro Frangi - Pompeu Fabra University, Spain ? Christos E. Constantinou - Stanford University School of Medicine, USA ? Demetri Terzopoulos - University of California, USA ? Joaquim A. Jorge - Instituto Superior T?cnico, Portugal ? Jos? Carlos Pr?ncipe - University of Florida, USA ? Lionel Moisan - Universit? Paris V, France ? Tony Chan - University of California, USA Confirmed Thematic Sessions - Computer Vision in Robotics - Texture Image Analysis: Methods and Applications - Processing and Classification of Satellite Imagery - Small Animal Imaging: Trends and Techniques - Imaging of Biological Flows: Trends and Challenges Publications The proceedings book is going to be published by the Taylor & Francis Group, as happened with VipIMAGE 2007 (ISBN: 9780415457774). The organizers will encourage the submission of extended versions of the accepted papers to related International Journals; in particular for special issues dedicated to the conference. One possibility already confirmed is the International Journal for Computational Vision and Biomechanics (IJCV&B). As what happened with VipIMAGE 2007, the organizers are going to edit a book to be published by SPRINGER (ISBN: 978-1-4020-9085-1), under the Computational Methods in Applied Sciences series, with invited works from the most important ones presented in the conference. Awards "best paper award" and "best student paper award" are going to be given to the author(s) of two papers presented at the conference, selected by the Organizing Committee based on the best combined marks from the Scientific Committee and Session Chairs. Important dates ? Submission of extended abstracts: April 6, 2009 (extended) ? Lectures and Final Papers: June 15, 2009 We are looking forward to see you in Porto next October. Kind regards, Jo?o Manuel R. S. Tavares Renato Natal Jorge (conference co-chairs) PS. For further details, please see the conference website at: www.fe.up.pt/~vipimage From fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com Thu Mar 26 13:42:08 2009 From: fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com (Fabio Bonsignorio) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:42:08 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CfP and Program: Workshop on GEM and Benchmarking during Euron AGM - Leuven 6 April 2009 Message-ID: (apologies for multiple postings) Dear All, There will be a Workshop on GOOD EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY AND BENCHMARKING IN ROBOTICS RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS --- GEMBENCH09 during the Euron Annual General Meeting 2009 in Leuven, Belgium, April 6-7, 2009. Many people agree that replication of reported results and their comparison by means of benchmarks are needed to foster a quicker cumulative advancement of our knowledge of intelligent physical agents and even to correctly appreciate disruptive innovation in robotics research. Despite that there are a number of open issues: should we take inspiration from biology and medicine?Are replication and benchmarking really possible in robotics?Are current limits in reporting a bottleneck to industrial exploitation? Is there an impact on robotics research funding policy evaluation? We will check where we are and speculate on what's ahead. This will be an opportunity to gather people sharing these ideas. If you have something to say on the topic, there will room for discussion as this is meant as an highly interactive event Voice your opinion! At Euron AGM in Leuven there will be the official startup of Euron 3, and many other interesting events, too :-) see the program of the Euron AGM and logistics details here:http://www.euron.org/activities/agms/index All the best Fabio Workshop Highlights: -- Registration is Free -- Seminar Format: This forum aims to provoke a public discussion of the challenges, problems, possible approaches and doubts raised, related to this program and to identify the possible ways to cope (or fail) with them. The forum will consist of presentations interleaved with a significant amount of additional time for discussions between the presentations and at the end of the half-day single track session. --Post Proceedings: The speakers and the attendees will be invited to send a 'real' paper AFTER the discussion for a post proceedings book, with no hurry :-) --Unconference style interaction is encouraged: This will be a 'working' :-) workshop interaction in person and by social networking media with people in the room and outside is welcome DATES: April 6 April PROGRAM: 9:00 - 9:20 Introduction 9:20 - 9:40 RAWSEEDS: Datasets and Problems for SLAM Benchmarking M.Matteucci Politecnico di Milanp D.Sorrenti G. Fontana Univ Milano - Bicocca 9:40 - 10:00 Teleworkbench ? A Teleoperated Platform for Robotic Experiments A. Tanoto, U.Witkowski, U. R?ckert University of Paderborn 10:00 - 10:20 Testing for better design: The case of KRISSALOS Unmanned Surface Vehicle" N. Tsourveloudis, P. Spanoudakis, V. Kanakakis, N. Vitzilaios Technical Univ. of Crete 10:20 - 10:40 Benchmarking vision based outdoor robot localization using both directional and omnidirectional images E.Frontoni P. Zingaretti UNIVPM 10:40 ? 11: 00 Coffee Break 11:00 - 11:20 Standardization of service robotics: why, how, when ? R.Gelin Aldebaran Robotics 11:20 - 11:40 RoSta: Recommendations for Benchmarking in Mobile Service Robotics K.Pfeiffer Fraunhofer IPA 11:40 - 12:00 In search of good experimental methodologies in robotics: getting inspiration from natural science? M.Reggiani Uni Padua F. Amigoni V. Schiafonati Politecnico di Milano 12:00 - 12: 20 Refutable Robotics Research: what we mean F. Bonsignorio A. P. Del Pobil John Hallam 12:20 - 13:00 Open discussion 13:00 - 13:15 Closing Organizers:Fabio Bonsignorio CEO & Founder Heron Robots srl V.R. Ceccardi 1/18, 16121 Genova, Italy. Email: fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com Tel: +39-339-8406011 Angel P. del Pobil, Ph.D. Co-Chair for Research, European Robotics Research Network EURON Professor, Department of Engineering and Computer Science Universitat Jaume-I Campus Riu Sec, Edificio TI, E-12071 Castellon, Spain. Email: pobil at icc.uji.es Tel: +34-964-72.82.93 John Hallam, M?rsk Mc-Kinney M?ller Institute, University of Southern Denmark (SDU) Odense, Denmark Email:john at mmmi.sdu.dk Tel: +45-65503546 From fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com Thu Mar 26 13:58:38 2009 From: fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com (Fabio Bonsignorio) Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:58:38 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CfP and Program: Workshop on NEW AI IN ROBOTICS, CYBERPHYSICAL SYSTEMS SCIENCE AND EMBODIED COGNITION during Euron AGM - Leuven 6 April 2009 Message-ID: (apologies for multiple postings) Dear All, There will be a Workshop on NEW AI IN ROBOTICS, CYBERPHYSICAL SYSTEMS SCIENCE AND EMBODIED COGNITION during the ?Euron Annual General Meeting ?2009 in Leuven, Belgium, April 6-7, 2009. How the new paradigms in AI, from swarm intelligence to morphological computation and complex adaptive systems theory applications, (could) help robotics? Is robotics the science of embodied cognition? Is there a need to extend computation theory to manage the interaction with the physical world? Does robotics needs a 'paradigm change' from top-down symbolic processing to emerging self-organized cognitive behaviors of complez adaptive dynamical systems? Which relations are there between new AI, the US NSF idea of CyberPhysical Systems Science, and the concepts of embodied and situated cognition popular in European cognitive sciences community and a significant part of the robotics community? What does it mean in this context to be 'biomimetic'? If you have something to say on the topic, there will room for discussion as we would like to have an open discussion on somehow controversial issues! At Euron AGM in Leuven there will be the official startup of Euron 3, see the program of the Euron AGM and logistics details here:http://www.euron.org/activities/agms/index All the best Fabio Workshop Highlights: -- Registration is Free -- Seminar Format: This forum aims to provoke a public discussion of the challenges, problems, possible approaches and doubts raised, related to this program and to identify the possible ways to cope (or fail) with them. The forum will consist of presentations interleaved with a significant amount of additional time for discussions between the presentations and at the end of the half-day single track session. --Post Proceedings: The speakers and the attendees will be invited to send a 'real' paper AFTER the discussion for a post proceedings book/journal special issue, with no hurry :-) --Unconference style interaction is encouraged: This will be a 'working' :-) workshop interaction in person and by social networking media with people in the room and outside is welcome DATES: April 6 April PROGRAM: 14:10 14:30 Introduction: questions and challenges to the audience 14:30 15:15 Keynote: Flexible and Highly Adaptive Modular, Sensorimotor, Embodied Control Architectures M. Butz University of Wurzburg 15:15 15:45 Discussion 15:45 16:15 Quantifying morphological computation: self-assembly and running-swimming robots J.P. Carbajal M. Lungarella R. Pfeifer University of Zurich 16:15 16:30 Coffee break 16:30 17:00 Swarms give better results than isolated robots: Lesson learned in ?the ROBOSWARM and IWARD European projects U. Antero Fatronik 17:00 17:30 A survey of Information Driven Self Organisation approaches F. Bonsignorio Heron Robots 17:30 18:30 Final Discussion 18:30 18:35 Wrap-up Organizer:Fabio Bonsignorio CEO & Founder Heron Robots srl V.R. Ceccardi 1/18, 16121 Genova, Italy. Email: fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com Tel: +39-339-8406011 From rmd at newmicros.com Fri Mar 27 13:37:58 2009 From: rmd at newmicros.com (Randy M. Dumse) Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:37:58 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] UNI Mini-Sumo Ship-In's Invitational April 30th Message-ID: <98627A58F3FB4E0A88310D2F70FFBF59@RMDSONY3> Mini-Sumo Ship-In's! on again for another year! Last year we had a larger number of Ship-In's and the competition had an international flavor. Our students learned what tough competitors there were out there. We have a new group of students building this year. They haven't experienced competition yet, so please, all you guys with Sumos, come show us how it is done. This year, all you guys who thought about entering should actually enter! What better example of showing your robots have matured, than you send them off to compete in a contest on their own, and then watch the Live Webcast as they "duke it out" with other robots from this and other countries. And if you've seen the previous matches, you know we get some very careful and dilligent assistants to prepare, place and operate your robots per your written instructions. http://mm1.uni.edu:8080/ramgen/1/physics/robot_e.rm http://mm1.uni.edu:8080/ramgen/1/physics/mini-sumo-2007.rm http://mm1.uni.edu:8080/ramgen/1/physics/mini-sumo-2008.rm Here's a way to send your robot into combat, and have its appearance documented for the foreseeable future! ("I'll make ya famous!") This year we are again in the new location, hoping to draw more student interest and participation. We will also increase our local advertizing to get them in. And we will again have our excellent team of videographers webcasting and recording the event. So we continue the hope of growing into a very significant robot event. So get ready and send in those challengers. Remember, there's a cap on how many competitors will be accepted (12) so enter as soon as you can. Following below are details from the sponsor. Randy We have reserved a large meeting hall in the Maucker Student Union for 8 am to Noon, Thursday, April 30, for the "Fourth UNI Mini-Sumo Robotics Challenge." [This is where we held the event last year.] Updating what we sent out last year: The 2009 Mini-Sumo Robotics Challenge--hosted by the University of Northern Iowa Physics Department 1. The Fourth UNI Mini-Sumo Robotics Challenge will accept a maximum of 12 robots from outside UNI for the April 30th event. Those wishing to enter should e-mail Cliff Chancey at c.chancey at uni.edu. He will validate their entry within 24 hours, or let them know that the challengers have already been selected. Those selected will receive shipping information. 2. Include detailed instruction about preparing your entry, how it should be charged (include extra batteries or a charger), how the wheels should be cleaned (include handy wipes or other materials for this purpose), how you want in placed on the line (pictures help), and any special button pushes, etc., to initiate the combat. 3. There will be a $20 entry fee. Checks or money orders should be made out to "UNI Physics Department" and included in the submission. (Covers return postage, etc.) 4. The UNI Physics Dept. will return-mail each of the 12 challenger robots to their owners using the packing materials that the robots arrived with, where possible. The Department will make a good faith effort to return all robots in operating condition but we cannot guarantee this. We will use proper carriers (US Postal Service, Fedex, or similar) but this is the extent of our promise. Challengers must accept the normal risks of shipping sensitive equipment. From wt at barrett.com Mon Mar 30 09:30:43 2009 From: wt at barrett.com (William T. Townsend) Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:30:43 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Participation -- RSS'09 WAM Workshop Message-ID: <200903301630.n2UGUhb02858@usc.edu> CALL FOR PARTICIPATION RSS 2009 Workshop on "Creative Manipulation: Examples using the WAM" Website: http://www.barrett.com/RSS09/workshop/ When: Monday, June 29, 2009 8:30 AM to 12 PM Where: Robotics: Science and Systems Conference University of Washington, Seattle, WA. http://www.roboticsconference.org Description: This workshop is intended to foster the sharing of various applications of the open Whole-Arm Manipulator (WAM) platform. We encourage present users and potential future users in areas ranging among mobile manipulation, machine learning, controls, biomechanics, rehabilitation, assistive technologies, telerobotics, and advanced manufacturing to attend this workshop. Several users will present their recent research using the WAM platform including videos clips, novel algorithm implementations, and current challenges. The Whole-Arm Manipulator is one of the most open, soft-manipulation systems available. It was designed initially for robotics researchers to enable unprecedented access to realtime joint torques so they can apply novel computed-torque algorithms. Today, it also supports high-level control of Cartesian trajectories and forces in support of a wide range of applications. Different teams from a dozen countries use the WAM platform in unique and innovative ways. We invite all people interested in dexterous manipulation, mobile manipulation, human-interactive robotics, and other areas to attend this workshop. Organizers: Bill Townsend -- Barrett Technology Yoky Matsuoka -- University of Washington Confirmed Speakers: Rodney Grupen University of Massachusetts Simon Leonard University of British Columbia Jan Peters Max Planck Institute Joshua Smith Intel Research Seattle Siddhartha Srinivasa Intel Research Pittsburgh Alexander Stoytchev Iowa State University From fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com Mon Mar 30 12:24:30 2009 From: fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com (Fabio Bonsignorio) Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:24:30 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: 2009 Robotics: Science and Systems Workshop on GOOD EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY IN ROBOTICS Message-ID: Apologies for multiple postings --------------------------------------------------------- Dear All, you will find below the cfp for the RSS2009 Workshop on GOOD EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY IN ROBOTICS All the best Fabio CALL FOR EXTENDED ABSTRACTS 2009 Robotics: Science and Systems Workshop on GOOD EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY IN ROBOTICS Full-day workshop to be held in conjuntion with the 2009 Robotics: Science and Systems Conference in Seattle, WA, USA ?on June 28. http://www.roboticsconference.org/index.html Important dates: - April 25 - Submission of a 1-2 page extended abstract - May 2 - Notification of acceptance - June 10 - Full papers due Rationale and goals ?As the complexity of current robotic and embodied intelligent systems grows, it is more and more necessary to define proper experimental approaches and benchmarking procedures. The Special interest group on Good Experimental Methodology was formed by EURON in response to a wide perception ? evidenced by some 90 responses to an email call for interest ? that roboticists could do much better at performing and, particularly, reporting experimental work. A major output of the Special Interest Group is a set of guidelines for good experimental (reporting) practice, which we believe supports the community?s wish to produce better experimental work. Equally significant is a series of workshops on Benchmarking and Good Experimental Methodology held at major Robotics conferences. Good experimental work is not novel in robotics: there are many good experimental scientists in our community. However, uniformly good experimental work and reporting has not yet been achieved. The evidence of community interest in the topic mentioned above suggests that the community is willing to take steps to improve in this area. Thus we propose to take the work of good experimental robotics groups and use it to illustrate high-quality experimental work and reporting The workshop will draw out the strengths (and weaknesses) of presented work and encourage sharing and adoption of good practices. It will mix invited and regular presentations and will encourage the discussion and interaction between the participants List of topics - Design of Experiments in Robotics - Execution of Experiments in Robotics - Reporting Experiments in Robotics - Examples of Good Practice - Evaluation of Experimental Robotics Work - Proposals for Promotion of Good Experimental Work Format: The workshop will consist of presentations interleaved with a significant amount of additional time for discussions between the presentations and at the end of the full day single track sessions. Proceedings: The workshop will generate proceedings; selected contributions may be invited to submit to a journal special issue on good experimental robotics. Previous workshops: Previous workshops on the related topic of Benchmarking have been organized successfully at IROS and RSS conferences. Workshop Organizers: Fabio Bonsignorio, Heron Robots, Italy, Angel P. del Pobil, Universitat ?Jaume I, Spain, John Hallam, University of Southern Denmark, -- Fabio P. Bonsignorio Ceo Heron Robots s.r.l. Via R.Ceccardi 1/18 I-16121 Genova Italy www.heronrobots.com From wenhui.wang at utoronto.ca Tue Mar 31 14:16:15 2009 From: wenhui.wang at utoronto.ca (Wenhui Wang) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:16:15 +1300 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: IEEE ICCA2009 submission deadline extended to April 15, 2009 In-Reply-To: <5C219901621A4787BFC91C4191FBA32D@canterbury.ac.nz> References: <5C219901621A4787BFC91C4191FBA32D@canterbury.ac.nz> Message-ID: <97A5AFF63B3C4F499DDB45527DFD9179@canterbury.ac.nz> (Apologies for duplicate messages) Welcome to Christchurch, New Zealand! *************************** Call for Papers The 7th IEEE International Conference on Control & Automation (ICCA'09) December 9-11, 2009 Christchurch, New Zealand http://www.ieee-icca.org http://uav.ece.nus.edu.sg/~icca09/ *************************** ICCA2009 is to create a forum for scientists and practicing engineers throughout the world to present the latest research findings and ideas in the areas of control and automation. ICCA Proceedings are included in EI Compendex, IEEE Xplore and ISI Proceedings (ISTP). Christchurch, Garden City --------------- The city of Christchurch is famous for natural beauty and a wealth of things to do. Christchurch has a lively entertainment scene, strong cultural heritage. In 1996, Christchurch was acknowledged as the outstanding garden city from 620 international entries and in 1997, was judged Overall Winner of Major Cities in the Nations in Bloom International Competition to become 'Garden City of the World'! Topics of interest include but not limited to --------------- ? Modeling of Complex Systems ? Linear Systems ? Robust and H Control ? Nonlinear Systems and Control ? Fuzzy and Neural Systems ? Estimation and Identification ? Fault Detection ? Process Control & Instrumentation ? Motion Control ? Flexible Manufacturing Systems ? Integrated Manufacturing ? Factory Modeling and Automation ? Petri-Nets and Applications ? Micro and Nano Systems ? Sensor networks and networked control ? Optimal Control ? Discrete Event Systems ? Adaptive Control ? Learning Systems ? Intelligent and AI Based Control ? Real-time Systems ? Sensor/data fusion ? Robotics ? Automated Guided Vehicles ? Control Education ? Control Applications ? Process Automation ? Man-machine Interactions ? Smart Structures ? Multi-agent systems Important Dates ------------------ Deadline for Manuscript Submissions: April 15, 2009 Notification of Acceptance: July 1, 2009 Submission of Final Manuscripts: September 1, 2009 Conference: December 9-11, 2009 ------------------ Sincerely, Dr. Wenhui Wang Lecturer, Mechatronics Programme Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Canterbury Private Bag 4800, Christchurch 8140 New Zealand Tel: 64-3-364-2987 ext. 7492 Fax: 64-3-364-2078 http://www.mech.canterbury.ac.nz/people/Wang.shtml