From prybski at cs.cmu.edu  Tue Sep  1 11:13:22 2009
From: prybski at cs.cmu.edu (Paul E. Rybski)
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:13:22 -0400
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdoc position at Carnegie Mellon University
Message-ID: <4A9D6442.4070905@cs.cmu.edu>

Opening for a postdoctoral fellow at the Robotics Institute at
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA starting
in the fall of 2009.

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 including 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 <reids at cs.cmu.edu>

NOTE: US citizenship or a greencard is _required_ for this position.



From aude.billard at epfl.ch  Tue Sep  1 08:11:57 2009
From: aude.billard at epfl.ch (Aude Billard)
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 17:11:57 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] HRI2010 - Now open for submissions
Message-ID: <DC1ECDC82F7548F98319160DB215997D@lasalap1>

************************************************************************
Call For Papers and Tutorials/Workshops

5th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2010) 
http://hri2010.org 

 

March 2-5, 2010, Osaka, Japan

************************************************************************




HRI2010 welcomes original, high-quality contributions that advance the state of the art in technical and social challenges of human-robot interaction. 



HRI is a single-track conference. Each accepted full paper will be presented in an oral session, and will be published in the conference proceedings, and archived in the IEEE XPlore and ACM Digital Library.



Submission Website for Papers: https://precisionconference.com/~hri




Important Dates

 

27          September 2009:   Submission of Full paper & workshop/tutorial proposal
15          December 2009:    Submission of video & late-breaking short papers
2-5         March 2010:          Conference



 

Topics of interest include:

  a.. Socially intelligent robots 
  b.. Lifelike robots 
  c.. Personal and entertainment robots 
  d.. Robot companions 
  e.. Long-term interaction 
  f.. Learning and adaptation with humans 
  g.. Assistive (health & personal care) robotics 
  h.. Non-verbal and Multi-modal interaction 
  i.. Mixed initiative interaction 
  j.. Situation awareness in teleoperation 
  k.. Task allocation and coordination 
  l.. Autonomy and trust 
  m.. Robot-team coordination 
  n.. User studies of HRI 
  o.. Experiments on HRI 
  p.. Ethnography and field studies 
  q.. HRI software architectures 
  r.. HRI design 
  s.. HRI foundations 
  t.. Metrics for teamwork 
  u.. HRI group dynamics 
  v.. Individual vs. group HRI 
  w.. Robot intermediaries 
  x.. Risks such as privacy and safety 
  y.. Ethical issues and social responsibility 
  z.. Organizational/societal impact
 

Full and Short Paper Submission

  a.. All papers for the conference must be submitted in PDF format.
  b.. Page limit is 8 pages (including figures and references).
  c.. MS-word templates is available here (LaTex template can be found here).
Detailed instructions are available at http://hri2010.org/authors/




Video Submission

We invite videos related to all aspects of HRI. Besides the importance of the lessons learned and the novelty of the situation, the entertainment value will be judged. The video itself must be self-explanatory for the audience. Submission deadline for videos is December 15th. Formatting and submission instructions will be announced later.



 

Tutorials and Workshops

Proposals for half-day or full-day tutorials/workshops relevant to the HRI2010 themes should be submitted by email to the tutorial/workshop chairs, Selma Sabanovic (email: ssabanov at indiana.edu) and Adriana Tapus (email:  tapus at ensta.fr). Examples of topics are state-of-the-art overviews of particular HRI areas or design/research methods. Interdisciplinary approaches. Proposals should entail up to 2 pages description.



General Co-Chairs

Pamela Hinds, Stanford University

Hiroshi Ishiguro, Osaka University

 

Program Co-Chairs

Takayuki Kanda, ATR

Peter Kahn, Univ of Washington

 

Publicity Co-Chairs

Dong-Soo Kwon, KAIST

Greg Trafton, NRL

Aude Billard, EPFL

Dikai Liu, Univ. of Tech. Sydney

 






From adriana.tapus at ensta.fr  Tue Sep  1 11:08:14 2009
From: adriana.tapus at ensta.fr (Adriana Tapus)
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2009 20:08:14 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] HRI 2010: CFP Workshops and Tutorials
In-Reply-To: <1004268336.41551251828434700.JavaMail.root@zomail>
Message-ID: <694806030.41591251828494512.JavaMail.root@zomail>

Dear all,

We would like to invite you to organize a Workshop or Tutorial at HRI2010. Tutorials and workshops will be held on March 2, one day before the main technical sessions.   Participants in tutorials and workshops are required to register for the main conference as well.

Submission instructions for organizers follow below. All tutorial/workshop proposals must be submitted by September 27th 2009. The proposals submitted will be subjected to a review process.

Tutorials
We invite experts in different areas to propose half-day or full-day tutorials relevant to the HRI2010 theme. Examples of topics are state-of-the-art overviews of particular HRI areas or design/research methods. Interdisciplinary approaches are particularly welcome. Please submit the following information (up to 2 pages) to the tutorial/workshop chairs, Selma Sabanovic (email: ssabanov at indiana.edu) and Adriana Tapus (email:  tapus at ensta.fr), no later than September 27th 2009:

? Title of tutorial
? Tutorial speaker(s), including short CV?s
? Motivation or background
? Target audience or prerequisites
? Overview of tutorial including topics covered
? Links and references relevant to the tutorial

If the tutorial is accepted, the submitted material will be used for advertising it as part of HRI2010.

Workshops
Workshops are an opportunity for participants to meet other members of the HRI community, to discuss problems, and to present their ideas around a common topic. The workshops can be half-day or full-day, and could cover any topic relevant to HRI research, development, or education. Interdisciplinary and user-centered approaches are particularly welcome. The format of the workshop may vary depending on the topic and audience. The responsibilities of workshop organizers include: (1) setting up a website for the workshop that will be linked to the HRI?2010 website; (2) organizing a high-quality peer review process of workshop contributions as well as decision of acceptance/rejection, and (3) (when applicable) putting together proceedings of the workshop consisting of accepted papers and/or materials.

Please send your workshop proposal in the following form to Selma Sabanovic (email: ssabanov at indiana.edu) and Adriana Tapus (email:  tapus at ensta.fr) no later than September 27th 2009:

? Title of workshop
? Organizer(s), including contact information and short CV?s
? Abstract of about 250 words with suggested length and format of the workshop
? Prerequisites for participation
? Required format of workshop contributions
? Plan for documentation of the workshop
? List of potential attendees


------------------------------
Workshop / Tutorials Co-Chairs
Selma Sabanovic (Indiana University, Bloomington)
and
Adriana Tapus (ENSTA - ParisTech, France)

From cbelta at bu.edu  Wed Sep  2 22:21:19 2009
From: cbelta at bu.edu (Calin Belta)
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 01:21:19 -0400
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdoc opening in the HyNeSs Lab at Boston
	University
Message-ID: <76B3B231-693D-4F18-901C-4ECBCE550346@bu.edu>


The Hybrid and Networked Systems (HyNeSs) Lab at Boston University  
(hyness.bu.edu) has an opening for a postdoctoral position in the area  
of robot motion planning and control. The ideal candidate would have  
background in control theory, stochastic processes, and formal  
verification. Some experience with experimental robotics is a strong  
plus. The position is part of a Multi-University Research Initiative  
(MURI) project sponsored by the Office of Naval Research and led by MIT.

To apply for this position, please send email to Calin Belta at cbelta at bu.edu 
  with a CV.


Calin Belta
Mechanical Engineering, Systems Engineering, and Bioinformatics
Boston University
Mail: 110 Cummington St., Boston, MA 02215
Email: cbelta at bu.edu
Tel: 617 353 9586
WWW: http://hyness.bu.edu






From denis at icmc.usp.br  Thu Sep  3 07:53:01 2009
From: denis at icmc.usp.br (Denis Wolf)
Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:53:01 -0300
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ROBOT Track - ACM SAC 2010 - Submission
	deadline extended
Message-ID: <4A9FD84D.2000605@icmc.usp.br>

********* Submission deadline extended to Sep. 15 ************

ACM SAC 2010 - CALL FOR PAPERS

Track: Intelligent Robotic Systems (ROBOT)
http://www.icmc.usp.br/~lrm/sac2010/

The 25th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 2010)
Lausanne, Switzerland - March 22-26, 2010
http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2010/

For the past twenty-four years, the ACM Symposium on Applied Computing 
has been a primary gathering forum for applied computer scientists, 
computer engineers, software engineers, and application developers from 
around the world. For the third year, the ACM SAC will have a specific 
track on robotics. It aims to be a forum for researchers to share 
experiences, expose issues, and discuss about this exciting research field.

Robotics is a multidisciplinary area of study that presents an enormous 
commercial and research potential. While industrial robotics covers the 
study, design, and use of robot systems for manufacturing, mobile 
robotics concerns about developing systems that are capable of making 
decisions and acting autonomously in real and unpredictable environments 
to accomplish determined tasks. In the last decade, technological 
advances made possible the development of very efficient sensors and 
electronic devices at affordable prices. This fact has great impact on 
robotics research, allowing the development of efficient and relatively 
cheap sensors and computing devices. It also allows robots to accomplish 
more complex tasks, posing new challenges to scientists and engineers. 
This track focuses on all aspects of robotics, including related areas 
and applications.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Rehabilitation Robotics
Humanoid Robotics
Underwater Robots
Search and Rescue Robots
Entertainment Robots
Multi-robot Coordination
Active Perception and Vision
Coverage and Deployment
Learning
Autonomous systems
Navigation
Localization and Mapping
Evolutionary Robotics
Grasping
Control Architectures and Programming
Bio-Inspired Robots
Aerial Robotics
Contact Modeling and Touching
Educational Robotics
Smart Actuators
Micro/nano robotics
Embedded Systems architectures
Reconfigurable robotic platforms
Vision-based Systems
Multi-robot systems
Simulation
Swarms

Important dates:
Sep.  15, 2009: Paper submissions
Oct. 19, 2009: Author notification
Nov.  2, 2009: Camera-Ready Copy

Denis Wolf, Eduardo Marques, and Fernando Osorio
Intelligent Robotics Systems (ROBOT) Track Chairs
ACM Symposium on Applied Computing 2010


From MICHEN at ntu.edu.sg  Fri Sep  4 02:55:31 2009
From: MICHEN at ntu.edu.sg (Chen I-Ming (Assoc Prof))
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 17:55:31 +0800
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Job Opening for Tenure-Track Assistant
	Professor in Mechatronics
Message-ID: <6E0578B70177A542A279045FE6CD1C83023AE5C415@EXCHANGE32.staff.main.ntu.edu.sg>

Job Opening for Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Mechatronics



The Division of Mechatronics and Design, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore has a vacancy for tenure-track assistant professor in the knowledge domain of Sensing and Identification with applications to robotics, automation, manufacturing, or biological systems. Candidates with a Ph.D degree from a reputable university with strong background in sensor hardware design, signal processing and fusion, and intelligent systems integration with an emphasis on intelligent algorithms are strongly encouraged to apply. The candidate need to show a track record of competitive research experience in terms of good journal publications; good command of English and able to teach at undergraduate and post graduate levels.



Nanyang Technological University is a research-intensive university in Singapore. The Division of Mechatronics and Design, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering has a faculty with expertise ranging from robotics, mechatronics, sensors, actuators, machine intelligence, and simulation and visualization, biomedical engineering and more. The relevant labs and research centers in the division are the most well-funded and equipped in Southeast Asia. For information of the division, you can visit http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/mae/admin/divisions/md/md.asp





Application Procedure



Suitably qualified candidates are invited to submit a completed application. Please refer to the Guidelines for Submitting an Application for Faculty Appointment

http://www.ntu.edu.sg/ohr/Career/SubmitApplications/Pages/Faculty.aspx



The post applied for should be clearly stated.

The deadline of the application is 30 September 2009.



Only electronic submission of the application is accepted and can be forwarded to:



Prof. I-Ming Chen

School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Nanyang Technological University

50 Nanyang Avenue

Singapore 639798

E-mail: michen at ntu.edu.sg<mailto:michen at ntu.edu.sg>

From rdbeach at WPI.EDU  Fri Sep  4 12:36:26 2009
From: rdbeach at WPI.EDU (Beach, Richard D)
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2009 15:36:26 -0400
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] DEADLINE for RICC Robotics Competition is
	Sept. 14
Message-ID: <09F233757A82B14E979C363A14A370B73CC48CCC20@EXCHANGEMAIL.admin.wpi.edu>

Hello Robot Enthusiasts,
IF YOU PLAN ON COMPETING in the RICC, the application deadline is Sept. 14.   Registration to attend the RICC can be done now.


You are cordially invited to attend the First Annual Robotics Innovations Competition and Conference (RICC), which will take place at Worcester Polytechnic Institute on Saturday & Sunday, Nov. 7 & 8, 2009. One of the main goals is to allow RICC competitors to move out of the research laboratory and into the world of practical applications and real markets, by asking students at the undergraduate or graduate level to develop and prototype a robotic product that solves a real problem. This year, the theme is "Improving Quality of Life". The other main goal of this event is to build community among academia and industry. Prizes up to $5000 will be awarded. There is NO CHARGE to apply to compete in RICC 2009 or to register to attend.


The Robotics Innovations Competition and Conference Website ( http://ricc.wpi.edu<http://ricc.wpi.edu/>) is now LIVE and has been updated with information relating to the event, including RULES as well as REGISTRATION information. Please feel free to visit the website and also help us publicize the RICC event to interested competition participants as well as potential attendees.


Registration to attend the Conference is open at this time. Applications to compete will be submitted later as detailed on the website.

Thank you all for your help.  Feel free to contact Richard D. Beach (rdbeach at wpi.edu<mailto:rdbeach at wpi.edu>) with any questions or comments.

On behalf of the Robotics Engineering Group at WPI, and the RICC Steering Committee, we look forward to your participation in RICC 2009 and hope to see you on Nov. 7 & 8, 2009.


Sincerely,

Richard D. Beach, Ph.D.



Research Associate/RICC Manager

Department of Computer Science

Fuller Labs - Rm 138

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

100 Institute Road.

Worcester, MA   01609-2280

(e-mail): rdbeach at wpi.edu

(Phone):  508-831-6731

(Fax)    :  508-831-5776

(General WPI): 508-831-5000

From roehrbei at informatik.uni-bremen.de  Thu Sep  3 20:26:39 2009
From: roehrbei at informatik.uni-bremen.de (roehrbei at informatik.uni-bremen.de)
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:26:39 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: 3rd Semantic Robot Vision Challenge 2009
Message-ID: <20090904052639.jhxsxqvqhsgookw0@webmail.informatik.uni-bremen.de>

Call for Participation for the

THIRD SEMANTIC ROBOT VISION CHALLENGE - A Special Track of the ISVC 2009

http://www.semantic-robot-vision-challenge.org


The Semantic Robot Vision Challenge (SRVC) is a research competition?
that is designed to advance the state of the art in embodied vision,?
active scene understanding, and automatic acquisition of knowledge?
from the Internet. This competition is an indoor robotic photo?
scavenger hunt. Teams will be required to demonstrate a robot that has?
the ability to:

1. Read and parse a textual list of generic or specific objects to be?
found in the environment. Examples from 2008 include ?frying pan?,?
?upright vacuum cleaner? and ?Ritz Crackers?.

2. Autonomously connect to the Internet and build an object?
classification database from images or other information related to?
the listed objects, in a set amount of time.

3. Autonomously navigate and search the unknown environment with the?
task of taking snapshots of the listed objects using the data acquired?
from the Internet.

4. Return an image of each object type containing a single bounding?
box around the pictured object.

Unlike with computer vision competitions, participants must address?
many issues of embodied vision. Robots must recognize objects in?
lighting conditions and configurations that can give them very unusual?
appearance, but can use navigation to look at objects from angles that?
are close to the canonical views used in Internet images. Also, as in?
the real world, scene context can be used to guide the search for?
objects to areas which make the most sense for them to be found (e.g.?
a stapler is usually found on a desk rather than on the floor or on a?
wall). In this competition, objects in the scene will be placed in a?
way that should improve recognition results for robots that take?
advantage of scene context understanding.

Teams can choose to participate in one of two different leagues:

A. Robot league: Teams bring their own robot to participate in the event.

B. Software league: Teams bring only a computer to run their software.?
The visual data is collected immediately before the event by a robot?
run by the organizers.

We encourage anyone in these research fields to participate and help?
us to advance the state of the art in embodied vision and scene?
understanding. At the end of the competition, we will hold a workshop?
so that the specific technical aspects of each entry can be presented?
and discussed. The competition will be held at the 5th International?
Symposium on Visual Computing (ISVC), which takes place in Las Vegas,?
Nevada, from November 30th to December 2nd. For details see:?
http://www.isvc.net/


IMPORTANT DATES

Qualification Material Submission Deadline:? October 16, 2009
Acceptance Notification:? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?October 23, 2009
ISVC09 Symposium:? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? November 30 - December 2, 2009
Competition Date:? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? December 1, 2009


See http://www.semantic-robot-vision-challenge.org for more details on?
participation and qualification. If interested, subscribe to our email?
list! Please send an email to Paul Rybski and Daniel DeMenthon if you?
would like to participate.

Organizing committee:

Paul E. Rybski (prybski at cs.cmu.edu), Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Daniel DeMenthon (Daniel.DeMenthon at jhuapl.edu), Johns Hopkins University, USA
Cornelia Fermuller (fer at umiacs.umd.edu), University of Maryland, USA
Pooyan Fazli (pooyanf at cs.ubc.ca), University of British Columbia, Canada
Ajay Mishra (mishraka at umiacs.umd.edu), University of Maryland, USA
Luis Seabra Lopes (lsl at ua.pt), Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal
Florian Roehrbein (roehrbei at informatik.uni-bremen.de), Universitaet?
Bremen, Germany
David Gustafson (dag at ksu.edu), Kansas State University, USA


-----------------------------------------
Dr. Florian R?hrbein

Universit?t Bremen
FB 3 Informatik und Mathematik
Kognitive Neuroinformatik

Postfach 330 440
28334 Bremen, Germany
e-mail: roehrbei at informatik.uni-bremen.de
phone: +49.421.218-6423


From xiao at uncc.edu  Sat Sep  5 13:39:10 2009
From: xiao at uncc.edu (Jing Xiao)
Date: Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:39:10 -0400
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICRA 2010 Call for Tutorials and Workshops
Message-ID: <4AA2CC6E.7060602@uncc.edu>

We solicit tutorial and workshop proposals that address important and 
new topics related to the conference theme as well as robotics and 
automation in general. Workshops should be focused on interactions of 
participants to exchange new ideas and explore new directions in 
research. Tutorials should provide self-contained descriptions of 
established research topics. We encourage proposals that will attract 
industrial audience.

The primary criteria for selection are anticipated level of interest, 
impact, novelty or creativity, and technical background of presenters.

Proposals following the format below must be submitted via paperplaza by 
September 15, 2009 (23:59:59, US Pacific Time)*. * Note that this 
deadline is firm and cannot be extended.

Proposal Format:

   1. Title
   2. Abstract (<200 words, indicate full or half day, workshop or tutorial)
   3. Organizers (complete address, phone, and email)
   4. Presenters with affiliations and status of confirmation
   5. List of topics
   6. Motivation and objectives (<300 words)
   7. Primary/secondary audience
   8. Relation to the previous IROS or ICRA workshops/tutorials that
      your have participated in as organizers or presenters

Note that each section should be numbered and separated by blank lines.

Decisions will be announced by *January 7, 2010*. Organizers should 
establish a website for the tutorial/workshop and submit the URL to the 
Workshops and Tutorials Co-Chairs no later than *February 8, 2010. *They 
will be asked to collect written course notes from all speakers and 
electronically submit the material at a later date (to be announced). 
The written material for each workshop or tutorial should include a 
cover page and a table of contents (if there are multiple presenters).

For additional information please contact the Workshops and Tutorials 
Co-Chairs:

Jing Xiao 
xiao at uncc.edu <mailto:xiao at uncc.edu>

Calin Belta 
cbelta at bu.edu <mailto:cbelta at bu.edu>



From rprocha at isr.uc.pt  Thu Sep  3 09:24:38 2009
From: rprocha at isr.uc.pt (Rui Rocha)
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2009 17:24:38 +0100
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ROBOT Track - ACM SAC 2010 - Deadline extended
Message-ID: <41B7CF7BF1674E0E8019D6000B682F79@deec.uc.pt>

ACM SAC 2010 - CALL FOR PAPERS
** Submission deadline has been extended to Sep. 15. **

Track: Intelligent Robotic Systems (ROBOT)
http://www.icmc.usp.br/~lrm/sac2010/

The 25th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 2010)
Lausanne, Switzerland - March 22-26, 2010
http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2010/

For the past twenty-four years, the ACM Symposium on Applied Computing 
has been a primary gathering forum for applied computer scientists, 
computer engineers, software engineers, and application developers from 
around the world. For the third year, the ACM SAC will have a specific 
track on robotics. It aims to be a forum for researchers to share 
experiences, expose issues, and discuss about this exciting research field.

Robotics is a multidisciplinary area of study that presents an enormous 
commercial and research potential. While industrial robotics covers the 
study, design, and use of robot systems for manufacturing, mobile 
robotics concerns about developing systems that are capable of making 
decisions and acting autonomously in real and unpredictable environments 
to accomplish determined tasks. In the last decade, technological 
advances made possible the development of very efficient sensors and 
electronic devices at affordable prices. This fact has great impact on 
robotics research, allowing the development of efficient and relatively 
cheap sensors and computing devices. It also allows robots to accomplish 
more complex tasks, posing new challenges to scientists and engineers. 
This track focuses on all aspects of robotics, including related areas 
and applications.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Rehabilitation Robotics
Humanoid Robotics
Underwater Robots
Search and Rescue Robots
Entertainment Robots
Multi-robot Coordination
Active Perception and Vision
Coverage and Deployment
Learning
Autonomous systems
Navigation
Localization and Mapping
Evolutionary Robotics
Grasping
Control Architectures and Programming
Bio-Inspired Robots
Aerial Robotics
Contact Modeling and Touching
Educational Robotics
Smart Actuators
Micro/nano robotics
Embedded Systems architectures
Reconfigurable robotic platforms
Vision-based Systems
Multi-robot systems
Simulation
Swarms

Important dates:
Sep.  15, 2009: Paper submissions
Oct. 19, 2009: Author notification
Nov.  2, 2009: Camera-Ready Copy

Denis Wolf, Eduardo Marques, and Fernando Osorio
Intelligent Robotics Systems (ROBOT) Track Chairs
ACM Symposium on Applied Computing 2010

From nunolau at ua.pt  Mon Sep  7 10:49:09 2009
From: nunolau at ua.pt (Nuno Lau)
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 18:49:09 +0100
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] EPIA'2009 - 14th Portuguese Conference on
	Artificial Intelligence - Call for Participation
Message-ID: <034A5D3D6F974FA1AAB5A99CF8CF8309@fcportugal4>

** Please distribute **

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

EPIA'2009
14th Portuguese Conference on Artificial Intelligence
http://epia2009.appia.pt

Hotel Meli? Ria, Aveiro, Portugal
October 12-15, 2009


The worldwide Artificial Intelligence (AI) community
is invited to participate in the 14th Portuguese
Conference on Artificial Intelligence. As in previous
years, this international conference is hosted with
the patronage of the Portuguese Association for Artificial
Intelligence (APPIA). The purpose of the conference is to
promote research in all areas of AI.

Thematic track program
=================

The coming conference is structured as a set of
thematic tracks. These are intended to provide an informal
environment that fosters the active cross-fertilization
of ideas between researchers within specific sub-areas
of AI, including theoretical/foundational, integrative,
application-oriented and newly emerging areas. The
program includes the following thematic tracks:

AITUM - Artificial Intelligence in Transportation and
Urban Mobility
ALEA - Artificial Life and Evolutionary Algorithms
CMBSB - Computational Methods in Bioinformatics and
Systems Biology
COLA - Computational Logic with Applications
EAC - Emotional and Affective Computing
GAI - General Artificial Intelligence
IROBOT - Intelligent Robotics
KDBI - Knowledge Discovery and Business Intelligence
MASTA - Multi-Agent Systems: Theory and Applications
SSM - Social Simulation and Modelling
TEMA - Text Mining and Applications
WNI - Web and Network Intelligence

All submissions were evaluated by at least three referees
and selected for presentation at the conference on the
basis of quality and relevance to the issues each track
is addressing. In total, 106 papers were selected. A
selection of high quality full papers will appear in a
book published by Springer, in the LNAI series. All
remaining papers presented at the conference will be
published in a conference proceedings book.

The conference program will include a set of plenary
sessions, called the "nectar track", for presentation of
a selection of top quality papers.

Additional and up-to-date information on the thematic
track program is available here:
http://epia2009.appia.pt/program.asp

The official language of the conference is English.

Invited Talks
================
"The Robotic Scientist: Mining experimental data for
dynamical invariants, from cognitive robotics to
computational biology"
by Hod Lipson, Cornell University, USA

"More than Just Words: Discovering the Semantics of Text
with a Minimum of Supervision"
by Marie-Francine Moens, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven,
Belgium

"Artificial Life Simulation of Humans and Lower Animals:
 From Biomechanics to Intelligence"
by Demetri Terzopoulos, University of California,
Los Angeles


Doctoral symposium
=============
The 2nd Doctoral Symposium on Artificial Intelligence
will be co-located with the conference.


Registration
============
Registration instructions can be found here:
http://epia2009.appia.pt/registration.asp

Important dates
===============
* Regular registration fees until: September 10, 2009
* Conference dates: October 12-15, 2009

Organization
============
General Chairs
* Lu?s Seabra Lopes, UA, Portugal
* Nuno Lau, UA, Portugal
* Pedro Mariano, UA, Portugal
Program Chair
* Lu?s Rocha, Indiana University, USA

Advisory Committee
==================
Am?lcar Cardoso (UC, Portugal)
Arlindo Oliveira (IST, Portugal)
Carlos Ramos (IPP, Portugal)
Ernesto Costa (UC, Portugal)
Eug?nio Oliveira (UP, Portugal)
Gabriel Pereira Lopes (UNL, Portugal)
Ga?l Dias (UBI, Portugal)
H?lder Coelho (UL, Portugal)
Jos? Carlos Maia Neves (UM, Portugal)
Jos? Carlos Pr?ncipe (USF, USA)
Jos? Manuel Machado (UM, Portugal)
Lu?s Camarinha-Matos (UNL, Portugal
Lu?s Correia (UL, Portugal)
Lu?s Moniz Pereira (UNL, Portugal)
Manuel Filipe Santos (UM, Portugal)
Manuela Veloso (CMU, USA)
Pavel Brazdil (UP, Portugal)
Pedro Barahona (UNL, Portugal)
Pedro Rangel Henriques (UM, Portugal)
Salvador Abreu (UE, Portugal)

Venue
=====
Aveiro is located in the north of Portugal and is part
of the Tourist Region of Rota da Luz. It is known by
its water channels, moliceiro boats, saltpans, Art Nouveau
architecture, gastronomy, etc. In this region we can
find the shoreline villages of Ovar, Murtosa, ?lhavo
and Vagos, the mountainous landscape of Vale de Cambra and
?gueda, shore of the Douro river in Castelo de Paiva, or
vineyards in Bairrada. It is a diversified region. Further
information on the venue will be available on the
conference website at:
http://epia2009.appia.pt/venue.asp
For travel information see here:
http://epia2009.appia.pt/travel.asp




From brugali at unibg.it  Tue Sep  8 03:48:05 2009
From: brugali at unibg.it (Davide Brugali)
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:48:05 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for PhD position on EU Project BRICS
Message-ID: <4AA63665.2080907@unibg.it>

=====================================================
CALL FOR PhD Position - EU Project BRICS "Best Practice in Robotics"

1 PhD position in Mechatronics and Information Technology at
the University of Bergamo, Dalmine, Italy, http://www.unibg.it

======================================================
The Doctoral School of Mechatronics and Information Technology is 
actively looking for
applications from international students for the PhD program in
Mechatronics and Information Technology.

The call of the competition for the admission to the XXV cycle of the
Doctoral Programs has been published on the website
http://wwwdata.unibg.it/dati/bacheca/102/37770.pdf

Deadline for the applications is September 28th, 2009.

Teaching and all activities are in English.

======================================================
The BRICS project (http://www.best-of-robotics.org/)

In the past, the process of developing a new robot application has had 
more of the design of a piece of artwork or of an act of ingenious 
engineering than of a structured and formalised process. The prime 
objective of BRICS is to structure and formalise the robot development 
process itself and to provide tools, models, and functional libraries, 
which allow reducing the development time by a magnitude.

BRICS will work together with academic as well as industrial providers 
of robotics "components" (hardware and software), to identify and 
document best practices in the development of complex robotics systems, 
to refactor (together) the existing components in order to achieve a 
much higher level of reusability and robustness, and to support the 
robot development process with a structured tool chain and code repository.

More specifically the objectives are:
. to design and implement an integrated development environment for 
robotics (called "BRIDE") and an accompanying software repository of 
best practice robotics algorithms (called "BROCRE"),
. to significantly promote the interoperability of hardware and software 
components by harmonizing the interfaces and as well as the 
communication and data exchange between these components,
. to promote and moderate a community-wide discussion on the 
identification, evaluation and refactoring of best practice in robotics 
algorithms and software systems through research camps, which will be 
organised and hosted by BRICS and to which senior researchers and Ph.D. 
students worldwide will be invited,
. to survey and analyse completed robot application developments with 
respect to their deficiencies in terms of tool support, reuse of 
components, use of harmonised interfaces, and use of functional and 
model libraries,
. to define and implement showcases, which allow to study and measure 
the acceleration of the robot development process established by BRICS.

======================================================
Thesis proposal

The University of Bergamo is work package leader of the 7th work package 
(WP) of BRICS which is dedicated to system openness and flexibility.
In this 4-year project, the PhD student will be responsible for the 
following two goals in creating progress beyond the state-of-the-art:
- defining design principles and guidelines for enhancing openness and 
flexibility of robot software components and systems
- identifying robotic-specific design patterns.

Interested applicants can contact the advisor Davide Brugali 
(brugali at unibg.it) for more information regarding the thesis proposal.

======================================================
Application

Application templates for admission can be downloaded from
http://www.unibg.it/struttura/struttura.asp?cerca=bandi_dottorati

Deadline for the applications is September 28th, 2009

======================================================
The University of Bergamo

The research will be carried out in the SERL Laboratory of the School of 
Engineering (http://www.unibg.it/serl) of the University of Bergamo.

Universit? degli Studi di Bergamo was founded in 1968. Bergamo is 
located 50 Km to the East of Mi-lan, in the Lombardy region, and it is 
at the center of one of the areas in Italy with the greatest eco-nomic 
activity, with many industrial and service companies contributing 
significantly to Italian exports. The University currently has 6 Schools 
(Facolt?), 13,000 students, and about 300 professors at the full, 
associate and assistant level. The Computer Engineering (Ingegneria 
Informatica) program was activated in 2002 by the School of Engineering 
and since then has managed on average more than 100 new enrolments per 
year. Since the decision was made to activate the Computer Engineering 
program, the University recruited 15 professors within the field of 
Information and Communication Technology. The Dipartimento di Ingegneria 
dell'Informazione e Metodi Matematici organises re-search activities in 
the field of Information and Communication Technology. In 2002 the 
University has established the Software for Experimental Robotics 
Laboratory (SERL) that carries on research activities focused on the 
definition and experimentation of Software Engineering techniques and 
methodologies that support the development of robotic software systems. 
SERL participates in the formation of engineers of the Computer Science 
area by means of lectures and hands-on experiences related to robot 
programming, robot simulation, micro-controller network protocols 
design, computer vision, mechatronics, and real-time systems

-- 
Davide Brugali, PhD
Chair IEEE RAS TCSOFT, http://robotics.unibg.it/tcsoft/
Associate Editor IEEE RAM, http://www.ieee-ras.org/ram/editors/
Editor-in-Chief, JOSER, http://www.joser.org/
Assistant Professor at University of Bergamo - DIIMM
 V.le Marconi, 5 - 24044 Dalmine, Italy
 Tel. ++39 035 2052-354 (008)  Fax ++39 035 562779



From gj at dfki.de  Tue Sep  8 09:24:52 2009
From: gj at dfki.de (Kruijff Geert-Jan)
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 18:24:52 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] job opening: dialogue management in HRI
Message-ID: <9987D7EC-E523-4FCB-8A21-54A3CA3FE7F5@dfki.de>

apologies for multiple positings
---------
JOB OPENINGS

The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH) is  
seeking for its Language Technology Lab a

                                               Senior Researcher (full- 
time) on dialogue management

in the area of cognitive systems. The research position is shared  
between an ongoing EU project (EU FP7 CogX) and a new EU project on  
human-robot interaction (HRI) for urban search & rescue (EU FP7 NIFTi  
[pending]).

The researcher on this position will be responsible for leading the  
efforts in developing strategies for managing task-oriented dialogue  
in human-robot interaction. This includes dialogue management, and  
production of such dialogue. The researcher will work together with  
several other researchers (junior and senior).

An ideal candidate has a background in Artificial Intelligence,  
Robotics, or Computational Linguistics, and has experience with  
practical system development. The candidate should have experience in  
Java and/or C/C++ programmer, and feel confident with using UNIX-based  
platforms. A broader interest in issues related to cognitive aspects  
of language comprehension and production, embodied agents and  
communication, cognitive vision, (probabilistic) robotics, machine  
learning, and the relation between communication and other cognitive  
processes such as vision and action planning would be highly welcome.  
Highly valued personal qualities include creativity, open-mindedness,  
team spirit, and a willingness to address novel challenges in unknown  
scientific territory.

The applicant must have a completed PhD degree in Computer Science or  
a related discipline.

The envisioned starting date of the position is around January 2010  
(pending funding for NIFTi). The duration of the contract will be  
until the end of the project (NIFTi ends in 2014, pending funding).

DFKI GmbH [ http://www.dfki.de ] is located on the campus of Saarland  
University in Saarbrucken, Germany. The university's research groups  
and curricula in the fields of Computational Linguistics and Computer  
Science are internationally renowned. The LT-Lab [ http://www.dfki.de/lt/ 
  ] offers excellent working conditions in a well-established research  
group. The position provides opportunities to collaborate in a variety  
of international projects. The competitive salary is calculated  
according to qualifications based on DFKI GmbH scales.

For more about research on human-robot interaction at DFKI, see [ http://talkingrobots.dfki.de 
  ]. For more information on NIFTi, please contact Geert-Jan Kruijff  
(email below).

Please send your electronic application (preferably in PDF format) to lt-jobs at dfki.de 
, referring to job opening number 33-09, not later than October 1,  
2009. A meaningful application should include a cover letter, a CV, a  
brief summary of research interests, a statement of interest in the  
position offered, and contact information for three references.

For questions concerning this job opening, please contact Dr.ir. Geert- 
Jan Kruijff gj at dfki.de / http://www.dfki.de/~gj.

-- 
Dr.ir. Geert-Jan M. Kruijff
Senior researcher/Project leader

Language Technology Lab,
DFKI GmbH,
Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3,
D-66123 Saarbruecken, Germany

Email:     gj at dfki.de
Phone:   +49.681.302.5153
Fax:         +49.681.302.5338
Mobile:    +49.179.479.5892

http://www.dfki.de/~gj/
http://talkingrobots.dfki.de/
-----------------------------------------------------
Deutsches Forschungszentrum fuer Kuenstliche Intelligenz GmbH
Firmensitz: Trippstadter Strasse 122, D-67663 Kaiserslautern

Geschaeftsfuehrung:
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Wolfgang Wahlster (Vorsitzender)
Dr. Walter Olthoff

Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats:
Prof. Dr. h.c. Hans A. Aukes

Amtsgericht Kaiserslautern, HRB 2313
-----------------------------------------------------




From gj at dfki.de  Tue Sep  8 09:25:07 2009
From: gj at dfki.de (Kruijff Geert-Jan)
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 18:25:07 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] job opening: dialogue processing in HRI for
	USAR
Message-ID: <56EFA0DD-1C3F-4755-8B53-BCDF6A01B352@dfki.de>

The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH) is  
seeking for its Language Technology Lab a

                                                                                    Junior 
  Researcher (full-time)

in the area of cognitive systems. The research position is for a new  
EU project on human-robot interaction (HRI) for urban search & rescue  
(EU FP7 NIFTi [pending]).

The theme of the position is processing stress-affected task-oriented  
dialogue. The theme is set in human-robot interaction in the urban  
search and rescue domain. Typical for this domain is that how human  
communicates with a robot varies with the amount of stress that human  
is working under. The point is to investigate how we can combine  
speech recognition, grammatical processing and user models of stress,  
to (a) model how how and when stress influences speech and the form of  
spoken dialogue, and (b) recognize stress levels in speech.

Ideal candidates will have a background in Speech / Signal Processing  
Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, or Computational Linguistics, and  
have experience with practical system development. The candidate  
should have experience in Java and/or C/C++ programmer, and feel  
confident with using UNIX-based platforms. A broader interest in  
issues related to cognitive aspects of language comprehension and  
production, embodied agents and communication, cognitive vision,  
(probabilistic) robotics, machine learning, and the relation between  
communication and other cognitive processes such as vision and action  
planning would be highly welcome. Highly valued personal qualities  
include creativity, open-mindedness, team spirit, and a willingness to  
address novel challenges in unknown scientific territory.

The applicant must have a completed MSc degree in Computer Science or  
a related discipline.

The envisioned starting date of the position is around January 2010  
(pending funding for NIFTi). The duration of the contract will be  
until the end of the project (NIFTi ends in 2014, pending funding).

DFKI GmbH [ http://www.dfki.de ] is located on the campus of Saarland  
University in Saarbrucken, Germany. The university's research groups  
and curricula in the fields of Computational Linguistics and Computer  
Science are internationally renowned. The LT-Lab [ http://www.dfki.de/lt/ 
  ] offers excellent working conditions in a well-established research  
group. The position provides opportunities to collaborate in a variety  
of international projects. The competitive salary is calculated  
according to qualifications based on DFKI GmbH scales.

For more about research on human-robot interaction at DFKI, see [ http://talkingrobots.dfki.de 
  ]. For more information on NIFTi, please contact Geert-Jan Kruijff  
(email below).

Please send your electronic application (preferably in PDF format) to lt-jobs at dfki.de 
, referring to job opening number 33-09, not later than October 1,  
2009. A meaningful application should include a cover letter, a CV, a  
brief summary of research interests, a statement of interest in the  
position offered, and contact information for three references.

For questions concerning this job opening, please contact Dr.ir. Geert- 
Jan Kruijff gj at dfki.de / http://www.dfki.de/~gj.





-- 
Dr.ir. Geert-Jan M. Kruijff
Senior researcher/Project leader

Language Technology Lab,
DFKI GmbH,
Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3,
D-66123 Saarbruecken, Germany

Email:     gj at dfki.de
Phone:   +49.681.302.5153
Fax:         +49.681.302.5338
Mobile:    +49.179.479.5892

http://www.dfki.de/~gj/
http://talkingrobots.dfki.de/
-----------------------------------------------------
Deutsches Forschungszentrum fuer Kuenstliche Intelligenz GmbH
Firmensitz: Trippstadter Strasse 122, D-67663 Kaiserslautern

Geschaeftsfuehrung:
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Wolfgang Wahlster (Vorsitzender)
Dr. Walter Olthoff

Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats:
Prof. Dr. h.c. Hans A. Aukes

Amtsgericht Kaiserslautern, HRB 2313
-----------------------------------------------------




From gj at dfki.de  Tue Sep  8 09:25:22 2009
From: gj at dfki.de (Kruijff Geert-Jan)
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 18:25:22 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] job openings: several PhDs in Human-Robot
	Interaction
Message-ID: <A3812624-5E2C-44A5-9A62-3C8CEF45F9B0@dfki.de>

JOB OPENINGS

The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI GmbH) is  
seeking for its Language Technology Lab several

                                                                                     PhD 
  positions / Junior Researchers

in the area of cognitive systems.

The research positions are for ongoing and new EU projects on human- 
robot interaction (HRI). DFKI is involved in investigating fundamental  
aspects of HRI (EU FP7 CogX), HRI for urban search & rescue (EU FP7  
NIFTi [pending]), and HRI for long-term interaction with children (EU  
FP7 ALIZ-E [pending]). The research positions concern HRI directly, or  
the interfaces between HRI and other cognitive capabilities of a robot  
such as memory, or inferencing.

The themes for the open PhD positions are in the areas of adaptive  
situated dialogue for HRI, belief models and long-term memory, skill  
learning in USAR scenarios.

Ideal candidates will have a background in Artificial Intelligence,  
Robotics, or Computational Linguistics, and have experience with  
practical system development. The candidate should have experience in  
Java and/or C/C++ programmer, and feel confident with using UNIX-based  
platforms. A broader interest in issues related to cognitive aspects  
of language comprehension and production, embodied agents and  
communication, cognitive vision, (probabilistic) robotics, machine  
learning, and the relation between communication and other cognitive  
processes such as vision and action planning would be highly welcome.  
Highly valued personal qualities include creativity, open-mindedness,  
team spirit, and a willingness to address novel challenges in unknown  
scientific territory.

The applicant must have a completed MSc degree in Computer Science or  
a related discipline.

The envisioned starting date of the positions is around January 2010  
(pending funding for NIFTi, ALIZ-E). The duration of the contract will  
be until the end of the project (CogX: july 2012; NIFTi and ALIZ-E end  
in 2014, pending funding).

DFKI GmbH [ http://www.dfki.de ] is located on the campus of Saarland  
University in Saarbrucken, Germany. The university's research groups  
and curricula in the fields of Computational Linguistics and Computer  
Science are internationally renowned. The LT-Lab [ http://www.dfki.de/lt/ 
  ] offers excellent working conditions in a well-established research  
group. The position provides opportunities to collaborate in a variety  
of international projects. The competitive salary is calculated  
according to qualifications based on DFKI GmbH scales.

For more about research on human-robot interaction at DFKI, see [ http://talkingrobots.dfki.de 
  ]. For more on the CogX project in general, see [ http://cogx.eu ].  
For more information on NIFTi or ALIZ-E, please contact Geert-Jan  
Kruijff (email below).

Please send your electronic application (preferably in PDF format) to lt-jobs at dfki.de 
, referring to job opening number 33-09, not later than October 1,  
2009. A meaningful application should include a cover letter, a CV, a  
brief summary of research interests, a statement of interest in the  
areas/position(s)  offered, and contact information for three  
references.

For questions concerning this job opening, please contact Dr.ir. Geert- 
Jan Kruijff gj at dfki.de / http://www.dfki.de/~gj.





-- 
Dr.ir. Geert-Jan M. Kruijff
Senior researcher/Project leader

Language Technology Lab,
DFKI GmbH,
Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3,
D-66123 Saarbruecken, Germany

Email:     gj at dfki.de
Phone:   +49.681.302.5153
Fax:         +49.681.302.5338
Mobile:    +49.179.479.5892

http://www.dfki.de/~gj/
http://talkingrobots.dfki.de/
-----------------------------------------------------
Deutsches Forschungszentrum fuer Kuenstliche Intelligenz GmbH
Firmensitz: Trippstadter Strasse 122, D-67663 Kaiserslautern

Geschaeftsfuehrung:
Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Wolfgang Wahlster (Vorsitzender)
Dr. Walter Olthoff

Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats:
Prof. Dr. h.c. Hans A. Aukes

Amtsgericht Kaiserslautern, HRB 2313
-----------------------------------------------------




From e.nettleton at acfr.usyd.edu.au  Tue Sep  8 17:49:21 2009
From: e.nettleton at acfr.usyd.edu.au (Eric Nettleton)
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 10:49:21 +1000
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PhD positions in Mine Automation at ACFR,
	Sydney University
Message-ID: <2B05E5033F354191B6A95ACB5AD67508@acfr.usyd.edu.au>

PhD Positions at The Rio Tinto Centre for Mine Automation 
Australian Centre for Field Robotics 

In 2007, The Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR) at the University
of Sydney established a major new Centre for Mine Automation. Rio Tinto, a
global mining company, committed $21m of funding for this Centre. The aim of
the Rio Tinto Centre for Mine Automation (RTCMA) is to develop and implement
the vision of a fully autonomous, remotely operated mine. For more
information please visit: http://www.usyd.edu.au/CMA

The RTCMA now consists of over 30 staff and research students spanning a
broad range of technical and research disciplines. This outstanding team has
been recruited globally and has representatives from countries across six
continents. Expansion in numbers is expected to continue in future years
with further students and staff to be recruited. 

We are currently seeking highly-qualified and motivated post-graduate
students to join our team. Successful applicants would work on selected
research topics that directly integrate with the mine automation programme.
Areas of specific research interest include:

*		Systems engineering
*		Decision theoretic planning and scheduling
*		Perception / sensing
*		Data fusion, including spatial data fusion methods,
geographical information systems and Bayesian methods. 
*		Machine learning, including kernel methods, data compression
and automated recognition. 
*		Control, including machine control, estimation methods and
cooperative control.

Experience in the broad area of field robotics will be an advantage. 
 
For any enquiries or further information, send email to: Lisa Hunter-Smith
(Lisa.hunter-smith at acfr.usyd.edu.au) and include the text "PhD in Mine
Automation" in the email subject header. Please include a curriculum vitae,
an academic transcript and the names and contact details of two referees. A
statement of the broad area of your research interest should also be
included. 
 
The RTCMA is offering a limited number of scholarships for exceptional
students working on this programme. Applicants should have a first class
honours degree in any related discipline (e.g., engineering, computer
science) or extensive appropriate professional experience. Each scholarship
is valued at $26 407p.a. (tax exempt). The scholarship will be supplemented
by access to overseas travel grants and other allowances.
 
Applications close 31 December, 2009.
 




From emg at dei.unipd.it  Wed Sep  9 09:19:15 2009
From: emg at dei.unipd.it (Emanuele Menegatti)
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 18:19:15 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: 4th Workshop on Humanoid Soccer Robots
Message-ID: <3FF555DF-D942-4560-B59B-B3D7D3C33C49@dei.unipd.it>

CALL for PAPERS

4th Workshop on Humanoid Soccer Robots

@ 2009 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots

Paris (France), December 7, 2009

=========================

Year after year humanoid robots are more and more robust and  
autonomous. One of the fields with the most impressive advances is  
Humanoid Soccer Robotics. The ultimate goal of Humanoid Soccer  
Robotics is to develop a team of "humanoid soccer players" ? i.e.  
robots with human-like motion, intelligence, communication, and skills  
in playing soccer. This initiative is definitely posing a unique set  
of challenges to the researchers in robotics, AI and many other fields.

This workshop is open to contribution of all researchers interested in  
the subject. We warmly welcome contributions from the RoboCup and FIRA  
communities to foster the exchange of ideas and to promote robotic  
soccer in the IEEE community. This is the forth of a successful series  
of workshops held every year since 2006 at IEEE-RAS International  
Conference on Humanoid Robots. Previous workshops gave rise to special  
issues of international journals (IJHR, RAS) see http://www.humanoidsoccer.org/



Topics of interest for the workshop are:

	? Design and control of humanoid soccer robots

	? Biped locomotion
	? Complex motion generation for humanoids
	? Motion planning for humanoid soccer
	? 3D-Simulation for Humanoids
	? Perception for Humanoids
	? SLAM for Humanoids
	? Multi-humanoid systems
	? Humanoid team coordination
	? Moving from a quadruped robot to a biped robot in the RoboCup  
Standard Platform League


All the submissions will undergo a peer review process. All papers  
must be submitted electronically by sending it to the three Program  
Chairs, in PDF format by Octopber 10, 2009. The maximum number of  
pages is limited to eight, including figures. A CD-ROM with the  
accepted paper will be distributed at the Conference. After the  
workshop, the best papers will be selected for a robotics journal  
special issue as in the previous years.



Interested authors should send by e-mail a paper title, abstract and  
keywords to the Program Chairs, as soon as possible, and then they  
must submit the full paper according to the following deadlines.


IMPORTANT DATES:
Notification of Paper Title, Abstract and Keywords by authors  
due:                       ASAP

Full paper submission  
due 
:                                                                                      October 
  10, 2009

Notification of acceptance by Workshop Co- 
Chairs:                                              October 30, 2009

Final paper  
due 
:                                                                                                       November 
  21st, 2009


General Co-Chairs
=======================
Enrico Pagello, University of Padua (Italy) E-mail: epv at dei.unipd.it
Changjiu Zhou, Singapore Polytechnic.  E-mail: zhoucj at sp.edu.sg

Program Co-Chairs:
======================
Sven Behnke, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universit?t Bonn (Germany)  
E-mail: behnke at cs.uni-bonn.de
Emanuele Menegatti, University of Padua (Italy) E-mail: emg at dei.unipd.it
Thomas R?fer, Universit?t Bremen    E-mail: Thomas.Roefer at dfki.de

Steering Committee
=======================
  Minoru Asada, Osaka University, (Osaka, Japan)
Hans-Dieter Burkhard, Humboldt Universit?t (Berlin, Germany)
Hiroshi Ishiguro, Osaka University, (Osaka, Japan)
Manuela Veloso, Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, USA)

Program Committee
=======================

Heni Ben Amor, Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany

Jacky Baltes, Univ. of Manitoba,  Canada

Joschka Boedecker, Univ. of Osaka, Japan

Luca Iocchi, Univerista? La Sapienza, Italy

Pasan Kulvanit, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi

Tim Laue, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, Germany

Djitt Laowattana, King  Mongkut's  Univ. of Technology, Thailand

Daniel Lee, University of Pennsylvania, USA

Norbert Michael Mayer, Osaka Univ., Japan

Chew Chee Meng, Univ. of  Singapore, Singapore

Oliver Obst,  CSIRO ICT Centre, Australia

Masaki Ogino, Osaka University

Michael Quinlan, University of Texas at Austin, USA

Javier Ruiz-del-Solar, Universidad de Chile

Vitor M.F. Santos, Univ. of  Aveiro, Portugal

Ching-Chang Wong, Tamkang  Univ., Taiwan











------------------------------------------
Emanuele Menegatti, Ph.D.

Intelligent Autonomous Systems Laboratory (IAS-Lab)
Department of Information Engineering
The University of Padua
via ognissanti 72
I-35129 Padova - ITALY

Skype: emanuele.menegatti
Phone: ++39 049 827 7840
FAX:  ++39 049 827 7826
http://www.dei.unipd.it/~emg
------------------------------------------




From urbano at deec.uc.pt  Wed Sep  9 12:02:52 2009
From: urbano at deec.uc.pt (Urbano Nunes)
Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:02:52 +0100
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IEEE IROS09 Workshop on Planning,
 Perception and Navigation for Intelligent Vehicles
Message-ID: <4AA7FBDC.2020702@deec.uc.pt>

Dear Colleagues,

You are kindly invited to attend
the IROS09 WORKSHOP ON PLANNING, PERCEPTION AND NAVIGATION FOR 
INTELLIGENT VEHICLES,
at IEEE IROS 2009 (http://www.iros09.mtu.edu/), on  11th October 2009, 
St. Louis, USA.

The program comprises:
- 10  regular presentations and,
-  2 Keynote Talks by Prof. Roland Siegwart (Key Technologies for 
Intelligent and Safer Cars - from Motion Estimation to Predictive Motion 
Planning)
and Prof. Philippe Bonnifait ( Positioning Integrity for Intelligent 
Vehicles )
See the Workshop Program at: 
http://www.isr.uc.pt/~urbano/WorkIROS09/program.html

This workshop is organized by the IEEE RAS Technical Committtee on 
Autonomous Ground Vehicles and ITS
(http://tab.ieee-ras.org/committeeinfo.php?tcid=10)

If you want to join RAS TC on ITS  please send an e-mail to me 
(urbano at deec.uc.pt)


Best Regards

Organisers:
Urbano Nunes (ISR/Univ. Coimbra, Portugal)
Christian Laugier (INRIA, France)

From wil at mech.utah.edu  Wed Sep  9 13:09:06 2009
From: wil at mech.utah.edu (William Provancher)
Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:09:06 -0600
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Submission site now open -- Call for Papers:
	Haptics Symposium 2010
Message-ID: <4AA80B62.4050003@mech.utah.edu>

Please forgive the multiple postings.


*************************************************
C A L L   F O R   P A P E R S

The Haptics Symposium
(Formerly known as the Symposium on Haptic Interfaces
for Virtual Environments and Teleoperator Systems)

http://www.hapticssymposium.org/next_conference.html

*** Submission Website Now Open ***
https://precisionconference.com/~haptics/
*************************************************


IMPORTANT DATES
***************
Website open for submission:  https://precisionconference.com/~haptics/
Paper & Ext. Abstracts Due:  October 5, 2009 (firm)
Notification:                November 30, 2009
Demo Descriptions Due:       January 4, 2010
Final papers due:            January 6, 2010

Conference dates:            March 25-26, 2010


LOCATION
**********
Westin Hotel, in Waltham (Boston Area) Massachusetts, USA


DESCRIPTION
*************
The Haptics Symposium is a bi-annual, single-track conference that
brings together researchers who are advancing the human science,
technology and design processes underlying haptic (force and tactile)
interaction systems. Our community spans the disciplines of
biomechanics, psychology, neurophysiology, engineering, human-computer
interaction and computer science.

We solicit high-quality, original submissions in all areas of haptics
including, but not limited to:

- Psychophysics and perception
- Biomechanics and motor control
- Haptic interactions and their design
- Haptic device design and dynamics
- Haptic rendering and modeling
- Control system design and analysis
- Systems and networks involving haptic interactions
- Application of the above, including areas such as education,
rehabilitation, medicine, computer-aided design, skills training,
computer games, driver controls, simulation and visualization



SUBMISSION
************
Submissions are sought in the following categories, which are more fully
described at: 
http://www.hapticssymposium.org/next_conference.html#Submissions

- Full papers (maximum 8 pages)
- Extended Abstracts (maximum 4 pages)
- Demonstrations
- Commercial Exhibits

NEW IN 2010: Extended Abstracts are eligible for oral presentation.


SPONSORSHIP
*************
The Haptics Symposium is sponsored by IEEE's Visualization and Graphics
Technical Committee (VGTC) and Technical Committee on Haptics (TCH). It
is held in conjunction with the 2010 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference.


ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
************************
General Chairs
- Karon MacLean - University of British Columbia, Canada
- Allison Okamura - Johns Hopkins University, USA

Local Arrangements
- John Morrell - Yale University, USA
- Greg Fischer - Worcester Polytechnic University, USA

Publications
- Cagatay Basodogan - Koc University, Turkey

Demonstrations & Exhibits
- Katherine Kuchenbecker - University of Pennsylvania, USA
- Mark Colton - Brigham Young University, USA

Awards
- Jaydev Desai - University of Maryland, USA

Publicity
- William Provancher - University of Utah, USA



Sincerely,

William Provancher
2010 Haptics Symposium Publicity Chair
-- 

________________________________________
William Provancher, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Utah
50 S. Central Campus Dr.
2136 Merrill Engineering Building
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-9208
wil at mech.utah.edu
(801) 581-4119
http://www.eng.utah.edu/~wil/
________________________________________

From jsabater at iiia.csic.es  Thu Sep 10 01:33:05 2009
From: jsabater at iiia.csic.es (Jordi Sabater-Mir)
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:33:05 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [AAMAS-2010] - CfP - special track on robotics
Message-ID: <4AA8B9C1.1010701@iiia.csic.es>



                      2nd Call for Papers-AAMAS 2010

   The 9th International Conference on Agents and Multi Agent Systems

          ***** AAMAS 2010 has a special track on robotics *****

                                   Toronto, Canada



Important dates:

Conference:                                     May 10 - 14, 2010
Electronic Abstract Submission:                 October 8, 2009
Full Paper Submission:                          October 13, 2009
Author Notification:                            December 18, 2009

Collocated with KR2, NMR, ICAPS, FOIS, (all in Toronto) and DL 2010 (in 
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada)
Expanded and latest information: http://www.cse.yorku.ca/AAMAS2010/

INTRODUCTION

AAMAS is the leading scientific conference for research in autonomous
agents and multi-agent systems. The AAMAS conference series was
initiated in 2002 by merging three highly-respected meetings: International
Conference on Multi-Agent Systems (ICMAS); International Workshop on
Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages (ATAL); and International
Conference on Autonomous Agents (AA). The aim of the joint conference
is to provide a single, high-profile, internationally-respected
archival forum for scientific research in the theory and practice of
autonomous agents and multi-agent systems. AAMAS-2010 is the Ninth
conference in the AAMAS series, following enormously successful
previous conferences, and will be held at the Sheraton Centre Toronto
Hotel in downtown Toronto. See http://www.ifaamas.org for more
information on the AAMAS conference series.

SUBMISSION DETAILS

AAMAS-2010 seeks high-quality submissions of full papers, limited to 8
pages in length. Submissions will be rigorously peer reviewed and
evaluated on the basis of originality, soundness, significance,
presentation, understanding of the state of the art, and overall
quality of their technical contribution. Reviews will be double blind;
authors must avoid including anything that can be used to identify
them. Where submission is for full (8 page) papers only, in some
cases they may be accepted as 2 page extended abstracts For formatting
instructions and a list of keywords, please refer to the conference page.

In addition to submissions in the main track, AAMAS is soliciting
papers in two special tracks on robotics, and on virtual agents (see
below). The review process for the special tracks will be the same as
for the main track, but with specially-selected program committee
members.

Special Track on Robotics (Chair: Michael Beetz):
Papers on theory and applications concerning single and multiple
robots will be welcome, namely those focusing on real robots
interacting with their surrounding environments. The goal is to foster
interaction between researchers on agent and robotics systems, so as
to provide a cradle for cross-fertilization of concepts from both
fields.

Special Track on Virtual Agents (Chair: Stacy Marsella):
Virtual agents are embodied agents in interactive virtual or physical
environments that emulate human-like behavior. We encourage papers on
the design, implementation, and evaluation of virtual agents as well
as challenging applications featuring them. The goal is to provide an
opportunity for interaction and cross-fertilization between the AAMAS
community and researchers working on virtual agents and to strengthen
links between the two communities.

In addition to the conference papers, presented in parallel
technical sessions, AAMAS-2010 will include:

    o Industry and Applications track

    o Robotics track 
(http://www.cse.yorku.ca/AAMAS2010/#content=call_for_special_track)

    o Demonstrations

    o Posters presentations for full papers and extended abstracts

    o Invited talks and panel discussions

The submission processes for the demonstration and industry tracks are
separate from the main paper submission process.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

    General Chairs:  Michael Luck and Sandip Sen
    Program Chairs:  Wiebe van der Hoek and Gal A. Kaminka
    Local Organization Chair: Yves Lesperance

A list of the other members of the AAMAS-2010 Organizing Committee, a 
list of Senior PC members
and an updated list of keywords may be found at 
http://www.cse.yorku.ca/AAMAS2010/
Soon it will also show the PC members!



______________________________________________________________________________

 _/ _/ _/_|   Dr. Jordi Sabater Mir
 / _/ _/ _|   IIIA - Artificial Intelligence Research Institute
  _/ _/___|   CSIC - Spanish National Research Council
 _/ _/____|   Campus Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
 / _/    _|   08193 Bellaterra, Catalonia, Spain
              Ph.: +34 935809570 (ext. 261)      Fax.: +34 935809661
              jsabater at iiia.csic.es      http://www.iiia.csic.es
______________________________________________________________________________ 


From shimon.whiteson at gmail.com  Thu Sep 10 03:50:01 2009
From: shimon.whiteson at gmail.com (Shimon Whiteson)
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:50:01 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: MLJ Special Issue on Empirical
	Evaluations in Reinforcement Learning
Message-ID: <90E10088-5BFC-4601-BFD8-84A15AF6624A@gmail.com>

I'm pleased to announce a new special issue from the Machine Learning  
journal regarding empirical evaluations in reinforcement learning.  We  
are especially interested in papers describing 'real-world'  
applications of of RL, including robotics.  Please see details below.

---

Call For Papers: Machine Learning Journal Special Issue
Empirical Evaluations in Reinforcement Learning
Submission Deadline: February 26, 2010
Guest Editors: Shimon Whiteson and Michael Littman

The continuing development of a field requires a healthy exchange  
between theoretical advances and experimental observations. The  
purpose of this special issue is to assess progress in empirical  
evaluations of reinforcement-learning algorithms and to encourage the  
adoption of effective experimental methodologies.  The last several  
years have seen new trends in uniform software interfaces between  
environments and learning algorithms, community comparisons and  
competitions, and an increased interest in experimenting with  
reinforcement learning in embedded systems.  We enthusiastically  
solicit papers on relevant topics such as:

* The design and dissemination of standardized frameworks and  
repositories for algorithms, methods, and/or results.
* Experience of organizers and participants in reinforcement-learning  
competitions and bake-offs.
* Novel evaluation methodologies or metrics.
* Careful empirical comparisons of existing methods.
* Novel methods validated with strong empirical results on existing  
benchmarks, especially those used in recent RL Competitions (see http://www.rl-competition.org 
).
* Applications of reinforcement-learning approaches to real-life  
environments such as computer networks, system management and robotics.
* Theoretical work such as sample complexity bounds that can be used  
to guide the design of benchmarks and evaluations.

The emphasis of the special issue is not on the development of novel  
algorithms.  Instead, papers will be assessed in terms of the insights  
they provide about how best to assess performance in reinforcement  
learning, i.e., the "meta" problem of evaluating the evaluation  
methodologies themselves.  In particular, papers presenting empirical  
results should also discuss what those results reveal about the  
strengths and weaknesses of the evaluation methodology.  Similarly,  
papers describing real-life applications should make clear what  
limitations the application exposes in 'off-the-shelf' methods, how  
the employed method had to be modified to address real-world  
complications, and what the results show that could not be learned  
from experiments in 'toy' domains.  Papers proposing new evaluation  
methodologies should include illustrative empirical results offering  
insights that would be difficult to obtain with conventional  
methodologies.  Finally, papers proposing new evaluation methodologies  
should also compare and contrast with methodologies in related areas,  
e.g. supervised learning, explaining why such methodologies are not  
adequate and what ideas, if any, can be borrowed from them.

For more details see: http://www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddocument/CFP_10994_2009826.pdf?SGWID=0-0-45-791198-p35726603

From kkim at hrl.com  Wed Sep  9 09:51:30 2009
From: kkim at hrl.com (Kim, Kyungnam (Ken))
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 09:51:30 -0700
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Two Research Positions (Computer Vision,
 Bio-Inspired) at HRL Laboratories, Malibu, CA
Message-ID: <EC47634E90EE7D4BB22152199C7C4D41299A3FCC8A@EXMAIL.hrl.com>

Research Staff Member - Computer Vision (code: 0921E)

Special Requirements: U.S. citizen or permanent resident status required. Security clearances may be required.

Education Desired: Ph.D. in EE, Computer Science, Applied Math, or related fields

Essential Job Functions: Primary job function is to perform R & D in computer vision. Tasks will include the development, simulation, evaluation, and implementation in software of computer vision algorithms applied to a variety of application. Additional job functions include solving customer problems, writing invention disclosures, publishing papers, briefing customers, and assisting in marketing HRL expertise.

Experience Desired: Research experience in one of more of the following areas: computer vision, image processing, 2D and 3D object recognition, machine learning, automated reasoning. Application of computer vision techniques too autonomous systems, robotics, surveillance systems, or target recognition. Experience developing innovative solutions based upon the application of relevant research results from a wide variety of sources.

Knowledge Desired: Background in one of more of the following areas: computer vision, image processing, pattern recognition machine learning. Familiarity with C, C++, JAVA, and/or Matlab.

Essential Physical/ Mental Requirements: Good communication (verbal and written) skills, active participation in R&D team activities is required.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Research Staff Member - Bio-Inspired - 0921B

Special Requirements: U.S. citizen or permanent resident status required.

Education Desired: Ph.D. in EE, Computer Science, Applied Math, Electrical Engineering, Computational Neurobiology or related fields.

Essential Job Functions: Primary job function is to develop neuro-inspired models and algorithms for sensory (particularly visual) processing, navigation, motor control, memory, and learning. Tasks will include the development, simulation, evaluations, and implementation of neuromorphic algorithms applied to a variety of applications. Additional job functions include solving customer problems, writing invention disclosures, publishing papers, briefing customers, and assisting in marketing HRL expertise.

Experience Desired: Research experience in one or more of the following areas: Neurobiological modeling of vision, audition, control, language, memory, learning or cognition; building neuro or biologically inspired cognitive systems (software and hybrid software/hardware) with applications to robotic control, navigation, and visual scene analysis; neuromorphic engineering and construction of brain-based device; machine learning. Experience developing innovative solutions based upon the application of relevant research results from a wide variety of sources.

Knowledge Desired: Required: Background in brain modeling and simulation, computational neuroscience, cognitive modeling; machine learning; strong programming skills, particularly proficiency with C, C++, JAVA, and/or Matlab.

Essential Physical/ Mental Requirements: Good communication (verbal and written) skills, active participation in R & D team activities required.

****************************
Apply at http://fmudmz.hrl.com/resumes/jobs/cars_jobs5.lasso
Or send CV to kkim at hrl.com.

From oliver.brock at tu-berlin.de  Thu Sep 10 04:04:29 2009
From: oliver.brock at tu-berlin.de (Brock, Oliver)
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:04:29 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PhD Position at TU Berlin
Message-ID: <FCB4D13E930D33479C5B6EB5A4138830500F747B48@EX2KMBX01.tubit.win.tu-berlin.de>


Open Research Position in Robotics: Motion Generation for Mobile Manipulation

Position: Ph.D. student
Topic: motion generation for mobile manipulation

http://www.robotics.tu-berlin.de/menue/stellenangebote/robotik/ 

The Robotics and Biology Laboratory in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Technische Universit?t Berlin has an immediate opening!

About the Research
The Robotics and Biology Laboratory conducts cutting-edge research in the area of autonomous mobile manipulation, including work on manipulation, interactive perception, grasping, computer vision, motion generation, motion planning, and robotic cognition. Our work is motivated by the desire to create robotic systems that perform dexterous manipulation tasks in everyday environments with a level of competency rivaling that of humans.  We strive to demonstrate our research on real-world robotic systems in everyday environments. This requires the tight integration of autonomous capabilities in manipulation, perception, planning, control, machine learning, and reasoning. Researchers in our lab work at the intersection of at least two of these areas, creating innovative solutions to long-standing research challenges in robotics and artificial intelligence.  Research projects will be tailored to the preferences, skills, and experience of the successful applicant.

Desired Skills
The successful applicant has completed a Masters degree in computer science or a closely related discipline. He or she should possess excellent skills and practical experience in one or more of the following research areas: motion planning, control, hybrid systems. Experience at the intersection of one or more of these areas is desirable. Experience with programming and operating real-world robots and with the development of large integrated software is a plus. Proficiency in written and spoken English is required.  Knowledge of German is useful but not required.

About the Robotics and Biology Laboratory
The Robotics and Biology Laboratory is an international leader in the field of autonomous mobile manipulation. The lab is generously funded through the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt-Professorship by the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation. It has large, newly renovated laboratory and office space on the campus of the TU Berlin in the middle of Berlin. The lab home to top-notch, state-of-the-art mobile manipulators and robots; it is equipped with all the toys and bells and whistles that a roboticist might desire. The lab maintains close research ties to top universities in Germany, Europe, and the USA. The Robotics and Biology Laboratory provides an ideal environment for launching a successful career in academia or industry.

About Berlin
Berlin is a thriving center for science, culture, politics, and media right in the middle of Europe. Berlin is the most populous city in Germany, but through its many parks, forests, and lakes within the city limits, it provides a quality of life that is quite unique among large cities in the world. At the same time, the cost of living is very low. Berlin is home to three high-quality universities and many academic, governmental, and industrial research organizations.

Wikipedia about Berlin: "The metropolis is home to world-renowned universities, research institutes, sporting events, orchestras, museums and personalities. Berlin's urban landscape and historical legacy has made it a popular setting for international film productions. The city is recognized for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts and a high quality of living. Berlin has evolved into a global focal point for young individuals and artists attracted by a liberal lifestyle and modern zeitgeist."

How to Apply
International applications are encouraged to apply and will receive logistic support with visa issues. Applications will be evaluated on an ongoing basis until the positions are filled. Please email your application, including cover letter, CV, scanned transcripts, diplomas, publications, theses, other supporting material, and the contact information for at least two references as a single PDF file with "Application Motion Generation" in the subject line to robotics at robotics.tu-berlin.de. If you have questions regarding the position, please contact

Mrs Gudrun Pourshirazi
Tel. +49 30 314-73 110
Fax  +49 30 314-21 116
robotics at robotics.tu-berlin.de

TU Berlin, Fakult?t IV
Robotics, EN 10
Einsteinufer 17
10587 Berlin
Germany

From sergio.roa at dfki.de  Thu Sep 10 05:02:17 2009
From: sergio.roa at dfki.de (Sergio Roa)
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:02:17 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [Fwd: [CogX] job opening: dialogue management
	in HRI]
Message-ID: <4AA8EAC9.1020607@dfki.de>


-- 
Sergio Roa
http://www.dfki.de/~sroa
-------------------------------------------------------------
Deutsches Forschungszentrum fuer Kuenstliche Intelligenz GmbH
Trippstadter Strasse 122, D-67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
* Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wahlster (Vors.)
                       Dr. Walter Olthoff
* Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats:Prof. Dr. h.c. Hans A. Aukes
Amtsgericht Kaiserslautern, HRB 2313
-------------------------------------------------------------

From sergio.roa at dfki.de  Thu Sep 10 05:02:28 2009
From: sergio.roa at dfki.de (Sergio Roa)
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:02:28 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [Fwd: [CogX] job opening: dialogue processing
	in HRI for USAR]
Message-ID: <4AA8EAD4.7030500@dfki.de>


-- 
Sergio Roa
http://www.dfki.de/~sroa
-------------------------------------------------------------
Deutsches Forschungszentrum fuer Kuenstliche Intelligenz GmbH
Trippstadter Strasse 122, D-67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
* Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wahlster (Vors.)
                       Dr. Walter Olthoff
* Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats:Prof. Dr. h.c. Hans A. Aukes
Amtsgericht Kaiserslautern, HRB 2313
-------------------------------------------------------------

From sergio.roa at dfki.de  Thu Sep 10 05:02:40 2009
From: sergio.roa at dfki.de (Sergio Roa)
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:02:40 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [Fwd: [CogX] job openings: several PhDs in
	Human-Robot Interaction]
Message-ID: <4AA8EAE0.4040002@dfki.de>


-- 
Sergio Roa
http://www.dfki.de/~sroa
-------------------------------------------------------------
Deutsches Forschungszentrum fuer Kuenstliche Intelligenz GmbH
Trippstadter Strasse 122, D-67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
* Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wahlster (Vors.)
                       Dr. Walter Olthoff
* Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats:Prof. Dr. h.c. Hans A. Aukes
Amtsgericht Kaiserslautern, HRB 2313
-------------------------------------------------------------

From irmluaeu at gmail.com  Fri Sep 11 06:16:15 2009
From: irmluaeu at gmail.com (Interactive Robots and Media Laboratory UAEU)
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:16:15 +0400
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PhD Scholarships for Interactive and Social
	Robots and Media at IRML, Dubai
Message-ID: <e7fc21b50909110616h6e450985mad1eaf5062745e22@mail.gmail.com>

Generous PhD Scholarships for Interactive and Social Robots and Media at
IRML, Dubai

The Interactive Robots and Media Lab of the UAEU, next to Dubai, home of the
Microsoft-chosen "FaceBots" social robotics project, (recently covered on
BBC and media of more than 20 countries worldwide), as well as "IbnSina",
the world's first arabic speaking humanoid, part of the IbnSina interactive
theatre installation, is accepting applications for PhD students, as part
of the College of IT of UAEU.

Successful applicants will embark upon a PhD program which consists of
graduate courses as well as research, culminating upon a thesis consisting
of original work. PhD students will be provided with a generous stipend of
the order of 2000Eu($3000)/month, plus free accomodation, and numerous other
services.

*Desired qualifications*
- Relevant Background (Bachelors or Masters in CS, EE, Interactive Media or
other field)
- Coding experience/expertise (for example, C++ / Matlab / Java)
- Engineering / real world troubleshooting skills
- Interest and experience in one or more of the following technical areas:
       Human-Robot Interaction, AI, computer vision, NLP, social networks
- Interest in cognitive science and philosophy advantageous
- Team working skills
- Most importantly, desire, imagination, systematicity and persistence in
order to create the interactive robots and media of the future

*The IRML Lab*
http://irml.uaeu.ac.ae/ <http:///>
Core research areas include (but are not limited to):
Interactive and social robotics and media, humanoid robotics, robotics and
media for the arts and digital cultural heritage
The lab is equipped with multiple robots (the IbnSina Humanoid robot and
interactive theatre, mobile tour guide robots, manipulator arms, mini
vehicles), state-of-the-art full-body motion capture, cybergloves and
wireless 6DOF sensors, as well as advanced vision systems.
Furthermore, IRML has continuous access to color 3D printing and 3D
scanning, as well as to a machine shop, and microcontroller / electronics
labs, for prototyping novel interactive devices. In terms of computational
resources, a high-performance grid computer is available for use, as well as
multiple workstations. There is also close contact with numerous world-class
institutions and companies in the field, across three continents.

*The University*
UAEU is the oldest university in the country, and has recently been ranked
as the second best research university in the Arab world. It is a
fully-fledged university consisting of ten colleges and having more than
15000 students. The college of IT of UAEU has recently moved to an
ultra-modern futuristically-equipped building, and is currently undergoing
rapid expansion, with Eyad Abed of UMaryland (MIT/Berkeley graduate) having
just assumed our deanship.

*The place*
Al Ain is strategically located in one-hour driving distance from both Dubai
and Abu Dhabi, and is a beautiful oasis city of half a million, and a
favourite cultural retreat for residents of the UAE. It has an international
airport, four ultra-modern shopping malls with ice-skating facilities,
various recreational facilities, a picturesque traditional city centre, and
a spectacular mountain, among many other attractions. Dubai, being easily
accessible by car from Al Ain (one hour), is a vibrant liberal multicultural
city, the main commercial hub of the middle east, and one of the most
enjoyable places to visit, where imagination is realized everyday through
projects that exist nowhere else in the world: the tallest building in the
world (under construction), the most luxurious hotel in the world (Burj Al
Arab), man-made island communities in the shapes of palms visible from
space, rich shopping malls with artificial skiing centers. The world's
finest cultural and artistic events also abound. In short, there are
excellent opportunities for an exciting cosmopolitan lifestyle, in an exotic
multicultural environment, where nothing is impossible.

Dr. Nikolaos Mavridis
PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ass.Professor of Intelligent Systems, UAEU
nmav at alum.mit.edu

From ants at iridia.ulb.ac.be  Fri Sep 11 07:42:22 2009
From: ants at iridia.ulb.ac.be (Ants 2010 track)
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:42:22 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ANTS 2010 - International Conference on Swarm
	Intelligence
Message-ID: <20090911144222.GA1717@pasteur>

*** Apologies if you have received this CFP more than once  ***

                             ANTS 2010
       Seventh International Conference on Swarm Intelligence

              September 8-10, 2010. Brussels, Belgium


           Call for papers prepared on September 2, 2009
             More details and up-to-date information at
                  http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/ants2010


Scope of the Conference
=======================

 Swarm intelligence is a relatively new discipline that deals with  the study of self-organizing processes both in nature and in  artificial systems. Researchers in ethology and animal behavior have  proposed many models to explain interesting aspects of social insect  behavior such as self-organization and shape-formation. Recently,  algorithms and methods inspired by these models have been proposed  to solve difficult problems in many domains.

 An example of a particularly successful research direction in swarm  intelligence is ant colony optimization, the main focus of which is on discrete optimization problems. Ant colony optimization has been applied successfully to a large number of difficult discrete optimization problems including the traveling salesman problem, the quadratic assignment problem, scheduling, vehicle routing, etc., as well as to routing in telecommunication networks. Another interesting approach is that of particle swarm optimization, that focuses on continuous optimization problems. Here too, a number of successful applications can be found in the recent literature. Swarm robotics is another relevant field. Here, the focus is on applying swarm intelligence techniques to the control of large groups of cooperating autonomous robots.

 ANTS 2010 will give researchers in swarm intelligence the opportunity to meet, to present their latest research, and to discuss current developments and applications.

 The three-day conference will be held in Brussels, Belgium, on September 8-10, 2010. Tutorial sessions will be held in the mornings before the conference program. 


Relevant Research Areas
=======================

 ANTS 2010 solicits contributions dealing with any aspect of swarm intelligence. Typical, but not exclusive, topics of interest are:

   + Behavioral models of social insects or other animal societies that can stimulate new algorithmic approaches.

   + Empirical and theoretical research in swarm intelligence.

   + Application of swarm intelligence methods, such as ant colony optimization or particle swarm optimization, to real-world problems.

   + Theoretical and experimental research in swarm robotics systems.


Publication Details
===================

 As for previous editions of the ANTS conference, proceedings will be published by Springer in the LNCS series (to be confirmed). The journal Swarm Intelligence will publish a special issue dedicated to ANTS 2010 that will contain extended versions of the best research works presented at the conference.


Best Paper Award
================

 A best paper award will be presented at the conference.


Further Information
===================

 Up-to-date information will be published on the web site http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/ants2010/. For information about local
 arrangements, registration forms, etc., please refer to the above-mentioned web site or contact the local organizers at the address below.


Conference Address
==================

 ANTS 2010
 IRIDIA, CP 194/6                 Tel +32-2-6502729
 Universite' Libre de Bruxelles   Fax +32-2-6502715
 Av. F. D. Roosevelt 50           http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/ants2010
 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium          email: ants at iridia.ulb.ac.be


Conference Location
===================

 Salle Dupreel, Building S, Campus du Solbosch, Universite' Libre de Bruxelles, Av. Jeanne 44, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.


Important Dates
===============

 Submission deadline             February 28, 2010
 Notification of acceptance         April 30, 2010
 Camera ready copy                    May 14, 2010
 Conference                   September 8-10, 2010


ANTS 2010 Conference Committee
==============================

 General Chair
   Marco Dorigo

 Technical Program Chairs
   Andries Engelbrecht, Gianni Di Caro, Luca M. Gambardella,
   and Erol Sahin

 Publication Chair
   Roderich Gross

 Organization Chairs
   Mauro Birattari and Thomas Stuetzle

 Special Sessions Chairs
   Rene' Doursat, Dario Floreano, Hiroki Sayama, and Jon Timmis

 Publicity Co-Chairs
   Xiadong Li and Yuhui Shi

 Local Arrangements
   Manuele Brambilla

From jgu at dal.ca  Fri Sep 11 07:53:51 2009
From: jgu at dal.ca (jason Gu)
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:53:51 -0300
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IEEE WCICA2010 call for papers
Message-ID: <007f01ca32ef$ad3e3c30$b356ad81@gup4c312>

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------

       Our apologies if you receive duplicates of this posting.

   Please feel free to distribute it to those who might be interested.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------

 

****************************************************************************
*******************

                            CALL FOR PAPERS                         

                                                                   

                               WCICA 2010                             

                                                                   

       The 8th World Congress on Intelligent Control and Automation (WCICA
2010)      

                    Jinan, China, July 7-9, 2010           

****************************************************************************
********************

 

The 8th World Congress on Intelligent Control and Automation (WCICA 2010)
will take place from July 7 to 9, 2010 in Jinan, China. It is our great
pleasure to invite you to submit your original research papers to the
Congress. 

 

 

Subject and Scope

-----------------

WCICA 2010 is intended to provide a common forum for researchers,
scientists, and engineers throughout the world to present their latest
research findings, ideas, developments and applications in the area of
Control and Automation. IEEE WCICA 2010 will include keynote addresses by
eminent scientists and Engineers as well as special, oral and poster
sessions. All papers will be peer reviewed on the basis of a full length
manuscript and acceptance will be based on quality, originality and
relevance. Accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings.
All accepted papers in the Proceedings of WCICA 2010 will be published by
IEEE and indexed by EI. WCICA 2010 also provides Best Paper Awards to honor
the outstanding papers presented at this Congress. WCICA 2010 welcomes
proposals for organizing Invited/Special Sessions on the conference topics
and Tutorials and Workshops on emerging topics. Detailed information on
paper and proposal submissions is available on the website.

 

http://www.wcica.info

 

Topics will include, but are not limited to, the following:

 

A  Intelligent Control and Automation

A1 Intelligent Control Theory and Applications

A2 Computational Intelligence and Applications

A3 Intelligent Automation and Manufacturing

A4 Artificial Intelligence and Knowledge Engineering

A5 Network Intelligence and Network Control

 

B  Control Theory and Control Engineering

B1 Systems and Control Theory and Applications

B2 Systems Engineering and Engineering Optimization

B3 Advanced Control Algorithms and Applications

B4 Modeling, Identification, and Fault Diagnosis

B5 Industrial Automation and On-line Monitoring

 

C  Complex Systems and Intelligent Robots

C1 Complex Systems, Logistics, and Supply Chain

C2 Robotics, Service and Medical Robotics

C3 Integrated and Complex Automation Systems

C4 Intelligent Management and Decision Making

C5 Electronic Commerce and Office Automation

 

D  Others

D1 Measurement Method and Intelligent Instrumentation

D2 Sensors, Sensor Networks, Sensing and Signal Processing

D3 Pattern Recognition, Image Processing, and Machine Vision

D4 Biomedical Engineering and Biosystems Automation

D5 NANO, MEMS, NEMS, and Mechatronics Systems

 

 

Important Dates

---------------

Deadline for full paper submission:           November 30, 2009

Notification of accepted papers:               February 28, 2010

Submission of accepted final papers:       March 31, 2010

 

Paper Submission

----------------

Authors are invited to submit the full manuscript (4 to 6 pages including
references) of their technical paper, for oral or poster presentation.
Papers in pdf format may be uploaded via the web at
https://www.softconf.com/s08/wcica2010 or http://www.wcica.info

 

The MS Word and pdf template will be available on the conference website.
Final manuscripts are limited to six pages.

 

In submitting a paper, the author(s) agree that, upon acceptance, they will
prepare the final manuscript in time for inclusion in the published
proceedings and will present the paper at the conference. The final
manuscript will not be published without advance registration.

 

 

Invited Sessions

----------------

WCICA 2010 solicits invited session proposals. The invited sessions are
intended to stimulate in-depth discussions in special areas relevant to the
conference theme. The session organizers will coordinate the review process
for their session papers. The conference proceedings will include all papers
from the invited sessions. Authors contributing to invited sessions are
required to register for the conference. Please contact the general chair if
you would like to organize an invited session.

 

 

Post-Conference Publications

----------------------------

Selected papers will be published in a special issue of a reputed
international journal as well as in a special edited book from a reputed
publisher.

 

We look forward to meeting you at WCICA 2010 in Jinan, China in July, 2010.

 

With kindest regards,

 

WCICA 2009 Organizing Committee


From raj.madhavan at nist.gov  Fri Sep 11 13:54:38 2009
From: raj.madhavan at nist.gov (Raj Madhavan)
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:54:38 -0400
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2009 Performance Metrics for Intelligent
	Systems (PerMIS'09) Workshop
Message-ID: <4AAAB90E.5060201@nist.gov>

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

2009 Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems (PerMIS'09) Workshop
http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/PerMIS_2009/
September 21-23, 2009
NIST, Gaithersburg, MD, USA.

*** REGISTRATION DEADLINE ***
http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/PerMIS_2009/registration.htm (Deadline Sept.
14th). On-site registration also available.

General Chair
Elena Messina, NIST
Program Chair
Raj Madhavan, ORNL/NIST

The Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems workshop is the only one
of its kind dedicated to defining measures and methodologies of
evaluating performance of intelligent systems. Started in 2000, the
PerMIS series focuses on applications of performance measures to
practical problems in commercial, industrial, homeland security, and
military applications. It has proved to be an excellent forum for
discussions and partnerships, dissemination of ideas, and future
collaborations between researchers, graduate students, and practitioners
from industry, academia, and government agencies.

The main theme of the ninth iteration of the workshop, PerMIS?09, seeks
to address the question: "Does performance measurement accelerate the
pace of advancement for intelligent systems?" In addition to the main
theme, as in previous years, the workshop will focus on applications of
performance measures to practical problems in commercial, industrial,
homeland security, and military applications.

PLENARY ADDRESSES
* David Bruemmer, Idaho National Labs: Measuring the Benefits of
Intelligent Behavior for Robotic Threat Detection
* Paul Cohen, University of Arizona: Against Sophistication: Why Worry
About Performance Assessment
* Raffaello D'Andrea, ETH Zurich: Towards a Ten Thousand Mobile Robot
Warehouse
* Ben Kuipers, Univeristy of Michigan: Evaluating the Robot Cognitive Mapper
* Tom Mitchell, Carnegie Mellon University: How does Brain Activity
Represent Word Meanings? (Banquet Speaker)
* Lora Weiss, Georgia Institute of Technology: Assessing Autonomous
Systems As They Evolve

SPONSORS
NIST, DARPA, NSF, IEEE Technical Committee on Performance Evaluation and
Benchmarking of Robotic and Automation Systems (TC-PEBRAS), IEEE
Washington Section Robotics and Automation Society Chapter, and
in-cooperation with the Association for Computing Machinery Special
Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence

-- 
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: aser.ornl.gov/madhavan/ & www.nist.gov/mel/isd/ks/madhavan.cfm


From leonardo.demattos at iit.it  Sat Sep 12 05:14:34 2009
From: leonardo.demattos at iit.it (De Mattos Leonardo)
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:14:34 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PhD Fellowships in Biomedical Robotics
Message-ID: <5B2D6D6DDD42414A91B85B082D7C5FC4CBCA4B@EDEN-CLU.netexchange.int.netscalibur.it>

Doctoral School on "Life and Humanoid Technologies"

 

PhD Fellowships - Application deadline September 25th, 2009 




The Advanced Robotics Department of the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) has new PhD positions available within the "Biomedical Robotics" area.  The positions are for a 3-year doctoral program in: (1) Biomanipulations; and (2) Minimally Invasive Laser Surgeries. Short descriptions of the proposed research themes are presented below. 
 
(1) Theme 1.7: Novel Sensors and Controllers for Biomanipulation Automation
Tutors: Dr. Leonardo Mattos, Dr. Darwin Caldwell
The progress of sciences such as genetics, drug discovery and associated biomedical areas has greatly increased the demand for consistent and efficient biomanipulation procedures. Transgenic and gene-target animals, for example, are commonly used as models of a wide range of serious human afflictions, including diabetes, arteriosclerosis, hypertension, Alzheimer's disease, and cancer. However, the processes involved in the creation of these animal models suffer from the inconsistencies of direct manual operations. The development of novel microfluidic systems has a great potential to simplify and miniaturize the biomanipulation equipment, improve task consistency, and create a more suitable system for computer controlled operations. Hence, this research will focus on the design and construction of new microfluidic devices for biomanipulations under (or off) the microscope; the development of computer interfaces and controllers for the novel devices; and on the development of adaptive and precise controllers able to perform complex operations on delicate biological structures.  This research will be conducted in close collaboration with biologists and neuroscience researchers within the IIT's Neuroscience Department.
Requirements: The ideal candidate should have an engineering background and be interested in hardware/software integration for biological applications. Experience in robotics, microfluidics and/or biomedical systems are additional bonuses.
 
(2) Theme 1.8: Novel Actuators and Controllers for Minimally Invasive Laser Surgeries
Tutors: Dr. Leonardo Mattos, Dr. Darwin Caldwell
This research will focus on overcoming the most significant limitations of current surgical laser procedures: namely poor laser aiming control, poor system ergonomics and the requirement for extensive training of surgeons. The goal will be to design and develop novel motorized laser micromanipulators and controllers to increased precision and safety of the surgeries. The initial aim will be to improve phonomicrosurgeries, so the work will benefit from current collaborations with ENT surgeons at San Martino's hospital. Nonetheless, other surgical applications are thought. 
Requirements: The ideal candidates for this research theme should have an engineering background and strong interest in medical robotics. Experience in mechanical design, hardware/software integration, and control systems are all bonuses.
 
For further details concerning the above research projects, please contact: leonardo.demattos at iit.it


Interested applicants should read the procedure described below and/or refer to the IIT's website (http://www.iit.it) to download instructions for application.
 

------------------------------------

SUBMISSION PROCEDURE IN SHORT

 

Application letters and the required accompanying documents as detailed in the call for applications (http://www.iit.it/media/call/ciclo25_iit_bando_en.doc) should be prepared following the outline of Annex B (application form) and be sent within September, 25th 2009 to Magnifico Rettore dell'Universit? degli Studi di Genova.
 

Besides completing the application form (Annex B) you must provide the following documents: 
* Curriculum vitae et studiorum dated and signed 

* A photocopy of a valid identity document;

* Title and synthetic description of dissertation (also on cd-rom); 

* A list of exams with the grades;

* At least one letter (and not more than three) of presentation of the candidate signed by a university lecturer or an expert in the subject;

* A signed research project concerning one or more of the research themes described above you intend to apply  (maximum 10 pages);

* A statement of actual knowledge of the English language; foreign nationals may also state their knowledge of the Italian language;

* Any other qualifications relative to the subject areas of the research dealt with in the course, papers shall not be more than 10 pages long.

 




On the envelope you should indicate the name of the course (Advanced Robotics) and the number of the research theme you are applying as described above.
 
Application letters and the required documents can be delivered: 
 
1. by mail
Applications can be sent using a registered letter. The envelope must include in the header the following wording: "Concorso per ammissione al XXIV ciclo del Dottorato di Ricerca" Doctoral Course: Advanced Robotics and has to be addressed as follows:
 
Magnifico Rettore dell'Universit? degli Studi di Genova
Servizio Alta Formazione e  Ordinamenti Didattici
Via Balbi 5
16126 - Genova 
Italy
 
2. by hand
Letters can be handed personally to the following office (opening time: 9:00 - 12:00, Monday to Friday; extra opening on Tuesday and Wednesday from 14:30 to 16:00): 
 
Universit? degli Studi di Genova
Servizio Alta Formazione e  Ordinamenti Didattici
Via Bensa 1 -  2nd  floor 
16124 Genova 
Italy
 
For any further information regarding the application procedure please contact:
 
Ms Anastasia Bruzzone
Doctoral School UNIGE-IIT
Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia 
Via Morego, 30 - 16163 Genova
Tel. +39 010 71781472 
Fax. +39 010 7170817 
Email: anastasia.bruzzone at iit.it 
 
 
-----------------------------------------------------
Dr. Leonardo De Mattos
Advanced Robotics Dept.
Italian Institute of Technology
Via Morego 30
16163 Genoa, Italy
Phone: +39 010 71781409
Fax:   +39 010 720321
e-mail: leonardo.demattos at iit.it
------------------------------------------------------

From aligoktogan at gmail.com  Sat Sep 12 08:35:07 2009
From: aligoktogan at gmail.com (Ali Haydar Goktogan)
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 01:35:07 +1000
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: 3rd International Symposium on Unmanned
	Aerial Vehicles (UAV'10 ), June 21-23 2010, United Arab Emirates
Message-ID: <6c87dc650909120835m4ed89e0at59ad0eab842137b6@mail.gmail.com>

Dear Colleagues,


Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this CFP.

Please forward to interested people.


==========================================================================
                                     CALL FOR PAPERS

   UAV'10 3rd International Symposium on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

             http://www.uavconferences.com/CFP-UAV10.pdf

        June 21-23, 2010 - Al Bustan Rotana Hotel, Dubai UAE

==========================================================================


UAV'10 the 3rd International Symposium on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, will be
held in parallel and
in federation with CAD'10, the 2010 International CAD Conference and
Exhibition, for the first
time in Dubai,  one of the most rapidly grown and modern cities in the
world, during the week
of June 21. Details about the meeting, exhibition, the conference venue and
travel, may be
found at http://www.uavconferences.com and related links.

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) related research and development has reached
the level of maturity
that allows national and international organizations, agencies, industry,
military and civilian
authorities to speak openly about their upcoming integration into the
national airspace. Although
military applications of UAS have dominated the field thus, future
applications will also center
on civilian domains and public safety related areas, including environment
protection and monitoring.
Challenges to be faced and overcome include policies, procedures,
regulations, safety, risk analysis
assessment, airworthiness, certification issues, operational constraints,
standardization, frequency
management, levels of autonomy, networked-controlled swarms, all of
paramount importance, which,
coupled with ?smart?, ?environmentally friendly? cutting edge technologies
will pave the way towards
integration of UAS with manned aviation and into the respective national
airspace systems.

The Symposium aims at bringing together different groups of qualified
military and civilian
representatives worldwide, organization representatives, funding agencies,
industry and academia
to discuss the current state of UAS advances, and the roadmap to their full
utilization in military
and integration in civilian domains. Focused interests of diverse groups
involved in UAS research
and development will be discussed. Special emphasis will be given to current
and future research
opportunities, and to ?what comes next? in terms of the essential
technologies that need be utilized
to advance further UAS. Symposium topics include but not limited to:

Airspace Control                            Navigation
Airspace Management                  Networked Swarms
Airworthiness                                  Payloads
Air Vehicle Operations                  Path Planning
Autonomy                                        Regulations
Biologically Inspired UAS              Reliability of UAS
Certification                                     Risk Analysis
Communication Challenges          See-and-avoid Systems
Control Architectures                     Security
Energy Efficient UAS                     Sensor Fusion
Environmental Issues                     Simulation
Fail-Safe Systems                         Smart Sensors
Frequency Management               Standardization
Integration                                       Swarms
Interoperability of UAS                  Technology Challenges
Levels of Safety                             Training
Manned/Unmanned Aviation        UAS Testbeds
Micro- and Mini- UAS  Applications

Through keynote addresses, invited and solicited presentations, it is
expected that the outcome of
the Symposium will be a better understanding of what industry, the military
and civilian national
and international authorities need. The Symposium will be a three-day event
with Keynote and Plenary
presentations in the morning and afternoon. In addition to paper
presentations there will be Tutorials
and Panel Discussions with experts from industry, civilian and public
authorities, and the military.

 Important Dates
December 10, 2009:   Full papers due
February 28, 2010:    Acceptance/rejection notification
March 31, 2010:         Final, camera ready papers due
April 30, 2010:          Early Registration

PAPER SUBMISSION
Papers must be submitted / uploaded electronically using the conference
paper submission and review
system ? for details see the website. The paper format must be single-column
format, 12 point fonts,
Times New Roman. The Springer template may be found at:
http://www.editorialmanager.com/jint/, or
http://www.springer.com/engineering/journal/10846. Up to 30 single-spaced
pages are allowed for each
paper. Illustrations and references are included in the page count.
Submitted papers will undergo a
peer review process coordinated by the Program Chairs and the Program
Advisory Committee Members.
Authors will be notified of acceptance or rejection by February 28, 2010.
Accepted papers must be
received no later than March 31, 2010. Along with the final paper, authors
of accepted papers must
submit their power point presentation. All accepted peer reviewed papers
will be published in CD-ROM
Proceedings. Selected accepted papers will also be published in a Special
Volume of the
Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems (Springer), or in a Special
Volume Book as part of the
Springer series on Intelligent Systems, Control and Automation (ISCA).

 EXHIBITS: Groups interested in exhibiting prototypes and/or research
results will be allocated a
booth in the exhibits hall. Details on exhibition are found at:
http://www.uavconferences.com/Exhibition.html.


General Co-Chairs
  Kimon P. Valavanis
  University of Denver, USA
  kimon.valavanis at du.edu

  Bernard Mettler
  University of Minnesota, USA
  mettler at aem.umn.edu

Conference Committee Advisor
  Paul Oh
  Drexel University and NSF
  paul at coe.drexel.edu

Gulf States Liaison Chair
  A-Nasser Al Ansari
  Ministry of Defense, Qatari Emiri Navy
  nasser at engineer.com

Program Chair ? The Americas
  Richard D. Garcia
  Army Research laboratory
  duster3 at gmail.com

Program Chair - Europe
  Samir Bouabdallah
  ETH, Zurich
  samir.bouabdallh at mavt.ethz.ch

Program Chair ? Asia/Oceania
  Ali Haydar Goktogan
  Australian Centre for Field Robotics, USYD
  a.goktogan at cas.edu.au

Local Arrangements Chair
  Mohammad A. Al-Jarrah
  American University of Sharjah, UAE
  Office: +(971) 6 515 2464
  Fax: +(971) 6 515 2979
  mjarrah at aus.edu

 Registration and Publicity Chair
  Leslie A. Piegl
  University of South Florida
  lpiegl at gmail.com, lap at cse.usf.edu

Advisory Committee
  Siva Banda, AFRL
  Randal Beard, BYU
  Xiaogong Lee, FAA UAS Research Program
  Dan Nolan, South Dakota School of Mines & Technology
  Anibal Ollero, Universidad de Sevilla
  Hyunchul, Shim, KAIST
  Salah Sukkarieh, University of Sydney
  George Vachtsevanos, Georgia Inst. Of Technology
  Rodney Walker, ARCAA, Queensland U of Technology
  Johan Wiklund, Link?ping University
  Stephen Wilkerson, ARL, USA
  Jean-Christophe Zufferey, EPFL







Dr. Ali Haydar G?KTO?AN
Research Fellow, Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS),
Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR),
Rio Tinto Centre for Mine Automation (RTCMA),
School of Aerospace, Mechanical & Mechatronic Engineering (AMME),
The University of Sydney  2006  NSW,   AUSTRALIA
Link Building J13, Room 314B
Tel: +61 2 9351 8144   Fax: +61 2 9351 7474

From josh.johnston at hotmail.com  Sat Sep 12 08:55:48 2009
From: josh.johnston at hotmail.com (Josh Johnston)
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2009 09:55:48 -0600
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Robotics Engineer Positions
Message-ID: <BLU146-W341538CDCE256CB2759441FAE60@phx.gbl>


SAIC has posted two openings for Robotics Engineers in our Englewood, Colorado office.  Apply online:

https://cp-its-rmprd.saic.com/MAIN/careerportal/Job_Profile.cfm?szOrderID=155930
https://cp-its-rmprd.saic.com/MAIN/careerportal/Job_Profile.cfm?szOrderID=155334

Josh Johnston
Robotics Engineer
SAIC


The Systems and Technology Solutions (STS) Business Unit (BU) of SAIC is currently seeking a Senior Robotics Engineer to work in Englewood, CO.

JOB DESCRIPTION: SAIC is seeking a Senior Robotics Specialist to formulate new concepts, lead business development efforts and participate in the development of tactical military robotic applications.

This is a technical leadership position that is focused on new business development. As such it requires approximately half time on proposal development and the remainder on robotics research and 
development.

EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS: Bachelor?s degree in Science or 
Engineering is required. Masters and/or PhD are preferred.

REQUIRED 
SKILLS: 4+ years of experience in the architecture, design and development of tactical robotic systems is required. Candidates must have the following skills and experience: In-depth knowledge of robotic architectures, protocols, APIs, sensors, command and control, autonomous navigation algorithms, obstacle avoidance algorithms and C++; History of creating innovative / novel solutions for tactical robotic applications; Superlative oral and written communications skills - e.g. the ability to communicate complex concepts clearly and succinctly to customers; Strong teaming and leadership abilities; Demonstrated track record of successful proposal development. Army experience is a plus.

Candidates must be able to obtain a US DoD SECRET security clearance (generally requires US Citizenship). Current possession or having possessed a SECRET security clearance in the last 2 years is a plus.

From solis at kurenai.waseda.jp  Sat Sep 12 16:32:39 2009
From: solis at kurenai.waseda.jp (Jorge Solis)
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 08:32:39 +0900
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IROS2009 Workshop on Biologically-Inspired
	Robots (October 11th, 2009)
Message-ID: <007401ca3401$515c3710$f414a530$@waseda.jp>

Dear Colleagues,

We would like to kindly invite to attend the IROS2009 Full-Day Workshop on
Biologically-Inspired Robots 
(St. Louis, USA, October 11th, 2009)

For further details, please access:
www.bio.waseda.ac.jp/IROS_Workshop/index.htm

The workshop program is as follows:

SESSION I: Biomimetics (Chair: Jorge Solis) 
8:30          On Efficiency Enhancement of a Swimming Robot
                   by K. H. Low and Chunlin Zhou
9:00          Biomimetic Inchworm Robot Using SMA Coil Actuator and Smart
Composite Microstructures (SCM)
                   by Je-Sung Koh, Kyu-Jin Cho
9:30          Biomimetic Millirobots
                   by Ronald S. Fearing et al.

10:00-10:30            COFFEE BREAK

10:30 - 11:15            INVITED TALK I: Yoshihiko Nakamura (Tokyo
University, Japan)
                                     TBD

SESSION II: Bio-inspired Design & Control (Chair: Kin Huat Low) 
11:20        Design Improvements Enabling Locomotion Transition of a
Biologically Inspired Hybrid Air-Land Vehicle
                   by Richard J. Bachmann, Ravi Vaidyanathan, Roger D. Quinn

11:50        Bio-inspired robot design for legged locomotion
                   by Sangbae Kim
12:20        A robot control framework based on "Biological fluctuation"
                   by Yutaka Nakamura, Yoshio Matsumoto, Satoshi Koizumi,
and Hiroshi Ishiguro

12:50-14:00               Lunch Break

14:00-14:45               INVITED TALK II: Roger D. Quinn (Case Western
Reserve University, USA)
                                     Animals as models for robot mobility
and autonomy: Crawling, walking, running, climbing and flying

SESSION III: Biomimetic Perception, Behavior & Modeling (Chair: Ravi
Vaidyanathan)
14.50        Understanding the mechanisms of the human motor control by
imitating saxophone playing with the
             Waseda Saxophonist Robot WAS-1
                   by Jorge Solis and Atsuo Takanishi 
15.20        On the Connectivity of Motion Spaces for Biologically-Inspired
Legged Robots
                   by Kris Hauser
15.50        Downscaling of Flagellar Swimming
                   by Gabor Kosa and Gabor Szekely

16:20-16:30            Coffee Break

16.30        Emotional Metaheuristics For in-situ Foraging Using Sensor
Constrained Robot Swarms
                   by Eshwaran Vijaya Kumar and Debasish Ghose 
17.00        A Stigmergy Rule Set Compiler for Collective Construction using
the Distance Transform
                   by Robert L. Stewart

Organizers:
Jorge Solis (Waseda University, JAPAN); Kin-Huat Low (Nanyang Technology
University, SINGAPORE); 
Ravi Vaidyanathan (University of Bristol, UK); Xinyan Deng (University of
Delaware, USA).



From brettb at cs.cmu.edu  Sun Sep 13 08:29:54 2009
From: brettb at cs.cmu.edu (Brett Browning)
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 11:29:54 -0400
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] job opening: postdoc in computer vision/robot
	perception
Message-ID: <4AAD0FF2.9050201@cs.cmu.edu>

Opening for a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon's Qatar campus,
located in Doha, Qatar. The position will start in the fall of 2009.

Our research group is looking for a talented researcher to lead
the research and development of a vision system for a pipe-inspecting
robot for operating in natural gas plants (LNG/GTL). This work will
involve building 3D appearance maps of pipe walls, registering them
across runs, and automated detection of corrosion points. This work is
part of a larger effort that involves both the Pittsburgh and Qatar
campuses to develop new robotics technology for the natural gas
industry. Our particular focus is on improving safety and productivity.

We are looking for researchers with experience in Computer Vision and
robot perception systems. Particularly relevant areas include image
registration, visual mapping, stereo and classification.

Carnegie Mellon offers very competitive postdoctoral salaries with
numerous additional benefits above the normal rate for residing in Qatar.

For more information on Carnegie Mellon's Qatar effort, please visit
http://www.qatar.cmu.edu.

Please send all resumes and references to:

Brett Browning <brettb at cs.cmu.edu>

-- 

-------
Brett Browning, Ph.D., 
Carnegie Mellon University



From nts at ks.informatik.uni-kiel.de  Sun Sep 13 14:19:47 2009
From: nts at ks.informatik.uni-kiel.de (Nils T Siebel)
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:19:47 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for papers - Special Issue on Hybrid
	Control of Autonomous Systems - Integrating Learning,
	Deliberation and Reactive Control
Message-ID: <fb5beeb40909131419i267c26b3q78e0dc22ee157987@mail.gmail.com>

CALL FOR PAPERS

Journal of Robotics and Autonomous Systems:
Special Issue on Hybrid Control of Autonomous Systems

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

High-level control for Autonomous Systems (e.g. robots) is concerned
with selecting the next action the system should perform. In particular
this means that the system must be endowed with algorithms or schemes
to take the next step towards its mission goal. The known paradigms for
this action selection problem are learning, deliberation, reactive
control schemes or combinations of these schemes, i.e. hybrid approaches.

Learning has been applied successfully to many robotics tasks. Most of
the work is related to learning certain basic behaviors or skills.
Examples where the high-level control strategy of robots (or agents)
were successfully learned are rare. The deliberative approach for
decision making of autonomous systems was successfully treated in
research on Artificial Intelligence, following a top-down approach,
which has severe limitations in real applications. In the reactive
control paradigm the idea is that through a combination of purely
reactive action selection schemes intelligent and goal-directed
behaviors emerge, which can be seen as a bottom-up approach.

These paradigms have been known for over two decades, and in today's
applications often combinations of learning, deliberation, and reactive
control are used. Usually these combinations are used in an ad-hoc or
even unconscious fashion. Although there is a number of proposed
architectures and huge body of literature, the issue of combining
learning, reactive and deliberative control never has been intensively
investigated.

This special issue aims to survey a state of the art of hybrid systems
and to compile a collection of the problems, the challenges, and the
solutions of autonomous systems, i.e. robots or agent systems that make
use of hybrid approaches for high-level control. A particular emphasis
lies on the hybrid aspects of the presented approach.

PAPER SUBMISSIONS

Areas of interest include (but are not restricted to) hybrid decision
making, modeling of application domains which demands for hybrid
control and related with this the required capabilities/affordances
and needed robot behaviors. We solicit original work from the fields
of Agent Learning, Cognitive Robotics, and Behavior-based Control,
deploying a hybrid approach for high-level control.

As a follow-up of the HYCAS workshop at the IJCAI-09 we invite in
particular workshop participants to submit profoundly extended versions
of their workshop submission, which suits this special issue. The call
is nevertheless open to other interested researchers.

Papers should be typeset according to the format instructions for the
Robotics and Autonomous Systems journal, available on the Elsevier web
site. The length should not exceed 22 pages in the above format
(single column).

Please e-mail your submission in PDF format to the editors at the
address ras10 at hycas.org.
Other, non-standard formats (e.g., Word) cannot be accepted. In the body
of the e-mail message, please specify the following:

   * Paper title
   * Name, e-mail address and affiliation of all authors
   * Phone, fax and postal address of the corresponding author
   * Keywords (maximum 5)
   * Abstract (maximum 200 words)

All submissions will be acknowledged within a few days. Please contact
the guest editors if you do not receive an acknowledgment.

GUEST EDITORS

Alexander Ferrein
Robotics and Agents Research Lab
University of Cape Town, South Africa

Nils T Siebel
Cognitive Systems Group
Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Germany

Gerald Steinbauer
Institute for Software Technology
Graz University of Technology, Austria


IMPORTANT DATES

   * November 15 2009: Paper submission deadline
   * January 15 2010: Notification of paper acceptance
   * February 15 2010: Camera ready paper submission
   * Late Spring 2010: Expected publication date


CONTACT

Please contact the guest editors at the e-mail address ras10 at hycas.org
for inquiries about the special issue.

MORE INFORMATION

http://www.hycas.org/RAS10/

======================================================================
Apologies for cross-posting.  Please forward this announcement to all
those who might be interested. Thank you.
======================================================================

=*=*=*=

Nils T Siebel
Cognitive Systems Group
Institute of Computer Science
Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel
Olshausenstr. 40
24098 Kiel, Germany.

From paolo.dario at sssup.it  Mon Sep 14 01:48:56 2009
From: paolo.dario at sssup.it (Paolo Dario)
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:48:56 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for PhD positions in Micro-Biorobotics at
 Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy
Message-ID: <4AAE0378.2090808@sssup.it>

Dear colleague,
we should like to draw to your attention the following Call for 
Applications to the PhD Program (in Italian: "Perfezionamento"):

The Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna of Pisa (Italy) issued a call for 
application to a Ph.D. program in the field of MICRO-BIOROBOTICS, which 
is in the framework of the existing Innovative Technologies of 
Information & Communication Engineering and Robotics International 
School of Doctorate.

*** DEADLINE for application is October 1st, 2009. ***

The fellowships will be funded by a grant that Scuola Superiore 
Sant?Anna has been awarded by the *Italian Institute of Technology* 
(www.iit.it <http://www.iit.it>) to foster research in MICRO-BIOROBOTICS 
and to specifically create a Center in Micro-Biorobotics of IIT at SSSA 
pursuing the following specific scientific goals within two main platforms:
1) The ROBOTIC PLATFORM: ?-Robotics development, active motion and 
wireless electro-magnetic positioning of miniaturized artefacts, their 
stimulation and control
2) The SMART MATERIALS PLATFORM: Smart, nano bio-hybrid materials for 
?-Robotics

More details about the research areas covered by the MICRO-BIOROBOTICS 
Ph.D. programme are provided in the attached document (Micro-Biorobotics 
of IIT at SSSA).

The PhD Program in Biorobotics aims at educating highly competent 
researchers with the potential to stand as future leaders in the area of 
biorobotics worldwide.
Fellows will conduct research in a leading international institution and 
within a highly interdisciplinary environment. Interested candidates 
must prepare a *research project* relative to the MICRO-BIOROBOTICS 
field which will be evaluated for scientific and technical soundness and 
will be part of the whole evaluation process.

The grant will fund 7 fellowships to EU candidates and 3 fellowships to 
non-EU candidates for a total of 10 PhD candidate three years position.
The Scuola Superiore Sant?Anna reserves the possibility of accepting up 
to a maximum of 7 EU and 3 non EU further students without fellowship, 
in the area of biorobotics at large. Their PhD courses can be supported 
by research funds, in the framework of many international projects 
(www.octopus-project.eu, http://www.araknes.org/, 
http://www.vector-project.com/, http://www.lampetra.org/, 
http://www.theangelsproject.eu/, www.dustbot.org, 
http://www.hydronet-project.eu/, http://www.project-time.eu/,
http://www.nanobiotact.org/, http://www.integ-micro.eu/, and many others.

The selected PhD students will join a class of numerous PhD students, 
they will be part of the IIT network of PhD Students, and will be 
offered advanced courses as well as individual research projects in the 
framework of biorobotics. The PhD students will use our excellent 
facilities, equipped with state-of-the-art instruments and robotic 
platforms; they will carry on their individual research projects under 
the active tutorship of well-known leaders in Biorobotics; they will be 
part of a large interdisciplinary research team comprising more than 120 
senior and junior researchers and students; they will have continuous 
access to a network of international and interdisciplinary partners; and 
they will actively participate in many international projects.

Interested applicants should refer to one of the following website to 
download instructions on how to apply.

Call for EU candidates:

http://www.sssup.it/context.jsp?ID_LINK=8170&area=46

<http://www.sssup.it/context.jsp?ID_LINK=8170&area=46>Call for non EU 
candidates

http://www.sssup.it/context.jsp?ID_LINK=8171&area=46
<http://www.sssup.it/context.jsp?ID_LINK=8171&area=46>
=====================================
DEADLINE for application is October 1st, 2009
=====================================

For further details concerning the contents of the Ph.D. program 
applicants may contact:
Lucia Beccai: l.beccai at sssup.it <mailto:l.beccai at sssup.it>
Virgilio Mattoli: virgilio.mattoli at sssup.it 
<mailto:virgilio.mattoli at sssup.it>
Barbara Mazzolai: barbara.mazzolai at sssup.it 
<mailto:barbara.mazzolai at sssup.it>
For further administrative information concerning the Ph.D. program 
applicants may contact:
Emma Cappelleri: emma.cappelleri at sssup.it <mailto:emma.cappelleri at sssup.it>

We deeply encourage your students possessing a M.S. Degree to apply. Of 
course, we should be happy to consider those students, if their 
application is successful, as a link to your laboratory and as an 
opportunity to pursue active collaboration with you.

Best regards,
Paolo Dario

-- 
Paolo Dario
Professor of Biomedical Robotics
IEEE Fellow
Director, Polo Sant'Anna Valdera
Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna
Piazza Martiri della Libert?, 33
56127 Pisa - Italy

CRIM & ARTS Labs
Polo Sant'Anna Valdera
Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna
Viale Rinaldo Piaggio 34
56025 Pontedera (Pisa) - Italy

Tel: +39050883420/102
Mobile: +393488863117
Fax: +39050883497
email:paolo.dario at sssup.it
http://www-crim.sssup.it
http://www-arts.sssup.it


From theyer at iat.uni-bremen.de  Mon Sep 14 04:02:24 2009
From: theyer at iat.uni-bremen.de (Torsten Heyer)
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:02:24 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Invitation to presentation of care-providing
 robot FRIEND, October 14th
Message-ID: <4AAE22C0.5020800@iat.uni-bremen.de>

Dear colleagues,

the partners of the AMaRob project sincerely invite you to an
informative meeting with a presentation of the research results
regarding the new care-providing robot FRIEND (developed at the
Institute of Automation (IAT) at the University of Bremen, Germany
with several project partners)

on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
at 12:00 a.m.

at the "Marktplatz Gehirn" in exibition hall 3 and

from 3:15 p.m.

at the REHACARE Congress "Wohn(t)raum" in D?sseldorf (Room 8, CCD S?d).

We are also pleased to welcome you during the whole trade fair of
REHACARE International 2009

at stand G40
in exibition hall 3

and to present the care-providing robot FRIEND.


PROGRAM:
-------------------
-   Presentation within the opening event of the special exhibition
     "Marktplatz Gehirn" (in German)

     12:00 a.m.  Prof. Dr. Axel Gr?ser (IAT, University of Bremen):
                 "Care-providing robot FRIEND - 90 minutes independence

                 in private and professional life"

-   Presentations within the REHACARE Congress "Wohn(t)raum" (in German)

     3:15 p.m.  Prof. Dr. Axel Gr?ser (IAT, University of Bremen):
                "Independence in private and professional life by
                care-providing robot FRIEND"

     3:45 p.m.  Dipl.-Ing. Roko Tschakarow (Schunk): "Modern
                electro-wheelchairs and intelligent lightweight robots as
                a basis for care-providing robots"

     4:45 p.m.  Dr. med. Matthias Spranger (NRZ Friedehorst): "Field
                reports care-providing robots - Experiences of users,
                therapists and doctors when using care-providing robots"

     5:45 p.m.  Panel discussion


The REHACARE is an international trade fair and congress for
rehabilitation, care, prevention and integration (see www.rehacare.de)
and takes place from October 14th until October 17th, 2009 in the
exhibition centre of D?sseldorf, Germany (Entrance North and South). The
opening times for visitors are:

October 14th - 16th, 2009 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
October 17th, 1009 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Further informations, images and videos about FRIEND and the project you
can find on www.amarob.de and www.iat.uni-bremen.de. If you have any
questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

We hope to see you.

Best regards
Torsten Heyer


-- 
Dipl.-Math. Torsten Heyer
Institute of Automation (IAT)
University of Bremen
Otto-Hahn-Allee, NW1, Room M1050
D-28359 Bremen, Germany
Phone: +49-421-218-62432
Fax:   +49-421-218-4596
theyer at iat.uni-bremen.de
http://www.iat.uni-bremen.de




From rkavetsky at etcmd.com  Mon Sep 14 05:30:40 2009
From: rkavetsky at etcmd.com (Robert Kavetsky)
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 08:30:40 -0400
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Vacancy Announcement
Message-ID: <6535752FA6A15740BF7AD94E31A49DF224FA9F@SBS.etc.local>

Autonomy Research Engineer Position Announcement

Position Description:

The Energetics Technology Center (ETC), in collaboration with the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), is developing autonomy solutions for a number of land, sea, and air-based unmanned systems. The scope of the work includes autonomy in mission planning, trajectory planning, planning for sensor deployment and communication, and control.  Solutions are desired for both single vehicle as well as multi vehicle problems. The selected candidate will develop planning and control algorithms for unmanned systems and validate them in the simulation environment and on physical platforms. 

Required Qualification and Expertise:

The position requires either a Ph.D. in a topic closely related to robotics/unmanned systems, or an MS degree with three years of experience in the robotics/unmanned systems field. 

Expertise is required in the areas of fundamentals of robotics, perception, control systems, automated motion planning, evolutionary optimization, and vehicle dynamics.  Hands on experience with physical testing and construction of robots and/or unmanned systems is highly desired. 

Other Requirements:

?  U.S. Citizenship

?  Must pass background and/or security investigation

?  Must be able to obtain a Secret security clearance

?  Position involves occasional travel

Application Package:

Interested candidates should submit the following by email in a single PDF file to Robert Kavetsky (rkavetsky at etcmd.com). 


1.  Curriculum vitae with a list of at least 3 references

2.  At least one paper which could be either published, accepted for publication, or in-preparation which demonstrate some of the required expertise mentioned above

3.  Relevant courses taken during Ph.D./MS studies

4.  A one-page summary of research background and interests and how they align with the current position 

Review of potential candidates will begin immediately. 

Robert Kavetsky
CEO
Energetics Technology Center
107 Centennial Street, Suite 201
LaPlata, MD. 20646
?
rkavetsky at etcmd.com
301.934.0385 x 701


From kstubbs at irobot.com  Mon Sep 14 05:52:50 2009
From: kstubbs at irobot.com (Kristen Stubbs)
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 08:52:50 -0400
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] FINAL CFP -- AAAI Using Electronic Tangibles
	to Promote Learning: Design and Evaluation
Message-ID: <657c48b20909140552k6461ec8bufcb4fb7f997ea109@mail.gmail.com>

----------------------------------------------------------
FINAL Call for Papers:

AAAI Spring Symposium
Using Electronic Tangibles to Promote Learning: Design and Evaluation
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~AAAI10-ETPL/

March 22-24, 2010, Stanford University
Submissions due: Oct 2, 2009
----------------------------------------------------------

For over twenty years, robots, electronics, microcontrollers, and
other physically-instantiated devices have been used as educational
tools in both formal (in-school) and informal (out-of-school)
settings. Particularly at the high school and undergraduate levels,
these tools have been used to enhance computer science education and
illustrate artificial intelligence concepts. In the last several
years, a number of programs have been developed which use physically
instantiated devices to promote learning in a wider variety of topics,
including science, engineering, math, as well as storytelling,
sculpture, and other art forms. Such programs, while not always
directly teaching AI concepts, do promote technological literacy in
participants and may motivate some to further study in science,
technology, engineering, and math (STEM). In order to further expand
programs based on electronic, tangible components into these and other
areas, it is important to demonstrate the impacts that these education
programs have on participants, in both the short- and the long-term.

This workshop will provide a forum for researchers working with many
different types of programs, including researchers in robotics,
computer science, education, and formal and informal learning
evaluation. This workshop will highlight (1) work featuring AI- and
electronic tangibles used to promote learning in any topic (including
approaches targeting arts and humanities in addition to STEM
education); and (2) descriptions of the evaluation methodology and
impacts of such programs. Topics of interest include:

? ?* Design of physically instantiated electronic educational tools
? ?* Curriculum design process
? ?* Evaluation methodology for programs featuring electronic tangibles
? ?* Evaluation results from such programs, both quantitative and qualitative

We welcome contributions describing programs in both in and out of
school settings, utilizing a variety of electronic tangibles (robots,
microcontrollers,...), targeting any age, and promoting learning in
the arts, humanities, or STEM disciplines. In addition to papers, we
welcome short abstracts for demonstration/hands-on sessions and panel
discussion sessions.

Submissions

We welcome prospective participants to submit either full papers (up
to 6 pages), short papers (1-2 pages), or panel proposals (up to 2
pages, clearly indicating the names, affiliations, and email addresses
for all panelists). Where appropriate, participants are strongly
encouraged to demonstrate educational projects at the symposium and/or
provide hands-on experiences for other symposium participants (please
indicate your demonstration plans with paper submissions). Selected
papers (both long and short) from the symposium will be published as
an AAAI technical report. All submissions should be in PDF format
adhering to the AAAI conference paper formatting guidelines, and
should be sent to Tom Lauwers at tlauwers at andrew.cmu.edu by October
2nd, 2009.

----------------------------------------------------------

--
Kristen Stubbs, Ph.D.
STEM Outreach Program Manager
iRobot Corporation | 8 Crosby Drive 10-2 | Bedford, MA | 01730
p 781.430.3234 | f 781.430.3001
kstubbs at irobot.com
www.irobot.com

From claudio.castellini at unige.it  Mon Sep 14 07:47:16 2009
From: claudio.castellini at unige.it (Claudio Castellini)
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:47:16 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] NIPS 2009 workshop on Learning from Multiple
 Sources with Applications to Robotics, Call for contributions
Message-ID: <4AAE5774.80707@unige.it>

------------------------------------------------------------------
                       CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS

        NIPS 2009 workshop on Learning from Multiple Sources
                   with Applications to Robotics
            Whistler, BC, Canada, December 11 or 12, 2009

         http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~srogers/lms09/index.htm
------------------------------------------------------------------

Important Dates:
----------------

Submission of extended abstracts: October 27, 2009

Notification of acceptance: November 6, 2009



Workshop Description:
---------------------

Learning from multiple sources denotes the problem of jointly
learning from a set of (partially) related learning problems /
views / tasks. This general concept underlies several subfields
receiving increasing interest from the machine learning community,
which differ in terms of the assumptions made about the dependency
structure between learning problems. In particular, the concept
includes topics such as data fusion, transfer learning, multitask
learning, multiview learning, and learning under covariate shift.
Several approaches for inferring and exploiting complex
relationships between data sources have been presented, including
both generative and discriminative approaches.

The workshop will provide a unified forum for cutting edge
research on learning from multiple sources; the workshop will
examine the general concept, theory and methods, and will also
examine *robotics* as a natural application domain for learning
from multiple sources. The workshop will address methodological
challenges in the different subtopics and further interaction
between them. The intended audience is researchers working in
fields of multi-modal learning, data fusion, and robotics.

(More detailed background information is available at the
workshop website.)

The workshop includes a morning session focused on theory/methods,
and an afternoon session focused on the robotics application.

The workshop is a core event of the PASCAL2 Network of Excellence.


PASCAL2 Invited Speakers:
-------------------------

Morning Session: Chris Williams - University of Edinburgh

Afternoon Session: to be announced


Submission Instructions:
------------------------

We invite submission of extended abstracts to the workshop.
Extended abstracts should be 2-4 pages, formatted in the NIPS
style: http://nips.cc/PaperInformation/StyleFiles
Unlike the main NIPS conference, identities of authors do not
need to be removed from the extended abstracts.

Extended abstracts should be sent in .PDF or .PS file format by
email, to either D.Hardoon at cs.ucl.ac.uk or gleen at cis.hut.fi.
Acceptance to the workshop will be determined based on peer
review of each extended abstract.

Submissions are expected to represent high-quality, novel
contributions in theory/methods of learning from multiple sources,
or high-quality, novel contributions in application of learning
from multiple sources to robotics (see below).

To encourage participants from the machine learning community to
test their algorithms in the domain of robotics, we will make
available a dataset, with computed features, representative of
open research issues in robotics. Robotics-oriented papers
submitted to the workshop are strongly encouraged to contain an
experimental evaluation on the database made available by the
organizers. The obtained results will be presented by the
organizers during the workshop.


Submitted extended abstracts may be accepted either as an oral
presentation or as a poster presentation; there will be only a
limited number of oral presentations in the morning and afternoon
sessions.

Accepted extended abstracts will be made available online at the
workshop website.

Depending on the quality of submissions, we will consider
preparing a special issue of a journal or a collected volume on
the topic of the workshop. A separate call for papers will then
be issued after the workshop for the special issue/collected
volume. Last year's "Learning from Multiple Sources" workshop led
to a special issue in Machine Learning (currently in progress).


Organisers
----------

* Barbara Caputo - Idiap Research Institute.
* Nicol? Cesa-Bianchi - Universit? degli Studi di Milan.
* David Hardoon - Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R).
* Gayle Leen - Helsinki University of Technology.
* Francesco Orabona - Idiap Research Institure.
* Jaakko Peltonen - Helsinki University of Technology.
* Simon Rogers - University of Glasgow.


Programme Committee
-------------------

* Cedric Archambeau - Xerox Research.
* Andreas Argyriou - Toyota Technological Institute.
* Claudio Gentile - Universit? dell'Insubria.
* Mark Girolami - University of Glasgow.
* Samuel Kaski - Helsinki University of Technology.
* Arto Klami - Helsinki University of Technology.
* John Shawe-Taylor - University College London.
* Giorgio Valentini - Universit? degli Studi di Milan.


Contact Persons
---------------

For questions about the workshop, contact David R. Hardoon at
D.Hardoon AT cs.ucl.ac.uk.

-------------------------------------------------------
-- 
Dr. Francesco Orabona, Post-Doc

Idiap Research Institute
Centre du Parc
P.O. Box 592
Rue Marconi 19
CH-1920 Martigny
Switzerland

tel: +41 277 217 757
fax: +41 277 217 712
email: forabona at idiap.ch
www.idiap.ch/~forabona

From aude.billard at epfl.ch  Mon Sep 14 08:38:05 2009
From: aude.billard at epfl.ch (Billard Aude)
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:38:05 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] HRI2010: final call for papers
Message-ID: <33DA0D789951914A95F9E8D3BA6583E767A4FF7D7F@rex5.intranet.epfl.ch>

************************************************************************
Call For Papers and Tutorials/Workshops

5th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2010) 
http://hri2010.org 

March 2-5, 2010, Osaka, Japan

************************************************************************ 

HRI2010 welcomes original, high-quality contributions that advance the state of the art in technical and social challenges of human-robot interaction. 

HRI is a single-track conference. Each accepted full paper will be presented in an oral session, and will be published in the conference proceedings, and archived in the IEEE XPlore and ACM Digital Library.

 
Submission Website for Papers: https://precisionconference.com/~hri

 

Important Dates
27          September 2009:   Submission of Full paper & workshop/tutorial proposal
15          December 2009:    Submission of video & late-breaking short papers
2-5         March 2010:          Conference
 

Full and Short Paper Submission

All papers for the conference must be submitted in PDF format. 
Page limit is 8 pages (including figures and references). 
MS-word templates is available here (LaTex template can be found here).
Detailed instructions are available at http://hri2010.org/authors/

Video Submission

We invite videos related to all aspects of HRI. Besides the importance of the lessons learned and the novelty of the situation, the entertainment value will be judged. The video itself must be self-explanatory for the audience. Submission deadline for videos is December 15th. Formatting and submission instructions will be announced later. 

Tutorials and Workshops

Proposals for half-day or full-day tutorials/workshops relevant to the HRI2010 themes should be submitted by email to the tutorial/workshop chairs, Selma Sabanovic (email: ssabanov at indiana.edu) and Adriana Tapus (email:  tapus at ensta.fr). Examples of topics are state-of-the-art overviews of particular HRI areas or design/research methods. Interdisciplinary approaches. Proposals should entail up to 2 pages description.

 
General Co-Chairs

Pamela Hinds, Stanford University
Hiroshi Ishiguro, Osaka University
 

Program Co-Chairs

Takayuki Kanda, ATR
Peter Kahn, Univ of Washington

 

Publicity Co-Chairs

Aude Billard, EPFL
Dong-Soo Kwon, KAIST
Dikai Liu, Univ. of Tech. Sydney
Greg Trafton, NRL

 

From f.pollick at psy.gla.ac.uk  Mon Sep 14 08:40:20 2009
From: f.pollick at psy.gla.ac.uk (Frank Pollick)
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:40:20 +0100
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Faculty position in robotics
References: <734C4131-4505-4882-834B-C3DCC88E9DDF@psy.gla.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <2F198029-2063-47BF-9C5A-3D147CDF892A@psy.gla.ac.uk>


UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/Reader in Psychology
?38757 - ?52086 REF #52-5

The University intends to make a new appointment in Psychology,  
tenable from April 2010. Candidates from all areas of psychology will  
be considered, though the department is particularly interested to  
encourage candidates with expertise in ageing, social neuroscience or  
robotics.

All applicants must have a PhD in Psychology or a related field and a  
strong track record of research, including proven ability to attract  
research funding. The level of appointment (Lecturer, Senior Lecturer  
or Reader) will depend on the extent of the appointees? track-record.

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/Reader Ref: 00052-5

The Department has an outstanding record of success in both teaching  
and research. Particular research strengths include vision, language,  
face perception and cognitive neuroscience.  In-house research  
facilities include a 3T fMRI scanner, a MEG system, a 12-camera Vicon  
motion capture system and eye-tracking equipment.  The department  was  
rated in the top 10 UKpsychology departments in the 2008 Research  
Assessment Exercise, and achieved the highest rating available in the  
most recent Teaching Quality Assessment.

Informal enquiries may be made to Professor Mike Burton (Head of  
Department), mike at psy.gla.ac.uk , tel. 00 44 (0)141 330 4060.

For further information on each post and an application pack please  
visit www.glasgow.ac.uk/vacancies


From rbrooks at heartlandrobotics.com  Mon Sep 14 11:13:47 2009
From: rbrooks at heartlandrobotics.com (Rodney Brooks)
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:13:47 -0400
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] jobs at Heartland Robotics
Message-ID: <p06240801c6d42ee8ab33@[192.168.33.92]>

Heartland Robotics in Central Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
is looking for both Principal and Senior software people to help
us build the intelligence of a new class of industrial robot.

We are looking for people who have experience in Behavior-Based
Control for robots, experience in Lisp, C++, and Linux.

Email: jobs at heartlandrobotics.com
-- 
Rodney Brooks
Chairman and CTO
Heartland Robotics
http://www.heartlandrobotics.com

From nishimura at jeap.org  Mon Sep 14 17:14:17 2009
From: nishimura at jeap.org (Nishimura)
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:14:17 +0900
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IROS 2009 Workshop "Synergistic Intelligence:
	approach to human intelligence through understanding and
	design of cognitive development"
Message-ID: <20090915091415.8B7C.E95AB80@jeap.org>

Dear Colleagues,

You are kindly invited to attend the IROS 2009 Workshop on Synergistic
Intelligence: approach to human intelligence through understanding and
design of cognitive development on October 11th 2009, St. Louis, USA.

See the following web pages for details.

IROS2009
http://www.iros09.mtu.edu/

Workshop: Synergistic Intelligence: approach to human intelligence
through understanding and design of cognitive development
http://www.jeap.org/web/IROS09Workshop.html

Asada Synergistic Intelligence Project
http://www.jeap.org/

Looking forward to meeting you in St. Louis,

Best Regards

Minoru ASADA (Organizer)
- Research Director, Asada Synergistic Intelligence Project, Japan
  Science and Tecnology Agency
- Professor, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University 

Contact:
 NISHIMURA Ken <nishimura at jeap dot org>
 Asada Synergistic Intelligence Project
 Japan Science and Tecnology Agency
 

From fosorio at icmc.usp.br  Tue Sep 15 07:13:48 2009
From: fosorio at icmc.usp.br (Fernando Santos Osorio)
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:13:48 -0300 (BRT)
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: ICIT 2010 - Special Session "Mobile
	Robotics"
Message-ID: <f553204c65dfe9418a47e1938efb1914.squirrel@mail.icmc.usp.br>


IEEE-ICIT 2010 International Conference on Industrial Technology
14-17 March 2010, Vi?a del Mar, Chile
Conference WebSite: www.icit2010.usm.cl

>> Special Session on MOBILE ROBOTICS <<
http://www.icit2010.usm.cl/doc/SS11.pdf

CALL FOR PAPERS

Robotics is a multidisciplinary area of study that presents
enormous commercialand research potential. While industrial robotics
covers the study, design, and use of robot systems for manufacturing,
mobile robotics concerns about developing systems that are capable of
making decisions and acting autonomously in real and unpredictable
environments to accomplish determined tasks. In the last ten years,
technological advances made possible the development of very efficient
sensors and electronic devices at affordable prices. This fact
has great impact on robotics research, allowing the development of
efficient and relatively cheap sensors and computing devices.
It also allows robots to accomplish more complex tasks,
posing new challenges to scientists and engineers.
This session focuses on all aspects of mobile robotics and
intelligent systems, including related areas and applications.

Papers on, but not limited to, the following topics are welcome:

+ Navigation
+ Motion Planning
+ Localization
+ Mapping
+ Multi-robot systems
+ Autonomous Vehicles
+ Aerial Robotics
+ Underwater Robotics
+ Humanoid Robotics
+ Rehabilitation Robotics
+ Micro/Nano Robotics
+ Assistive Technologies
+ Vision-based Control
+ Robotic Design
+ Swarm Robotics

The deadline and notification dates are published in
the conference webpage.

Deadline for initial manuscript:
2 October 2009

Accepted papers will be published in an IEEE proceedings volume
and will be included in IEEE Xplore and indexed by EI Compendex.
In addition, selected papers will be invited for publication in the
IEEE Transaction on Industrial Electronics.


 =================================================
 Prof. Dr. Fernando Santos Os?rio - ICMC / USP
 E-mail: fosorio .at. icmc. usp. br
    or   fosorio .at. gmail. com
 Homepage: http://www.icmc.usp.br/~fosorio/
 Research Group: http://www.icmc.usp.br/~lrm/
 =================================================


From emanuele.guglielmino at iit.it  Tue Sep 15 08:27:34 2009
From: emanuele.guglielmino at iit.it (Guglielmino Emanuele)
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:27:34 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PhD positions in hydraulic actuation for
	robotics
Message-ID: <5B2D6D6DDD42414A91B85B082D7C5FC4CBD504@EDEN-CLU.netexchange.int.netscalibur.it>

Italian Institute of Technology

Doctoral School on "Life and Humanoid Technologies"
?
PhD Positions - Application Deadline: September 25th, 2009

PhD positions are available in the following themes in the area of hydraulic actuation for robotic 
applications at the Department of Advanced Robotics (http://www.iit.it/en/advanced-robotics.html) of the 
Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) located in Genoa.


Magnetorheological Technologies for Robotics
 
Magnetorheological (MR) fluids are a particular class of hydraulic oils that respond to an applied magnetic
field with a dramatic change in their rheological behaviour. They are used in a variety of applications, most
notoriously as controllable dampers in the suspensions of high performance cars. The main characteristic of
these fluids is their ability to reversibly change from free-flowing, linear viscous liquids, to semi-solids with the
yield strength swiftly and continuously controllable (milliseconds scale dynamics) when exposed to a
magnetic field.
Since yield stress (and hence viscosity) of these fluids can be varied reversibly by controlling the field
strength, MR fluids are potentially an excellent means to dynamically interface mechanical and electrical
systems.
In robotics they can be used in three areas:
1. as controllable dampers to attenuate vibration
2. as spool-less valve in magnetorheologically-actuated robotic manipulators
3. to introduce compliance in robotic structures
The aim of the project is to investigate at least one of these aspects. The work will have both a simulation
and an experimental part and may include exchange periods abroad in an EU University.
Technical skills : degree in mechanical/electrical/mechatronic engineering (60% hydraulics and magnetic
circuit design, 40% mechanics).
For further details concerning the research project, please contact: emanuele.guglielmino at iit.it


Development of Water Hydraulic Components and Systems for Robotics

Water hydraulics, which uses water instead of oil as the power transmitting medium, is environmentally
friendly, non-flammable, inexpensive, readily available, and easily disposable. More importantly, when
compared to oil hydraulics, water hydraulics has a quicker response and a higher efficiency. In addition, it is
more stable (in terms of flow velocity and efficiency) over a wide range of operating temperatures due to
water's higher bulk modulus, a lower viscosity and a higher specific heat capacity. All the above mentioned
advantages make water hydraulics appealing in high performance actuation techniques such as robotics.
However, water (as opposed to oil) is more prone to cavitation, poor lubrication, has higher leakage and
requires appropriate materials and design.
The aim of the PhD project is to develop water hydraulic components and systems for robotics actuation.
The position will focus on the development of compact, small size and light weight water hydraulic
components (valves and actuators). The research encompasses modelling, simulation, prototyping 
and experimental testing.
Technical skills: degree in mechanical/mechatronic/electrical engineering with major in fluid power. 
For further details concerning the research project, please contact: yousheng.yang at iit.it


Development and Control of Soft and Continuum Robot Manipulator Inspired by the
Octopus Arm

The project focuses on novel design principles and technologies for a new generation of high dexterity 
softbodied robots inspired by the morphology and behaviour of the Octopus. The candidate will work within an
international environment (http://www.octopusproject.eu/) on the development and control of the actuation
modules for the mechatronic robotic octopus arm. During the first period of the project the materials and
actuation techniques to be used for the development of the hyper redundant arm will be identified. For the
realization of the Octopus arm both novel and revisited conventional actuation technology will be explored
e.g. magnetorheological actuators, hydraulic/pneumatic actuators, micro fluidic actuators, shape memory alloys, 
compliant and hybrid actuation and piezoelectric motors.
Following the development of the arm different control strategies will also be identified and evaluated which
will allow the soft continuum arm to execute tasks and motion profiles similar to those observed in the
Octopus, e.g. reaching, grasping and fetching.
Requirements: Applicants ideally should have a background in Electronic/Mechanical engineering or
Computer Science. The candidates should have good competence and be strongly motivated to work with
robot kinematics analysis and control within an international multidisciplinary environment. Experience in
robot kinematics analysis and control would be a benefit (mechanical design 30%, kinematics/control 70%).
For further details concerning the research project, please contact: nikos.tsagarakis at iit.it

Details on the application procedure can be found at??http://www.iit.it/en/home.html



From mjohnson at ihmc.us  Tue Sep 15 09:14:07 2009
From: mjohnson at ihmc.us (Matthew Johnson)
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:14:07 -0500
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] FW: Call for Participation: Human-Agent-Robot
	Teamwork Workshop (HART 2009 in Utrecht, the Netherlands)
Message-ID: <C24A424E72DB4703B647FBC5DE2EAC58@mjdell>


Pursuant to our first successful workshop in San Diego in March, we are
holding a second workshop in conjunction with ESAW 2009 in Utrecht in
November.

(Apologies if you have received multiple mailings!)

************************************************************************
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

HART 2009 Utrecht
Human-Agent-Robot Teamwork Workshop
http://jeffreymbradshaw.net/HART/

Co-located with the 10th International Workshop on Engineering Societies in
the Agents' World?(ESAW 2009)
in Utrecht, The Netherlands
http://www.cs.uu.nl/esaw2009/

Workshop Date: November 21, 2009

************************************************************************
Overview. Teamwork has become the most widely accepted metaphor for
describing the nature of multi-robot and multi-agent cooperation. The key
concept usually involves some notion of communication, shared knowledge,
goals, and activities that function as the glue that binds team members
together. By virtue of a largely reusable explicit formal model of shared
intentions, team members attempt to manage general responsibilities and
commitments to each other in a coherent fashion that both enhances
performance and facilitates recovery when unanticipated problems arise. For
example, a common occurrence in joint action is when one team member fails
and can no longer perform in its role. A general teamwork model might entail
that each team member be notified under appropriate conditions of the
failure, thus reducing the requirement for special-purpose exception
handling mechanisms for each possible failure mode.

Whereas early research on teamwork focused mainly on interaction within
groups of autonomous agents or robots, there is a growing interest in better
accounting for the human dimension. Unlike autonomous systems designed
primarily to take humans out of the loop, the future lies in supporting
people, agents, and robots working together in teams in close and continuous
human-robot interaction.

What kinds of foundational software systems are needed in support of
human-robot teams? The multi-agent systems community has been focusing on
how distributed software agents can jointly perform tasks. For software
agents and robots to participate in teamwork alongside people in carrying
out complex real-world tasks, they must have some of the capabilities that
enable natural and effective teamwork among groups of people. Just as
important, developers of such systems need tools and methodologies to assure
that such systems will work together reliably and safely, even when they are
designed independently and operated with reduced human oversight.


Program. Participation in the program is by invitation only. Invitations
will be
issued to selected participants. Some presentations may be turned into
chapters
for a published volume.

Participation. There is no cost for participation. The workshop is open to
all interested parties though, due to limited seating, we may not be able to
honor not all requests. Please register at the HART Web site as soon as
possible (http://jeffreymbradshaw.net/HART/).

Sponsorship:?Thanks to the SIKS Research School for helping fund the
workshop


************************************************************************


Contact:
Maarten Sierhuis (NASA Ames)
msierhuis at mail.arc.nasa.gov
http://homepage.mac.com/msierhuis/Menu8.html


Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (IHMC)
jbradshaw at ihmc.us
http://www.ihmc.us/users/user.php?UserID=jbradshaw


Jurriaan van Diggelen (TNO) (Local organization)
jurriaan.vandiggelen at tno.nl
http://cm.tm.tno.nl/index.php/nl/diggelenvan


To guarantee a timely reply, please put HART 2009 in the subject line of any
email correspondence.



From jsung at gatech.edu  Tue Sep 15 12:28:46 2009
From: jsung at gatech.edu (Ja-Young Sung)
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:28:46 -0400
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) Pioneer
	Workshop 2010
Message-ID: <4AAFEAEE.6060704@gatech.edu>

Apologies for multiple-posting

----------------------------------------------------
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) Pioneer Workshop 2010
March 2, 2010

5th Human-Robot Interaction Conference (HRI20109)
March 3-5, 2010 - OSAKA, JAPAN

http://www.hripioneers.org/

---------------------------------------------------

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION:

The field of human-robot interaction is new but growing rapidly. While 
there are now several established researchers in the field, many of the 
current human-robotic interaction practitioners are students or recently 
graduated. This workshop, to be held in conjunction with the HRI 2010 
conference, aims to bring together this group of researchers to present 
their current research to an audience of their peers in a setting that 
is less formal and more interactive than the main HRI conference; to 
talk about the important issues in their field; and to hear about what 
their colleagues are doing. Participants are encouraged to actively 
engage and form relationships with others by discussing fundamental 
topics in HRI and by engaging in hands-on group activities.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

WORKSHOP FORMAT:

The format of the workshop will have:
1)participants presenting their work through short talks and posters.
2)talking with experts in the field on the important problems in HRI.
3)meeting in small group sessions to design a HRI experiment.

The workshop will take place in March 2010, in Osaka, Japan in 
conjunction with the HRI 2010 Conference. Potential participants are 
encouraged to submit an abstract of their current research, a statement 
of motivation, and a letter of recommendation by October 2, 2009. See 
the webpage http://www.hripioneers.org for more details about the 
application. Please limit abstracts to 800 words.

We plan to accept approximately 25 students and young researchers to the 
workshop. Participants will hear short presentations on current research 
from 10 selected participants, with time allotted for questions and 
discussion after each of these talks. Participants not allocated to oral 
presentations will participate in an interactive poster session. A panel 
of senior HRI researchers from both academia and industry will answer 
the participants' questions. The discussions will continue over lunch in 
smaller groups. In the afternoon, a hands-on breakout session will 
involve small group projects in which participants will investigate how 
to design a HRI experiment. Afterward, the groups will present a summary 
to the entire workshop.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Important Dates:

7 October 2010 - Application Deadline
9 November 2010 - Notification of acceptance
2 March 2010 - HRI Pioneer Workshop
3-5 March 2010 - HRI 2009 Conference

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Organizers:

Kate Tsui, Univ. of Massachusetts Lowell, USA
Dr. Osawa Hirotaka, Keio Univ., Japan
Min Kyung Lee, Carnegie Mellon, USA
Laurel Riek, Univ. of Cambridge, UK
Dr. Satoru Satake, ATR, Japan
Dr. Kristen Stubbs, iRobot, USA
Ja-Young Sung, Georgia Tech, USA

For more information, please visit the following website:
http://www.hripioneers.org



From monica.vasco at iit.it  Tue Sep 15 23:35:49 2009
From: monica.vasco at iit.it (Vasco Monica)
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:35:49 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PhD openings at Italian Institute of Technology
Message-ID: <5B2D6D6DDD42414A91B85B082D7C5FC4CBD604@EDEN-CLU.netexchange.int.netscalibur.it>

PhD opening at Italian Institute of Technology, Genoa, Italy
Advanced Robotics lab
-----------------------------------------------------------

* Theme 1.6: Analysis of Human Robot Interaction through Motion Capture
and Dynamic Simulator
Tutor: Eng. Andrea Brogni, Dr. Irene Sardellitti, Dr. Nick Tsagarakis
Every day new concepts of robots are designed and the interaction
between humans and robots in shared
environments is becoming a critical point for creating a safe and
effective environment. Motion capture
systems allow to recreate specific conditions and design better controls
that could drive the robotic systems
in harmony with human workspace, capabilities and needs.
The topic of the PhD will be studying two main aspects: the human
approach in immersive virtual
environment, when they have to deal robotics mechanism, and the robot
behavior in co-presence of humans.
In particular, the interaction with robotic avatars, human-like or
machine, during specific collaborative tasks
or experiences.
The ideal candidate should have a background on computer science or
engineering and a strong attitude to
mix theory and practice, including programming C++ libraries, interfaces
for hardware and 3D OpenGL
graphics. Experience in Virtual Reality and Mechanics could be an
advantage.
Required technical skills: Software 70 %, Mechanical 30 %
For further details concerning this project, please contact:
andrea.brogni at iit.it

* Theme 1.13: Interfacing Virtual Reality Environment with Physical
World
Tutor: Eng. Andrea Brogni, Dr. Nick Tsagarakis
Virtual Reality systems are becoming everyday more complex, due to the
evolution of different inputs,
likemotion capture, 3D sounds, bio-feedback, haptic interfaces and
robots. The integration and the way of
interacting in those multi-modal environments is a fundamental area for
the field. Different streams are
coming from different devices and making an interactive application
implies deal with many different formats.
The topic of the PhD will be studying the systems available in the
department and the definition of a basic
standard for the communications. The design and the development of a
multimodal platform for the
integration will be the second part of the research. The work will be
based on previous studies and in
collaboration with other researchers.
The ideal candidate should have a background on computer science or
engineering and a strong attitude to
mix theory and practice, including programming C++ libraries and
interfaces for hardware.
Required technical skills: Software 60 %, Graphics 30 %, Electronics 10
%
For further details concerning this project, please contact:
andrea.brogni at iit.it

Deadline for the application: 25th of September 2009 (postmarked).

For further information, please, visit the website www.iit.it.




From mpd37 at cam.ac.uk  Wed Sep 16 00:47:13 2009
From: mpd37 at cam.ac.uk (Marc Deisenroth)
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:47:13 +0100
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] NIPS workshop on Probabilistic Approaches for
 Robotics and Control - call for contributions
Message-ID: <4AB09801.3080307@cam.ac.uk>

################################################################
                  CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS

                     NIPS workshop on
       *Probabilistic Approaches for Robotics and Control*
################################################################

*Workshop dates*
Friday, December 11 or Saturday, December 12, 2009

*Workshop location*
Whistler, B.C., Canada, at the Westin Resort and Spa and the
Hilton Whistler Resort and Spa



*Poster submission*

Please send an extended abstract of max. 1 page describing the
poster you intend to present to
mpd37 at cam.ac.uk
Choose a format of your liking, e.g., the standard NIPS
template.

The *deadline for abstract submissions* is
October 17, 2009.

The *notification* will be
October 26, 2009.


*Workshop homepage*
http://mlg.eng.cam.ac.uk/marc/nipsWS09


*Conference homepage*
http://nips.cc


*Workshop Abstract*

During the last decade, many areas of Bayesian machine learning have
reached a high level of maturity. This has resulted in a variety of
theoretically sound and efficient algorithms for learning and
inference in the presence of uncertainty. However, in the context of
control, robotics, and reinforcement learning, uncertainty has not yet
been treated with comparable rigor despite its central role in
risk-sensitive control, sensorimotor control, robust control, and
cautious control. A consistent treatment of uncertainty is also
essential when dealing with stochastic policies, incomplete state
information, and exploration strategies.

A typical situation where uncertainty comes into play is when the
exact state transition dynamics are unknown and only limited or no
expert knowledge is available and/or affordable. One option is to
learn a model from data. However, if the model is too far off, this
approach can result in arbitrarily bad solutions. This model bias can
be sidestepped by the use of flexible model-free methods. The
disadvantage of model-free methods is that they do not generalize and
often make less efficient use of data. Therefore, they often need more
trials than feasible to solve a problem on a real-world system. A
probabilistic model could be used for efficient use of data while
alleviating model bias by explicitly representing and incorporating
uncertainty.

The use of probabilistic approaches requires (approximate) inference
algorithms, where Bayesian machine learning can come into
play. Although probabilistic modeling and inference conceptually fit
into this context, they are not widespread in robotics, control, and
reinforcement learning. Hence, this workshop aims to bring researchers
together to discuss the need, the theoretical properties, and the
practical implications of probabilistic methods in control, robotics,
and reinforcement learning.

One particular focus will be on probabilistic reinforcement learning
approaches that profit recent developments in optimal control which
show that the problem can be substantially simplified if certain
structure is imposed. The simplifications include linearity of the
(Hamilton-Jacobi) Bellman equation. The duality with Bayesian
estimation allow for analytical computation of the optimal control
laws and closed form expressions of the optimal value functions.
Format

The workshop will consist of short invited presentations and a session
with contributed posters (plus poster spotlight). Topics (from a
theoretical and practical perspective) to be addressed include, but
are not limited to:

- How can we efficiently plan and act in the presence of uncertainty
   in states/rewards/observations/environment?

- Shall we model the lack of knowledge or can we simply ignore it?

- How can prior knowledge (e.g., expert knowledge and domain
   knowledge) be incorporated?

- How much manual tuning and human insight (e.g., domain
   knowledge) is a) required and b) available to achieve good
   performance?

- Is there a principled way to account for imprecise models and
   model bias?

- What roles should probabilistic models play in control? Are they
   needed at all?

- What kinds of probabilistic models are useful?

- In traditional control, hand-crafted control laws often prevail
   since optimal control laws are mostly too aggressive due to
   model errors while robust control laws can be too conservative
   since they always assume the worst case. Can "probabilistic
   control" bridge the gap between robust and optimal control laws?

- How can we exploit the linearity of the (Hamilton-Jacobi) Bellman
   equation and the duality with Bayesian estimation?

- Can we compute the optimal control law analytically and is there a
   closed-form expression of the value function?

- How can existing machine learning methods be applied to efficiently
   solve stochastic control problems?


*Invited speakers*

Dieter Fox (University of Washington), confirmed
Drew Bagnell (CMU), pending
Evangelos Theodorou (USC), confirmed
Jovan Popovic (MIT), confirmed
Konrad Koerding (Northwestern University), confirmed
Marc Toussaint (TU Berlin), confirmed
Miroslav Karny (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), confirmed
Roderick Murray-Smith (University of Glasgow), pending
Bert Kappen (University of Nijmegen), confirmed
Emanuel Todorov (University of Washington), confirmed



*Organizers*

Marc Peter Deisenroth
Bert Kappen
Emanuel Todorov
Duy Nguyen-Tuong
Carl Edward Rasmussen
Jan Peters

From ECCCheah at ntu.edu.sg  Thu Sep 17 19:33:11 2009
From: ECCCheah at ntu.edu.sg (CHEAH Chien Chern)
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:33:11 +0800
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Papers - ICARCV 2010
Message-ID: <4EA83AA20D28A8418A9ABFD14F5843C20568A7578D@EXCHANGE31.staff.main.ntu.edu.sg>

Call for Papers
11th International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision 
ICARCV 2010
7- 10 December 2010, Singapore

http://www.icarcv.org/

The 11th International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision, ICARCV 2010, will be held in Singapore from 7 - 10 December 2010. The conference is organised by the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore. The technical sponsors are IEEE Control Systems Society, IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society. ICARCV focuses on both theory and applications mainly covering the topics of control, automation, robotics and vision. In addition to the technical sessions, there will be invited sessions, keynote addresses and plenary panel sessions.

The Proceedings of ICARCV are included in the IEEE Xplore and indexed by EI Compendex as well as ISI Proceedings.

The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Control: Adaptive control; Robust control; Process control; Complex systems; Co-operative control; Identification and estimation; Nonlinear systems; Intelligent systems; Discrete event systems; Hybrid systems; Networked control systems; Sensor network systems; Delay systems; Neural networks; Fuzzy systems; Control of biological systems; Precision motion control; Control applications; Control engineering education.

Automation: Man-machine interactions; Process automation; Intelligent automation; Factory modeling and simulation; Home, laboratory and service automation; Network-based systems; Planning, scheduling?and coordination; Nano-scale automation and assembly; Instrumentation systems; Biomedical instrumentation ; Computational intelligence in automation; Applications.

Robotics: Modeling and identification; Robot control; Mobile robotics; Mobile sensor networks; Perception systems; Micro robots and micro-manipulation; Visual servoing; Search, rescue and field robotics; Robot sensing and data fusion; Localization, navigation and mapping; Dexterous manipulation; Medical robots and bio-robotics; Human centered systems; Space and underwater robots; Tele-robotics; Computational intelligence in robotics; Mechanism design and applications.

Vision: Image/video analysis; Feature extraction, grouping and segmentation; Scene analysis; Pattern recognition; Learning in vision; Human-computer interaction; Tracking and surveillance; Biometrics; Biomedical Image analysis; Activity/behaviour recognition; Computational intelligence in vision;  Applications.

Best Paper Award: Selection of the best paper will be made at the Conference based on both the technical content and presentation. The winner will be chosen by the Technical Program Committee in consultation with the International Advisory Committee.

Paper Submission: Papers must be written in English and should describe original work in detail. Please download the template from the conference website and submit the full papers online http://www.icarcv.org/ by 1 April, 2010. Upon acceptance, authors will be required to register and present their papers.

Invited Sessions: Prospective organizers of Invited Sessions are invited to submit proposals focusing on topics of ICARCV 2010 to the Invited Session Chairs, Professors Lihua Xie (Control) at elhxie @ntu.edu.sg, Chien Chern Cheah (Robotics and Automation) at ecccheah @ntu.edu.sg and Eric Sung (Vision) at eericsung @ntu.edu.sg by 1 April 2010. Invited sessions are to provide a forum for focused discussions on new topics, or innovative applications of established approaches.

Important Dates
 
Deadline for Full Paper submission: 1 April 2010
 
Deadline for Invited Session proposals: 1 April 2010
 
Notification of Acceptance: 1 July 2010
 
Deadline for Camera Ready Manuscript Submission: 1 September 2010
 
Deadline for Authors' Registration: 1 September 2010

For further information, please refer to
Website - http://www.icarcv.org 
Email - secretariat at icarcv.org

From jsung at gatech.edu  Wed Sep 16 05:05:06 2009
From: jsung at gatech.edu (Ja-Young Sung)
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:05:06 -0400
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: Corrected Information on HRI Pioneer
	Workshop 2010
Message-ID: <4AB0D472.8070504@gatech.edu>

Apologies for duplicate messages.
Here is an updated on the application deadline:

- Application and recommendation letter deadline: Oct 7 2009

Please see below for more information.

best regards,
Ja-Young Sung


--------------------------------------
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) Pioneer Workshop 2010
March 2, 2010

5th Human-Robot Interaction Conference (HRI20109)
March 3-5, 2010 - OSAKA, JAPAN

http://www.hripioneers.org/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION:

The field of human-robot interaction is new but growing rapidly. While 
there are now several established researchers in the field, many of the 
current human-robotic interaction practitioners are students or recently 
graduated. This workshop, to be held in conjunction with the HRI 2010 
conference, aims to bring together this group of researchers to present 
their current research to an audience of their peers in a setting that 
is less formal and more interactive than the main HRI conference; to 
talk about the important issues in their field; and to hear about what 
their colleagues are doing. Participants are encouraged to actively 
engage and form relationships with others by discussing fundamental 
topics in HRI and by engaging in hands-on group activities.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

WORKSHOP FORMAT:

The format of the workshop will have:
1)participants presenting their work through short talks and posters.
2)talking with experts in the field on the important problems in HRI.
3)meeting in small group sessions to design a HRI experiment.

The workshop will take place in March 2010, in Osaka, Japan in 
conjunction with the HRI 2010 Conference. Potential participants are 
encouraged to submit an abstract of their current research, a statement 
of motivation, and a letter of recommendation by October 7, 2009. See 
the webpage http://www.hripioneers.org for more details about the 
application. Please limit abstracts to 800 words.

We plan to accept approximately 25 students and young researchers to the 
workshop. Participants will hear short presentations on current research 
from 10 selected participants, with time allotted for questions and 
discussion after each of these talks. Participants not allocated to oral 
presentations will participate in an interactive poster session. A panel 
of senior HRI researchers from both academia and industry will answer 
the participants' questions. The discussions will continue over lunch in 
smaller groups. In the afternoon, a hands-on breakout session will 
involve small group projects in which participants will investigate how 
to design a HRI experiment. Afterward, the groups will present a summary 
to the entire workshop.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Important Dates:

7 October 2010 - Application Deadline
9 November 2010 - Notification of acceptance
2 March 2010 - HRI Pioneer Workshop
3-5 March 2010 - HRI 2009 Conference

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Organizers:

Kate Tsui, Univ. of Massachusetts Lowell, USA
Henriette Cramer, University of Amsterdam
Dr. Osawa Hirotaka, Keio Univ., Japan
Min Kyung Lee, Carnegie Mellon, USA
Laurel Riek, Univ. of Cambridge, UK
Dr. Satoru Satake, ATR, Japan
Dr. Kristen Stubbs, iRobot, USA
Ja-Young Sung, Georgia Tech, USA


For more information, please visit the following website:
http://www.hripioneers.org



From K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk  Fri Sep 18 03:05:27 2009
From: K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk (Kerstin Dautenhahn)
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:05:27 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Commentaries on "Robot Nannies"
 (target article in journal Interaction Studies)
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.61.0909181101360.591@tucana>


Dear colleagues,

For those of you interested in the use of robots in everyday environments, 
and specifically in the use of robots as toys, interaction partners or 
possible caretakers of children, or ethical issues involving human-robot 
interaction, the following target article and call for commentaries might 
be of interest:

The article  The crying shame of robot nannies: an ethical appraisal by 
Noel Sharkey and Amanda Sharkey has been accepted as a target article to 
appear in 2010 in the journal Interaction Studies: Social Behaviour and 
Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems, published by John 
Benjamins Publishing Company (2008 Impact Factor: 1.359).
http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_seriesview.cgi?series=IS

We are inviting commentaries (up to 2000 words) on this article, the 
abstract is included below and the final accepted version is available at: 
http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~comqkd/SharkeyandSharkey-TargetArticle-IS.pdf

Interaction Studies is an interdisciplinary journal and we invite 
commentaries from various viewpoints and disciplines.

Deadlines:

If you intend to submit a commentary please contact the 
k.dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk as soon as possible, stating your proposed title 
and (briefly) the key message that you would like to address in your 
commentary.

Submission of commentaries (to k.dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk): 31 October 2009 
(PDF, up to 2000 words)

Notification: 20 November 2009
Final version of accepted commentaries to be submitted: 15 December 2009
Publication of target article and commentaries: Interaction Studies, 
volume 11, 2010

Regards,

Kerstin Dautenhahn

--------------------

Prof. Dr. Kerstin Dautenhahn
Editor in Chief of Interaction Studies
http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_seriesview.cgi?series=IS
Professor of Artificial Intelligence, University of Hertfordshire
http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~comqkd/

---------------------

Abstract of target article:

Childcare robots are being manufactured and developed with the long term 
aim of creating surrogate carers. While total child-care is not yet being 
promoted, there are indications that it is on the cards. We examine recent 
research and developments in childcare robots and speculate on progress 
over the coming years by extrapolating from other ongoing robotics work. 
Our main aim is to raise ethical questions about the part or full-time 
replacement of primary carers. The questions are about human rights, 
privacy, robot use of restraint, deception of children and accountability. 
But the most pressing ethical issues throughout the paper concern the 
consequences for the psychological and emotional wellbeing of children. We 
set these in the context of the child development literature on the 
pathology and causes of attachment disorders. We then consider the 
adequacy of current legislation and international ethical guidelines on 
the protection of children from the overuse of robot care.

-----------------------------------------------------
Prof. Dr. Kerstin Dautenhahn
Professor of Artificial Intelligence
Adaptive Systems Research Group
The University of Hertfordshire, School of Computer Science
College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, United Kingdom
URL: http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~comqkd
E-mail: K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk
Fax: +44-1707-284-303  Tel: +44-1707-284-333

From nikos.tsagarakis at iit.it  Wed Sep 16 16:42:49 2009
From: nikos.tsagarakis at iit.it (Tsagarakis Nikos)
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:42:49 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Several PhD Positions available at the Italian
	Institute of Technology
Message-ID: <5B2D6D6DDD42414A91B85B082D7C5FC4D0D803@EDEN-CLU.netexchange.int.netscalibur.it>

PhD Positions available - Deadline: 25th of September, 2009 

 

The Department of Advanced Robotics (ADVR) (
http://www.iit.it/en/advanced-robotics.html
<http://www.iit.it/en/advanced-robotics.html>  ) at the Italian
Institute of Technology (IIT) is seeking for several PhD candidates to
work on a number of multidisciplinary research projects. 

 

The themes for the open PhD positions are within ongoing or new starting
EU projects in the areas of Humanoid systems development, Wearable
robotics and Soft Continuum robots. The abstracts of the themes are
listed below. For further details concerning these research topics,
please contact: nikos.tsagarakis at iit.it

 

  

------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

 

Theme 1.1: Development of a Bi-manual Semi-Exoskeleton System for
Enhanced Teleoperation and Virtual Immersion

 

Tutor: Dr Nikos Tsagarakis

The sense of touch is crucial in any kind of training or teleoperation
procedures as these actions require the user to extensively engage his
hand and fingers. In the recent years the rapid improvements in hardware
and software to provide effective force/touch feedback has led to the
development of generic haptic devices that have been applied in various
training simulators and teleoperation systems. In most of these
instances the mobility, dexterity and general utility for unencumbered
use are relatively poor. In addition these systems provide only point
contact and cannot address much more complex haptic scenarios where
hands (groping with fingers or manipulation) are used to feel forces of
varying levels while manipulating objects in a large workspace. To be of
any advantage the touch modality should be conveyed to the user in a
natural manner through a highly perceptive and transparent haptic
interface. The development of a multi degree of freedom haptic system
(based on semi-exoskeletal systems) with large working, volume, high
backdrivability and multimodal feedback capability will be the core of
this research. This interface will provide immersive haptic feedback
from a Virtual Environment or during teleoperation procedures involving
stimulation of proprioceptive and cutaneous nerves centres to provide
data on interaction force, shape, size, texture and contact pressure.

Requirements: We are seeking for candidates with a background in
Electronic/Mechanical engineering or Robotics. Experience and
competencies in CAD mechanical design and good knowledge of robot
kinematics analysis would be a benefit. (Mechanical design 50%,
Kinematics/Optimisation 30%, Control 20%)

 

 

Theme 1.2. Development and Control of Soft and Continuum Robot
Manipulator inspired by the Octopus Arm

Tutor: Dr Nikos Tsagarakis, Dr Emanuele Guglielmino

 

The project focuses on novel design principles and technologies for a
new generation of high dexterity soft bodied robots inspired by the
morphology and behaviour of the Octopus. The candidate will work within
an international environment (http://www.octopusproject.eu/) on the
development and control of the actuation modules for the mechatronic
robotic octopus arm. During the first period of the project the
materials and actuation techniques to be used for the development of the
hyper redundant arm will be identified. For the realisation of the
Octopus arm both novel and revisited conventional actuation technology
will be explored e.g. Micro fluidic actuators, Shape Memory Alloys,
Compliant and Hybrid actuation.

Following the development of the arm different control strategies will
also be identified and evaluated which will allow the soft continuum arm
to execute tasks and motion profiles similar to those observed in the
Octopus, e.g. reaching, grasping and fetching.

Requirements: Applicants ideally should have a background in
Electronic/Mechanical engineering or Computer Science. The candidates
should have good competence and be strongly motivated to work with robot
kinematics analysis and control. (Mechanical design 30%,
Kinematics/Control 70%)  

 

 

Theme 1.3. Development of the next Generation of Humanoids: Exploring
the Mechatronic Technological Limits and New Design Philosophies

Tutor: Dr Nikos Tsagarakis, Dr Bram Vanderborght

 

Although significant progress have been made during the last two decades
in the mechatronic development of humanoid robots there are still
significant barriers to be overcome before the body ware (structure,
actuation and sensing) of the humanoid systems approach the performance
of the human body. When compared with humans humanoids significantly
lack in performance and robustness when considering high impact
interactions with the environment either when they are self generated or
accidentally imposed, e.g. falling down. High impact interactions are
required for example during the execution of highly dynamic tasks, e.g.
running at speeds close to those that humans can achieve. These will
require the continues interaction of the robot body with the ground
generating at each cycle high collision forces which cannot be tolerated
by any existing humanoid system. This is because the design approach of
these systems is incompatible with those tasks. The existing humanoid
systems consist of rigid structures and are actuated by highly geared
stiff position servos which impose significant limitations both in the
velocities/torque profiles that can be achieved at the joint level and
in the capability of these systems to absorb the impacts. In addition
the lack of compliance does not allow these robots to make use of the
natural dynamics and storage of energy during the motion cycle. As a
result these robots have higher energy demands since more effort is
required by both the control system and the actuator. The aim of this
research is to improve the performance of the existing humanoid systems
on the aspects discussed above by exploring both the mechatronic
technological limits (structural materials, actuation) and new design
and control philosophies. The outcome of these efforts will be verified
though the development of a highly dynamic bipedal machine targeting to
achieve running speeds close to those achieved by humans while at the
same time demonstrating robustness and adequate tolerance to external
disturbances.

Requirements: We are preferably seeking for candidates with a background
in Electronic/Mechanical engineering or Robotics. Experience and
competencies in CAD mechanical design and good knowledge of robot
kinematics/dynamics would be a benefit. (Mechanical design 70%,
Dynamics/Control 30%)

 

 

Theme 1.4 Development of the New Lower Body of the Humanoid Robot iCub
using Compliant

Actuators

Tutor: Dr Nikos Tsagarakis, Dr Bram Vanderborght

 

The humanoid child robot iCub has been constructed within the European
consortium RobotCub. The legs have 12DOF and are powered by electrical
motors and harmonic drives making the joints stiff. However, for energy
efficient and natural walking, humans have compliant joints. At IIT
different adaptable compliant actuators and their control architectures
are under development. Goal of this PhD is to redesign the lower body of
iCub to incorporate these compliant actuators. In the initial phase of
the project simulation studies on the lower body will be used to
identify the optimum position of the compliant elements across the leg
kinematic chain. The compliant actuation sources will be designed and
realized using electromechanical arrangements of mechanical elastic
elements and motorized based units. The mechanical characteristics of
these newly developed actuators will be determined through simulation
analysis of the humanoid platform as well as from human biomechanical
data. From these studies parameters such as joint stiffness range,
energy storage capacity and actuator power will be determined and will
be used for the fine tuning of the actuator electromechanical assembly.
Following this the compliance solutions developed will be mechanically
shaped to make them compatible with the mechanical morphology of the
iCub child humanoid platform. The incorporation of the passive compliant
actuation and the active compliance control into the existing iCub lower
body will effectively convert this robot into the first humanoid
platform which will exhibit a fully compliant lower body. Following the
mechatronic developments a second objective of the project will be to
develop new control strategies to make benefit of the intrinsic
compliance in order to improve the energy efficiency and the
adaptability of the robot to terrain variations.

Requirements: This project is open to two different PhD candidates: one
with more interest in control/software aspects and the other in
mechanical/CAD design. We are ideally seeking for candidates with a
background in Electronic/Mechanical engineering or Robotics. Candidates
should have competencies in CAD mechanical design and/or robot dynamics
and control. (Mechanical design 60%, Dynamics/Control 40%)

The successful candidates should have a background in Engineering
(Mechanical or Electrical) or Computer Science. Previous experience of,
or research interests in the following areas would be particularly
relevant: Humanoid system development and control, Actuators and
Mechanisms, Compliant systems, Haptic systems and interfaces.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

All posts will offer possible future career options and advancement on
successful completion. International applications are encouraged and
will receive logistic support with visa issues, relocation, etc.  

 

The research annex can be found in 

(http://www.iit.it/media/call/Annex-A3-DEF.pdf). 

For details on how to apply please look at
(http://www.iit.it/media/call/ciclo25_iit_bando_en.doc
<http://www.iit.it/media/call/ciclo25_iit_bando_en.doc> )  

 

For any further information related to the documents required for the
application please contact:

 

Ms Anastasia Bruzzone

Doctoral School UNIGE-IIT

Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia Via Morego, 30 - 16163 Genova


Tel. +39 010 71781472 Fax. +39 010 7170817

Email: anastasia.bruzzone at iit.it <mailto:anastasia.bruzzone at iit.it> 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

 

 

 

------------------------------------------------------

N.G.Tsagarakis, PhD

 

Senior Researcher

Dept of Advanced Robotics

Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT-Genova) Via Morego 30

16163 Genova

Italy

 

e-mail:       nikos.tsagarakis at iit.it

tel:          +39 010 71781 -  ext 428

fax:          +39 010 720321

web:          http://www.iit.it/en/advanced-robotics.html

-------------------------------------------------------

 

 


From fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com  Thu Sep 17 04:11:02 2009
From: fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com (Fabio Bonsignorio)
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:11:02 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CfP and Program: IROS2009 Workshop on
	Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking for Next Intelligent
	Robots and Systems
Message-ID: <d02c0eb70909170411p767b2ao490d503170a21fda@mail.gmail.com>

Dear all,

you will find below the call for participation and program for the
IROS Workshop on  Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking for Next
Intelligent Robots and Systems to be held in St. Louis on October 15th
during IROS 2009.
Join the discussion and contribute your ideas!

All the best

Fabio, Angel and Raj


Workshop: October 15th

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

High-level cognitive competencies encompassing knowledge
representation, perception, control, and learning are considered
essential elements that will allow robots to perform complex tasks
within highly uncertain environments with an appropriate level of
autonomy in various domains (service, manufacturing, and search and
rescue). As the complexity and variety of required tasks and of the
targeted environments increase exploring new application capabilities
and domains, it becomes necessary to develop well principled
procedures that allow quantitative comparison of the solutions
provided by robotics research thereby facilitating exchanges of
methods and solutions between different research groups and assessment
of the state of the art.
New more successful implementations of concepts already presented in
literature, but not implemented with exhaustive experimental
methodology, run the risk of being ignored, if appropriate
benchmarking procedures allowing to compare the actual practical
results with reference to standard accepted procedures, are not in
place.
The emphasis of the workshop will be on principles, methods, and
applications expanding beyond the current limit of robotics
applications in terms of cognitive capabilities and autonomy. Another
key issue will be a capability-led understanding of cognitive robots:
how to define shared ontologies or dictionaries to discuss robotic
cognitive systems in terms of their performance, relationships between
different cognitive robotics capabilities, requirements, theories,
architectures, models and methods that can be applied across multiple
engineering and application domains, detailing and understanding
better the requirements for robots in terms of performance, the
approaches to meeting these requirements and the trade-offs in terms
of performance.
The proper definition of benchmarking is related to the problem of
measuring capabilities of robots in a context in which, in many cases,
the ?robotics experiments? themselves are difficult to ?replicate?.

Date

The full-day workshop is scheduled to be held on
October 15th 2009. You can register for the workshop via the IROS'09
if you also attend the conference on the website at
http:/www.iros09.mtu.edu/.

Intended Audience

The primary audience of the proposed workshop is intended to be
researchers and practitioners both from academia and industry with an
interest in cognitive robotics and how these approaches can be
utilized in generating intelligent behaviors amidst uncertainty for
robots in the service and commercial sectors. The workshop is also
aimed at benchmarking and objectively evaluating performance of such
robots. Accordingly, it is envisioned to be useful for anyone who has
an interest in quantitative performance evaluation of robots.

Format:

The workshop will consist of invited presentations and regular
presentations. INTERACTION IS HIGHLY ENCOURAGED.

Proceedings:
The papers will be included in the IROS 2009 Tutorials and Workshops DVD.

Previous workshops: Previous workshops on the topic of Benchmarking
have been organized successfully at IROS (3 in a row) and RSS
conferences.

Backing:
This workshop is under the auspices of the IEEE-TC on Performance
Evaluation and Benchmarking of Robotic and Automation Systems
(TC-PEBRAS) and of the EURON Good Experimental Methodology and
Benchmarking SIG.

PROGRAM

09:00 Introduction

09:15 (keynote) Publishing Identifiable Experiment Code And Configuration Is
Important, Good and Easy
R.T. Vaughan
School of Computing Science, Simon Fraser University

10:00 Distributed Access to a Centralized Testing and Benchmarking
Facility via the DESIRE Webportal
A. Bubeck U. Reiser K. Pfeiffer M. H?gele
Fraunhofer IPA

10:30 Coffee Break

11:00 OlfMark: A benchmark for mobile robot odour source localisation
L. Marques
Institute of Systems and Robotics, University of Coimbra

11:30 Redefining Fan out Metric: Estimating Human Capability in
Controlling Multiple Robots
R. E. Mohan C. A. A. Acosta C. Zhou
Singapore Polytechnic
W. Sardha Wijesoma
Nanyang Technological University

12:00 The Articulated Head: An Intelligent Interactive Agent as an
Artistic Installation
C. Kroos D. C. Herath Stelarc
Thinking Head Project MARCS Auditory Laboratories, University of Western Sydney

12:30-13:00 Open Discussion

13:00 Lunch

14:00 Morning recap

14:15  (keynote) Robotic Competitions as Catalysts for Intelligent
System Advancements
E. Messina
NIST

15:00 Reverse KLD-Sampling for Measuring Uncertainty in
Rao-Blackwellized Particle Filters SLAM
L. Carlone M. Kaouk Ng
CSPP Laboratorio di Meccatronica, Politecnico di Torino,
J. Du B. Bona M. Indri
Dipartimento di Automatica e Informatica, Politecnico di Torino

15:30 Coffee Break

16:00 Ground Truth Free Evaluation of Segment Based Maps
R. Lakaemper
Temple University, Philadelphia

16:30 Refutable Robotics Research: the Road Ahead
F. P. Bonsignorio, A. P. Del Pobil J. Hallam

17:00 Open discussion


Contact Details

Angel P. del Pobil,
Univ. Jaume I
pobil at icc.uji.es

Raj Madhavan
ORNL/NIST
raj.madhavan at nist.gov

Fabio Bonsignorio
Heron Robots
fabio.bonsignorio at heronrobots.com
UC3M
fabio.bonsignorio at uc3m.es

About the Organizers

The organizers of the workshop have been actively involved in
performance evaluation and benchmarking for robotics. The organizers
are currently involved in several projects to define methods for
measuring cognitive abilities for robots, both at the component and
the systems level.

-- 
Fabio P. Bonsignorio
Ceo
Heron Robots s.r.l.
Via R.Ceccardi 1/18
I-16121 Genova
Italy
www.heronrobots.com

Professor
Banco de Santander Chair of Excellence in Robotics
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Edificio Agust?n de Betancourt, Despacho 1.3B01
Avda. Universidad, 30
28911 Legan?s
Spain

From Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at  Fri Sep 18 08:45:30 2009
From: Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at (Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at)
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:45:30 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] =?iso-8859-1?q?Call_for_Position_Papers_Work?=
	=?iso-8859-1?q?shop_=22The_Ubiquitous_Persuader=B2_=AD_Mechanisms?=
	=?iso-8859-1?q?=2C_Applications_and_Ethical_Dilemmas_of_Ambient_Pe?=
	=?iso-8859-1?q?rsuasion_at_AmI-09?=
Message-ID: <F18F80A9E2575F4E8C9E8479C5253BD89B2FD8@MAIL3.plus.sbg.ac.at>

(please excuse double posting)

Topic: " The Ubiquitous Persuader" - Mechanisms, Applications and Ethical Dilemmas of Ambient Persuasion"
?
?Deadlines:
????
?* Deadline position papers: September 28th, 2009
??
?* Notification for workshop participants: October 5th, 2009
??
?* Deadline for the final position papers: October 19th, 2009
??
?* Workshop at AmI2009: November ?21, 2009
?
?Website: http://workshops.icts.sbg.ac.at/ami09workshop/

?Position papers about the psychological and interaction mechanisms,
?potential applications and ethical dilemmas of ubiquitous persuasive
?technology are invited.
??
?Submissions are invited on the following topics:
?* Persuasive Technology in relation to Ambient Intelligence, Embodied
?Conversational Agents, (Autonomous) Interactive Systems and Ubiquitous
?Computing with regard to
?
?* Specific Applications (e.g., Ambient Displays, Robots for Persuasion,
?Embodied Conversational Agents for Persuasion etc.)
?
?* Specific Contexts for Persuasive Technology (e.g. driving behavior, energy consumption, health improvement etc.)
?
?* Psychological Mechanisms (e.g. Theory of Persuasion, Persuasion and unconsciousness, etc.)
?
?* Dilemmas of using persuasive technology (e.g. when social norms and value conflicts arise) 
?
?* Ethical concerns regarding ambient persuasive technology
?
??
?This workshop wants to address these issues by bringing together
?practitioners and researchers from different domains interested in the
?potential of Ambient Intelligence for Persuasion. We will select
?participants with diverse backgrounds based upon the relevance,
?insightfulness, and originality of their submissions.
??
?Submissions are expected in the form position papers (up to 4 pages),
?Describing the area of research, specific work (empirical or theoretical) on the workshop topic and the innovative character of the research at hand. At least one author of accepted papers needs to register for the workshop.
??
?Workshop Organizers:
??
?Wolfgang Reitberger (HCI & Usability Unit, University of Salzburg)
?Jaap Ham (Human-Technology Interaction, Eindhoven University of Technology)
?Astrid Weiss (HCI & Usability Unit, University of Salzburg)
?Andreas Spahn (Philosophy of technology Department of IE&IS, Eindhoven
?University of Technology)
?Alexander Meschtscherjakov (HCI & Usability Unit, University of Salzburg)
?Philip Nickel (Philosophy of technology Department of IE&IS, Eindhoven
?University of Technology)
?Manfred Tscheligi (HCI & Usability Unit, University of Salzburg)




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 leia.stirling at wyss.harvard.edu  Fri Sep 18 09:06:17 2009
From: leia.stirling at wyss.harvard.edu (Stirling, Leia A)
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:06:17 -0400
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] job opening: postdoc developing soft robotic
	device
Message-ID: <A9EAE997B5BEE74486F9A6FB327A16F169D410800A@ITCCRMAIL01.MED.HARVARD.EDU>

Researchers in the Wyss Institute, Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, MIT, Boston University, and the Harvard Medical School are teaming to develop a 'active, soft orthotic device' to be used in clinical applications for treating gait pathologies in children associated with neuromuscular disorders (such as drop-foot, spasticity, etc.). Treatments for these pathologies typically employ a passive mechanical brace. While passive braces provide certain benefits, they can also lead to additional medical problems such as disuse atrophy of the muscles, which may lead to long-term orthotic dependence. By employing an 'active, soft orthotic' we can adaptively modify the orthotic stiffness and provide additional actuated assistance to promote muscle usage and rehabilitation. This project will involve a convergence of computer science and machine learning to control a soft robotic device, and studies of materials and actuation strategies to construct a wearable orthotic device, which conforms to the shape of the wearer while providing useful stimuli. The target for this position is to assist with the electromechanical development of the orthotic sleeve (building from first generation prototypes) and integrating a control system derived from models of gait control in humans.

This is a key component to a multi-disciplinary project and it is expected that the successful applicant will actively fortify work between the participating labs. Applicants should hold a PhD in electrical or mechanical engineering, or computer science. The position is open immediately (10/1/09) and is guaranteed for a year with a possible second year extension. Applicants should send a cover letter briefly describing their background and career plans, a CV, and the names and contact information for at least three references. Please clearly indicate which position you are applying for. These documents should be submitted as pdf attachments to eng_postdoc at wyss.harvard.edu. Harvard University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer and applications from women and underrepresented minorities are strongly encouraged.

From michalowski at cmu.edu  Sun Sep 20 22:04:03 2009
From: michalowski at cmu.edu (Marek Michalowski)
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 01:04:03 -0400
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: AAAI 2010 Spring Symposium on Time in
	Interactive Behavior
Message-ID: <4AB70943.4080702@cmu.edu>

CALL FOR PAPERS

AAAI 2010 Spring Symposium

It's All In the Timing: Representing and Reasoning About Time in Interactive Behavior

http://asimov.usc.edu/~mower/aaai10ss_time

Background:
People do not experience the world solely as an ordered sequence of events. The 
timing of our perceptions and behaviors has as much of an impact on our 
experiences as the nature of the events themselves. Yet many of the 
representations currently used to model human behavior do not incorporate 
explicit models of the temporal expression of these stimuli or actions. Dynamic 
behavior is often modeled sequentially in such a way that its temporal 
resolution is reduced and potential non-stationarity is ignored for the sake of 
computational efficiency (as in Markov state-based models of behavior), and/or 
causal mappings between observations and behavior are simplified to mitigate 
the sparseness of available datasets. Given that robots and artificial agents 
designed to interact with people will be dealing with intelligent partners with 
rich mental representations of time, are we using the appropriate 
representations?

The issue of timing can be even more critical when designing natural 
interactive social behaviors for robots or other synthetic characters. Human 
social behaviors are extremely dependent on a close feedback loop of 
simultaneous and coordinated activity between multiple interactors. Yet how to 
best represent these interdependencies and temporal relationships in order to 
produce interactive behaviors is just beginning to be explored and understood 
from a computational perspective. Speed, acceleration, tempo, and delay are 
concepts that AI and robotics researchers recognize as important in everything 
from motor control to verbal communication, but we do not yet possess a 
well-motivated framework for how these temporal considerations should be 
designed into our systems.

This workshop is oriented towards several different groups of researchers, 
including, but not limited to: computer scientists who use machine learning 
techniques to model human behavior, psychologists and neuroscientists who study 
social behavior, and designers of robots or computational artifacts that 
interact naturally with humans in real time. By bringing together members of 
these communities through a shared interest in temporal representations, our 
goal is to identify critical areas of study and promising techniques. Some of 
the central questions to be addressed are:

- As researchers who study human interactive behavior, where do the common 
representations fall short? In what cases are they sufficient?
- What representations should be developed or borrowed to better represent 
human behavior or deal with the challenges of interacting naturally with a 
person?
- What do we know (e.g. from the social, cognitive, and behavioral sciences) 
about the timing of human behavior that we are not currently using? Which 
aspects of human behavior or social interaction are likely to be highly 
dependent on time?
- What kinds of experiments in human-machine interaction could serve as 
testbeds (or eventually benchmarks) for the study of the role of timing?

Submissions:
Papers on any aspect of modeling or studying the temporal aspects of human or 
human-machine social interaction are welcome. Interested participants may 
submit either full length papers (up to 6 pages in AAAI format) or short 
papers/extended abstracts (2 pages). Reports on experimental results, 
descriptions of implemented systems, and position papers are all welcome. 
Please email submissions to aaai10sstime at googlemail.com.

Schedule:
The symposium will take place over two and a half days from Monday through 
Wednesday, March 22-24, 2010 at Stanford University, California.

A full schedule, and updates, will be at 
http://asimov.usc.edu/~mower/aaai10ss_time

For more info see http://www.aaai.org/Symposia/Spring/sss10.php

Format:
This symposium will feature presentations (for long papers) and posters (for 
short papers) from accepted participants. Pending speaker availability, there 
will be invited talks or a panel discussion by experts from a variety of 
relevant fields.

Additionally, there will be break-out discussion sessions where members of 
special interest areas can discuss issues in greater depth and report their 
shared conclusions back to the symposium as a whole. Some potential breakout 
session topics are:
- Nonverbal communication
- Rhythmic or musical interaction
- Spoken dialogue
- Social decision-making
- User state modeling
- Interaction kinesics

If you would like to suggest a topic for a breakout discussion or express 
interest in one of the listed topics, please include this information with your 
submission or mail it separately to the official symposium email address, 
aaai10sstime at googlemail.com.

Timeline:
June 26: Submissions open
October 2: Submissions closed
November 6: Notification of acceptance/rejection
December 7: Registration open
February 5: Invited participant registration deadline
February 26: Final (open) registration deadline

Organizing Committee:
Frank Broz (University of Hertfordshire)
Marek Michalowski (Carnegie Mellon University)
Emily Mower (University of Southern California)


From stephane.doncieux at isir.upmc.fr  Mon Sep 21 02:15:01 2009
From: stephane.doncieux at isir.upmc.fr (Stephane Doncieux)
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:15:01 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IROS 2009 Workshop: "Exploring new horizons of
 Evolutionary Design of Robots"
Message-ID: <4AB74415.40800@isir.upmc.fr>

Dear Colleagues,

You are kindly invited to attend the IROS 2009 Workshop on  "Exploring
new horizons of Evolutionary Design of Robots" on October 11th 2009, St.
Louis, USA.

Workshop details can be found on the workshop web site:
http://www.isir.fr/evoderob including the workshop proceedings (http://www.isir.fr/evoderob/proceedings_evoderob.pdf) and an
introductory paper (http://www.isir.fr/evoderob/evoderob09position.pdf).

Program:

                          beginning  
introduction              10:30 
invited talk I            10:45  
      "Resilient machines", J. Bongard 
Poster spot light I    	  11:45   
    * J. Auerbach, J. C. Bongard: Evolving Monolithic Robot Controllers Through Incremental Shaping
    * S. Doncieux: Evolutionary Algorithms as exploration and analysis helper tools, application to a flapping wings aircraft
    * Y. Kassahun, J. de Gea, M. R?mmermann, F. Kirchner: On Applying Neuroevolutionary Methods to Complex Robotic Tasks
    * Y. Meng, H. Guo, Y. Jin: A Multi-Cellular based Self-Organizing Approach for Multi-Robot Systems
    
12:00-2:00pm: lunch (poster session)

Invited talk II         2:00pm 
     "Abandoning Objectives and the Search for Novelty", K. Stanley  
Poster spotlight II  	3:00pm  
    * J.M. Montanier, N. Bredeche: Embedded Evolutionary Robotics: The (1+1)-Restart-Online Adaptation Algorithm
    * J.B. Mouret: Novelty-based Multiobjectivization
    * M.E. Palmer, D.B. Miller, T.L. Blackwell: An Evolved Neural Controller for Bipedal Walking: Transition from Simulator to Hardware
    * S. Rubrecht, V. Padois, P. Bidaud: Evolutionary Design of a Robotic Manipulator for a Highly Constrained Environment
    * T. Schmickl, J. Stradner, H. Hamann, K. Crailsheim: Major Feedbacks that Support Artificial Evolution in Multi-Modular Robotics
    * P. Svec, S.K. Gupta: Competitive Co-evolution of High-Level Blocking Controllers for Unmanned Surface Vehicles
    * M.T. Tolley, J.D. Hiller, H. Lipson: Evolutionary Design and Assembly Planning for Stochastic Modular Robots
    * V.K. Valsalam, R. Miikkulainen: Evolving Monolithic Robot Controllers Through Incremental Shaping
   
3:30-4:00pm: coffee break (poster session)

Invited talk III    4:00pm 
      "Evolutionary algorithms for the design of complex robotics systems", Ph. Bidaud 
Panel discussion    5:00pm 



Looking forward to meeting you in St. Louis,

Best Regards,

Stephane Doncieux
Nicolas Bredeche
Jean-Baptiste Mouret


From aude.billard at epfl.ch  Mon Sep 21 03:36:15 2009
From: aude.billard at epfl.ch (Billard Aude)
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:36:15 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] One Postdoc Opening in Robot Programming by
 Demonstration and Human-Robot Interaction
Message-ID: <33DA0D789951914A95F9E8D3BA6583E767A4FF7D84@rex5.intranet.epfl.ch>

Postdoc Opening in Robot Programming by Demonstration and Human-Robot Interaction

The Learning Algorithm and Systems Laboratory at the EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne) seeks one qualified postdoctoral researcher in the fields of robot programming by demonstration and human-robot interaction. 

The candidate will work within the framework of European projects that develop algorithms for learning the dynamics of motion to perform manipulatory tasks through human demonstration. The candidate will have the opportunity to work on state-of-the-art robotic platforms available at LASA, among which the new 57 degrees of freedom humanoid platform, the iCub (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICub).
 
The work is strongly grounded on machine learning and dynamical systems theory, and knowledge of both is a pre-requisite. Further, the candidate is expected to have an Engineering BSc/Msc degree (EE, CS or Physics/Maths) and a PhD degree in robotics (not necessarily in human-robot interaction). 

 The initial Postdoctoral position is for one year each, with a possibility of up to 2 years extension. Starting date: Spring 2010.

Application: Interested candidates should send a short letter of motivation, along with their detailed CV, copy of two of their most recent and relevant publications and names of 2 references to aude.billard at epfl.ch 

-----------------------------
Related Websites:

- website LASA:   http://lasa.epfl.ch
- Publications by the lab: http://lasa.epfl.ch/infopublications/index.php 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof. Aude Billard
LASA laboratory, http://lasa.epfl.ch
EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
 
Mail to: Station 9, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Email: aude.billard at epfl.ch
Tel: +41-21-693-5464
Fax: +41-21-694-7850

 

 

From adriana.tapus at ensta.fr  Mon Sep 21 09:35:49 2009
From: adriana.tapus at ensta.fr (Adriana Tapus)
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:35:49 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] HRI 2010: CFP Workshops and Tutorials
Message-ID: <4F2E0DC839F04B7F9A6AE5C8B8403488@AdrianaPC>

Dear all,

We would like to invite you to organize a Workshop or Tutorial at 
Human-Robot Interaction (HRI2010) conference. Tutorials and workshops will 
be held on March 2, one day before the main technical sessions. 
Participants in tutorials and workshops are required to register for the 
main conference as well.

Submission instructions for organizers follow below. All tutorial/workshop 
proposals must be submitted by September 27th 2009. The proposals submitted 
will be subjected to a review process.

Tutorials
We invite experts in different areas to propose half-day or full-day 
tutorials relevant to the HRI2010 theme. Examples of topics are 
state-of-the-art overviews of particular HRI areas or design/research 
methods. Interdisciplinary approaches are particularly welcome. Please 
submit the following information (up to 2 pages) to the tutorial/workshop 
chairs, Selma Sabanovic (email: ssabanov at indiana.edu) and Adriana Tapus 
(email:  tapus at ensta.fr), no later than September 27th 2009:

. Title of tutorial
. Tutorial speaker(s), including short CV's
. Motivation or background
. Target audience or prerequisites
. Overview of tutorial including topics covered
. Links and references relevant to the tutorial

If the tutorial is accepted, the submitted material will be used for 
advertising it as part of HRI2010.

Workshops
Workshops are an opportunity for participants to meet other members of the 
HRI community, to discuss problems, and to present their ideas around a 
common topic. The workshops can be half-day or full-day, and could cover any 
topic relevant to HRI research, development, or education. Interdisciplinary 
and user-centered approaches are particularly welcome. The format of the 
workshop may vary depending on the topic and audience. The responsibilities 
of workshop organizers include: (1) setting up a website for the workshop 
that will be linked to the HRI2010 website; (2) publicizing the workshop and 
soliciting position papers among potential participants. A position paper 
outlines the submitter's view on the workshop theme and the reasons for the 
submitter's interest in the topic. The workshop organizers will select 
workshop participants based on the quality of submitted contributions; (3) 
(when applicable) putting together proceedings of the workshop consisting of 
accepted contributions and other relevant materials.

Please send your workshop proposal in the following form to Selma Sabanovic 
(email: ssabanov at indiana.edu) and Adriana Tapus (email:  tapus at ensta.fr) no 
later than September 27th 2009:

. Title of workshop
. Organizer(s), including contact information and short CV's
. Abstract of about 250 words with suggested length and format of the 
workshop
. Prerequisites for participation
. Required format of workshop contributions
. Plan for documentation of the workshop
. List of potential attendees


------------------------------
Workshop / Tutorials Co-Chairs
Selma Sabanovic (Indiana University, Bloomington)
and
Adriana Tapus (ENSTA - ParisTech, France)




From gaurav at usc.edu  Wed Sep 23 21:22:58 2009
From: gaurav at usc.edu (Gaurav S. Sukhatme)
Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:22:58 -0700
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdoc position at USC in robotics and
	wireless communication
Message-ID: <562c8ffd0909232122y4a5ade52v755acecf584c2eee@mail.gmail.com>

=== Postdoctoral position at USC in robotics and wireless communication =====

Postdoctoral researcher position available in Electrical Engineering,
Computer Science or Mechanical Engineering fields within the Ming Hsieh
Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern
California (USC).

This position is in support of a multi-disciplinary Office of Naval Research
grant funding four institutions:  USC, the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution,
Northeastern University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The project title is ?Intelligent Coordination and Adaptive Classification for
Naval Autonomous Systems.?? The three principal investigators (PIs) at
USC are:  Prof. Urbashi Mitra (EE), Prof. Gaurav Sukhatme (CS) and
Prof. Shri Narayanan (EE).

The ideal candidate has a doctoral degree in either: Electrical
Engineering, Computer Science or Mechanical Engineering with expertise
in one or more of the following areas: robotics, communications,
information theory,
controls, classification and pattern recognition, or machine learning.
 The initial
focus is on the interface between robotics, multi-vehicle controls and
wireless communications; however, individuals with other research interests
as outlined above will be given full consideration.  While the position
emphasis is on the development of theoretical results, individuals with
experimental experience (e.g. in marine/aquatics robotics, controls or wireless
communications) are of high interest.

The position is available immediately. The appointment will be
for one year, renewable for a second year by mutual agreement.  Salary will
be competitive and commensurate with expertise.

The individual selected for this position must be highly motivated, capable
of conducting independent research and prepared to take a leadership
role on a team that consists of  faculty, graduate students, and
undergraduate students from multiple institutions. A portion of the
responsibilities
include assisting the principal investigators with coordination of the grant
across the multiple institutions. The postdoctoral fellow would be a
principal author on publications, and would have the opportunity to present
their work at national and international conferences as well as participate
in the development of additional grant proposals.

Application:  Interested individuals should send an  e-mail that includes
availability information, a pdf version of the CV, one or two representative
publications, and contact information (e-mail and phone) for three references,
to Prof. Gaurav Sukhatme (gaurav at usc.edu). Prof. Sukhatme will be
available in person at IROS in St. Louis on Oct 14 and 15 for
meetings to discuss the position.

-- 
Gaurav S. Sukhatme
Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Southern California
Editor-in-Chief, Autonomous Robots
http://robotics.usc.edu/~gaurav

From ravinder.dahiya at iit.it  Tue Sep 22 14:53:57 2009
From: ravinder.dahiya at iit.it (Ravinder Dahiya)
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:53:57 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Participation - Workshop on Tactile
	sensing Humanoids 2009
Message-ID: <000301ca3bcf$2fa1c380$8ee54a80$@dahiya@iit.it>

Dear colleagues,

Apologies for duplicate messages.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------
"Tactile Sensing in Humanoids - Tactile Sensors and Beyond" Workshop,
December 7, Paris, France.

http://eris.liralab.it/wiki/Tactile_sensing_workshop_%40_Humanoids_%2709


The 9th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids09),
December 7-10, 2009, Paris, France. 

http://humanoids2009.org/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------

# Aim and Scope of the Workshop: 

This workshop will provide a forum for discussing issues related with the
development of not only the tactile sensors but also their integration on
robots and hence the "effective utilization" of tactile information. The
workshop would cover tactile sensing for body sites like fingertips (that
require large number of sensors in small space) and other sites like arm,
belly etc. (where large area skin type arrangement is needed).The workshop
aims to bring together researchers from different areas such as robotics,
sensors, large area electronics, and human sense of touch etc. to discuss: 

1.The issues that have been hindering the effective usage of tactile sensing
in robotics and the solutions to clear such hindering blocks. 
2.The studies (e.g. studies on human sense of touch) or technological
advances (e.g. large area flexible electronics) that can help in solving
some of the issues related to effective utilization of tactile sensing. 

The discussion/topics of interest include (but not limited to): 

- The innovations in tactile sensing technology for high density areas like
fingertips. 
- Various skin technologies for covering large areas of robot's body. 
- Issues related to integration of sensors/sensor arrays/skin with the
robot's body. 
- Innovations in intrinsic and extrinsic tactile sensing. 
- Human/biological inspired sense of touch for robotics. 
- Studies on human sense of touch that can help improve the robotic touch
sensing system. 
- Simulation/modeling the touch sensing with/without other sense modalities.

- Multimodal interaction systems involving sense of touch. 
- Hardware for haptic/tactile interaction. 
- Modeling dynamics of deformable and soft objects for haptic/tactile
feedback. 
- Perception of materials using tactile feedback. 
- Experiments on robots utilizing tactile information. 
- Humanoid/Robotic platforms that include tactile sensing.
 
The full day workshop is intended to attract the audience from areas like
tactile sensing, haptics, muti-modal sensing, microsystems, electronics,
human sense of touch and robotics.

# Abstract Submission Guidelines: 

Contributors are requested to submit a 2 page abstract outlining their
past/new work. The accepted abstracts will be presented as lecture/posters
at the workshop and be published as part of the workshop proceedings. After
workshop it is planned to include the papers in an edited book/special
journal issue. The contributions must be sent by email to ravinder.dahiya
(ravinder.dahiya at iit.it) 


# Important Dates: 

Initial Abstract Submission - 19 October, 2009. 
Paper Acceptance decision - 16 November, 2009. 
Final Manuscript Submission - 27 November, 2009. 
Workshop Day - 7 December, 2009.

# Organizers: 

- Ravinder Dahiya, Italian Institute of Technology, Genoa, Italy. 
- Giorgio Metta, Italian Institute of Technology, Genoa, Italy. 
- Maurizio Valle, DIBE, University of Genoa, Italy. 
- Giorgio Cannata, DIST, University of Genoa, Italy. 

For more information, please visit the following website:
http://eris.liralab.it/wiki/Tactile_sensing_workshop_%40_Humanoids_%2709


Sincerely,

Ravinder S. Dahiya, PhD
Post-Doc Researcher,
Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department,
Italian Institute of Technology,
Via Morego 30, Genova, 16163, Italy
Phone: +39-010-71781465
Fax: +39-010-7170817



From mario at evolution.com  Tue Sep 22 22:33:15 2009
From: mario at evolution.com (Mario E. Munich)
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 22:33:15 -0700
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Job Opportunity at Evolution Robotics
Message-ID: <4AB9B31B.1020902@evolution.com>

*Title: Robotics and Vision Engineer *

*Company:* Evolution Robotics

*Location:* CA - Los Angeles

*Reports to: VP of Research and Development*

*The Company: *

Evolution Robotics, Inc. is a robotics company that is developing
break-through technologies that are revolutionizing robotics for the
mass market. The recent convergence of low-cost mobile computing,
wireless communication, and sensing technologies has not only made the
development of mobile robotic products possible, but also economical for
mainstream usage. Evolution Robotics develops breakthrough solutions for
making machines sense and act autonomously. We partner with consumer
electronic companies to augment the capabilities of their products, such
as the Sony AIBO(r) dog or the WowWee robotic toys, or create entire new
robotic products such as the eVac robotic vacuum cleaner from Sharper
Image.

Evolution is a recognized leader in the industry and the academic
communities. The company has assembled a world-class management team
composed of leading robotics experts and consumer products business
leaders to make the company's vision of providing useful robots at
affordable prices a reality.

The Evolution Robotics team operates in a highly dynamic and very
collaborative environment where the flow of ideas is encouraged from all
parts of the team. The team of extremely talented engineers and
scientists at Evolution has created a unique and highly stimulating and
fun work environment. This team challenges the status quo in technology
and pushes the envelope on what may seem impossible.

Evolution Robotics is an operating company of Idealab!, a technology
incubator known for having started many successful companies like
Overture and CitySearch. We are located in the beautiful and sunny
Pasadena, in Southern California. Hosting scientific institutions like
the California Institute of Technology and the Jet Propulsion Lab, and
national events like the annual Tournament of Roses, the city is
considered the main cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley.


*Position Purpose:*

Design, implement, test, and document robotics and vision algorithms in
C/C++ on Linux/Windows and on embedded platforms.

The position responsibilities also include validation and
characterization of the products developed at Evolution Robotics
including the Evolution Robotics Software Platform (ERSP), embedded
solutions for vision and navigation, and robotics components and
hardware. The position also entails providing customer support by
helping customers solve problems and replying to customers requests via
email and phone.

The position involves a substantial portion of ?hands-on? work and
requires an individual able to work independently with minimal supervision.


    Requirements:

    *

      Hands-on experience developing robotics or vision systems.

    *

      Working knowledge of C/C++ and scripting languages.

    *

      Working experience in both Linux and Windows.

    *

      Experience validating complex systems involving hardware, software
      and mechanical components.

    *

      A solid engineering background with hands-on design and
      development experience.

    *

      Excellent verbal and written communications skills.

    *

      Ability to work independently, without direct supervision.

    *

      Strong problem solving skills and a fast learner. Strong
      analytical skills.

    *

      *Minimum Degree*: BS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering ,
      or related field.


    Nice to have:

    *

      Ability to build/assemble/modify electronic assemblies or robots
      into various configurations for test purposes.

    *

      Understanding of and experience with any of the following:
      behavior-based control, navigation, path-planning, obstacle
      avoidance, SLAM, fuzzy logic, estimation and control.

    *

      Understanding of and experience with any of the following: object
      recognition, structure from motion, 3D reconstruction, ego-motion
      estimation, feature extraction and matching, face recognition.

    *

      Hands-on design and development experience of software and
      hardware products.

    *

      Experience developing embedded systems.

    *

      Experience in validating consumer or robotics products.

    *

      Familiarity with XML, Perl, Shell scripts

    *

      Experience developing and producing commercial SDKs.


*INTERESTED CANDIDATES SHOULD SUBMIT THEIR RESUME AND SALARY HISTORY TO:
*_careers at evolution.com <http://www.idealab.com/careers>_* *

/An Equal Opportunity Employer/

/*? Evolution Robotics*/


-- 
Mario E. Munich, PhD
VP of Research and Development 
Evolution Robotics
Ph: (626) 993-3317
Fax: (626) 993-3301
mario at evolution.com
http://www.evolution.com


From K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk  Wed Sep 23 13:52:45 2009
From: K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk (Kerstin Dautenhahn)
Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:52:45 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP Symposium: New Frontiers in Human-Robot
 Interaction (at AISB 2010)
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.61.0909232150210.29282@tucana>


------------***apologies if you receive multiple copies***---------

Call for Papers:

Second International Symposium on New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction

A two-day symposium at AISB 2010, 31 March - 1 April 2010, De Montfort 
University, Leicester, United Kingdom

http://www.aisb.org.uk/convention/aisb10/AISB2010.html (Convention)

http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~comqkd/HRI-AISB2010-Symposium.html 
(Symposium)

Motivation:

Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is a growing research field with many application 
areas that could have a big impact not only economically, but also on the way 
we live and the kind of relationships we may develop with machines. Due to its 
interdisciplinary nature different views and approaches towards HRI need to be 
nurtured. This symposium will provide a platform to discuss collaboratively 
recent findings and challenges in HRI.

The first symposium on "New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction" was held as 
part of AISB 2009 in Edinburgh, Scotland, see programme:
http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~comqkd/HRI-AISB2009-Symposium.html

The symposium organized in 2009 was characterized by excellent presentations as 
well as extensive and constructive discussions of the research among the 
participants.

Different categories of submissions are encouraged that reflect the different 
types of research studies that are being carried out. The symposium will 
encourage a diversity of views on HRI and different approaches taken. In the 
highly interdisciplinary research field of HRI, a peaceful dialogue among such 
approaches is expected to contribute to the synthesis of a body of knowledge 
that may help HRI sustain its creative inertia that has drawn to HRI during the 
past 10 years many researchers from HCI, robotics, psychology, the social 
sciences, and other fields.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

*	Developments towards robot companions
*	User-centred robot design
*	Robots in personal care and health care
*	Robots in search and rescue
*	Sensors and interfaces for HRI
*	Human-aware robot perception
*	Dialogue and multi-modal human-robot interaction
*	Robot architectures for socially intelligent robots
*	HRI field studies in naturalistic environments
*	Robot assisted therapy
*	Robots in HRI collaborative scenarios
*	Robots in schools and in other educational environments
*	Robots as personal assistants and trainers
*	Robot and human personality
*	New methods and methodologies to carry out and analyze human-robot 
interaction
*	Robots as companions and helpers in the home
*	Robots as assistive technology
*	Long-term or repeated interaction with robots
*	Creating relationships with robots
*	Expressiveness in robots
*	Sustaining the engagement of users
*	Personalizing robots and HRI interfaces
*	Human-robot teaching
*	Robots that learn socially and adapt to people
*	User experience in HRI
*	User needs and requirements for HRI
*	Robots as autonomous companions
*	Robots as remote-controlled tools
*	Embodied interfaces for smart homes
*	Ethnography and field studies
*	Cross-cultural studies

The symposium encourages submissions in any of the following categories. The 
submission should clearly state which category the article falls under:

*N* Completed empirical studies reporting novel research findings
In this category we encourage submissions where a substantial body of findings 
has been accumulated based on precise research questions or hypotheses. Such 
studies are expected to fit within a particular experimental framework (e.g. 
using qualitative or quantitative evaluation techniques) and the reviewing of 
such papers will apply relevant (statistical and other) criteria accordingly. 
Findings of such studies should provide novel insights into human-robot 
interaction studies.

*E* Exploratory studies
Exploratory studies are often necessary to pilot and fine-tune the 
methodological approach, procedures and measures. In a young research field 
such as HRI with novel applications and various robotic platforms, exploratory 
studies are also often required to derive a set of concrete research questions 
or hypothesis, in particular concerning issues where there is little related 
theoretical and experimental work. Although care must be taken in the 
interpretation of findings from such studies, they may highlight issues of 
great interest and relevance to peers.

*S* Case studies
Due to the nature of many HRI studies, a large-scale quantitative approach is 
often neither feasible nor desirable. However, case study evaluation can 
provide meaningful findings if presented appropriately. Thus, case studies with 
only one participant, or a small group of participants, are encouraged if they 
are carried out and analyzed in sufficient depth.

*P* Position papers
While categories N, E and S require reporting on HRI studies or experiments, 
position papers can be conceptual or theoretical, providing new interpretations 
of known results. Also, in this category we consider papers that present new 
ideas without having a complete study to report on.  Papers in this category 
will be judged on the soundness of the argument presented, the significance of 
the ideas and the interest to the HRI community.

*R* Replication of HRI studies
To develop as a field, HRI findings obtained by one research group need to be 
replicated by other groups. Without any additional novel insights, such work is 
often not publishable. Within this category, authors will have the opportunity 
to report on studies that confirm or disconfirm findings from experiments that 
have already been reported in the literature. This category includes studies 
that report on negative findings.

*D* Live HRI Demonstrations
Contributors may have an opportunity to provide live demonstrations (live or 
via Skype), pending the outcome of negotiations with the local organization 
team. The demo should highlight interesting features and insights into HRI. 
Purely entertaining demonstrations without significant research content are 
discouraged.

*Y* System Development
Research in this category includes e.g. the design and development of new 
sensors, robot designs and algorithms for socially interactive robots. 
Extensive user studies are not necessarily required in this category.

If authors feel that their particular paper does not fit any of the above 
mentioned categories, then they should indicate this when submitting their 
paper so that the reviewing process can take this into consideration.

Symposium chair: Kerstin Dautenhahn (University of Hertfordshire, UK)

Symposium contributions:

We invite unpublished, original work as extended abstracts (up to 3 pages) or 
full papers of up to 8 pages (double column) according to the AISB 2010 
formatting guidelines (templates will be available later on the AISB 2010 
convention website). In category *D* we invite one page descriptions detailing 
the demo and its associated research questions.

In addition to full paper presentations the symposium will also include panels, 
invited talks, and poster presentations.  The symposium schedule will emphasize 
critical discussions of the presented research as well as wider issues that are 
important to HRI.


Submission of contributions:

Please send the PDF submissions to Kerstin Dautenhahn (K.Dautenhahn "@" herts 
"." ac "." uk) (files bigger than 2MB will not be accepted) including in the 
email text the following information: title of paper, author list, contact 
email, name of attached PDF file. All submissions will be peer reviewed.

Proceedings:

Authors of accepted contributions will be asked to prepare the final versions 
(up to 8 pages) for
inclusion in the symposium proceedings. All accepted contributions will be 
published in the symposium proceedings. A special journal issue will be 
considered and/or a book publication with a selection of the best symposium 
contributions.

Important Dates:

11th January 2010 - Papers submission deadline
8th February 2010 - Notifications of acceptance
22nd February 2010 - Camera ready copies due

Programme Committee members:

Adriana Tapus, USC, USA
Aris Alissandrakis, Tokio Institute of Technology, Japan
Astrid Weiss, University of Salzburg, Austria
Ben Krose, UVA, the Netherlands
Ben Robins, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Christoph Bartneck, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands
Dirk Wollherr, TUM, Germany
Dong-Soo Kwon, KAIST, South Korea
Farshid Amirabdollahian, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Haizhou Li, Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore
Hatice Kose-Bagci, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Hisato Kobayashi, Hosei University, Japan
Holly Yanco, University of Massachusetts-Lowell, USA
Julie Adams, Vanderbilt University, USA
Karl F. MacDorman, Indiana University, USA
Kerstin Severinson Eklundh, KTH, Sweden
Kheng Lee Koay, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Kolja Kuehnlenz, TUM, Germany
Matthias Scheutz, Indiana University Bloomington, USA
Manfred Tscheligi, University of Salzburg, Austria
Michael A. Goodrich, Brigham Young University, USA
Michael L. Walters, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Monica Nicolescu, University of Nevada, Reno, USA
Nuno Otero, University of Minho, Portugal
Reid Simmons, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Sandra Hirche, TUM, Germany
Sylvain Calinon, Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Italy
Takayuki Kanda, ATR, Japan
Tatsuya Nomura, Ryukoku University, Japan
Wolfram Erlhagen, University of Minho, Portugal
Yiannis Demiris, Imperial College, UK
Yorick Wilks, University of Sheffield, UK
Yoshihiro Miyake, Tokio Institute of Technology, Japan

-----------------------------------------------------
Prof. Dr. Kerstin Dautenhahn
Professor of Artificial Intelligence
Adaptive Systems Research Group
The University of Hertfordshire, School of Computer Science
College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, United Kingdom
URL: http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~comqkd
E-mail: K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk
Fax: +44-1707-284-303  Tel: +44-1707-284-333

From rawseeds at elet.polimi.it  Tue Sep 22 07:36:16 2009
From: rawseeds at elet.polimi.it (the Rawseeds project)
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:36:16 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Benchmark Problems from project Rawseeds are
	online
Message-ID: <4AB8E0E0.3070606@elet.polimi.it>

[apologies if you receive this more than once]

Dear all,
the Rawseeds project (http://www.rawseeds.org/) is an EU-funded effort
aimed at building a high-quality "Benchmarking Toolkit" for Simultaneous
Localization And Mapping. The Toolkit includes:
* 11 multisensor datasets, complete with associated ground truth;
* problems, called "Benchmark Problems", using our datasets as input data;
* Benchmark Solutions, i.e., of solutions for the Benchmark Problems.
The BPs include a carefully defined set of performance metrics, to be
used to assess the Benchmark Solutions. In this way, the BSs (i.e., the
results of the algorithms that they are based on) can be evaluated and
compared in a quantitative way: Rawseeds' Toolkit is, in fact, an
instrument for the benchmarking of algorithms.

Presently, we announce that a first batch of Benchmark Problems has been
published. More BPs will follow.

In a short time, we will publish a set of Benchmark Solutions: but we
invite readers to contribute to Rawseeds with their own BSs as well.
It's easy to take your own algorithm for SLAM, use it to solve a BP, and
put the results in the form of a BS. Then, you can submit the BS to us
(using the form you find in the page of the chosen BP), to be
published along with our own. This is, of course, a good way to give
visibility to your algorithm.

More information about Rawseeds and its Benchmarking Toolkit can be
found on the project's website, along with a contact form, a forum, and
more. We hope to see you there!

The Rawseeds Consortium


From Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at  Fri Sep 25 02:42:09 2009
From: Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at (Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at)
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:42:09 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [Internation Journal of Social Robotics]
	Special issue on Robots for future societies: Evaluating
	social acceptance and societal impact of robots
Message-ID: <F18F80A9E2575F4E8C9E8479C5253BD89B30F8@MAIL3.plus.sbg.ac.at>


****Robots for future societies: Evaluating social acceptance and societal impact of robots****

Special Issue for the International?Journal?of Social Robotics,
Springer?http://www.editorialmanager.com/soro/ 
Guest Editors: Astrid Weiss and Manfred Tscheligi (ICT&S Center, University of Salzburg)
Contact:?astrid.weiss at sbg.ac.at??(http://www.icts.sbg.ac.at/ )

****Submission of Manuscripts (DL): 1-Nov-09****?????????
??? Notification of Acceptance: 1-Feb-10????????
??? Submission of Final Paper: 1-Apr-10?????????
??? Final Publication: 1-Jul-10??

You are cordially invited to submit your original?research?and discoveries
on scientific, technological, methodological and philosophical advances in social robots,
and their interactions and communications with humans, especially
innovative ideas and concepts, new discoveries and improvements, as well
as novel applications on the latest fundamental advances in the core
technologies that form the backbone of Social Robotics, distinguished
developmental projects, as well as seminal works in aesthetic design,
ethics and philosophy, studies on social impact and influence pertaining
to, and its interaction and communication with human beings and its social
impact on our society.

This special issue encourages submissions on *original research findings
addressing societal impact robots could have in the future and? how to
design and asses social acceptable robotic systems*. Such social
Human-Robot Interaction studies include

?* Reviews on existing measures and metrics assessing? social acceptance
and societal impact of robotic systems (e.g physiological
?? measurements, behaviour observations, surveys etc.)
?* Proposals of new methodological approaches to address social acceptance
and societal impact in lab- and field-based settings
?* Structural frameworks towards social and societal acceptance supporting the understanding of the concept as well as contributing factors
?* Findings from Human-Robot Interaction studies (lab and field-based) on
social acceptance and societal impact.
?* Ethical issues regarding future life with social robots should (legal
aspects, psychological aspects etc.)
?* Cultural differences regarding the integration of robots into society

This special issue aims to report on the latest research findings in this
field, as well as point out the key challenges (and possible ways to
address some of these) that social robots pose in terms of methodological,
technological, design-orientated, ethical and other aspects.

For more information, please visit:

Submission On-Line:
http://www.editorialmanager.com/soro/
Special Issue: Social Acceptance in HRI

Description of the Journal
http://www.springer.com/engineering/journal/12369 

Aims and Scope:
http://www.springer.com/engineering/journal/12369?detailsPage=aimsAndScopes 

Authors' information:
http://www.springer.com/engineering/journal/12369detailsPage=contentItemPage&CIPageCounter=512809 

Authors who intend to submit a manuscript are encouraged to contact
Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at?as soon as possible in order to ensure that the
planned submission falls within the aims and scope of the special issue.

Please submit the journal manuscripts (between 10 and 14 pages) by 01 Nov 2009:
http://www.editorialmanager.com/soro/?(Special Issue: Social Acceptance in HRI). The Editorial Board is committed
to speedy review, fast publication, and high scientific impact.??



From jacaste at unizar.es  Thu Sep 24 07:08:57 2009
From: jacaste at unizar.es (Jose A. Castellanos)
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:08:57 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [RSS09] Robotics,
 Science and Systems 2009 Final Camera Ready Papers Available
Message-ID: <4ABB7D79.6030809@unizar.es>

Dear colleages,

It is a great pleasure for me to announce you that the final camera
ready papers of the Robotics, Science and Systems (RSS'09) conference 
are now openly accesible at (http://www.roboticsproceedings.org/).
In the name of the orgazing team I would like to thank to all the 
authors for their contribution to the success of the event.

Yours,

Jose A. Castellanos
RSS 2009 Publications Chair


From juergen at idsia.ch  Fri Sep 25 12:39:02 2009
From: juergen at idsia.ch (Schmidhuber Juergen)
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:39:02 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 3 postdocs / several PhD students at the Swiss
	AI Lab IDSIA
Message-ID: <20787328-1F0F-41EC-A293-7130C5941187@idsia.ch>

Recently three of my postdocs accepted professorships abroad.
Now I am looking for three FRESH postdocs to replace them!
We also encourage applications for PhD fellowships.

INSTRUCTIONS AND DETAILS UNDER
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/sn2010.html

Summary. We expect expertise / interest in areas related to:

Robot Learning (e.g., vision-based robots)
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/learningrobots.html
In particular, self-modeling robots:
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/resilientmachines.html

Recurrent Neural Networks & Program Learning:
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/rnn.html

Reinforcement Learning & Evolution:
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/rl.html
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/evolution.html

Theory of Universal Problem Solvers & Universal AI:
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/unilearn.html
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/goedelmachine.html
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/oops.html

Optimal Program Search:
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/oops.html

Unsupervised Learning and Deep Nets:
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/ica.html

Artificial Curiosity & Creativity / Theory of Novelty & Surprise:
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/interest.html

SALARY: Postdocs: SFR 72,000/year
(~ US$ 70,000/year as of 25 Sept 2009).
PhD students: SFR 38,000/year
(~ US$ 37,000/year as of 25 Sept 2009).

INTERVIEWS at IDSIA
or at the Singularity Summit in NYC (3-4 Oct)
http://www.singularitysummit.com/program
or at the EUCogII meeting in Hamburg (10-11 Oct)
http://www.eucognition.org/index.php?page=first-members-conference-program

IDSIA is affiliated with the University of Lugano and SUPSI.
It is one of  the world's top AI labs, according to Business Week,
located in Switzerland, the most competitive country,
according to the World Economic Forum, and also the
top science nation, according to per capita rankings
based on citations, patents, Nobel Prizes, etc.

Related jobs (not all of them filled yet):
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/eu2009.html
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/sinergia2008.html

Juergen Schmidhuber
Director of the Swiss AI Lab IDSIA, Lugano
Professor of Artificial Intelligence, Univ. Lugano
Professor SUPSI, Manno-Lugano, Switzerland
Head of CogBotLab at TU Muenchen, Germany
http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/


From samir.bouabdallah at mavt.ethz.ch  Thu Sep 24 00:59:14 2009
From: samir.bouabdallah at mavt.ethz.ch (Bouabdallah  Samir)
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:59:14 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Invitation to IROS 2009 Workshop on Micro
	Aerial Vehicles. Sunday,
	October 11th. 9h00 - 15h30. Hyatt Regency St. Louis, USA.
Message-ID: <20B3DFB65FB4244A869D91798B18FC9003317A85@EX2.d.ethz.ch>

----------------------------------------------------------
Apologies for multiple postings

Please distribute as appropriate
----------------------------------------------------------
C A L L    F O R    P A R T I C I P A T I O N
----------------------------------------------------------

IROS'09 Workshop on:  Micro Aerial Vehicles. Sunday, October 11th. 9h00 - 15h30

Dear colleagues, 
You are kindly invited to attend the IROS 2009 Workshop on Micro Aerial Vehicles. The program contains 10 very interesting presentations given by:

    *  Daniela Rus (MIT)
    * Vijay Kumar (UPENN)
    * Kenzo Nonami (CHIBA)
    * George Vachtsevanos (Georgia Tech)
    * Tarek Hamel (UNICE)
    * Eric Frew (Univ. of Colorado)
    * Jean Christoph Zufferey (EPFL)
    * Roland Siegwart (ETHZ)
    * Pascual Campoy (Uni. Poli. Madrid)
    * Keith Sevcik (Drexel Univ.)

Additionally, they will be a small poster session. 

For more information, please visit:

General information:
http://www.flyingrobots.org/mavws2009/

Detailed program:
http://www.flyingrobots.org/mavws2009/documents/PROGRAM_MAVWS_09.pdf

Panel discussion:
The last part of the workshop will be a panel discussion. The different speakers and attendees will discuss the recent scientific advances and trends, with a special focus on the degree of maturity of the technologies implied. In fact, the growing interest in the field is strong, but what will be the real impact of MAVs on the economy, and on the society in the near future?

Looking forward to meet you in St. Louis,

Best regards,
__________________________
Dr. Samir Bouabdallah
Autonomous Systems Lab
Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems ETH Zentrum, Tannenstrasse 3
Office: CLA E 16.2
CH-8092 Z?rich,
e-mail: samir.bouabdallah at ieee.org
Phone: +41 44 632 89 06
Fax: +41 44 632 11 81
___________________________
Project Leader of: http://www.mufly.org
Co-chair of IEEE TC on Aerial Robotics:
http://www.flyingrobots.org/ 
Spin-off: http://www.skybotix.com






From Thomas.Ditzinger at springer.com  Wed Sep 23 23:55:20 2009
From: Thomas.Ditzinger at springer.com (Ditzinger, Thomas, Springer DE)
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:55:20 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Handbook of Automation
References: <6AE6FF8C5284D344940E31CCA688E870FBAE2B@HDEXS1.springer-sbm.com>
	<6AE6FF8C5284D344940E31CCA688E87001F5D94A@HDEXS1.springer-sbm.com>
Message-ID: <6AE6FF8C5284D344940E31CCA688E87001F5D98E@HDEXS1.springer-sbm.com>

We are proud to announce the publication of the 

Springer Handbook of Automation, edited by Shimon Nof. 

 

This Handbook has the potential to become a similar reference 

source of information as what the Handbook of Robotics has been 

able to do for the domain of robotics. The Handbook of Automation 

can be a very useful supplementary source to many researchers in 

robotics, since it covers a lot of topics and technologies that robot 

systems have to integrate with in most practical applications.

 

For more details on the contents of this Handbook of Automation, some 

sample chapters, or orders, please see 

www.springer.com/978-3-540-78830-0
<http://www.springer.com/978-3-540-78830-0> .

 

The pre-publication price is valid until the end of October 2009.

Thomas Ditzinger

================================================================
Dr. Thomas Ditzinger, Senior Editor, Engineering/Applied Sciences
Springer-Verlag, Tiergartenstr. 17, D-69121 Heidelberg, Germany 

Phone: +49-6221-487 8623, Fax: +49-6221-4876 8623,  
Skype: tditzinger, http://www.springer.com <http://www.springer.com/>  
mailto:Thomas.Ditzinger at springer.com
<mailto:Thomas.Ditzinger at springer.com>   

 


From domenec.puig at urv.cat  Thu Sep 24 11:19:49 2009
From: domenec.puig at urv.cat (D.EIiM - Domenec Puig)
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:19:49 +0200
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Post-Doc Position on Computer Vision and
	Robotics
Message-ID: <4ABBB845.1080402@urv.cat>

=======================================================================================================

POST-DOC position "Beatriu de Pinos", for experienced researchers.
The Intelligent Robotics and Computer Vision group (IRCV) at Rovira i 
Virgili University, Tarragona, Spain (http://deim.urv.cat/~rivi/)
is looking for candidates with experience in image processing, computer 
vision, or robotics for a 2-year Post-Doc position.
The aim of "Beatriu de Pinos" grants (Modality B)
http://www10.gencat.net/agaur_web/AppJava/english/a_beca.jsp?categoria=postdoctorals&id_beca=15301 

is to aid organisations from Catalonia for R&D projects, promoting the 
recruitment of postdoctoral research personnel. Minimum requirements are 
a Ph.D. degree obtained after January 2004, preferably with two years of 
international exposure at the doctoral and/or post-doctoral level.

Prospective candidates interested in joining the IRCV group with a 
"Beatriu de Pinos" research position, please send your curriculum at 
domenec.puig at urv.cat

Successful candidates will join a research project on vision-based 
multirobot exploration, and are expected to do research in those 
fundamental disciplines and contribute to R&D deliverables such as 
"Simultaneous Localization and Mapping", "Scene Interpretation", and 
"Video Sequence Analysis".

Prospective candidates may contact Dr. Domenec Puig (domenec.puig at urv.cat)
======================================================================================================= 


-- 
_____________________________________________
Dr. Domenec Puig Valls
Dept. d'Enginyeria Informatica i Matematiques
Escola Tecnica Superior d'Enginyeria
Universitat Rovira i Virgili
Campus Sescelades
Avinguda dels Paisos Catalans, 26
43007 Tarragona
Catalunya (SPAIN)
tel.: +34 977 559677
fax:  +34 977 559710
e-mail: domenec.puig at urv.cat
http://deim.urv.cat/~rivi/
_____________________________________________





From gaurav at usc.edu  Mon Sep 28 08:57:18 2009
From: gaurav at usc.edu (Gaurav S. Sukhatme)
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:57:18 -0700
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Autonomous Robots 27(2) Special Issue on Robot
	Learning - Part B
Message-ID: <562c8ffd0909280857xd512b16wc61590dd1327f27@mail.gmail.com>

Volume 27 Number 2 of Autonomous Robots (special issue on Robot
Learning - Part B) is now available at the SpringerLink website
(http://springerlink.com/content/100243/). SpringerLink allows free
access to all paper abstracts. Full access (PDF) is by individual or
institutional subscription.

Thanks to the guest editors, Jan Peters and Andrew Ng for their
work in putting this issue together.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Autonomous Robots 27(2) Table of Contents
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Guest editorial: Special issue on robot learning, Part B
Author(s): Jan Peters, Andrew Y. Ng
DOI: 10.1007/s10514-009-9131-1
pp. 91-92

A Bayesian exploration-exploitation approach for optimal online
sensing and planning with a visually guided mobile robot
Author(s): Ruben Martinez-Cantin, Nando de Freitas, Eric Brochu, Jos?
Castellanos, Arnaud Doucet
DOI: 10.1007/s10514-009-9130-2
pp. 93-103

A novel method for learning policies from variable constraint data
Author(s): Matthew Howard, Stefan Klanke, Michael Gienger, Christian
Goerick, Sethu Vijayakumar
DOI: 10.1007/s10514-009-9129-8
pp. 105-121

Learning model-free robot control by a Monte Carlo EM algorithm
Author(s): Nikos Vlassis, Marc Toussaint, Georgios Kontes, Savas Piperidis
DOI: 10.1007/s10514-009-9132-0
pp. 123-130

Nonparametric representation of an approximated Poincar? map for
learning biped locomotion
Author(s): Jun Morimoto, Christopher G. Atkeson
DOI: 10.1007/s10514-009-9133-z
pp. 131-144

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Gaurav S. Sukhatme
Editor-in-Chief
Autonomous Robots
http://robotics.usc.edu/~gaurav

From jmh at cs.utah.edu  Mon Sep 28 09:46:28 2009
From: jmh at cs.utah.edu (John Hollerbach)
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:46:28 -0600
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJRR October 2009 special issue on Medical
	Robotics Part II
Message-ID: <4AC0E864.8050508@cs.utah.edu>

A new issue of The International Journal of Robotics Research is 
available online:
     Special Issue: Medical Robotics Part II:
     1 October 2009; Vol. 28, No. 10

The below Table of Contents is available online at: 
http://ijr.sagepub.com/content/vol28/issue10/?etoc

Robot-assisted Long Bone Fracture Reduction
     Ralf Westphal, Simon Winkelbach, Friedrich Wahl, Thomas G?sling, 
Markus Oszwald, Tobias H?fner, and Christian Krettek
     The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 1259-1278
     http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/10/1259

Hyperelastic Model of Anisotropic Fiber Reinforcements within Intestinal 
Walls for Applications in Medical Robotics
     P. Ciarletta, P. Dario, F. Tendick, and S. Micera
     The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 1279-1288
     http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/10/1279

Haptic Effects of Surgical Teleoperator Flexibility
     M. Tavakoli and Robert D. Howe
     The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 1289-1302
     http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/10/1289

Stitching Planning in Laparoscopic Surgery: Towards Robot-assisted Suturing
     Florent Nageotte, Philippe Zanne, Christophe Doignon, and Michel de 
Mathelin
     The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 1303-1321
     http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/10/1303

Identification of Human Limb Viscoelasticity using Robotics Methods to 
Support the Diagnosis of Neuromuscular Diseases
     Gentiane Venture, Katsu Yamane, Yoshihiko Nakamura, and Tomotaka 
Yamamoto
     The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 1322-1333
     http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/10/1322

Real-time Motion Stabilization with B-mode Ultrasound Using Image 
Speckle Information and Visual Servoing
     Alexandre Krupa, Gabor Fichtinger, and Gregory D. Hager
     The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 1334-1354
     http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/10/1334

Robotic Motion Compensation for Beating Heart Intracardiac Surgery
     Shelten G. Yuen, Daniel T. Kettler, Paul M. Novotny, Richard D. 
Plowes, and Robert D. Howe
     The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 1355-1372
     http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/10/1355

Insertable Surgical Imaging Device with Pan, Tilt, Zoom, and Lighting
     Tie Hu, Peter K. Allen, Nancy J. Hogle, and Dennis L. Fowler
     The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 1373-1386
     http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/10/1373

Dual-channel Haptic Synthesis of Viscoelastic Tissue Properties using 
Programmable Eddy Current Brakes
     Andrew H. C. Gosline and Vincent Hayward
     The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 1387-1399
     http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/10/1387

Erratum
     The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 1400
     http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/28/10/1400


From victor_yip2003 at yahoo.com  Mon Sep 28 10:47:10 2009
From: victor_yip2003 at yahoo.com (Victor Yip)
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:47:10 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Ph.D. Research Opening
Message-ID: <804207.46435.qm@web45108.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

The Intelligent Autonomous Systems Lab (www.ualr.edu/cxye/laboratory.htm)
at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock has a Ph.D. research opening
in mobile robotics. The successful applicant is expected to work in 
mobile robot navigation and motion planning on rough terrain. We are 
particularly interested in the following areas: (1) mobile robot 
localization and mapping in unstructured environments and (2) 3-D range 
data processing and understanding for autonomous navigation.

The ideal candidate should hold a degree in electrical engineering, 
computer science, or related fields. She or he should have good 
background in control, computer vision or statistical machine learning. 
Excellent programming skills in C/C++ are required. 
Experience with programming in Linux operating system is a plus. 
Candidate with a M. S degree (or expected) is preferred.

General guideline of admission to graduate study at the university is referred to the Graduate Student Handbook
(http://technologize.ualr.edu/appliedscience/). The University of 
Arkansas at Little Rock is a dynamic metropolitan university locating at 
the state?s capital city, Little Rock(http://www.littlerock.com). 
Interested candidates should send a letter of application outlining 
qualifications for the position, along with their detailed CV to Dr. Cang 
Ye (cxye at ualr.edu).

-------------------------------------------
Cang Ye, Ph.D. 
Assistant Professor
Department of Applied Science
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
2801 S. University Avenue, ETAS 575
Little Rock, AR 72204
Phone:  (501) 683-7284  Fax: (501) 569-8020
Email: cxye at ualr.edu
http://www.ualr.edu/cxye



      

From nishimura at jeap.org  Mon Sep 28 18:24:34 2009
From: nishimura at jeap.org (Nishimura)
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:24:34 +0900
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Change the start time (Re: IROS 2009 Workshop
	"Synergistic Intelligence")
In-Reply-To: <20090915091415.8B7C.E95AB80@jeap.org>
References: <20090915091415.8B7C.E95AB80@jeap.org>
Message-ID: <20090929102431.CD25.E95AB80@jeap.org>

Dear Colleagues,

We've changed the start time of IROS 2009 Workshop  "Synergistic
Intelligence" from 9:00 to 9:15 on Oct. 11th.
Please check the program on the following web page. 

Workshop: Synergistic Intelligence: approach to human intelligence
through understanding and design of cognitive development
http://www.jeap.org/web/IROS09Workshop.html

Thank you for your understanding.

Best Regards

Minoru ASADA (Organizer)
- Research Director, Asada Synergistic Intelligence Project,
   Japan Science and Tecnology Agency
- Professor, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University

Contact:
 NISHIMURA Ken <nishimura at jeap dot org>
 Asada Synergistic Intelligence Project
 Japan Science and Tecnology Agency.

On Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:14:17 +0900
Nishimura <nishimura at jeap.org> san wrote:
> Dear Colleagues,
> 
> You are kindly invited to attend the IROS 2009 Workshop on Synergistic
> Intelligence: approach to human intelligence through understanding and
> design of cognitive development on October 11th 2009, St. Louis, USA.
> 
> See the following web pages for details.
> 
> IROS2009
> http://www.iros09.mtu.edu/
> 
> Workshop: Synergistic Intelligence: approach to human intelligence
> through understanding and design of cognitive development
> http://www.jeap.org/web/IROS09Workshop.html
> 
> Asada Synergistic Intelligence Project
> http://www.jeap.org/
> 
> Looking forward to meeting you in St. Louis,
> 
> Best Regards
> 
> Minoru ASADA (Organizer)
> - Research Director, Asada Synergistic Intelligence Project, Japan
>   Science and Tecnology Agency
> - Professor, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University 
> 
> Contact:
>  NISHIMURA Ken <nishimura at jeap dot org>
>  Asada Synergistic Intelligence Project
>  Japan Science and Tecnology Agency


From jmh at cs.utah.edu  Tue Sep 29 08:00:06 2009
From: jmh at cs.utah.edu (John Hollerbach)
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:00:06 -0600
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJRR OnlineFirst articles for the period for
 the period 28 Aug 2009 to 28 Sep 2009
Message-ID: <4AC220F6.4010604@cs.utah.edu>

New IJRR OnlineFirst articles have been made available
(for the period 28 Aug 2009 to 28 Sep 2009):

Parallel Elastic Actuators as a Control Tool for Preplanned Trajectories 
of Underactuated Mechanical Systems
     Uwe Mettin, Pedro X. La Hera, Leonid B. Freidovich, and Anton S. 
Shiriaev
     The International Journal of Robotics Research published 28 
September 2009, 10.1177/0278364909344002
     http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909344002v2

Motion Generation in the MRROC++ Robot Programming Framework
     Cezary Zieli?ski and Tomasz Winiarski
     The International Journal of Robotics Research published 28 
September 2009, 10.1177/0278364909348761
     http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909348761v1

Analytic Characterization of a Class of Three-Contact Frictional 
Equilibrium Posture in Three-dimensional Gravitational Environments
     Yizhar Or and Elon Rimon
     The International Journal of Robotics Research published 28 
September 2009, 10.1177/0278364909347783
     http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909347783v1

Autonomous Exploration and Mapping of Flooded Sinkholes
     Nathaniel Fairfield, George Kantor, Dominic Jonak, and David 
Wettergreen
     The International Journal of Robotics Research published 28 
September 2009, 10.1177/0278364909344779
     http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/0278364909344779v1


From lhm at jpl.nasa.gov  Tue Sep 29 17:57:00 2009
From: lhm at jpl.nasa.gov (Matthies, Larry H (3474))
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:57:00 -0700
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] NASA Postdoctoral Program
Message-ID: <C6E7FAEC.1994E%lhm@jpl.nasa.gov>

NASA funds postdocs for 1 to 3 years on topics relevant to space exploration
and Earth remote sensing.  Unlike most postdocs, in this program the
candidate submits a 15 page proposal that is the basis for the selection.
The next submission deadline is November 1.  Details of the program are
available at:

http://nasa.orau.org/postdoc/index.htm

Individuals interested in postdocs on robotics and computer vision as they
pertain to space exploration or Earth remote sensing are encouraged to
investigate this program.  Questions about relevance of specific research
topic ideas can be sent to lhm at jpl.nasa.gov.

Dr. Larry Matthies
Supervisor, Computer Vision Group
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA 91109



From cjenkins at cs.brown.edu  Sun Sep 27 14:03:56 2009
From: cjenkins at cs.brown.edu (Odest Chadwicke Jenkins)
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:03:56 +0000
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: Special Issue on Robot Learning in
 Practice, IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine
Message-ID: <4ABFD33C.8000204@cs.brown.edu>


[Apologies if you receive this announcement more than once]

========================== CALL FOR PAPERS ===========================
			 Special Issue of the
		IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine
		     "Robot Learning in Practice"
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Guest Editors:

Jun Morimoto   (ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, Japan)
Chad Jenkins   (Brown University, USA)
Marc Toussaint (TU Berlin, Germany)

IEEE-RAS TC on Robot Learning web page:
http://www.learning-robots.de/

Scope:

IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (RAM) seeks articles for this 
special issue, scheduled for publication in June 2010.

There is an increasing interest in machine learning and statistics 
within the robotics community. At the same time, there has been a growth 
in the learning community in using robots as motivating applications for 
new algorithms and formalisms. Considerable evidence of this exists in 
the use of learning in high-profile competitions such as RoboCup and the 
DARPA Challenges, and the growing number of research programs funded by 
governments around the world.

The proposed special issue is intended to publish contributions on robot 
learning algorithms with practical applications. Areas of research 
interest include:

* learning models of robots, task or environments.

* learning hierarchical representations from sensor inputs and motor
   outputs to task abstractions.

* learning of plans and control policies by imitation and
   reinforcement learning.

* extraction of low-dimensional task relevant representations for
   robot learning.

* learning robust policies that work in real environments.

* state estimation algorithms for robot learning.


Submission instructions:

Articles must be around a nominal length of eight pages each. We 
encourage submission of supplementary material such as experiment videos 
and source code. For further details see the instruction page:

http://www.ieee-ras.org/ram/for_authors

Submission deadline:  October 1st, 2009
Issue date:           June 2010

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jun Morimoto
Department of Brain Robot Interface
ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories
2-2-2 Hikaridai, Seika-cho, Soraku-gun, Kyoto, Japan
E-mail : xmorimo at atr.jp

Chad Jenkins
Department of Computer Science
Brown University,
115 Waterman St, 4th Floor
Providence, RI, USA 02912-1910
E-mail: cjenkins at cs.brown.edu

Marc Toussaint
TU Berlin
Franklinstr. 28/29 FR6-9
10587 Berlin, Germany
E-mail: mtoussai at cs.tu-berlin.de



From mjarrah at aus.edu  Wed Sep 30 12:36:11 2009
From: mjarrah at aus.edu (Dr. Mohammad Amin Mahmoud M. Al Jarrah)
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 23:36:11 +0400
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] FW: UAV'10 conference
Message-ID: <000901ca4205$4f7a5f50$ee6f1df0$@edu>


Dear Colleagues,

We invite you to submit a paper/abstract to 3rd International Symposium on
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: UAV?10 (June 21-23, 2010Al? Bustan Rotana Hotel
Dubai, United Arab Emirates).? http://www.uavconferences.com/

The deadlines are:???? 

December 10, 2009: Full papers are due submitted through the Conference
Management System.
February 28, 2010: Notification of acceptance/rejection
March 31, 2010: Final papers are due and must be submitted to Kimon P.
Valavanis.
Up to 30 single-spaced pages are allowed for each paper. Illustrations and
references are included in the page count. Submitted papers will undergo a
peer review process coordinated by the Program Chairs and the Program
Advisory Committee Members. Authors will be notified of acceptance or
rejection by February 28, 2010. 
Accepted papers must be received by the General Chair no later than March
31, 2010. Along with the final paper, authors of accepted papers must submit
their power point presentation in PPT format by May 15, 2010. All accepted
peer reviewed papers will be published in CD-ROM Proceedings.

Selected accepted papers will also be published in a Special Volume of the
Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems (Springer), or in a Special
Volume Book as part of the Springer series on Intelligent Systems, Control
and Automation (ISCA).

Best regards,

Organizing Committee

If you wish to be removed from this mailing list, please send an email to
slwmohamed at aus.edu with? REMOVE UAV?10? in the subject line.



Mohammad-Amin Al-Jarrah, Ph.D
Head, Department of Mechancial Engineering
American University of Sharjah (AUS)
P. O. Box 26666,? Sharjah, UAE
Tel: +971 6 515 2464 ??????????? Fax: +971 6 515 2979
http://www.aus.edu/engr/mce/people/mohammad_al-jarrah.php





From amenezes at umich.edu  Wed Sep 30 20:05:16 2009
From: amenezes at umich.edu (Amor Menezes)
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 23:05:16 -0400
Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Second CFP: Robotica - "Robotic Self-X Systems,
	" November 1	Deadline
Message-ID: <20090930230516.103134a3rzhdslgk@web.mail.umich.edu>


Call For Papers: Robotica, Cambridge Journals

Special issue on "Robotic Self-X Systems"

Scope:

Self-X systems are systems that are capable of self-assembly,  
self-organization, self-reconfiguration, self-repair,  
self-replication, or self-reproduction.  The past 25 years have seen  
the development of several robotic self-X systems, often inspired by  
John von Neumann's seminal efforts on self-reproducing automata in the  
late 1940s.  The field of Robotic Self-X Systems holds immense promise  
for advances in such diverse areas as autonomous manufacturing,  
bioengineering, evolutionary software, and space colonization.

Theoretical and experimental works in this field of Robotic Self-X  
Systems are invited for a special issue of Robotica.  The issue will  
balance novel papers on the hardware, planning, and control aspects of  
example systems.  One of the strengths of self-X systems is their  
potential ability to respond to uncertain environments and execute a  
variety of tasks.  Hence, contributions that analyze the response of  
robotic self-X systems to partial system failure and uncertain or  
changing environments are especially welcomed.  Technologies that  
allow such systems to operate optimally in the presence of  
uncertainty, adapt to changes in the external environment, and respond  
rapidly to applied disturbances and disruptions to the internal system  
states are important because systems equipped with these advances can  
learn, adapt, evolve, and achieve resiliency to large-scale  
environment or state variations.


Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

* Morphology variations in self-assembling systems to accomplish  
changing goals.
* System adaptation through repeated self-organization.
* Scalability of hardware and control algorithms in  
self-reconfigurable systems.
* Learning and minimization of module self-repair.
* Self-replication in unstructured environments.
* Evolutionary behaviors that result from self-reproduction.
* Coordination between different types of self-X systems.


Important Dates:

* Submission Deadline: November 1, 2009
* Review Decision: January 1, 2010
* Final Submission: March 1, 2010
* Expected Publication: May 1, 2010


Submission:

Authors are strongly encouraged to notify the guest editors of their  
intention to submit a paper.  Manuscripts that are submitted to  
Robotica in a single-column double-spaced format should typically be  
40 pages or less, and between 8,000 and 12,000 words.

The journal website is:
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=ROB

The submission website is:
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/robotica

Instructions are available at:
http://assets.cambridge.org/ROB/ROB_ifc.pdf


Guest Editors:

Pierre T. Kabamba
kabamba at umich.edu
Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan


Amor A. Menezes
amenezes at umich.edu
Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan