Dear colleagues,
*Apologies for any cross-posting*
We are very pleased to invite you to the *26th RoboCup International *
*Symposium* will be held on 10 July 2023, in conjunction with RoboCup 2023
(July 4 to 10, 2023) in Bordeaux, France.
*Conference website* https://2023.robocup.org/en/symposium/
*Submission link* https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=rcsymposium2023
*Submission deadline* *April 16, 2023*
Please find attached the full call for proposals and papers for *the
International **Symposium 2023*.
Kindest regards,
Alessandra Rossi, Cédric Buche, Marco Simões, Ubbo Visser
[image: image.png]
The 26th RoboCup International Symposium will be held on *10 July 2023*, in
conjunction with RoboCup 2023 (July 4 to 10, 2023) in Bordeaux, France.
We are looking for submissions of papers reporting innovative and original
research with relevance to areas of robotics and artificial intelligence. A
full list of topics welcomed to this year's symposium can be found below.
Within the described scope of topics, we also encourage submissions of
high-quality overview articles, papers describing real-world research, and
papers reporting theoretical results. Researchers are invited to submit
their work independently of whether they participate in the RoboCup
competitions or have a RoboCup team.
The symposium is planned to be held in person in Bordeaux, France. However,
a hybrid version will be evaluated in case circumstances should require it.
In addition to the *regular track* with regular research papers, the
*development
track* encourages reports on innovative hardware developments, software
frameworks, and open-source releases of software components. A review of
papers describing these contributions will be based on technical aspects
and benefits to the practice of communities specifically working in RoboCup.
*Submission deadline:* April 16, 2023
List of Topics
- Robot Hardware and Software
- mobile robotics
- humanoid robotics
- sensors and actuators
- embedded and mobile devices
- robot construction and new materials
- robot system integration
- robot software architectures
- robot programming environments and languages
- real-time and concurrent programming
- robot simulators
- sim2real learning
- Perception and Action
- 3D perception
- distributed sensor integration
- sensor noise filtering
- real-time image processing and pattern recognition
- motion and sensor models
- sensory-motor control
- robot kinematics and dynamics
- high-dimensional motion control
- Robot Cognition and Learning
- world modelling and knowledge representation
- learning from demonstration and imitation
- localisation, navigation, and mapping
- planning and reasoning
- decision making under uncertainty
- neural systems and deep learning
- complex motor skill acquisition
- reinforcement learning and optimisation
- motion and sensor model learning
- Human-Robot Interaction
- robot social intelligence
- fluency of interaction
- speech synthesis and natural language generation
- natural language recognition
- explainable robot behaviours
- emotion recognition and reaction
- understanding human intent and behaviour
- safety, security and dependability
- enabling humans to predict robot behaviour
- Multi-Robot Systems
- team coordination methods
- communication protocols
- learning and adaptive systems
- teamwork and heterogeneous agents
- dynamic resource allocation
- adjustable autonomy
- Education and Edutainment
- robotics and artificial intelligence education
- educational robotics
- robot kits and programming tools
- robotic entertainment
- Applications and Benchmarking
- search and rescue robots
- robot surveillance service and social robots
- robots at home, at work and in public spaces
- robots in the real world
- performance metrics
- human-robot interaction
Submission Guidelines
All papers will be peer-reviewed and evaluated by members of the senior
program committee. The proceedings of the RoboCup International Symposium
will be published and archived within the Lecture Notes in Artificial
Intelligence (LNCS/LNAI) series by Springer-Verlag after the conference.
Papers should be formatted following the LNAI author guidelines (
*https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines*
<https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-gu…>)
and must be electronically submitted through the EasyChair electronic
submission system (
*https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=rcsymposium2023*
<https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=rcsymposium2023>).
Submissions are limited to 12 pages including references.
Springer’s proceedings LaTeX templates are also available in Overleaf:
*https://de.overleaf.com/latex/templates/springer-lecture-notes-in-computer-science/kzwwpvhwnvfj*
<https://de.overleaf.com/latex/templates/springer-lecture-notes-in-computer-…>
Invited Speakers
- Laurence Devillers, Sorbonne University, France *(confirmed)*
- Cynthia Breazeal, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
*(confirmed)*
Committees Organizing committee
- Cédric Buche, CNRS/ENIB, France - cedric.buche(a)enib.fr
- Alessandra Rossi, University of Naples Federico II, Italy -
a.rossi(a)herts.ac.uk
- Marco Simões, Universidade do Estado da Bahia, Brazil - msimoes(a)uneb.br
- Ubbo Visser, University of Miami, USA - visser(a)cs.miami.edu
Venue
The conference will be held in the Bordeaux Exhibition Center (Parc des
Expositions de Bordeaux), Bordeaux, France.
Contact
Please feel free to ask for further information by emailing Alessandra
Rossi - a.rossi(a)herts.ac.uk
Hello good morning:
We are almost ready for the 23rd edition of the National Robotics Festival
- Portugal - FNR’2023 event.
We are pleased to address this invitation to invite you to participate in
the 2023 Portuguese Robotics Open (FNR'2023) which is promoted by the
Polytechnic Institute of Tomar (IPT) and the Portuguese Robotics Society
(SPR) and which will take place at the Municipal Pavilion of Tomar, from
April 28 to 30, 2023.
Categories:
Major:
DRAGSTAR
FREEBOTS
MANIPULADORES ROBÓTICOS
ROBOT@FACTORY LITE
ROBOT@FACTORY 4.0
CONDUÇÃO AUTÓNOMA
LIGA DE SIMULAÇÃO 3D
@HOME
Junior:
RCJ RESCUE SIMULATION
ROBOT@FACTORY LITE
FIRST CHALLENGER
FREEBOTS JÚNIOR
ONSTAGE
BUSCA E SALVAMENTO – LINHA
BUSCA E SALVAMENTO – LABIRINTO
ROBOCUP SOCCER (MSL)
The registration form is now available on the event's website!
If you register before April 2nd, in addition to guaranteeing your spot,
you are entitled to a discount on your team's registration.
Click the button below for more details and access to our website!
https://www.festivalnacionalrobotica.pt/2023/
If you have any questions, you can contact the organization through the
official email: info(a)festivalnacionalrobotica.pt
We look forward to your participation and present our best regards,
The Organizing Committee
--
Patrícia Vergara
Dear RoboCup Community,
RoboCup@Home Education Challenge is an educational competition
platform to cultivate beginner teams for RoboCup@Home challenges. The
unique Workshop+Competition format effectively boosts novice
participants for challenging service robot development and AI learning
within an event time. This year, we are organizing the on-site event
at the RoboCup 2023 Bordeaux in July 2023. The event comprises a
series of robot building short courses for beginners via online
classroom, hands-on workshop and face-to-face on-site competition in
Bordeaux. The event details are as follows in the Call for
Participation announcement.
We are organizing a Kick-Off Webinar on 29/30 March 2023 to give an
overview of the event.
<< Kick-Off Webinar 2023 >>
Join either Session A or Session B
= Session A =
- 29 March 2023 (Wed) 14:00-15:30 (CET France/Italy)
- 29 March 2023 (Wed) 21:00-22:30 (GMT+8 China/Malaysia)
- 29 March 2023 (Wed) 09:00-10:30 (EDT New York)
= Session B =
- 30 March 2023 (Thu) 19:00-20:30 (CET France/Italy)
- 30 March 2023 (Thu) 14:00-15:30 (EDT New York)
- 30 March 2023 (Thu) 11:00-12:30 (PDT California)
Join online: https://forms.office.com/r/r15VNvdkUQ
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
=== Call for Participation: RoboCup@Home Education Workshop & Challenge 2023 ===
[ Venue ] RoboCup 2023 Bordeaux
[ Date ] 4 – 10 July 2023
[ Web ] https://www.robocupathomeedu.org/challenges/robocup-2023-bordeaux
<< Supported by >>
- RoboCup Federation
- RoboCup 2023 LOC
<< Sponsors and Technical Partners >>
- SoftBank Robotics
- Jupiter Robot
<< Schedule and Rules >>
- Kick-Off Webinar: 29 March 2023
- Fast Track Entry: 30 April 2023 (Last Submission)
- Online Classroom: 1 April – 30 May 2023 (By Appointment)
- Guided Track Entry: 31 May 2023 (Last Submission)
- On-site Workshop & Challenge: 4 – 10 July 2023 (RoboCup)
For the competition rules, please visit
https://www.robocupathomeedu.org/rules
<< Categories >>
Open Platform (OP) Custom Build Robots
- Open category
- Junior category (under 19)
Standard Platform (SP) Pepper Robot
- Open category
- Junior category (under 19)
<< How to Participate >>
Step 1 - Intend To Participate
Step 1 - Kick-Off Webinar
Step 2a - Fast Track Entry (without Online Classroom)
Step 2b - Guided Track Entry (with Online Classroom)
Step 3 - Workshop & Challenge
For more details, please visit
https://www.robocupathomeedu.org/challenges/robocup-2023-bordeaux
You can contact us via oc(a)robocupathomeedu.org
Best regards,
RoboCup@Home Education Workshop & Challenge 2023 Organizing Committee
Based on multiple participants’ requests, we have updated The BARN Challenge 2023 submission deadline(s) to allow more time to make travel arrangement to London.
April 20 2023: Soft Submission Deadline (to guarantee an invitation to the final physical competition given good navigation performance in simulation)
May 1 2023: 1st Round Physical Competition Invitations (for participants to make travel plans)
May 20 2023: Hard Submission Deadline (to participate in the simulation competition. However, final physical competition eligibility will depend on the available capacity and travel arrangement made beforehand)
May 22 2023: 2nd Round Physical Competition Invitations
All participants are encouraged to submit their current navigation system for evaluation as soon as possible and resubmit before the deadline(s) if needed.
Submission Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScYKxIZ2HYSDMLx3BxlYkxugmpy1OrrewY…
Competition Website: https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/Research/BARN_Challenge/BARN_Challenge23.html
Participation Instructions: https://github.com/Daffan/nav-competition-icra2022
Lessons Learned from The BARN Challenge 2022 Last Year: https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/papers/barn22_report.pdf
Dear roboticists,
are you interested in agile robot navigation in highly constrained spaces with a lot of obstacles around, e.g., cluttered households or after-disaster scenarios? Do you think mobile robot navigation is mostly a solved problem? Are you looking for a hands-on project for your robotics class, but may not have (sufficient) robot platforms for your students?
If your answer is yes to any of the above questions, we sincerely invite you to participate in our (2nd) ICRA 2023 BARN Challenge (https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/Research/BARN_Challenge/BARN_Challenge23.html)! The BARN Challenge aims at evaluating state-of-the-art autonomous navigation systems to move robots through highly constrained environments in a safe and efficient manner. The task is to navigate a standardized Clearpath Jackal robot from a predefined start to a goal location as quickly as possible without any collision. The challenge will take place both in the simulated BARN dataset and in physical obstacle courses at ICRA2023.
1. The competition task is designing ground navigation systems to navigate through all 300 BARN environments (https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/Research/BARN/BARN.html) and physical obstacle courses constructed at ICRA2023 as fast as possible without collision.
2. The 300 BARN environments can be the training set for learning-based methods, or to design classical approaches in. During the simulation competition, we will generate another 50 unseen environments unavailable to the participants before the competition.
3. We will standardize a Jackal robot in the Gazebo simulation, including a Hokuyo 2D LiDAR, motor controller of 2m/s max speed, etc.
4. Participants can use any approaches to tackle the navigation problem, such as using classical sampling-based or optimization-based planners, end-to-end learning, or hybrid approaches. We will provide baselines for reference.
5. A standardized scoring system is provided on the website.
6. We will invite the top teams in simulation to compete in the real world. The team who achieves the fastest collision-free navigation in the physical obstacle courses wins.
If you are interested in participating, please submit your navigation system at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScYKxIZ2HYSDMLx3BxlYkxugmpy1OrrewY…
Co-Organizers:
Xuesu Xiao (George Mason University / Everyday Robots)
Zifan Xu (UT Austin)
Garrett Warnell (US Army Research Lab / UT Austin)
Peter Stone (UT Austin / Sony AI)
Sponsor:
Clearpath Robotics, https://clearpathrobotics.com/
Thanks
Xuesu
-----------------------
Xuesu Xiao, Ph.D.
--
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
George Mason University
xiao(a)gmu.edu<mailto:xiao@gmu.edu>
https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/
(This posting is also available at https://zhaohanphd.com/phd-positions/.)
Joining the University of South Florida<https://www.usf.edu/> (USF) in August, Dr. Zhao Han<https://zhaohanphd.com/> invites applications for up to two fully funded Ph.D. positions (Research Assistants) starting as early as Fall 2023 in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering Ph.D. program<https://www.usf.edu/engineering/cse/graduate/phd-program.aspx> (catalog<https://catalog.usf.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=18&poid=7770>) at USF in Tampa, Florida, USA. The deadline for Fall 2023 admission is April 15.
Strong candidates are highly motivated, comfortable with programming, eager to learn, hard-working, and demonstrate an interest in the emerging and interdisciplinary field of human-robot interaction (HRI), including robot explanation/transparency, augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR), collaborative mobile manipulation/robotics, robot platform and interaction design, AI, cognitive science/psychology, or an area related to Dr. Han’s expertise<https://zhaohanphd.com/expertise/>.
Successful candidates will be mentored and trained as prolific and independent researchers, publishing at top-tier international conferences and journals. Dr. Han has a strong publication record<https://zhaohanphd.com/publications/> and extensive mentoring experience<https://zhaohanphd.com/cv/#mentoring> with an inclusive excellence and supportive approach. You will work on real robot platforms using popular robotics frameworks.
Students from underrepresented and underserved groups that are traditionally disadvantaged are strongly encouraged to apply. This position includes tuition waivers and stipends.
________________________________
Dr. Zhao Han is an incoming Assistant Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering department at the University of South Florida, joining the faculty in August 2023. He is currently a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Colorado School of Mines. His research lies broadly in human-robot interaction (HRI), robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and augmented reality (AR). He focuses on designing, developing, and evaluating novel robotic systems and interactions, for embodied robots to be more capable and understandable while interacting and collaborating with humans. He received the best long-paper award at INLG 2022 and the best late-breaking report third prize at HRI 2022. Previously, he had led teams to win multiple international and national robot competitions, including first place in the Panasonic Prototype 3D LiDAR Challenge and second place in the FetchIt Mobile Manipulation Challenge at ICRA 2019. In addition to research, he received a university-wide Mines Diversity, Inclusion, and Access (DI&A) Award in 2022. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UMass Lowell, advised by AAAI Fellow Dr. Holly Yanco. He received his M.S. and B.S. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Manitoba in Canada.
The University of South Florida (USF)<https://www.usf.edu/> is a high-impact global research university dedicated to student success and has an annual budget of 2.34 billion (2022-2023). Ranked top 100 in U.S. News & World Report’s national university rankings, no other public university in the US has risen faster than USF in the past decade. USF is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity”, and according to the National Science Foundation, USF spent $568 million on research and development in 2019, ranking it 43rd in the US and 25th among public universities. Serving over 49,000 students, USF is designated as one of three Preeminent State Research Universities<https://admissions.usf.edu/blog/what-is-preeminence-and-why-it-matters-to-y…> by the Florida Board of Governors, receiving additional financial support from the state of Florida for student success and research. Learn more on USF’s about page<https://www.usf.edu/about-usf/index.aspx>.
USF is located in the City of Tampa on the west coast of the Sunshine State of Florida. Full of opportunities and possibilities, the Tampa Bay area has around 3 million people and is one of the top places to live. Learn more about Florida Gulf Coast Living<https://www.usf.edu/admissions/freshmen/why-usf/our-campuses/gulf-coast-liv…> for why over 49,000 students have chosen USF as well as the US<https://www.visittheusa.com/destination/tampa-bay>, state<https://www.visitflorida.com/places-to-go/central-west/tampa/>, and local<https://www.visittampabay.com/> resources.
________________________________
A complete application package includes:
* Unofficial Transcripts (including the grade sheet and diploma, if applicable)
* If admitted, official transcripts and test scores will need to be submitted to Graduate Admissions but unofficial transcripts/scores can be used in reviewing the application.
* PDF of GRE Scores
* CV/Resume
* Statement of Purpose
* 3 Letters of Recommendation (Must be on official letterhead with recommender’s title and contact)
* PDF of English Proficiency Scores, if applicable
For consideration, please mention Dr. Zhao Han in your application materials and apply through the USF graduate student admission process<https://www.usf.edu/admissions/graduate/admission-information/>.
The current admission cycle is Spring 2024. To be admitted to Fall 2023, you must also
1. Email your application package without the recommendation letters to zhaohan(a)mines.edu
2. Ask each of your three recommendation letter writers to email their letter to zhaohan(a)mines.edu
By applying in the USF’s admissions portal, any other interested faculty member can also review your application.
All applications and recommendation letters must be submitted to the USF admissions portal and emailed to Dr. Zhao Han by April 15.
Applications will be considered starting immediately. International students should apply soon because visa applications require additional time.
Once an admission offer is accepted, Research Assistantship offer decisions will be made once Dr. Zhao Han arrives at USF in August.
---
Zhao Han, Ph.D.<https://zhaohanphd.com/> (he/him<https://pronouns.org/>)
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Computer Science, Brown Hall, 280M
Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA
zhaohanphd.com<https://zhaohanphd.com/> | @hanzhao<https://twitter.com/hanzhao>
<https://twitter.com/hanzhao>
AI100 Prize: Early Career Essay Competition
The One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence (AI100) is a
longitudinal study of progress in AI and its impacts on society. A key
feature of the 2021 AI100 report was its commentary on what had changed
since the first report published in 2016.
As a way of laying the groundwork for the next report, planned for 2026,
the AI100 Standing Committee invites original essay submissions that
react directly to one or both of the AI100 reports. Essay application is
now open and will close on March 31, 2023.
Apply here: https://ai100.stanford.edu/prize-competition
___
Professor Peter Stone
Truchard Foundation Chair in Computer Science
University Distinguished Teaching Professor
Director, Texas Robotics
Associate Chair, Department of Computer Science office: 512-471-9796
The University of Texas at Austin mobile: 512-810-3373
2317 Speedway, Stop D9500 pstone(a)cs.utexas.edu
Austin, Texas 78712-1757 USA http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~pstone
dear robocuper,
After receiving the first edition of the newsletter it was revealed that there was an error in the registration and set up dates of the junior teams,
I would like to apologize for this error which has been corrected in this new version. Indeed for the juniors the information is as follows:
[Junior Registration Schedule]
Registration March 24 - June 6
Late registration June 7 - June 30
[Junior League Schedule]
Setup: July 05 (Wed.), 2023
Competition: July 06 (Thu.) -July 09 (Sun.), 2023
Symposium: July 10 (Mon.), 2023
We remain at your disposal for any further information.
Best regards,
the organizing committee
[ https://www.u-bordeaux.fr/ ]
Ornella OWOUNDI
Cheffe de projet RoboCup 2023
RoboCup 2023 project manager
Direction de la planification stratégique (DiPSi)
Pôle Pilotage et aide à la stratégie (PAS)
T. 05 40 00 61 36
P. 07 77 25 41 82
[ https://www.u-bordeaux.fr/ | https://www.u-bordeaux.fr ]
=============================================================
---------------- CALL FOR PARTICIPATION -----------------
=============================================================
(Our apologies for any cross-posting)
ROBOTICA 2023 - 22nd Portuguese Robotics Open
https://www.festivalnacionalrobotica.pt/2023/en
April 28 to 30, 2023
Tomar, Portugal
The Portuguese Robotics Open is a RoboCup Event that aims at promoting Science and Technology among students from the 1st grade to university studies, as well among the general public, through robotic competitions.
We would like to invite you to participate in the 22nd Portuguese Robotics Open which will take place from April 28 to 30, 2023, in Tomar, Portugal. If you are interested in participating, please register your team in one of the promoted competitions.
3D Simulation competition allows for the participation of remote teams.
== 3D SIMULATION LEAGUE ==
Robot scientific competitions are a growing trend worldwide and particularly at the European level in the past few years. The 3D SIMULATION LEAGUE provides a great opportunity to experiment with humanoid robots without the need for investing in robot hardware. It facilitates experimenting using different learning and optimization techniques by providing a simulated environment. Since the games are played with teams of 11 players, the league is also a very good environment for experimenting on multi-robot coordination methodologies.
---------
The official rules of this League for the 2023 edition, can be found at:
https://ssim.robocup.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/3D-Rulebook2022.pdf
---------
---------
Important resources for the 3D Simulation League, including mailing lists, an installation guide for the server and 3D viewer, team binaries, source-code releases, game replays and other documents can be found at:
https://ssim.robocup.org/3d-simulation/3d-tools/
---------
== Schedule ==
Early Registration deadline (250 euros): April 2, 2023
Late Registration deadline (300 euros): April 16, 2023
Remote Team Late Registration deadline (100 euros): April 16, 2023
Portuguese Robotics Open: April 28-30, 2023
All deadlines are 23:59 GMT.
== Registration ==
Registration is performed through the on-line form at:
https://forms.gle/7WnmRiTnLAmHLTxj8
== Description and History ==
The Portuguese Robotics Open (also known as Festival Nacional de Robótica) had its 1st edition in 2001. The event has had an enormous growth since the 1st edition, both in the number of teams, participants and visitors and also includes an international IEEE conference where national and international researchers present their latest work in the field of Robotics (https://www.festivalnacionalrobotica.pt/icarsc/).
The Portuguese Robotics Open is currently an initiative of the Portuguese Robotics Society.
Hoping to see you at the Portuguese Robotics Open!
Kind Regards,
The Portuguese Robotics Open Organizing Committee