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Call for Papers: The 8th Games, Agents, and Incentives Workshop (GAIW)@AAMAS 2026
by Nicholas Mattei 21 Jan '26

21 Jan '26

Call for Papers: The 8th Games, Agents, and Incentives Workshop (GAIW)@AAMAS 2026 Webpage: https://gtep-workshops.github.io/gaiw2026/ - Submission Deadline: February 4, 2026 (AoE) - Acceptance Notification: March 20, 2026 - Camera Ready: TBD (AoE) - Workshop: May 26, 2026 Call for Papers: We invite submissions to the 8th iteration of the Games, Agents and Incentives Workshop, co-located with AAMAS 2026 in Paphos, Cyprus, https://cyprusconferences.org/aamas2026/. Games, Agents and Incentives is a confederated workshop which focuses on agents and incentives in AI. In particular, it promotes approaches that deal with game theory (cooperative and non-cooperative), social choice, and agent-mediated e-commerce aspects of AI systems. The confederated workshop merges multiple workshops that have been associated with AAMAS in the past, which considered different aspects of the general interplay between AI and economics including CoopMAS, AMEC, and EXPLORE. Over the past two decades, the focus of agent incentives in decentralised and centralised AI systems has increased dramatically. These issues come up when designing preference aggregation mechanisms and markets; computing equilibria and bidding strategies; facilitating cooperation among agents; and fairly dividing resources. ********************************************************** PAPER SUBMISSION ********************************************************** Authors should submit full papers electronically in PDF format at: https://openreview.net/group?id=ifaamas.org/AAMAS/2026/Workshop/GAIW Formatting Guidelines: Please format papers according to the AAMAS 2026 format (https://cyprusconferences.org/aamas2026/submission-instructions/). Paper Length: Papers can be at most 8 pages long in AAMAS format. Additional pages may be used for references. Supplemental material can be appended at the end of the paper. However, reviewers are instructed to make their evaluations based on the main submission, and are not obligated to consult the supplemental material. Multiple Submissions: To widen participation and encourage discussion, there will be no formal publication of workshop proceedings. We will, however, post the accepted papers online to the benefit of the participants to the workshop. Therefore, submission of preliminary work and papers to be submitted or in preparation for submission to other major venues in the field are encouraged. Past Submissions: In order to strike a balance between new work and work that may have been presented, but not widely seen, we ask that if authors want to submit published work they do so non-anonymously and clearly indicate when and where the work was published. We will only accept work which has been published in the last calendar year (e.g., IJCAI 2025, NeurIPS 2025, AAAI 2025, AAAI 2026 and any conference held strictly after Jan 1, 2025). We invite papers on topics of game theory, mechanism design, fair allocation, computational social choice, and their applications to multi-agent systems: - Agentic AI Systems - Algorithmic mechanism design - Auctions - Behavioral Game Theory - Bounded rationality - Cooperative Games - Computational advertising - Computational aspects of equilibria - Computational social choice - Coalitions, coordination, collective action, and cooperation - Economic aspects of security and privacy - Economic aspects of distributed and network computing - Equilibrium computation - Empirical approaches to e-markets - Fairness (in ML & elsewhere) - Fair Division - Incentives in machine learning - Information and attention economics - Learning in games (e.g., solution concepts and equilibria) - Matching and Matching Markets - Negotiation - Preference aggregation and reasoning - Price differentiation and price dynamics - Social networks - Trading agent design and analysis - Uncertainty in AI and economic Best Presentation Award: The organizing committee of GAIW will be giving two awards (first-place and runner up) for best paper presentations. The award criteria include the clarity of presentation, the level of engagement, the content, and discussion handling. Inquiries: If you have any questions, direct them to alan.tsang(a)carleton.ca. ********************************************************** IMPORTANT DATES ********************************************************** - Submission Deadline: February 4, 2026 (AoE) - Acceptance Notification: March 20, 2026 - Camera Ready: TBD (AoE) - Workshop: May 26, 2026 ********************************************************** ORGANIZATION ********************************************************** Program Chairs Ben Armstrong, Tulane University Michael Curry, University of Illinois Chicago Hadi Hosseini, Penn State University Nicholas Mattei, Tulane University Alan Tsang, Carleton University Tomasz Wąs, University of Oxford -- *Nicholas Mattei* Associate Professor, Tulane University nsmattei(a)tulane.edu | www.nickmattei.net Stanley Thomas Hall | 305B +1 504 247 1416 Department of Computer Science Tulane University 6823 St Charles Ave New Orleans, LA 70118

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3rd Call for Participation - EXTENDED DEADLINE - RoboCup 2026 Soccer Simulation 3D League
by Marco Antonio C. Simões 15 Jan '26

15 Jan '26

»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»» 3rd Call for Participation - EXTENDED DEADLINE RoboCup 2026 Soccer Simulation 3D League June 30 – July 6, 2026 Incheon (South Korea) https://2026.robocup.org/ »»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»» The RoboCup Soccer Simulation 3D Competition provides a great opportunity for research with humanoid robots without the need for investing in robot hardware. It facilitates experimenting with different learning and optimization techniques by providing a simulated environment. The league is also a perfect environment for research on multi-robot coordination methodologies. The league will use a new, more realistic, simulator in 2026, featuring (at least) a simulated Booster T1 robot. We invite real robot teams to test it and to participate in the Soccer Simulation 3D League 2026 competition. It is an excelent opportunity for teams from Humanoid Soccer League(HSL) and also to former SSL and SPL teams to join the new HSL league. We would like to invite you to participate in the RoboCup 2026 Soccer Simulation League 3D competition in Incheon, South Korea. »»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»» Important Dates - FIRM DEADLINES »»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»» January 31, 2026 (23:59 AoE): Team Qualification Materials Submission Deadline February 15, 2026: Qualified Teams Announcement June 30 – July 6, 2026: Competition Submission form: https://forms.gle/GeTvkxiSQ9hhw3Cg6 See detailed instructions here: https://ssim.robocup.org/2025/12/16/robocup-2026-soccer-simulation-3d-call-… Dr. Marco Antonio Costa Simões Centro de Pesquisa em Arquitetura de Computadores, Sistemas Inteligentes e Robótica - ACSO - http://www.acso.uneb.br<http://www.acso.uneb.br/> Bahia Robotics Team - http://www.acso.uneb.br/bahiart Universidade do Estado da Bahia - UNEB Ciência da Computação, Ph.D.

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[meetings] [news] The 5th Benchmark for Autonomous Robot Navigation (BARN) Challenge -- ICRA 2026 Competition
by Xuesu Xiao 15 Jan '26

15 Jan '26

Submission Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeIwC6GY_mAl1J18G1uZOaAn-OCONmmtaP… Competition Website: https://people.cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/Research/BARN_Challenge/BARN_Challenge26.ht… ROS Participation Instructions: https://github.com/Daffan/the-barn-challenge ROS2 Participation Instructions: https://github.com/Saadmaghani/The-Barn-Challenge-Ros2 Lessons Learned from The BARN Challenge 2025: https://people.cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/papers/barn25_report.pdf Lessons Learned from The BARN Challenge 2024: https://people.cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/papers/barn24_report.pdf Lessons Learned from The BARN Challenge 2023: https://people.cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/papers/barn23_report.pdf Lessons Learned from The BARN Challenge 2022: https://people.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 The 5th BARN Challenge at ICRA 2026 (https://people.cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/Research/BARN_Challenge/BARN_Challenge26.ht…)! 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 ICRA 2026. 1. The competition task is designing ground navigation systems to navigate through all 300 BARN environments (https://people.cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/Research/BARN/BARN.html) and physical obstacle courses constructed at ICRA 2026 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/1FAIpQLSeIwC6GY_mAl1J18G1uZOaAn-OCONmmtaP… Co-Organizers: Xuesu Xiao (George Mason University) Zifan Xu (UT Austin) Saad Abdul Ghani (George Mason University) Aniket Datar (George Mason University) Daeun Song (George Mason University) 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 https://people.cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/ https://robotixx.cs.gmu.edu/

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[jobs] Tenure/tenure-track and teaching faculty positions at GMU
by Xuesu Xiao 12 Jan '26

12 Jan '26

Dear roboticists, the Department of Computer Science at George Mason University (GMU) is hiring tenure-track and tenured and teaching faculty at all ranks and in all subject areas. This includes robotics. The full consideration deadlines are Thursday and Friday, January 15th and 16th. We are a large department (80+ faculty) with wide-ranging research interests including robotics, cybersecurity, systems and networks, machine learning and data mining, artificial intelligence, visual computing, theory, databases, bioinformatics, HCI, and software engineering. The Computer Science Department is ranked 31 on CSRankings (USA). GMU is Virginia's largest public research university. GMU is R1. GMU is located in the suburbs of Washington, DC, a major metropolitan area (Arlington and Fairfax). It's really nice here. If you have any questions about GMU or the DC area, please contact me. GMU CS: <https://cs.gmu.edu/> The tenure/tenure-track ad: <https://listings.jobs.gmu.edu/jobs/open-rank-tenured-tenure-track-computer-…> The teaching-track ad: <https://listings.jobs.gmu.edu/jobs/open-rank-term-computer-sciences-faculty…> Thanks Xuesu ----------------------- Xuesu Xiao, Ph.D. -- Assistant Professor Department of Computer Science George Mason University xiao(a)gmu.edu https://people.cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/ https://robotixx.cs.gmu.edu/

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RoboCup 2026 Soccer Simulation 3D - 2nd Call for Participation
by Marco Antonio C. Simões 08 Jan '26

08 Jan '26

»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»» 2nd Call for Participation RoboCup 2026 Soccer Simulation 3D League June 30 – July 6, 2026 Incheon (South Korea) https://2026.robocup.org/ »»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»» The RoboCup Soccer Simulation 3D Competition provides a great opportunity for research with humanoid robots without the need for investing in robot hardware. It facilitates experimenting with different learning and optimization techniques by providing a simulated environment. The league is also a perfect environment for research on multi-robot coordination methodologies. The league will use a new, more realistic, simulator in 2026, featuring (at least) a simulated Booster T1 robot. We invite real robot teams to test it and to participate in the Soccer Simulation 3D League 2026 competition. It is an excelent opportunity for teams from Humanoid Soccer League(HSL) and also to former SSL and SPL teams to join the new HSL league. We would like to invite you to participate in the RoboCup 2026 Soccer Simulation League 3D competition in Incheon, South Korea. »»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»» Important Dates »»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»» January 15, 2026 (23:59 AoE): Team Qualification Materials Submission Deadline January 30, 2026: Qualified Teams Announcement June 30 – July 6, 2026: Competition Submission form: https://forms.gle/GeTvkxiSQ9hhw3Cg6 See detailed instructions here: https://ssim.robocup.org/2025/12/16/robocup-2026-soccer-simulation-3d-call-… Dr. Marco Antonio Costa Simões Centro de Pesquisa em Arquitetura de Computadores, Sistemas Inteligentes e Robótica - ACSO - http://www.acso.uneb.br<http://www.acso.uneb.br/> Bahia Robotics Team - http://www.acso.uneb.br/bahiart Universidade do Estado da Bahia - UNEB Ciência da Computação, Ph.D.

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Re: Deadline for Pre-Application Approaching - RoboCup 2026 Humanoid Soccer League Competition
by Reinaldo A. C. Bianchi 08 Jan '26

08 Jan '26

Hi Again, Some people replied to me saying that the PDF was not correctly delivered. I think this might be due to some restrictions on the list server, so I am sending a link to the document: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G06qwZPUx7g27F5yR79bxRFmzih5FzwW/view?usp=… I hope this helps, Reinaldo Em 8 de jan. de 2026, à(s) 15:20, Reinaldo A. C. Bianchi <rbianchi(a)fei.edu.br> escreveu: I am attaching a step by step guide to submitting the material for the HSL pre-application. I hope this helps. Reinaldo. Em 8 de jan. de 2026, à(s) 14:04, Reinaldo A. C. Bianchi <rbianchi(a)fei.edu.br> escreveu: Deadline for Pre-application Approaching - January 10th Summary: Deadline for pre-Application is on January 10th. For pre-application the team should submit the team name, home page, team leader name and email and inform in which Division and with how many robots the team intent to participate in Incheon. RoboCup 2026 Humanoid Soccer League Competition June 30th - July 6th, 2026, Incheon, South Korea ======================================= The RoboCup Humanoid Soccer League invites teams to apply for participation at the RoboCup 2026 Humanoid Soccer Competition in Incheon, South Korea. RoboCup is an international initiative that fosters research and education in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence through a variety of competitions (RoboCupSoccer, RoboCupRescue, RoboCup@Home, RoboCupIndustrial, RoboCupJunior) involving mostly multi-robot systems. RoboCupSoccer currently includes a number of different robot soccer leagues that focus on different research challenges. More information can be found on the official website: https://www.robocup.org/ The Humanoid Soccer League (HSL) was formed through the unification of the Humanoid League (HL) and Standard Platform League (SPL) and will take place for the first time at the RoboCup 2026. HSL hosts games and challenges where teams of humanoid robots play soccer autonomously. The game of soccer serves as an environment for research, development, and education in all areas of autonomous humanoid robots, including hardware development, vision, bipedal locomotion, learning, behavior control, and team coordination. The focus is thereby on human-like abilities of the robots. The Humanoid Soccer League will host competitions in the following divisions, depending on the height and weight of the robot players: * Small Robot Division: height < 110 cm, weight < 15 kg * Middle Robot Division: height < 125 cm; weight < 25 kg * Large Robot Division: height < 190 cm; weight < 80 kg Teams in each division will have the choice to play in two team configurations: 1. Foundation - with a smaller number of players; 2. Advanced - with a larger number of players. In a game, if one team chooses to play in a Foundation configuration, then both teams must play in this configuration. The maximum number of players in a game for each configuration is shown in the table below: * Small — Foundation: max 4 | Advanced: max 7 * Middle — Foundation: max 3 | Advanced: max 5 * Large — Foundation: max 3 | Advanced: max 5 Teams are welcome to apply even if they are unable to provide a full team of robots (the maximum number of robot players). Teams are encouraged to form and apply as joint teams. Joint proposals will be judged on their combined merit. For more details on divisions, please refer to the Humanoid Soccer League rules at: https://github.com/RoboCup-HumanoidSoccerLeague/HSL-Rules. 1. Robots ======================================= Teams may apply for participation with both commercially available and with humanoid robot platforms constructed by the teams. A selection of robots is available for purchase through the RoboCup Humanoid Robot Program at a special RoboCup offer: https://robotprogram.robocup.org/ As part of the RoboCup Humanoid Robot Program, there will be a pool of humanoid robot models K1 and T1 provided by the company Booster for RoboCup 2026. Teams will be able to borrow the robots from the pool and use them in their games. 2. Application Process and Timeline ======================================= 2.1. Important Dates --------------------------------------- * Submission system open: January 1st, 2026 * Pre-application deadline: January 10th, 2026 * Submission deadline: January 31st, 2026 * Team review period: February 3rd - 20th, 2026 * Announcement of qualified teams: March 2nd, 2026 2.2. Online Submission --------------------------------------- All application materials must be submitted online at: https://submission.robocuphumanoid.com/login Teams may apply for participation in one or several divisions. Teams applying for participation in several divisions must submit individual application materials for each division. Please be informed that the submission system is being updated. To submit an application, it is necessary to create new accounts on the system. Accounts of the teams that used the system last year should be available and can be used this year. 2.3. Review Process --------------------------------------- Each application to the Humanoid Soccer Competition will be reviewed by two members of the Technical Committee and two other randomly assigned teams applying to the Humanoid Soccer Competition. The combined reviewing score will be used to decide whether a team qualifies for participation. Reviewing other teams' material is mandatory for teams that want to participate in the Humanoid Soccer Competition. Failing to provide an adequate review by the provided deadline will have consequences for the team's own qualification status. 3. Application Material (Robot/Team information to submit) ======================================= For the qualification process, teams must provide the following material: 3.1. Pre-application / Team-Information --------------------------------------- Team name URL of the team's home page Name of team leader or team contact person E-mail address of the team leader or contact person Competition Division: Small, Middle, Large – with robot numbers 3.2. Video --------------------------------------- Teams need to provide a video of their current or previous physical robot demonstrating the robot's autonomous soccer-playing skills. The recommended skills needed for the qualification are: * Localization of unknown ball position * Walking ability towards the ball * Robot positioning at the ball for kicking * Kicking the ball towards the goal * Passing the ball from one player to another * Avoiding other robots autonomously * Ability to get up autonomously after a fall We encourage teams to include in the video more complex and intelligent behavior, such as demonstrating localization, and robots playing in a game. Recordings from actual soccer matches are welcome. If possible, please provide footage that demonstrates the robot's behavior without wires attached. We understand that teams transitioning to new robot platforms from the former SPL and HL leagues may not yet have their physical robots, nor soccer-ready software/hardware to demonstrate by the qualification deadlines. Teams may alternatively demonstrate in their video their software/hardware capabilities from previous years on other robot platforms, and/or capabilities in simulation. We encourage teams, if possible, to include a demonstration of their current capabilities on their intended platform. * The maximum duration of the video must not exceed ** 5 minutes **. * The qualification video must be supplied as a link (e.g., uploaded on the team’s website or on some video server like YouTube). The qualifying team is responsible for ensuring that the video is accessible and viewable with modern browsers. Note, if YouTube is used, make sure the video adheres to YouTube's TOS (especially concerning music copyright) to prevent the video from being blocked for the reviewers. Teams that do not provide a qualification video or a viewable video will not be qualified. 3.3. Team Description Paper --------------------------------------- A team description paper must be submitted. For teams that have previously participated in the Humanoid League or Standard Platform League, the team description paper must include: * Lessons learned from participation in previous RoboCup competitions. * Highlight major challenges that the team is trying to solve for the upcoming competition. * Outline the plans for the major changes that the teams anticipate to have implemented by the RoboCup 2026 competition. * Describe the implementation status of the planned changes at the time of submitting the application. * Explain the impact of the team’s participation and research in RoboCup on (1) the Humanoid Soccer League, (2) the team’s university/community. * Demonstrate own contribution to the RoboCup Humanoid Soccer League or humanoid robotics research in general: Describe in detail the “research publishable” significant advancements the applying team has made and is going to use at RoboCup 2026. This can, for instance, include software or hardware releases, paper publications, provision of league infrastructure, or data sets. * Any other information that supports your application. For teams that have never participated in the RoboCup Humanoid League or Standard Platform League, the Team Description Paper must outline the scientific aspects of their humanoid robotic system and highlight their research focus. The submission should show clear contributions and advancements intended to be used during the competition. The team description papers are intended to highlight the changes and scientific developments since the last RoboCup. Thus, we expect the usage of material from previous TDPs or Extended Abstracts to be minimal. If material from previous TDPs is used, it must be cited appropriately. Submissions of last year's Extended Abstract will be desk-rejected. The team description paper is limited to ** 4 pages **, excluding references, and must be submitted in PDF format. The team description paper must follow the LNCS format, which can be downloaded from: https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-gu…. Teams that do not follow the LNCS formatting and style guidelines will not be qualified. No exceptions to this rule will be made. 3.4. Software Description --------------------------------------- During the application process, a form will be provided to submit brief details about the algorithms used or anticipated to be used for participation in the 2026 competition. The form will include brief questions in the following areas: * Walking * Vision * Localization * Behavior * Team Communication Responses to the questions are expected to reflect the current and anticipated status of the software during the RoboCup 2026 competition. If software from other teams, third-party software libraries, or "off-the-shelf soccer-ready" libraries/algorithms are used, teams must reference this use. References should include the team, competition, and year when code is used from another team, or reference publicly available documentation for software libraries. Teams should describe how they have adapted the use of this software within their own codebase. 3.5. Hardware Specification --------------------------------------- A one-page specification (PDF) must be provided for each different type of humanoid robot used by the team that includes the following: * Robot picture (can be on a separate page) (3D model if the physical one is not available yet) * Robot name * Height of the robot * Weight of the robot * Number of degrees of freedom and type of motors on each kinematic chain of the robot * Actuator model name and Wattage * Type of sensors used (incl. type of camera(s) and specific manufacturer part number (e.g., "6-DoF IMU" is NOT an acceptable description)) * Computing unit(s) * Materials (e.g., Torso aluminium, legs and arms CFRP) * Electronics (e.g., CM730 for communicating with servos) * Battery (e.g. 3S1P 2200mAh LiPo) * Open Source link if applicable * Other specs (Jerseys if already available) Teams that are using pre-approved, unmodified HSL standard platforms only need to provide information directly available from the manufacturer's documentation to confirm they are using an unmodified standard platform. Teams do not need to provide details where information is not available via manufacturer-provided documentation, such as due to commercial confidence. 3.6. Letter of Commitment --------------------------------------- A one-page letter addressed to the RoboCup Humanoid Soccer League Technical Committee, including the following: * a statement committing to participate in the RoboCup 2026 Humanoid Soccer League competition; * a statement committing to make a person with sufficient knowledge of the rules available as a referee during the competition. The letter must be signed (by hand or using a digital signature software as Adobe or DocuSign) by the team leader and submitted either as a JPG, PNG, or PDF file. A template for this letter can be found at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qNILlggOj5j_cHhof1b6NICPyfgVrp-M/edit?u… If you have doubts regarding the ability of your team to participate (due to funding, visas, etc.), please apply by the deadline, but note this in your application email. Declining to participate in any competition after the official early registration period has opened may negatively affect future applications (the later you decline, the worse it will affect future applications). The TC may include the fulfillment of the statement of commitment of participation, as well as the performance of the team's referee in previous RoboCup competitions, into consideration for qualification. Teams must guarantee to have at least one member per division they participate in, acting as a referee, available independently. Note that teams may be scheduled to play a game and referee a different game at the same time. 4. Organizational Information ======================================= 4.1. Rules --------------------------------------- The current version of the rules may be found here in the git: https://github.com/RoboCup-HumanoidSoccerLeague/HSL-Rules. The current version is under development and subject to change. We expect the final version of the 2026 rules to be published in spring 2026. For more information about the Humanoid Soccer League and connections with other teams, please refer to the RoboCup Official Discord: https://discord.gg/fjrepNWk. 4.2. Plagiarism --------------------------------------- Plagiarism, loosely the unattributed use of other people's words, code, and ideas, is not tolerated in the RoboCup community. For a more detailed description, see the point "Publishing Ethics" at: https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-gu… The teams and team members who plagiarize other people's work and present it as their own will be disqualified. For a first offense, the team and team members will be banned from RoboCup competition for two years (usually the current and next year). Harsher penalties will be applied to repeat offenders or extremely serious cases of plagiarism. A team may be disqualified at any time for plagiarism, even after the competition has started. RoboCup will not reimburse teams for any expenses related to their disqualification. 4.3. Publication --------------------------------------- Please note that after the announcement of the qualified teams, the submitted materials of the qualified teams will be made publicly available on the Humanoid Soccer League website. Teams applying for participation, therefore, implicitly grant the right of publication of their qualification material to the Humanoid Soccer League. Therefore, teams should ensure their qualification materials contain no commercial-in-confidence information or other content that would restrict publication. 4.4. Visa Process --------------------------------------- South Korea offers visa-free entry for many countries for short tourism/business stays (under 90 days), but most need the K-ETA (Electronic Travel Authorization) before arrival. Please verify your visa requirements at the South Korea Visa Portal: https://www.visa.go.kr/main/openMain.do The letters of invitation are issued by the RoboCup federation, not the TC, and they are part of the official registration process. We look forward to seeing you all at the RoboCup 2026! With best regards, Technical Committee of the RoboCup Humanoid Soccer League 2026 <Anexo de E-mail> Esta mensagem, juntamente com qualquer outra informação anexada, é confidencial e protegida por lei. Somente os seus destinatários estão autorizados a usá-la. Se você não for o destinatário, por favor, informe o remetente e, em seguida, apague a mensagem, observando que não há autorização para usar, copiar, armazenar, encaminhar, imprimir ou tomar qualquer ação baseada no seu conteúdo.

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Deadline for Pre-Application Approaching - RoboCup 2026 Humanoid Soccer League Competition
by Reinaldo A. C. Bianchi 08 Jan '26

08 Jan '26

Deadline for Pre-application Approaching - January 10th Summary: Deadline for pre-Application is on January 10th. For pre-application the team should submit the team name, home page, team leader name and email and inform in which Division and with how many robots the team intent to participate in Incheon. RoboCup 2026 Humanoid Soccer League Competition June 30th - July 6th, 2026, Incheon, South Korea ======================================= The RoboCup Humanoid Soccer League invites teams to apply for participation at the RoboCup 2026 Humanoid Soccer Competition in Incheon, South Korea. RoboCup is an international initiative that fosters research and education in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence through a variety of competitions (RoboCupSoccer, RoboCupRescue, RoboCup@Home, RoboCupIndustrial, RoboCupJunior) involving mostly multi-robot systems. RoboCupSoccer currently includes a number of different robot soccer leagues that focus on different research challenges. More information can be found on the official website: https://www.robocup.org/ The Humanoid Soccer League (HSL) was formed through the unification of the Humanoid League (HL) and Standard Platform League (SPL) and will take place for the first time at the RoboCup 2026. HSL hosts games and challenges where teams of humanoid robots play soccer autonomously. The game of soccer serves as an environment for research, development, and education in all areas of autonomous humanoid robots, including hardware development, vision, bipedal locomotion, learning, behavior control, and team coordination. The focus is thereby on human-like abilities of the robots. The Humanoid Soccer League will host competitions in the following divisions, depending on the height and weight of the robot players: * Small Robot Division: height < 110 cm, weight < 15 kg * Middle Robot Division: height < 125 cm; weight < 25 kg * Large Robot Division: height < 190 cm; weight < 80 kg Teams in each division will have the choice to play in two team configurations: 1. Foundation - with a smaller number of players; 2. Advanced - with a larger number of players. In a game, if one team chooses to play in a Foundation configuration, then both teams must play in this configuration. The maximum number of players in a game for each configuration is shown in the table below: * Small — Foundation: max 4 | Advanced: max 7 * Middle — Foundation: max 3 | Advanced: max 5 * Large — Foundation: max 3 | Advanced: max 5 Teams are welcome to apply even if they are unable to provide a full team of robots (the maximum number of robot players). Teams are encouraged to form and apply as joint teams. Joint proposals will be judged on their combined merit. For more details on divisions, please refer to the Humanoid Soccer League rules at: https://github.com/RoboCup-HumanoidSoccerLeague/HSL-Rules. 1. Robots ======================================= Teams may apply for participation with both commercially available and with humanoid robot platforms constructed by the teams. A selection of robots is available for purchase through the RoboCup Humanoid Robot Program at a special RoboCup offer: https://robotprogram.robocup.org/ As part of the RoboCup Humanoid Robot Program, there will be a pool of humanoid robot models K1 and T1 provided by the company Booster for RoboCup 2026. Teams will be able to borrow the robots from the pool and use them in their games. 2. Application Process and Timeline ======================================= 2.1. Important Dates --------------------------------------- * Submission system open: January 1st, 2026 * Pre-application deadline: January 10th, 2026 * Submission deadline: January 31st, 2026 * Team review period: February 3rd - 20th, 2026 * Announcement of qualified teams: March 2nd, 2026 2.2. Online Submission --------------------------------------- All application materials must be submitted online at: https://submission.robocuphumanoid.com/login Teams may apply for participation in one or several divisions. Teams applying for participation in several divisions must submit individual application materials for each division. Please be informed that the submission system is being updated. To submit an application, it is necessary to create new accounts on the system. Accounts of the teams that used the system last year should be available and can be used this year. 2.3. Review Process --------------------------------------- Each application to the Humanoid Soccer Competition will be reviewed by two members of the Technical Committee and two other randomly assigned teams applying to the Humanoid Soccer Competition. The combined reviewing score will be used to decide whether a team qualifies for participation. Reviewing other teams' material is mandatory for teams that want to participate in the Humanoid Soccer Competition. Failing to provide an adequate review by the provided deadline will have consequences for the team's own qualification status. 3. Application Material (Robot/Team information to submit) ======================================= For the qualification process, teams must provide the following material: 3.1. Pre-application / Team-Information --------------------------------------- Team name URL of the team's home page Name of team leader or team contact person E-mail address of the team leader or contact person Competition Division: Small, Middle, Large – with robot numbers 3.2. Video --------------------------------------- Teams need to provide a video of their current or previous physical robot demonstrating the robot's autonomous soccer-playing skills. The recommended skills needed for the qualification are: * Localization of unknown ball position * Walking ability towards the ball * Robot positioning at the ball for kicking * Kicking the ball towards the goal * Passing the ball from one player to another * Avoiding other robots autonomously * Ability to get up autonomously after a fall We encourage teams to include in the video more complex and intelligent behavior, such as demonstrating localization, and robots playing in a game. Recordings from actual soccer matches are welcome. If possible, please provide footage that demonstrates the robot's behavior without wires attached. We understand that teams transitioning to new robot platforms from the former SPL and HL leagues may not yet have their physical robots, nor soccer-ready software/hardware to demonstrate by the qualification deadlines. Teams may alternatively demonstrate in their video their software/hardware capabilities from previous years on other robot platforms, and/or capabilities in simulation. We encourage teams, if possible, to include a demonstration of their current capabilities on their intended platform. * The maximum duration of the video must not exceed ** 5 minutes **. * The qualification video must be supplied as a link (e.g., uploaded on the team’s website or on some video server like YouTube). The qualifying team is responsible for ensuring that the video is accessible and viewable with modern browsers. Note, if YouTube is used, make sure the video adheres to YouTube's TOS (especially concerning music copyright) to prevent the video from being blocked for the reviewers. Teams that do not provide a qualification video or a viewable video will not be qualified. 3.3. Team Description Paper --------------------------------------- A team description paper must be submitted. For teams that have previously participated in the Humanoid League or Standard Platform League, the team description paper must include: * Lessons learned from participation in previous RoboCup competitions. * Highlight major challenges that the team is trying to solve for the upcoming competition. * Outline the plans for the major changes that the teams anticipate to have implemented by the RoboCup 2026 competition. * Describe the implementation status of the planned changes at the time of submitting the application. * Explain the impact of the team’s participation and research in RoboCup on (1) the Humanoid Soccer League, (2) the team’s university/community. * Demonstrate own contribution to the RoboCup Humanoid Soccer League or humanoid robotics research in general: Describe in detail the “research publishable” significant advancements the applying team has made and is going to use at RoboCup 2026. This can, for instance, include software or hardware releases, paper publications, provision of league infrastructure, or data sets. * Any other information that supports your application. For teams that have never participated in the RoboCup Humanoid League or Standard Platform League, the Team Description Paper must outline the scientific aspects of their humanoid robotic system and highlight their research focus. The submission should show clear contributions and advancements intended to be used during the competition. The team description papers are intended to highlight the changes and scientific developments since the last RoboCup. Thus, we expect the usage of material from previous TDPs or Extended Abstracts to be minimal. If material from previous TDPs is used, it must be cited appropriately. Submissions of last year's Extended Abstract will be desk-rejected. The team description paper is limited to ** 4 pages **, excluding references, and must be submitted in PDF format. The team description paper must follow the LNCS format, which can be downloaded from: https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-gu…. Teams that do not follow the LNCS formatting and style guidelines will not be qualified. No exceptions to this rule will be made. 3.4. Software Description --------------------------------------- During the application process, a form will be provided to submit brief details about the algorithms used or anticipated to be used for participation in the 2026 competition. The form will include brief questions in the following areas: * Walking * Vision * Localization * Behavior * Team Communication Responses to the questions are expected to reflect the current and anticipated status of the software during the RoboCup 2026 competition. If software from other teams, third-party software libraries, or "off-the-shelf soccer-ready" libraries/algorithms are used, teams must reference this use. References should include the team, competition, and year when code is used from another team, or reference publicly available documentation for software libraries. Teams should describe how they have adapted the use of this software within their own codebase. 3.5. Hardware Specification --------------------------------------- A one-page specification (PDF) must be provided for each different type of humanoid robot used by the team that includes the following: * Robot picture (can be on a separate page) (3D model if the physical one is not available yet) * Robot name * Height of the robot * Weight of the robot * Number of degrees of freedom and type of motors on each kinematic chain of the robot * Actuator model name and Wattage * Type of sensors used (incl. type of camera(s) and specific manufacturer part number (e.g., "6-DoF IMU" is NOT an acceptable description)) * Computing unit(s) * Materials (e.g., Torso aluminium, legs and arms CFRP) * Electronics (e.g., CM730 for communicating with servos) * Battery (e.g. 3S1P 2200mAh LiPo) * Open Source link if applicable * Other specs (Jerseys if already available) Teams that are using pre-approved, unmodified HSL standard platforms only need to provide information directly available from the manufacturer's documentation to confirm they are using an unmodified standard platform. Teams do not need to provide details where information is not available via manufacturer-provided documentation, such as due to commercial confidence. 3.6. Letter of Commitment --------------------------------------- A one-page letter addressed to the RoboCup Humanoid Soccer League Technical Committee, including the following: * a statement committing to participate in the RoboCup 2026 Humanoid Soccer League competition; * a statement committing to make a person with sufficient knowledge of the rules available as a referee during the competition. The letter must be signed (by hand or using a digital signature software as Adobe or DocuSign) by the team leader and submitted either as a JPG, PNG, or PDF file. A template for this letter can be found at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qNILlggOj5j_cHhof1b6NICPyfgVrp-M/edit?u… If you have doubts regarding the ability of your team to participate (due to funding, visas, etc.), please apply by the deadline, but note this in your application email. Declining to participate in any competition after the official early registration period has opened may negatively affect future applications (the later you decline, the worse it will affect future applications). The TC may include the fulfillment of the statement of commitment of participation, as well as the performance of the team's referee in previous RoboCup competitions, into consideration for qualification. Teams must guarantee to have at least one member per division they participate in, acting as a referee, available independently. Note that teams may be scheduled to play a game and referee a different game at the same time. 4. Organizational Information ======================================= 4.1. Rules --------------------------------------- The current version of the rules may be found here in the git: https://github.com/RoboCup-HumanoidSoccerLeague/HSL-Rules. The current version is under development and subject to change. We expect the final version of the 2026 rules to be published in spring 2026. For more information about the Humanoid Soccer League and connections with other teams, please refer to the RoboCup Official Discord: https://discord.gg/fjrepNWk. 4.2. Plagiarism --------------------------------------- Plagiarism, loosely the unattributed use of other people's words, code, and ideas, is not tolerated in the RoboCup community. For a more detailed description, see the point "Publishing Ethics" at: https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-gu… The teams and team members who plagiarize other people's work and present it as their own will be disqualified. For a first offense, the team and team members will be banned from RoboCup competition for two years (usually the current and next year). Harsher penalties will be applied to repeat offenders or extremely serious cases of plagiarism. A team may be disqualified at any time for plagiarism, even after the competition has started. RoboCup will not reimburse teams for any expenses related to their disqualification. 4.3. Publication --------------------------------------- Please note that after the announcement of the qualified teams, the submitted materials of the qualified teams will be made publicly available on the Humanoid Soccer League website. Teams applying for participation, therefore, implicitly grant the right of publication of their qualification material to the Humanoid Soccer League. Therefore, teams should ensure their qualification materials contain no commercial-in-confidence information or other content that would restrict publication. 4.4. Visa Process --------------------------------------- South Korea offers visa-free entry for many countries for short tourism/business stays (under 90 days), but most need the K-ETA (Electronic Travel Authorization) before arrival. Please verify your visa requirements at the South Korea Visa Portal: https://www.visa.go.kr/main/openMain.do The letters of invitation are issued by the RoboCup federation, not the TC, and they are part of the official registration process. We look forward to seeing you all at the RoboCup 2026! With best regards, Technical Committee of the RoboCup Humanoid Soccer League 2026 Esta mensagem, juntamente com qualquer outra informação anexada, é confidencial e protegida por lei. Somente os seus destinatários estão autorizados a usá-la. Se você não for o destinatário, por favor, informe o remetente e, em seguida, apague a mensagem, observando que não há autorização para usar, copiar, armazenar, encaminhar, imprimir ou tomar qualquer ação baseada no seu conteúdo.

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[jobs] Professorship (W3) for Interactive Robotics at Bielefeld University
by Sven Wachsmuth 06 Jan '26

06 Jan '26

Dear all, The Faculty of Technology at Bielefeld University has an opening for a permament *professorship (W3) for Interactive Robtics*, with a special focus on robotics engineering for real-time sensory perception, physical motion, learning and action control for autonomous, interactive robots. The *application deadline is Febuary 28, 2026.* Detailed information about the position can be found at: https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/uni/karriere/professuren/wiss3086_englisch.xml Best regards Sven -- PD Dr.-Ing. Sven Wachsmuth Faculty of Technology | CITEC COSY@Home-Lab Bielefeld University

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Call for Participation: RoboCup2026 Middle Size League
by 刘斐 04 Jan '26

04 Jan '26

Call for Participation  RoboCup 2026 Middle Size League June 30 to July 6, 2026 (Incheon, South-Korea) https://2026.robocup.org We would like to invite all MSL teams to participate in the 2026 RoboCup MSL World Championships. If you are interested to participate, please take the time to pre-register your team for the RoboCup 2026 MSL competitions.  1)    Pre-registration  For the pre-registration please send an e-mail to rc-msl-oc(a)lists.robocup.org and liufei(a)caa.org.cn containing the following data: ·   Team name ·   URL of the team’s home page ·   Name of the team leader ·   E-mail address of team or team leader ·   Affiliation ·   Country ·   Link to the qualification materials  Please send more information about teams to introduce them better on MSL website(https://msl.robocup.org/teams). Sending following information would be optional: ·   Logo ·   Profile (Describe team with at most 150 words). ·   Most research topics (up to 6 topics)   2)    Qualification materials  Please note that, according to the rules, the evaluation of some parts of the qualification materials will contribute to the scientific challenge final result.  By the time of pre-registration, please have ready the following qualification materials:  a)    A Team Description Paper describing the most innovative contributions or scientific results (the TDP is limited to 8 pages and must be formatted according to the LNCS format: http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0). b)    A list of 5 scientiﬁc papers published during the last 5 years of the team which are related to RoboCup. Abstracts of these papers and a complete reference to each paper must also be submitted. When more papers are submitted, only the first 5 will be considered. c)    A list of results and awards obtained by the team in the last 3 years. d)    A video showing the capabilities of the team’s robots (the maximum duration of the video is 60 seconds; if the submitted video is longer than 60 seconds, only the first 60 seconds will be considered for evaluation). e)    A list of contributions of the team to the RoboCup MSL community. f)     Declaration if the team will be part of a mixed team. g)    A mechanical and electrical description together with a software flow chart. h)   List of MAC Addresses used by the team, with explicit indication of those that will be used for wireless communication and their type: robots or development computers. All other MAC addresses will be blocked. (Modifications are allowed before the competition, no later than June 23, 2026.) i)    List of size and weight of the robots (If there are many different robots, please give the data for each type separately. Modifications are allowed before the competition, no later than June 23, 2026.): Dimensions: Length*Width*Height(cm) Weight: (kg)  For being able to participate in the RoboCup competition, teams have to ensure, at least, the minimum cumulative following criteria: ·   Demonstrate in the video that they are able to perform the basic actions to be able to play. ·   Produce a Team Description Paper (TDP) according to the above definition. ·   Obtain a minimum of 50 points in the overall qualification procedure.  The details regarding the qualification materials are contained in the rules and regulations document available at https://msl.robocup.org. Please read it thoroughly.  The qualification materials should be placed in a dedicated page of the team's web page. Please include the link to the qualification materials in the pre-registration information. 3)    Important dates  ·   Deadline for pre-registration and submission of the qualification materials: February 28, 2026 ·   Announcement of qualified teams: March 15, 2026  4)    Rules  The MSL Technical Committee will not publish new rules for 2026, therefore the rules from 2025 (version 26.0) will be used. These rules are available at: https://msl.robocup.org/rules    5)    Publication  Please note that after the announcement of the qualified teams the qualification materials of the qualified teams will be made publicly available. Therefore, teams applying for participation, grant the right of publication of their qualification materials to the MSL league(MAC addresses are an exception and should remain private).   6)    Plagiarism  Plagiarism, loosely the unattributed use of other peoples' words, code and ideas (see “https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/plagiarism/plagiarism.html” for a more detailed description) is not tolerated in the RoboCup community.  The teams and team members that plagiarize other peoples' work and present it as their own will be disqualified. For a first offense, the team and team members will be banned from RoboCup competition for two years (usually the current and next year). Harsher penalties will be applied to repeat offenders or extremely serious cases of plagiarism. A team may be disqualified at any time for plagiarism, even after the competition has started. RoboCup will not reimburse teams for any expenses related to their disqualification.   The 2026 MSL Organizing and Technical Committees Fei Liu OC Chair, Middle Size League, RoboCup 2026  

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[jobs] The RobotiXX lab at GMU is hiring postdoctoral researchers
by Xuesu Xiao 02 Jan '26

02 Jan '26

Dear roboticists, the RobotiXX lab (https://robotixx.cs.gmu.edu/) at the Department of Computer Science, George Mason University in the Washington D.C. area is looking for postdoctoral researchers. The positions can start anytime from now and are expected to last one year, with possible renewal pending funding availability. At RobotiXX lab, we perform robotics research at the intersection of motion planning and machine learning, with a specific focus on deployable field robotics. A few of our recent focuses include, but are not limited to, off-road mobility and autonomy, social robot navigation, multi-robot coordination, vision-based navigation, self-supervised learning for robotics, task and motion planning, as well as human robot interaction. Candidates with relevant experience in robotics, motion planning, and machine learning are encouraged to apply. Hands-on knowledge in robotics hardware, field experience, and a good publication record is strongly preferred. The RobotiXX lab recently moved into a brand new, $254 million Fuse building in the heart of Arlington, VA (https://masonsquare.gmu.edu/fuse). The lab is 15-minute walk from DARPA and ONR and 20-minute drive from NSF, which provides good networking opportunities with federal program managers for future faculty remembers. The new 6,000 sqft lab features a two-floor, high-bay space with full motion capture coverage (2,533 sqft), a state-of-the-art robot maker space with ~$1 million fabrication equipment (1299 sqft), and a robot assembly / computer cluster room with GPU workstations dedicated to the lab's use (1,681 sqft). Fuse is also the home to many tech companies, fostering academia-industry collaboration right across the hallway from the lab (https://fuseatmasonsquare.com/). The selected candidates will conduct independent research to develop highly capable and intelligent mobile robots that are robustly deployable in the real world with minimal human supervision, publish papers in top-tier robotics conferences and journals, and advise graduate and undergraduate students in the RobotiXX lab. To apply, please send a single PDF of the following documents to Dr. Xuesu Xiao, Assistant Professor (xiao(a)gmu.edu): 1. cover letter, 2. curriculum vitae, 3. three references, 4. relevant publications, 5. other relevant materials, with the subject line “[postdoc] YOUR AFFILIATION - YOUR NAME”. For more information, please see the lab’s website (https://robotixx.cs.gmu.edu/), research statement (https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/xuesu_website_files/Research_Statement.pdf), and YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCePdJzWg35eml4WRGkX3GQ). Thanks Xuesu ----------------------- Xuesu Xiao, Ph.D. -- Assistant Professor Department of Computer Science George Mason University xiao(a)gmu.edu https://people.cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/ https://robotixx.cs.gmu.edu/

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