- RoboCup-worldwide - lists.robocup.org

Call for paticipation - RoboCup ARM Challenge 2024
by Jose Avendano Arbelaez 11 Apr '24

11 Apr '24

Call for Participation 2024 RoboCup Autonomous Robot Manipulation (ARM) Challenge https://arm.robocup.org/ The RoboCup Autonomous Manipulation Challenge is live and accepting registrations for the 2024 season. This is a great opportunity to learn about robot manipulation or get a certificate to demonstrate your existing skills! Live information session on learning robotic manipulation and this competition will take place on March 13th. Prizes Certificate of Achievement for demonstrating skills in programming, control, simulation, and perception of robotic pick-and-place and grasping applications in dynamic environments. RCF Sponsored Research Grant for 2025 (Up to 5000 USD) Important Dates February 15th - Registration Opens March 13th - Live challenge kickoff and Q&A April 18th - Technical Support and Development Q&A for teams May 26th - Submission deadline for the qualification round May 30th - Announcement of teams qualified for finals July 18-21 - In-person finals with UR5e Robot (RoboCup 2024 Eindhoven) Registration All teams must pre-register using the online form on the website. Registration deadline: May 5th, 2024 Submission Participating teams will complete a submission form providing links to their code/files and a video of their algorithm in action. Questions? roboticsarena(a)mathworks.com<mailto:roboticsarena@mathworks.com> or j.j.olthuis(a)tue.nl<mailto:j.j.olthuis@tue.nl>

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[Jobs] PostDoc in Robotics/AI - Computer Science
by Ubbo Visser 10 Apr '24

10 Apr '24

Drs. Ubbo Visser and Jonathan Katz are interested in hiring a Postdoctoral Associate in AI/Robotics in Automation for Minimally Invasive Genitourinary Surgery in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Miami (Miami, FL). We invite talented and highly motivated applicants to join our collaborative lab at the University of Miami. This position is ideal for a Ph.D. in the field of Computer Science or Electrical Engineering, with experience in applying AI/ML and robotics expertise in the medical field. Some duties include but are not limited to the following: - Designing and implementing high-fidelity simulations for robotic-assisted surgery. - Developing algorithms for real-time control and path planning of surgical instruments. - Integrating machine learning and computer vision techniques for autonomous surgery. - Collaborating with surgeons to adapt research for clinical use. - Publishing research findings in top scientific journals and conferences. The successful candidate will be part of a dynamic team bridging the Departments of Computer Science and Genitourinary Surgery, focusing on groundbreaking research in surgical automation. Proficiency in programming languages such as C++ and Python, and experience with simulation frameworks like Gazebo, ISAAC Sim, and V-REP is a plus. Applicants with a background in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering, research experience, an excellent publication record, as well as experience in applying AI/ML and robotics expertise in the medical fields are strongly preferred. This is a 3-year contract opportunity to contribute to innovative research at the intersection of technology and medicine. The University of Miami is an Equal Opportunity Employer - Females/Minorities/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities are encouraged to apply. Applicants and employees are protected from discrimination based on certain categories protected by Federal law. Click here <https://umiami.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/UMCareerStaff/job/Coral-Gables-FL/Post…> for additional information and to apply. Website: https://umiami.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/UMCareerStaff/job/Coral-Gables-FL/Post…. Kind regards, Ubbo Visser ~O_ ~O_ ~O_ ~O_ ~O_ ~O_ ~O_ ~O_ o~ ____(___(_/_(___(_/_(___(_/_(___(_/____)________ ~~~~~~~~~~/~~~~~~/~~~~~~/~~~~~~/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dr. Ubbo Visser Associate Professor of Computer Science President-elect, RoboCup Federation Director of Graduate Studies Distinguished Faculty for Cognitive Science and Aging University of Miami Department of Computer Science Ungar Building, Room 330A 1365 Memorial Drive Coral Gables, 33146-4245, FL, USA T: +1 305 284 2254 (x2268 Secr.) Email: visser(a)cs.miami.edu <mailto:visser@cs.miami.edu> Web: http//www.cs.miami.edu/~visser <http://www.cs.miami.edu/~visser>

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[meetings][CFP][RO-MAN 2024] Trust, Acceptance and Social Cues in Human-Robot Interaction Workshop
by alexarossi＠gmail.com 08 Apr '24

08 Apr '24

Dear colleagues, it is with great pleasure that we invite you to submit your works at the seventh edition of a successful series of workshops SCRITA. This workshop focuses on the continuous investigation of unresolved and new open challenges of the factors affecting people's acceptance and trust in robots in short- and long-term settings. We will invite authors to submit position papers only, discussing their prior experience and new developments in the scope of the workshop to feed into the group and the following panel discussions. We further encourage authors of the accepted papers to present a video or demonstrate their works and achievements. All accepted papers will have short oral presentations. Please find below the full CFP, but do not hesitate to contact us for further information. best regards Alessandra -- Alessandra Rossi, PhD Assistant Professor Fellow of the Higher Education Academy Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies - D.I.E.T.I. University of Naples Federico II Via Claudio, 21, 80125 - Naples, Italy w-page:https://alessandrarossi.net e-mail address:alessandra.rossi@unina.it e-mail address:a.rossi@herts.ac.uk X: @alhandra81 SCRITA 2024 Trust, Acceptance and Social Cues in Human-Robot Interaction Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, California, USA 26-30 August 2024 Workshop website http://scrita.herts.ac.uk Submission link https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=scrita2024 Submission deadline May 31st, 2024 This workshop will be a half day event organised in conjunction with theIEEE RO-MAN 2024 <http://ro-man2024.org/>conference, held in Pasadena, California, USA. This workshop focuses on the continuous investigation of unresolved and new open challenges of the factors affecting people's acceptance and trust in robots in short- and long-term settings. In particular, we want to look into the dynamics between people and robots to foster short interactions and long-lasting relationships taking inspiration from different domains, such as educational, service, collaborative, companion, care-home and medical robotics. For that, this workshop aims to facilitate a discussion about people’s trust towards robots “in the field”, inviting workshop participants to contribute their past experiences, lessons learnt and future issues. During last year's workshop edition(i.e., SCRITA@RO-MAN 2023), together with leading researchers and exceptional speakers from various fields, we started working towards developing such novel methods. We outlined current methods and their strengths, discussing how these measures do not always reflect appropriately, or how some questions might be ambiguous and leave room for interpretation by individual participants. We identified five main factors affecting trust to be investigated to generate a new metric that allows researchers to assess and reduce common side effects influencing how people put their trust in robots. Submission & List of Topics The workshop will be open to a broad audience from academia and industry researching social robotics, machine learning, robot behavioural control, and user profiling. In particular, we aim to integrate expertise from roboticists with psychologists' and sociologists’ insights and experiences to foster a multidisciplinary and human-focused discussion that can capture the multi-faceted nature of trust and acceptance. We will foster the exchange of views on past and ongoing research and contribute to the discussion of innovative ideas for tackling unresolved issues by providing new and inspirational directions for research. We will invite authors to submit position papers only, discussing their prior experience and new developments in the scope of the workshop to feed into the group and the following panel discussions. We further encourage authors of the accepted papers topresent a video or demonstratetheir works and achievements. All accepted submissions will have an oral presentation. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: * Impact of Social Cues on Trust in HRI; * Measuring Trust in HRI; * Trust Violation and Recovery Mechanism in HRI; * Effects of Humans’ Acceptance on Trust of Robots; * Humans Sense of Control and Trust in Robots; * Trust and Assistive Robotics; * Overtrust in Robots; * Antecedent of Trust and Robot Trust; * Enhancing Humans Trust in Robots; * Enhancing Trust in a Robot Companion; * Privacy Implications on Trust in HRI; * Mental Models and Trust in HRI; * Trust and Safety in HRI; * Ethics Implications on Trust in HRI; * Trustworthy AI; * XAI in HRI; * Legal Frameworks for Trustworthy Robotics Submission Guidelines Authors should submit their papers formatted according to theIEEE two-column format <http://ras.papercept.net/conferences/support/support.php>, which is also used for contributions to the main conference. Use the following templates to create the paper and generate or export a PDF file:LaTeX <http://ras.papercept.net/conferences/support/tex.php>orMS-Word <http://ras.papercept.net/conferences/support/word.php>. Authors needs to submit their PDF via EasyChair <https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=scrita2024>. Each paper will receive at least two reviews. All papers are reviewed using a single-blind review process: authors declare their names and affiliations in the manuscript for the reviewers to see, but reviewers do not know each other's identities, nor do the authors receive information about who has reviewed their manuscript. Committees * Dr Alessandra Rossi, Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, University of Naples Federico II (Italy) * Dr Patrick Holthaus, School of Physics, Engineering and Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire (UK) * Sílvia Moros, School of Physics, Engineering and Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire (UK) * Dr Gabriella Lakatos, School of Physics, Engineering and Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire (UK) * Ali Fallahi, School of Physics, Engineering and Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire (UK) Contact All questions about submissions should be emailed to scrita(a)herts.ac.uk - a.rossi(a)herts.ac.uk - p.holthaus(a)herts.ac.uk

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[News] Robotics Developer Masterclass 2024-Batch 1
by Yuhong Lin 08 Apr '24

08 Apr '24

Dear all, Enrollment for the Robotics Developer Masterclass 2024-Batch 1 is currently available! This program offers comprehensive training in robot programming centered on ROS and development, equipping participants with the skills needed to prepare for employment at top robotics companies. *Registration link*: roboticsdeveloper.ai <https://www.theconstructsim.com/robotics-developer/?utm_source=robocup_worl…> *Early-Bird Registration Deadline*: December 31, 2023 Throughout this Masterclass, you’ll have the exclusive opportunity to work on innovative remote real robot labs, including: 1. *City World Lab*: Work with a real mobile robot, the TurtleBot3, to perform basic ROS tasks, gaining hands-on experience in basic robot programming. 2. *Warehouse Lab*: Apply your knowledge to create an entire pick-and-place task using real warehouse collaborative robots, including the RB1-Base and UR3e Arm. 3. *Cyber World Lab*: Engage in designing and developing navigation algorithms for a wheeled mobile robot, specifically the ROSbot XL. Explore the challenges and intricacies of robot navigation in different environments. 4. *Startbots Cafeteria Lab*: Showcase your skills in a real-world multi-robot scenario by designing and presenting a complete robotics project for the StarBots Cafeteria Lab. Develop robots that can prepare and deliver coffee to tables while maintaining battery levels and cleaning the space. The curriculum covers a wide range of essential topics and practical skills, empowering you to thrive in robotics development. Key areas covered in the program include: - *Collaborative software development with Git* - *C++ programming skills for robotics* - *ROS 1 and ROS 2 basics* - *Robot modeling with URDF – ROS2* - *Robot frame transformations with TF ROS2* - *Creating robot simulations with Gazebo (Ignition)* - *Advanced ROS2 concepts* - *Robot navigation with ROS2* - *Robot perception with ROS2* - *Object manipulation with ROS2* - *Building robot controllers with ROS2* - *Essential math for robotics* - *Mobile robot kinematics* - *Robot arm kinematics* - *Robot dynamics* - *Kalman filters* - *Path planning algorithms* - *Programming web interfaces for ROS2* - *Containerizing your software with Docker* - *Automating development tasks with Jenkins* - *Ensuring code integrity with continuous integration (CI)* - *Designing, developing, and presenting complete robotics projects from scratch* Upon successful completion of the Masterclass, you will be guaranteed an online or onsite internship placement with one of the world’s leading robotics companies. Our esteemed partners who have accepted our students for internships include: - Mujin Corp (Japan) - Robotnik (Spain) - PAL Robotics (Spain) - Eurecat (Centre Tecnològic de Catalunya-Spain) - Rover Robotics (US) - Stogl Robotics (Germany) - Karelics (Finland) - Neobotix (Germany) - Husarion (Poland) - Perpetuum Progress (Germany) - Robotise (Germany) - Robotec AI (Poland) - ICRA (Instituto Colombiano de Robótica Avanzada - Colombia) - Akara Robotics (Ireland) - Orbital Composites (US) - Knightscope (US) - A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research - Singapore) - Asimovo (Netherlands) - Anybotics (Switzerland) - Rigbetellabs (India) - PaceRobotics (India) To register and learn more about the program, please visit the following link: roboticsdeveloper.ai <https://www.theconstructsim.com/robotics-developer/?utm_source=robocup_worl…> If you have any questions or require further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us at info(a)theconstructsim.com. Best regards,

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Call for Participation in two @Home Education events!
by Amy Eguchi 08 Apr '24

08 Apr '24

Call for Participation in two @Home Education events! We’re excited to announce two Calls for Participation: 1. RoboCup 2024 - @Home Education Competition 15-17 July 2024: Set-up days 18-21 July 2024: Competitions 22 July 2024: Symposium Please submit your TDP using this form <https://forms.gle/hcKsh8j5dqmb8SFq8> by 04/31 or sooner (especially if your team needs a visa to enter the Netherlands). You can find the TDP requirements here <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YOqbkhVaPBZHJ1ZJAHkLdy3WOTOxfrP4/edit?u…>. We will continue to accept the application until the slots are filled. But we strongly encourage you to submit your application ASAP. Also, please visit @Home Education website <https://www.robocupathomeedu.org/> for more information. 2. RoboCup@Home Education Natural Human Robot Interaction challenge @ ICRA 2024 May 13 -14, 2024: Workshop (5/13 could be online) May 14, 2024 (teams that do not need workshop, can come to set-up on those two days or just on May 14): Team set-up May 15-16, 2024: Competition If you’re interested in the event, please visit the event website <https://sites.google.com/ucsd.edu/icra2024-robocupathome-edu/home> and fill out the Application form <https://forms.gle/EiP7hvk7yzJCFoLSA>. The form is open until the slots are filled; however, we strongly encourage you to fill out the form ASAP. Any questions? Please contact Dr. Amy Eguchi @ a2eguchi(a)ucsd.edu. @Home Education Committee ****************************************************************** Amy Eguchi, Ph.D. Associate Teaching Professor, Computer Science Education Transforming Education in a Diverse Society Department of Education Studies, UC San Diego a2eguchi(a)ucsd.edu *Pronouns: she / her / hers* **********************Peace on Earth******************* *UC San Diego was built on the unceded territory of the Kumeyaay Nation. The Kumeyaay people continue to maintain their political sovereignty and cultural traditions as vital members of the San Diego community. We are honored to share this space with them and thank them for their stewardship. *

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[meetings] [news] One Month till Hard Submission Deadline: 3rd Benchmark for Autonomous Robot Navigation (BARN) Challenge -- ICRA 2024 Competition
by Xuesu Xiao 04 Apr '24

04 Apr '24

Soft submission deadline has passed, but hard submission deadline is a month away! Submit by May 1 to be invited to participate in The 3rd BARN Challenge at ICRA 2024 in Japan! Submission Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfZLMVluXE-HWnV9lNP00LuBi3e9HFOeLi… Competition Website: https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/Research/BARN_Challenge/BARN_Challenge24.html Participation Instructions: https://github.com/Daffan/nav-competition-icra2022 Lessons Learned from The BARN Challenge 2023: https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/papers/barn23_report.pdf Lessons Learned from The BARN Challenge 2022: 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 (3rd) ICRA 2024 BARN Challenge (https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/Research/BARN_Challenge/BARN_Challenge24.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 ICRA2024. 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 ICRA2024 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/1FAIpQLSfZLMVluXE-HWnV9lNP00LuBi3e9HFOeLi… Co-Organizers: Xuesu Xiao (George Mason University) 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/

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[CfP-extended deadline] Workshop on Cooking Robotics at ICRA2024, 17 May (Deadline 7 April)
by Tatsuya MATSUSHIMA 28 Mar '24

28 Mar '24

Dear Colleagues, We would like to inform you that a *video* and a *short paper* (1-4pages, excluding references) submission deadline for the *ICRA 2024 workshop on Cooking Robotics: Perception and motion planning* has been *extended to April 7!* Accepted works will be presented at the workshop through posters and spotlight talks. Please see the workshop website and abstract for more information: https://sites. <https://sites.google.com/view/icra2024cookingrobotics/home>google.com/view/ <https://sites.google.com/view/icra2024cookingrobotics/home> icra2024cookingrobotics/home <https://sites.google.com/view/icra2024cookingrobotics/home> *Submission link:* https://openreview.net/group? <https://openreview.net/group?id=IEEE.org/2024/ICRA/Workshop/CookingRobot> id=IEEE.org/2024/ICRA/ <https://openreview.net/group?id=IEEE.org/2024/ICRA/Workshop/CookingRobot> Workshop/CookingRobot <https://openreview.net/group?id=IEEE.org/2024/ICRA/Workshop/CookingRobot> *Timeline:* Submission deadline: *7 April 2024* Notification: 14 April 2024 Workshop: *17 May 2024 at ICRA2024* in Yokohama, Japan *Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:* - Perception: vision, tactile, taste, smell, appearance, monitoring - Motion planning and control: recipe generation, long-horizon planning, cluttered environment, deformable objects, tool manipulation - Hardware: soft robotics, grippers for food manipulation - Application: human-robot interaction, social, industrial and domestic needs, safety, reliability and hygiene, 3D food printing Late-breaking results, ongoing works, and demos relevant to the topic of the workshop from academia, industries, and professionals are all welcome. *Conference Abstract:* The realisation of cooking robots presents numerous real-world challenges. This workshop explores the latest advancements in 'robots in cooking,' addressing hardware considerations, multimodal perception, motion planning and control, experimental methodologies, and benchmarking approaches. Amid labour shortages and increased hygiene concerns in the post-COVID world, automation in the food industry and personalised cooking assistants have become essential. This workshop will bridge the gap between academia, industry, and professionals by inviting leading researchers, collaborating with a competition, the Food Topping Challenge, <https://icra2024.rt-net.jp/> and showcasing robot demonstrations. *Invited Speakers:* Tamin Asfour (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) Fumiya Iida (University of Cambridge) Josie Hughes (EPFL) Mako Miyatake (Freelancer chef of "designing the future of the food") Priya Sundaresan/Dorsa Sadigh (Stanford University) Akihiko Yamaguchi (Tohoku University/Finger Vision) Kevin Zhang/Oliver Kroemer (Carnegie Mellon University) *Organisers:* Namiko Saito (The University of Edinburgh, The Alan Turing Institute, and Waseda University) Kento Kawaharazuka (The University of Tokyo) Tatsuya Matsushima (The University of Tokyo) Naoaki Kanazawa (The University of Tokyo) Marina Y. Aoyama (The University of Edinburgh) Sethu Vijayakumar (The University of Edinburgh and The Alan Turing Institute) If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. Email: icra2024-cooking-ws(a)googlegroups.com Website: https://sites.google. <https://sites.google.com/view/icra2024cookingrobotics>com/view/ <https://sites.google.com/view/icra2024cookingrobotics> icra2024cookingrobotics <https://sites.google.com/view/icra2024cookingrobotics> X (Twitter): https://twitter. <https://twitter.com/cookingrobotics> com/cookingrobotics <https://twitter.com/cookingrobotics> Linkedin: https://www. <https://www.linkedin.com/company/cooking-robotics-workshop/> linkedin.com/company/cooking- <https://www.linkedin.com/company/cooking-robotics-workshop/> robotics-workshop/ <https://www.linkedin.com/company/cooking-robotics-workshop/> -- Matsuo Iwasawa Lab, The University of Tokyo Project Researcher (Ph.D.) Tatsuya Matsushima

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IROBOT@EPIA2024 - Thematic Track on Intelligent Robotics
by Nuno Lau 26 Mar '24

26 Mar '24

(apologies for cross-posting) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ IROBOT'2024 CALL FOR PAPERS 13th International Thematic Track on Intelligent Robotics To be held at EPIA 2024, September 3-6, 2024 Viana do Castelo, Portugal https://epia2024.pt/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The EPIA Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a well-established European conference in the field of AI. The 23rd edition, EPIA 2024, will take place in Viana do Castelo, Portugal, between 3rd to 6th of September, 2024. As in previous editions, this international conference is hosted with the patronage of the Portuguese Association for Artificial Intelligence (APPIA). The purpose of this conference is to promote research in all areas of AI, covering both theoretical/foundational issues and applications, and the scientific exchange among researchers, engineers, and practitioners in related disciplines. EPIA 2024 will feature a set of thematic tracks, covering a wide spectrum of AI topics. Accepted papers will be published in a Springer's Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence volume. ## Important Dates 30 Apr 2024: Paper Submission Deadline 15 Jun 2024: Author Notification 15 Jul 2024: Camera-Ready Deadline 3-6 Sep 2024: EPIA'2024 Conference ## IROBOT Description IROBOT'2024 poses itself as a follow-up on the previous nine International Thematic Tracks/Workshops on Intelligent Robotics held at EPIA since 2005. Its main purpose is to bring together researchers, engineers and other professionals interested in the application of AI techniques in real/simulated robotics to discuss current work and future directions. Robotics, from the point of view of AI, has been an important application field, from which AI has also gained. Namely, the dynamic and unforeseen nature of the environment, especially for mobile robots, has fostered research in these aspects of AI. Together with the developments in Robotics Research, the use of Robotics in industry and services has changed a lot in recent years. New paradigms and approaches for industrial robots and service robots have emerged, for example, on mobile robots learning, localization, mapping and navigation in unstructured environments. IROBOT 2024 will discuss will discuss these new developments on industrial and service robotics with focus on robotic assistive platforms/solutions and robotics application related to nature (ocean, florest, agriculture, etc.). ## Topics of Interest The Thematic Track will be structured around the following themes: - Adaptive and flexible industrial robotics - Agriculture robots - AI Planning for robotics - Autonomous vehicles - Cognitive robotics - Computer vision and object recognition - Coordination in robotics - Evolutionary robotics and reactive intelligence - Human-robots interface and interaction - Humanoid robotics - Intelligent buildings and warehouses - Intelligent transportation systems - Mobile robots localization and navigation - Modelling and simulating complex robots - Multi-Robot systems - Field Robots - Real-time reactivity - Robot behaviour engineering - Robot learning and adaptation - Robotic surveillance - Sensor fusion This topics' list is not exhaustive. Papers may address one or more of the topics, and authors should not feel limited by them. Unlisted but related topics are also acceptable, provided they fit in the thematic track main subject. ## Paper Submission Authors are invited to submit original research contributions or experience reports in English. Scientific or technical articles describing state-of-the-art techniques, algorithms, systems, environments, problems or applications relevant to the area of Intelligent Robotics may be submitted. Papers discussing application transfer from simulated to real robots and papers showing socially useful robotic applications generated by participations in robotic competitions are also welcome. Although the main focus is on robot learning, there will be space for reporting research in AI applied to other types of robots. Submissions must follow the guidelines specified in the EPIA'2024 site. The Springer LNCS format must be used (instructions in https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-gu…). Springer encourages authors to include their ORCIDs in their papers. The length of submitted full papers must not exceed 12 pages. Authors must remove their names from the submitted papers, and should take reasonable care not to indirectly disclose their identity. Paper submissions will be made in PDF format, through the submission page: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=epia2024 Three program committee members will be assigned to review each paper. Acceptance will be based on the paper's significance, technical quality, clarity, relevance and originality. Accepted papers, must be presented at the conference by one of the authors. Accepted papers will be scheduled for presentation, which requires that at least one of the authors should register at the Conference. All accepted papers will be published in the Conference Proceedings. ## IROBOT'2024 Organizing Committee Nuno Lau, Universidade de Aveiro / IEETA, Portugal Luís Paulo Reis, Universidade do Porto / LIACC, Portugal João Alberto Fabro, Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR), Brazil

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9 International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Robotics (ICR 2024), October 14-18, 2024, Mexico City, Mexico
by Jesus Savage 25 Mar '24

25 Mar '24

APOLOGIES FOR MULTIPLE COPIES OF THIS MESSAGE PLEASE CIRCULATE this CFP among your colleagues and students ICR 2024 The International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Robotics (ICR) October 14–18, 2024, Mexico City, Mexico URL: https://biorobotics.fi-p.unam.mx/icr-2024 Dear colleagues, On behalf of the Organizing Committee, we have the pleasure to invite you to submit contributions to the International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Robotics (ICR). The conference will be held in Mexico City, Mexico, October 19 to October 22, 2024, under direction of the School of Engineering of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the St. Petersburg Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Conference The International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Robotics (ICR) was established as a satellite event of the International Conference on Speech and Computer (SPECOM) in 2016. The conference gathers together experts from different communities to discuss challenges of human and robot collaboration in industrial, social, medical, education and other areas. Fundamentals and means for collaborative behavior of one or multiple robots with physical interaction with people in an operational environment equipped with embedded sensor networks and cloud services in conditions of uncertainty and environmental variability are the main issues of the conference. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to: • artificial intelligence technologies in control • assistive robotics • collaborative robotics • control of robotic systems • educational robotics • household robotics • medical robotics • safety of robotic systems • service robots Important Dates May 01, 2024 .......... Submission of full papers June 15, 2024 .......... Notification of acceptance July 01, 2024 ............ Camera-ready papers and early registration October 14–18, 2024 ...... Conference dates The official language of the conference is English. Very well renowned Professors will be invited to give keynote addresses. You can find more information in the ICR 2024 webpage at: http://biorobotics.fi-p.unam.mx/~icr We would like to meet you in Mexico City, Mexico! ____ Sincerely yours, General Chairs Leonid Fridman, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) Jesus Savage, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) Andrey Ronzhin, St. Petersburg Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPC RAS) Proceedings of the Conference The authors are asked to submit their papers using the on-line submission system: http://ia.spcras.ru/index.php/icr2024 The proceedings of the Interactive Collaborative Robotics conference are published Springer (LNCS/LNAI, Scopus, Q2): https://link.springer.com/conference/icr Contacts E-mail: conf(a)spcras.ru Web: https://biorobotics.fi-p.unam.mx/icr-2024

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PlanRob 2024 Deadline Extension to AoE April 3
by Iman Awaad 23 Mar '24

23 Mar '24

-- Apologies for cross-posting -- Twelfth ICAPS Workshop on Planning and Robotics (PlanRob‚ 2024) https://icaps24.icaps-conference.org/program/workshops/planrob/ ICAPS 2024 Workshop Banff, Canada, June 2-3, 2024 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear colleagues, We are pleased to inform you that, due to numerous requests, the deadline for submissions has been extended to ***Wednesday, 3 April 2024*** AoE. Further details below about the workshop are included below. * Topics and Objectives AI Planning & Scheduling (P&S) methods are key to enabling intelligent robots to perform autonomous, flexible, and interactive behaviours. Researchers in the P&S community have continued to develop approaches and produce planners, representations, as well as heuristics that robotics researchers can make use of. However, there remain numerous challenges complicating the uptake, use and successful integration of P&S technology in robotics, many of which have been addressed by robotics researchers with novel solutions. Strong collaboration and synergy between researchers in both communities is vital to the continued growth of the fields in a way that provide mutual benefits to the two communities. To foster this, the PlanRob workshop aims to provide a stable, long-term forum (having been held annually at ICAPS since 2013) where researchers from both the P&S and Robotics communities can openly discuss relevant issues, research and development progress, future directions and open challenges related to P&S when applied to Robotics. In addition to the usual paper submissions, the workshop’s format naturally lends itself to preliminary results, position papers as well as to work focused on challenges in using and integrating planners in robotics systems. * Topics of Interest Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): - human-aware planning and execution in human-robot interaction, - real-world planning applications for autonomous and intelligent robots, - planning domain representations for robotics applications, - optimising behaviour in large scale automated or semi-automated systems, - integrated planning and execution in robot architectures, - learning methods for robot planning and scheduling, - P&S methods for optimisation and adaptation in robotics, - mission, path, and motion planning for robots, - formal methods for robot planning and control, - challenges and solutions in using P&S technology in robotics, - open problems for P&S in robotics, - coordination of multi-robot teams, - benchmark planning domains for robots, - adversarial action planning in competitive robot domains, - mixed-initiative planning and sliding autonomy for robotic systems. * Important Dates Paper submission: ***Wednesday, 3 April 2024*** (was 25 March 2024) Workshop Date: June 2-3, 2024 The reference time-zone for all deadlines is UTC-12: Your submissions will be on time so long as there is still some place in the world where the deadline has not yet passed. * Submission Details There are two types of submissions: - short position papers (four pages) - regular papers (up to 10 pages) Papers may have an additional page containing references. Regular papers may be scheduled with more time in the final program. A poster session may be considered to provide a further presentation opportunity. The guidelines for formatting are the same as is used for ICAPS 2024 papers (typeset in the AAAI style as described at: http://www.aaai.org/Publications/Author/author.php), but with the AAAI copyright removed. The papers must be submitted in PDF format via the EasyChair system (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icapswsplanrob24). Please note that papers under review (e.g. which have been submitted to IJCAI-2024) are also welcome, however, in order to avoid potential conflicts, these manuscripts should be prepared as anonymous submissions for a double blind reviewing process. Accepted papers will be published on the workshop’s website. The organisers are investigating the availability of journal editors in order to invite a selection of accepted papers from the workshop to a special issue or post-proceedings volume. * Organizers Iman Awaad, Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences, Germany iman.awaad(a)h-brs.de Alberto Finzi, Università di Napoli "Federico II", Italy alberto.finzi(a)unina.it AndreA Orlandini  Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC-CNR), Italy andrea.orlandini(a)istc.cnr.it (Sent on behalf of the organising committee of PlanRob 2024) -- Researcher, Autonomous Systems Group Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems www.h-brs.de/en/a2s Bonn-Aachen International Center for Information Technology (b-it) Friedrich Hirzebruch-Allee 5, 53115 Bonn, Germany www.b-it-center.de Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences | Department of Computer Science Grantham Allee 20, 53757 Sankt Augustin, Germany Phone +49 (0) 2241 865-295 www.h-brs.de/en/inf/iman-awaad

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[meetings] [news] 3rd Benchmark for Autonomous Robot Navigation (BARN) Challenge -- ICRA 2024 Competition
by Xuesu Xiao 19 Mar '24

19 Mar '24

IROS 2024 deadline is behind us. Now it’s time to start preparing for The 3rd BARN Challenge at ICRA 2024! See you in Japan in May! Submission Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfZLMVluXE-HWnV9lNP00LuBi3e9HFOeLi… Competition Website: https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/Research/BARN_Challenge/BARN_Challenge24.html Participation Instructions: https://github.com/Daffan/nav-competition-icra2022 Lessons Learned from The BARN Challenge 2023: https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/papers/barn23_report.pdf Lessons Learned from The BARN Challenge 2022: 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 (3rd) ICRA 2024 BARN Challenge (https://cs.gmu.edu/~xiao/Research/BARN_Challenge/BARN_Challenge24.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 ICRA2024. 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 ICRA2024 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/1FAIpQLSfZLMVluXE-HWnV9lNP00LuBi3e9HFOeLi… Co-Organizers: Xuesu Xiao (George Mason University) 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/

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Final Call for Papers - 12th ICAPS Workshop on Planning and Robotics (PlanRob 2024)
by Iman Awaad 16 Mar '24

16 Mar '24

-- Apologies for cross-posting -- **Final Call for papers** Twelfth ICAPS Workshop on Planning and Robotics (PlanRob‚ 2024) https://icaps24.icaps-conference.org/program/workshops/planrob/ Banff, Canada, June 2-3, 2024 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * Topics and Objectives AI Planning & Scheduling (P&S) methods are key to enabling intelligent robots to perform autonomous, flexible, and interactive behaviours. Researchers in the P&S community have continued to develop approaches and produce planners, representations, as well as heuristics that robotics researchers can make use of. However, there remain numerous challenges complicating the uptake, use and successful integration of P&S technology in robotics, many of which have been addressed by robotics researchers with novel solutions. Strong collaboration and synergy between researchers in both communities is vital to the continued growth of the fields in a way that provide mutual benefits to the two communities. To foster this, the PlanRob workshop aims to provide a stable, long-term forum (having been held annually at ICAPS since 2013) where researchers from both the P&S and Robotics communities can openly discuss relevant issues, research and development progress, future directions and open challenges related to P&S when applied to Robotics. In addition to the usual paper submissions, the workshop’s format naturally lends itself to preliminary results, position papers as well as to work focused on challenges in using and integrating planners in robotics systems. * Topics of Interest Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): - human-aware planning and execution in human-robot interaction, - real-world planning applications for autonomous and intelligent robots, - planning domain representations for robotics applications, - optimising behaviour in large scale automated or semi-automated systems, - integrated planning and execution in robot architectures, - learning methods for robot planning and scheduling, - P&S methods for optimisation and adaptation in robotics, - mission, path, and motion planning for robots, - formal methods for robot planning and control, - challenges and solutions in using P&S technology in robotics, - open problems for P&S in robotics, - coordination of multi-robot teams, - benchmark planning domains for robots, - adversarial action planning in competitive robot domains, - mixed-initiative planning and sliding autonomy for robotic systems. * Important Dates Paper submission: ***Monday, 25 March 2024*** Notification of acceptance: Friday, 26 April 2024 Camera-ready version due: Friday 24 May 2024 Workshop Date: June 2-3, 2024 The reference time-zone for all deadlines is UTC-12: Your submissions will be on time so long as there is still some place in the world where the deadline has not yet passed. * Submission Details There are two types of submissions: - short position papers (four pages) - regular papers (up to 10 pages) Papers may have an additional page containing references. Regular papers may be scheduled with more time in the final program. A poster session may be considered to provide a further presentation opportunity. The guidelines for formatting are the same as is used for ICAPS 2024 papers (typeset in the AAAI style as described at: http://www.aaai.org/Publications/Author/author.php), but with the AAAI copyright removed. The papers must be submitted in PDF format via the EasyChair system (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icapswsplanrob24). Please note that papers under review (e.g. which have been submitted to IJCAI-2024) are also welcome, however, in order to avoid potential conflicts, these manuscripts should be prepared as anonymous submissions for a double blind reviewing process. Accepted papers will be published on the workshop’s website. The organisers are investigating the availability of journal editors in order to invite a selection of accepted papers from the workshop to a special issue or post-proceedings volume. * Organizers Iman Awaad, Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences, Germany iman.awaad(a)h-brs.de Alberto Finzi, Università di Napoli "Federico II", Italy alberto.finzi(a)unina.it AndreA Orlandini  Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC-CNR), Italy andrea.orlandini(a)istc.cnr.it (Sent on behalf of the organising committee of PlanRob 2024) -- Researcher, Autonomous Systems Group Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems www.h-brs.de/en/inf/institut-fur-kunstliche-intelligenz-autonome-systeme-a2s Bonn-Aachen International Center for Information Technology (b-it) Friedrich Hirzebruch-Allee 5, 53115 Bonn, Germany www.b-it-center.de Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences | Department of Computer Science Grantham Allee 20, 53757 Sankt Augustin, Germany Phone +49 (0) 2241 865-295 www.h-brs.de/en/inf/iman-awaad

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Invitation to Prof. Minoru Asada's Keynote Talk at NTU on 16 March 2024
by Changjiu ZHOU (SP) 15 Mar '24

15 Mar '24

Message Classification: Official (Closed) Official (Open) Dear RoboCuppers, The NTU Session of the RoboCup Singapore Open 2024 will take place at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, 16th March 2024. We are honoured to host Prof. Minoru Asada from Osaka University, a Founding Trustee and Former President of the RoboCup Federation, as our keynote speaker. Keynote Speaker: Prof. Minoru Asada Founding Trustee and Former President of the RoboCup Federation Title of Talk: Embodiment, Interaction, and Large Language Models: Revisiting Foundations of Cognitive Development Date: 16th March 2024 Time: 16:00 - 17:00 (SGT, UTC/GMT+8) Venue: LT1A, NTU For those who cannot attend in person, we are providing a Zoom link for virtual attendance: Zoom Link: https://ntu-sg.zoom.us/j/89854686409?pwd=VzFPNEt1NVlpeEh3Z254NWc1R3Brdz09 Meeting ID: 898 5468 6409 Passcode: 123456 For more details, please visit the NTU seminar webpage: https://www.ntu.edu.sg/mae/news-events/events/detail/2024/03/16/default-cal… We warmly invite you to join us for Prof. Asada's insightful keynote talk, either in person at NTU or virtually via Zoom. We look forward to your participation. Best Regards, RoboCup Singapore Open 2024 Organizing Committee 2024.robocupsg.org

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Call for participation: RoboCup JapanOpen2024
by Wataru UEMURA 08 Mar '24

08 Mar '24

Dear RoboCuppers, We are pleased to announce that RoboCup JapanOpen 2024 will be held at SHIGA Daihatsu arena on April 26 - 29, 2024 as follows: RoboCup JapanOpen 2024 -- Call for Participations -- https://www.robocup.or.jp/JapanOpen2024/english.html We plan to have the following leagues: - RoboCup Soccer - small size (wheel and humanoid) - RoboCup Soccer - middle size - RoboCup Soccer - simulation (2D) - RoboCup Rescue - robot - RoboCup Rescue - simulation - RoboCup @Home - open platform - RoboCup @Home - domestic standard platform - RoboCup @Home - simulation open platform - RoboCup @Home - education - RoboCup Industrial - logistics = Event dates Team setup day: 26, April, 2024 Competition days: 27-29, April, 2024 Organizer: RoboCup Japan Regional Committee More details will be announced by each league organizer. = Important dates Team registration deadline: 22 March, 2024 Member registration deadline: 5, April, 2024 = Registration Fees * faculty or ordinary participants : 28,000 yen * students who are >=18 years old : 13,000 yen * students who are <18 years old : 10,000 yen = Contact Secretary office of The Robocup Japanese Regional Committee office[at]robocup.or.jp = League Organizers Soccer small size - wheel: Makito Ishikura Soccer small size - humanoid: Yasuhiro Masutani Soccer middle size: Hidekazu Suzuki Soccer simulation (2D): Tomoharu Nakashima Rescue robot: Noritaka Sato Rescue simulation: Nobuhiro Ito @home open platform and domestic standard platform: Hakaru Tamukoh @Home simulation open platform: Tatsunari Inamura Industrial logistics: Wataru Uemura --- Best regards, Wataru Uemura ==================== Wataru UEMURA, Dr. Eng. Associate Professor, Ryukoku University Executive Director, RoboCup Japanese Regional Committee http://friede.elec.ryukoku.ac.jp/~wataru ====================

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Call for Contributions: Workshop on Cooking Robotics at ICRA2024, 17 May (Deadline 31 March)
by Tatsuya MATSUSHIMA 07 Mar '24

07 Mar '24

*Call for Contributions & Participation at* *ICRA 2024 Workshop on Cooking Robotics: Perception and Motion Planning *(apologies for multiple copies) *TL;DR:* Webpage: https://sites.google.com/view/icra2024cookingrobotics/home • Submission Deadline: 31 March 2024 • Notification: 14 April 2024 • Workshop: 17 May 2024 at ICRA2024 in Yokohama, Japan ******************************************************* *Call for Contributions:* We are soliciting a *video* and a *short paper* (1-4 pages, excluding references) for the* ICRA 2024 workshop on Cooking Robotics: Perception and Motion Planning*! Accepted works will be presented at the workshop through posters and spotlight talks. Please see the workshop website and abstract for more information: https://sites.google.com/view/icra2024cookingrobotics/home *Submission:* https://openreview.net/group?id=IEEE.org/2024/ICRA/Workshop/CookingRobot *Timeline:* Submission deadline: *31 March 2024* Notification: 14 April 2024 Workshop: *17 May 2024 at ICRA2024* in Yokohama, Japan *Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:*• Perception: vision, tactile, taste, smell, appearance, monitoring • Motion planning and control: recipe generation, long-horizon planning, cluttered environment, deformable objects, tool manipulation • Hardware: soft robotics, grippers for food manipulation • Application: human-robot interaction, social, industrial and domestic needs, safety, reliability and hygiene, 3D food printing Late-breaking results, ongoing works, and demos relevant to the topic of the workshop from academia, industries, and professionals are all welcome. ******************************************************* *Conference Abstract:*The realisation of cooking robots presents numerous real-world challenges. This workshop explores the latest advancements in 'robots in cooking,' addressing hardware considerations, multimodal perception, motion planning and control, experimental methodologies, and benchmarking approaches. Amid labour shortages and increased hygiene concerns in the post-COVID world, automation in the food industry and personalised cooking assistants have become essential. This workshop will bridge the gap between academia, industry, and professionals by inviting leading researchers, collaborating with a competition, the Food Topping Challenge <https://icra2024.rt-net.jp/>, and showcasing robot demonstrations. *Invited Speakers: *Tamin Asfour (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) Fumiya Iida (University of Cambridge) Josie Hughes (EPFL) Mako Miyatake (Freelancer chef of "designing the future of the food") Priya Sundaresan/Dorsa Sadigh (Stanford University) Akihiko Yamaguchi (Tohoku University/Finger Vision) Kevin Zhang/Oliver Kroemer (Carnegie Mellon University) *Organisers: *Namiko Saito (The University of Edinburgh, The Alan Turing Institute, and Waseda University) Kento Kawaharazuka (The University of Tokyo) Tatsuya Matsushima (The University of Tokyo) Marina Aoyama (The University of Edinburgh) Sethu Vijayakumar (The University of Edinburgh and The Alan Turing Institute) If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. Email: icra2024-cooking-ws(a)googlegroups.com Website: https://sites.google.com/view/icra2024cookingrobotics X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/cookingrobotics LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cooking-robotics-workshop/ -- Matsuo Iwasawa Lab, The University of Tokyo Project Researcher (Ph.D.) Tatsuya Matsushima

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Extended deadline: Call for Papers: JAAMAS Special Issue on Agreement Technologies: a tribute to Carles Sierra’s research
by Juan Antonio Rodriguez Aguilar 05 Mar '24

05 Mar '24

============================================================================================== Apologies for multiple postings ============================================================================================== Submissions are invited to the following special issue of the Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems *EXTENDED* deadline: June 15, 2024 Call: https://www.springer.com/journal/10458/updates/26344140 ============================================================================================== Call for Papers: Special Issue on Agreement Technologies: a tribute to Carles Sierra’s research Agreement Technologies refer to computer systems in which autonomous software agents negotiate with one another, typically on behalf of humans, in order to come to mutually acceptable agreements. An agent may choose whether to fulfill an agreement or not, and it should fulfil it when there is an obligation to do so derived from the standing agreements. Autonomy, interaction, mobility, and openness are key concepts studied within the Agreement Technologies approach. Semantic alignment, negotiation, argumentation, virtual organizations, trust and reputation, and several other technologies are part of the toolbox to define, specify, and verify such systems. Agreement Technologies amalgamates a wide range of topics that have been at the core of Multiagent Systems research for decades. A Springer book was published on Agreement Technologies in 2013, and a conference series was created in 2012 dedicated to the topic. The AT conference editions were held in Dubrovnik in 2012, Beijing in 2013, Athens in 2015, Valencia in 2016, Paris in 2017, Bergen in 2018, and Thessaloniki in 2020. The purpose of this special issue is to revise the current advancements in Agreement Technologies and, at the same time, pay homage to one of the main contributors to research on Agreement Technologies: Professor Carles Sierra, who was amongst the first to shape the field in terms of five key areas (semantics, norms, organisations, argumentation and negotiation, and trust and reputation). He received the 2019 ACM/SIGAI Autonomous Agents Research Award for his seminal contributions to agreement technologies and, more specifically, for his research on negotiation and argumentation, computational trust and reputation, and artificial social systems. With the occasion of Carles Sierra’s 60th birthday, this special issue will serve to revise the current advancements in the field. The special issue targets high-quality original papers covering all aspects of agreement technologies, including, but not limited to, the list of topics below. Manuscripts that extend a previous conference or workshop publication are welcome, provided that there is a significant amount of new material in the submission (i.e., the manuscript should contain at least 50% new material). Guest editors Michael Luck, University of Sussex Pablo Noriega, IIIA-CSIC Nardine Osman, IIIA-CSIC Juan A. Rodríguez-Aguilar, IIIA-CSIC Michael Wooldridge, University of Oxford Topics The following is a non-exhaustive list of topics that we would like to cover in the special issue: * Agreement technologies, architectures, environments, and methodologies * Negotiation * Argumentation * Trust and reputation * Normative systems * Artificial social systems * Electronic institutions * Semantic alignment * Value alignment: reasoning and learning * Collective value alignment * Large language models for agreements * Coalition and team formation * Social Intelligence * Applications of agreement technologies * Social welfare, fairness, and ethics in agreements * Decision and game theoretic foundations for agreements * Collective decision-making * Judgement aggregation Timeline Submission deadline: June 15, 2024 Manuscript submissions will be considered for publication in the AT special issue continuously until the submission deadline. Submissions accepted for publication before the completion of the special issue will be available on the journal website shortly after acceptance. Submission procedure To submit, you should visit the online system at<https://www.editorialmanager.com/agnt/>https://editorial.springernature.com <https://editorial.springernature.com/>and create a new account if you do not already have one. When creating your submission on the system, select the submission type "Manuscript," and then in the "Additional Information" section, answer "Yes" when asked if your manuscript belongs to a special issue, then select "S.I.: Agreement Technologies: a tribute to Carles Sierra’s research." If you do not mark your manuscript correctly as belonging to the special issue, it may not reach the correct editors. Authors are encouraged to submit high-quality, original work that has neither appeared in nor is under consideration by other journals. All papers will be reviewed following standard reviewing procedures for the Journal. Papers must be prepared in accordance with the Journal guidelines: www.springer.com/10458 <http://www.springer.com/10458>

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2nd Call for Papers: 12th ICAPS Workshop on Planning and Robotics
by Iman Awaad 27 Feb '24

27 Feb '24

** CALL FOR PAPERS ** Twelfth ICAPS Workshop on Planning and Robotics (PlanRob‚ 2024) https://icaps24.icaps-conference.org/program/workshops/planrob/ Banff, Canada, June 2-3, 2024 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * Topics and Objectives AI Planning & Scheduling (P&S) methods are key to enabling intelligent robots to perform autonomous, flexible, and interactive behaviours. Researchers in the P&S community have continued to develop approaches and produce planners, representations, as well as heuristics that robotics researchers can make use of. However, there remain numerous challenges complicating the uptake, use and successful integration of P&S technology in robotics, many of which have been addressed by robotics researchers with novel solutions. Strong collaboration and synergy between researchers in both communities is vital to the continued growth of the fields in a way that provide mutual benefits to the two communities. To foster this, the PlanRob workshop aims to provide a stable, long-term forum (having been held annually at ICAPS since 2013) where researchers from both the P&S and Robotics communities can openly discuss relevant issues, research and development progress, future directions and open challenges related to P&S when applied to Robotics. In addition to the usual paper submissions, the workshop’s format naturally lends itself to preliminary results, position papers as well as to work focused on challenges in using and integrating planners in robotics systems. * Topics of Interest Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): - human-aware planning and execution in human-robot interaction, - real-world planning applications for autonomous and intelligent robots, - planning domain representations for robotics applications, - optimising behaviour in large scale automated or semi-automated systems, - integrated planning and execution in robot architectures, - learning methods for robot planning and scheduling, - P&S methods for optimisation and adaptation in robotics, - mission, path, and motion planning for robots, - formal methods for robot planning and control, - challenges and solutions in using P&S technology in robotics, - open problems for P&S in robotics, - coordination of multi-robot teams, - benchmark planning domains for robots, - adversarial action planning in competitive robot domains, - mixed-initiative planning and sliding autonomy for robotic systems. < Papers from last year’s workshop can be found here: https://icaps23.icaps-conference.org/program/workshops/planrob/ <https://icaps23.icaps-conference.org/program/workshops/planrob/> > * Important Dates Paper submission: ***Monday, 25 March 2024*** Notification of acceptance: Friday, 26 April 2024 Camera-ready version due: Friday 24 May 2024 Workshop Date: June 2-3, 2024 The reference time-zone for all deadlines is UTC-12: Your submissions will be on time so long as there is still some place in the world where the deadline has not yet passed. * Submission Details There are two types of submissions: - short position papers (four pages) - regular papers (up to 10 pages) Papers may have an additional page containing references. Regular papers may be scheduled with more time in the final program. A poster session may be considered to provide a further presentation opportunity. The guidelines for formatting are the same as is used for ICAPS 2024 papers (typeset in the AAAI style as described at: http://www.aaai.org/Publications/Author/author.php), but with the AAAI copyright removed. The papers must be submitted in PDF format via the EasyChair system (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icapswsplanrob24). Please note that papers under review (e.g. which have been submitted to IJCAI-2024) are also welcome, however, in order to avoid potential conflicts, these manuscripts should be prepared as anonymous submissions for a double blind reviewing process. Accepted papers will be published on the workshop’s website. The organisers are investigating the availability of journal editors in order to invite a selection of accepted papers from the workshop to a special issue or post-proceedings volume. * Organizers Iman Awaad, Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences, Germany iman.awaad(a)h-brs.de Alberto Finzi, Università di Napoli "Federico II", Italy alberto.finzi(a)unina.it AndreA Orlandini  Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC-CNR), Italy andrea.orlandini(a)istc.cnr.it (Sent on behalf of the organising committee of PlanRob 2024)

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[jobs] two PhD positions in marine robotics
by Andreas Birk 27 Feb '24

27 Feb '24

Two PhD positions in marine robotics are available at Constructor University under the supervision of Prof. Andreas Birk and Prof. Francesco Maurelli. The compensation of the positions is with competitive stipends, which allow some freedom in the research direction of the candidate. Topics of interest are in the areas of perception and mapping with marine robots as well as autonomy and fault tolerance of marine robots. Applicants should have a background in robotics or related areas. They should be experienced with the Robot Operating System (ROS), ideally ROS2. If not, they at least need a strong C++ / Pyton programming expertise on Linux. Previous work in the area of marine robotics is a strong plus. Furthermore, knowledge in any of the following areas is an asset: computer vision, ideally underwater vision; signal processing, ideally with sonar; SLAM, ideally by using factor graphs; autonomy, ideally including aspects of fault tolerance. Please submit your application via Google Forms using the following link: https://forms.gle/qFT2oTu41MVoTKyi8 For any questions, please feel free to contact Prof. Andreas Birk <abirk(a)constructor.university> and Prof. Francesco Maurelli <fmaurelli(a)constructor.university> -- ================================================================================ Prof. Dr. Andreas Birk ================================================================================ Constructor University Robotics Group Campus Ring 1, 28759 Bremen, Germany https://robotics.constructor.university/ ================================================================================ Commercial registry: Amtsgericht Bremen, HRB 18117 Chairs of the Executive Board (Vorsitzende der Geschäftsführung): Dr. Stanislav Protasov (President/Präsident), Oznur Bell (Chancellor/Kanzlerin) Managing Directors (Geschäftsführung): Prof. Dr. Thomas Auf der Heyde, Maja Laetitia Feldt Chairman of the Board of Governors (Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender): Dr. Serg Bell ================================================================================

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Final Call for Papers: Call for Papers: The 6th Games, Agents, and Incentives Workshop (GAIW)@AAMAS 2024
by Nicholas Mattei 25 Feb '24

25 Feb '24

Last Call for Papers @ GAIW! TL;DR: Webpage: https://preflib.github.io/gaiw2024 - Submission Deadline: February 26, 2024 (AoE). - Acceptance Notification: March 28, 2024. - Camera Ready: April 15, 2024 (AoE). - Workshop: May 6 or 7, 2024 (TBA). Call for Papers: We invite submissions to the 6th iteration of the Games, Agents and Incentives Workshop, co-located with AAMAS 2024 in Auckland, New Zealand. 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: • CoopMAS: Cooperative Games in Multi-agent Systems • AMEC: Agent-Mediated Electronic Commerce • EXPLORE: Exploring Beyond the Worst Case in Computational Social Choice 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://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/GAIW2024 Formatting Guidelines: Please format papers according to the AAMAS 2024 format (author kit <https://www.aamas2024-conference.auckland.ac.nz/calls/submission-instructio…>). Optionally, one may submit in LNCS format as well (LaTeX template). Paper Length: Papers can be at most 8 pages long in AAMAS format, or 12 pages long in LNCS 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 2023, NeurIPS 2023, AAAI 2023, AAAI 2024 and any conference held strictly after February 2023). We invite papers on topics of game theory, mechanism design, fair allocation, computational social choice, and their applications to multi-agent 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-market - 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 - Price differentiation and price dynamics - Social networks - Trading agent design and analysis - Uncertainty in AI and economics 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 handline. Inquiries: If you have any questions, direct them to alan.tsang(a)carleton.ca. ********************************************************** IMPORTANT DATES ********************************************************** - Submission Deadline: February 26, 2024 (AoE). - Acceptance Notification: March 28, 2024. - Camera Ready: April 15, 2024 (AoE). - Workshop: May 6 or 7, 2024 (TBA). ********************************************************** ORGANIZATION ********************************************************** Program Chairs Ben Abramowitz, Tulane University Haris Aziz, UNSW Sydney and Data61 John P. Dickerson, University of Maryland Hadi Hosseini, Penn State University Nicholas Mattei, Tulane University Svetlana Obraztsova, Carleton University Zinovi Rabinovich, Carleton University Alan Tsang, Carleton University Tomasz Wąs, Penn State University -- *Nicholas Mattei* Assistant Professor, Tulane University nsmattei(a)tulane.edu | www.nickmattei.net Stanley Thomas Hall | 305B +1 504 865 5782 Department of Computer Science Tulane University 6823 St Charles Ave New Orleans, LA 70118

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Call for Participation - RoboCup 2024 Soccer Simulation 2D - Extended Pre-Registration Deadline
by MROA 19 Feb '24

19 Feb '24

Dear RoboCuppers, *Quick update:* We're extending the pre-registration deadline for the RoboCup 2024 Soccer Simulation 2D League to accommodate all interested teams. *New Deadline: February 29th*, 2024, 23:59 UTC. Now, you have more time to get your team pre-registered and submit your qualification materials. If you are already pre-registered, you don't need to pre-register again. *Qualification Notification: *Expect to hear from us regarding your team's qualification status by *March 16th, 2024*. Use the *online pre-registration form* by this link: https://forms.gle/hGe1gtnqpXrBtD8G8 For all the details, check out the *Call for Participation* document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O02gc-9HZ3x95NnirHg45S3Z0uiZVIKwIKfXi1G… . If you have any questions, Reach out to us anytime - [emails are in CFP] or join the SS2D official discord at https://discord.gg/yFxkCcatGe. Thanks for your patience and enthusiasm! Best, Omid Amini, Nader Zare, RoboCup2024 Soccer Simulation 2D League Organizing Committee

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[jobs] Postdoc Position at the Interactive Robotics Laboratory, Arizona State University (ASU)
by Fabian Weigend 18 Feb '24

18 Feb '24

The Interactive Robotics Laboratory [1] at Arizona State University (ASU) is currently seeking a highly qualified postdoc to join our team with a focus on vision-based indoor navigation. The successful applicant will work on machine learning approaches for context-aware robot navigation in dynamic home environments shared with humans. Location:ASU-Tempe Campus, Arizona, United States (Open to Worldwide Applicants) Minimum Qualification Requirements:* A PhD degree in Computer Science or any other robotics-associated discipline* Available to start in mid/late March* Able to work on-site in Tempe, Arizona Additional Requirements (some of the following):* Experience with machine learning in robotics* Human-robot interaction* Imitation learning in robotics* Experience in depth estimation from monocular RGB cameras* 3D simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM)* Path planning in dynamic environments* Real-time semantic segmentation and object detection* Optimizing machine learning models for fast inference on embedded systemsApplications:Deadline is the 1st of March. Kindly send your CV to fweigend(a)asu.edu. We will review applications that satisfy the essential requirements and proceed to schedule an online interview for further consideration. Please detail your achievements/experience in the aforementioned research domains, along with a description of your research interests. About Us:The Interactive Robotics Laboratory is directed by Prof. Heni Ben Amor. We explore the intersection of robotics, artificial intelligence, and human-robot interaction. Our primary focus is on developing machine learning methods that empower robots to exhibit intelligent and autonomous behaviors. The lab has established strong collaborations with leading robotics and machine learning research groups globally, and our methods have been applied to robots in the US, Europe, and Japan. We look forward to hearing from you![1]https://interactive-robotics.engineering.asu.edu/ <https://interactive-robotics.engineering.asu.edu/>

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Call for Participation: WRS Future Convenience Store Challenge in CyberSpace
by Tetsunari Inamura 16 Feb '24

16 Feb '24

######################################################## Call for Participation WRS Future Convenience Store Challenge in CyberSpace (ICRA 2024 Competition) May 13th - 15th, 2024 Yokohama, Japan ######################################################## The Future Convenience Store Challenge in CyberSpace, which is a new type of robot competition in cyberspace will be held at ICRA 2024, Yokohama Japan. Every regional and international Major team is cordially invited to take part in the event. Visit https://sites.google.com/view/fcsc-cyberspace/home for more detailed information. Details on the registration (rules, software systems) are available on the website. Organizers Tetsunari Inamura (Tamagawa University, Japan) Kazuyoshi Wada (Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan) Yukiyasu Domae (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan) -------------- Future Convenience Store Challenge in Cyberspace ---------------- The aim of this competition is to enhance the quality of customer service provided by intelligent robots in environments such as retail stores and shopping malls, and to realize new forms of services. Specifically, the competition will assess the ability of robots to engage in natural and friendly communication in the context of customer service, as well as their capability for cooperative work with human staff. While conventional competitions have primarily evaluated physical functionalities such as object recognition, human behavior recognition, navigation, and object manipulation using real robots, there have been limitations in smoothly conducting competitions when focusing on intellectual interactions, such as intention recognition, natural language understanding, conversation control, and resolving ambiguity. Therefore, this competition aims to improve the quality of dialogue systems for service robots collaborating with humans in retail stores and to achieve new interactive service systems by focusing on tasks that emphasize dialogue intelligence rather than physical functionality. Furthermore, this competition features a unique structure where robots in cyber space engage in dialogue with humans in real-world environments. We also welcome proposals that contribute to the realization of new services through the integration of metaverses, digital twins, cyber-physical systems, and robotics. As such, the competition is designed based on the simulator "SIGVerse," which enables robots to engage in embodied and social interaction in virtual reality (VR) environments. Participants will benefit from focusing solely on software development without the need to develop physical robots. -------------------------------- Important dates ------------------------------------ 2024-02-15 Team registration starts 2024-02-29 1st Call: Participation declaration 2024-03-14 First on-line meeting (tentative schedule) 2024-03-31 2nd Call: Participation declaration deadline (detailed team information should be fixed) 2024-04-17 Second on-line meeting (tentative schedule) 2024-05-13 Set-up day 2024-05-14 Competition Day 1 2024-05-15 Competition Day 2 , Award Ceremony ------------------------------ Competition Tasks -------------------------------------- This competition focuses on realizing robots that provide customer service in a conversational format at convenience stores. The emphasis is on the interaction capabilities with customers. Task 1: Interactive Customer Service In this task, functionalities such as image recognition, human state recognition, and location identification, which involves recognizing the customer's location in the store, their gestures, and the placement of items, are not evaluated. Instead, the focus is on engaging in accurate dialogue with customers in response to ambiguous requests and delivering the desired products to them. Customers convey their desired purchases to the service robot and request them to be placed in the shopping basket, using both natural language expressions and image presentation. The participants should build software to realize such an intelligent dialogue system for customer service robots. The participants can use OpenAI API or related LLM tools; however, we cannot guarantee the Internet connection quality at the competition site. If you use such an external cloud calculator, you must manage the risk yourself. Please note that installing your own wireless router will not be allowed. Task 2: Future Convenience Store Visionary Design In this competition, instead of completing tasks according to predefined rules, participants will propose possibilities for customer service and intelligent human-robot collaboration systems in future convenience stores in a presentation format based on their own creative ideas. The novelty, feasibility, and technical challenges of their ideas will be evaluated. The evaluation will focus on intelligent systems, service systems, and other systems mainly involving human interaction, which are expected to be useful in future convenience stores. Tasks involving no interaction with humans, such as autonomously cleaning toilets, are not included. Teams are encouraged to demonstrate the latest research and development on new approaches and applications related to customer service and employee support systems in a cyber environment. Specific examples of systems/proposals subject to evaluation include but are not limited to: - Planning systems that dynamically change and optimize the roles of service robots and employees. - Interactive service robot systems that recognize customer intentions and provide accurate services. - Training systems that determine appropriate training menus based on the skill levels of new employees. - Algorithms that observe customer purchasing behavior/movement paths and determine the optimal display layout. - Planning systems that dynamically change tasks to be executed based on the congestion status inside the store. Participants can use various types of systems and devices, including actual robot systems, but the primary focus of the final demonstration is on utilizing virtual spaces or Cyber-Physical Systems for the realization of intelligent service robots. Examples include digital twin systems supporting customer service action planning by intelligent robots and information presentation systems using wearable devices for efficient employee tasks. ------------------------------ Awards --------------------------------------------- Based on the ranking, the top three teams will be awarded certificates and prize money as follows: 1st place: 100,000 JPY + certificate 2nd place: 50,000 JPY + certificate 3rd place: 30,000 JPY + certificate ------------------------------ How to apply -------------------------------------------- Please access the following form to input detailed information about your team and team leader. The first deadline is the end of February; however, a tentative declaration of participation is welcome. We would appreciate you deciding the details of the team members by the end of March. Required information - Team name - Name/Affiliation/Grade/Email address of the team leader - Optional information - Estimated number of team members - Past experience and achievements in AI/Robot competitions - Web page of the team Please input the above information at the Google form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1zkfZG-fcxOt_emXUkZRTylih8J45a70TcPnM2a7Amp… 1st participation declaration: 28th Feb. (Tentative application is welcome) 2nd participation declaration: 31st Mar. (Confirmation of detailed team information) ----------------------- Contact. --------------------------------------- Please contact fcsc-info-ml(a)ml.tmu.ac.jp for any questions. See you all at ICRA 2024 in Yokohama! Best regards, ------------------------------------------------ Tetsunari Inamura Professor, Brain Science Institute, Tamagawa University, JAPAN TEL : +81-42-739-8679 URL : http://researchmap.jp/inamura/?lang=english Email : inamura(a)lab.tamagawa.ac.jp

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Call for Papers: 12th ICAPS Workshop on Planning and Robotics
by Iman Awaad 11 Feb '24

11 Feb '24

** CALL FOR PAPERS ** Twelfth ICAPS Workshop on Planning and Robotics (PlanRob‚ 2024) https://icaps24.icaps-conference.org/program/workshops/planrob/ Banff, Canada, June 2-3, 2024 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * Topics and Objectives AI Planning & Scheduling (P&S) methods are key to enabling intelligent robots to perform autonomous, flexible, and interactive behaviours. Researchers in the P&S community have continued to develop approaches and produce planners, representations, as well as heuristics that robotics researchers can make use of. However, there remain numerous challenges complicating the uptake, use and successful integration of P&S technology in robotics, many of which have been addressed by robotics researchers with novel solutions. Strong collaboration and synergy between researchers in both communities is vital to the continued growth of the fields in a way that provide mutual benefits to the two communities. To foster this, the PlanRob workshop aims to provide a stable, long-term forum (having been held annually at ICAPS since 2013) where researchers from both the P&S and Robotics communities can openly discuss relevant issues, research and development progress, future directions and open challenges related to P&S when applied to Robotics. In addition to the usual paper submissions, the workshop’s format naturally lends itself to preliminary results, position papers as well as to work focused on challenges in using and integrating planners in robotics systems. * Topics of Interest Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): - human-aware planning and execution in human-robot interaction, - real-world planning applications for autonomous and intelligent robots, - planning domain representations for robotics applications, - optimising behaviour in large scale automated or semi-automated systems, - integrated planning and execution in robot architectures, - learning methods for robot planning and scheduling, - P&S methods for optimisation and adaptation in robotics, - mission, path, and motion planning for robots, - formal methods for robot planning and control, - challenges and solutions in using P&S technology in robotics, - open problems for P&S in robotics, - coordination of multi-robot teams, - benchmark planning domains for robots, - adversarial action planning in competitive robot domains, - mixed-initiative planning and sliding autonomy for robotic systems. * Important Dates Paper submission: ***Monday, 25 March 2024*** Notification of acceptance: Friday, 26 April 2024 Camera-ready version due: Friday 24 May 2024 Workshop Date: June 2-3, 2024 The reference time-zone for all deadlines is UTC-12: Your submissions will be on time so long as there is still some place in the world where the deadline has not yet passed. * Submission Details There are two types of submissions: - short position papers (four pages) - regular papers (up to 10 pages) Papers may have an additional page containing references. Regular papers may be scheduled with more time in the final program. A poster session may be considered to provide a further presentation opportunity. The guidelines for formatting are the same as is used for ICAPS 2024 papers (typeset in the AAAI style as described at: http://www.aaai.org/Publications/Author/author.php), but with the AAAI copyright removed. The papers must be submitted in PDF format via the EasyChair system (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icapswsplanrob24). Please note that papers under review (e.g. which have been submitted to IJCAI-2024) are also welcome, however, in order to avoid potential conflicts, these manuscripts should be prepared as anonymous submissions for a double blind reviewing process. Accepted papers will be published on the workshop’s website. The organisers are investigating the availability of journal editors in order to invite a selection of accepted papers from the workshop to a special issue or post-proceedings volume. * Organizers Iman Awaad, Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences, Germany iman.awaad(a)h-brs.de Alberto Finzi, Università di Napoli "Federico II", Italy alberto.finzi(a)unina.it AndreA Orlandini  Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC-CNR), Italy andrea.orlandini(a)istc.cnr.it (Sent on behalf of the organising committee of PlanRob 2024)

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RoboCup@Work 2024: Call for Participation
by Asad Norouzi 08 Feb '24

08 Feb '24

Call for Applications for Participation RoboCup 2024 – RoboCup at Work https://2024.robocup.org Venue: Eindhoven, The Netherlands Monday, July 15th through Monday, July 22nd, 2024 RoboCup at Work: Competing for the Factory of the Future RoboCup at Work is a league of the RoboCup competition that replicates the use of robots in autonomous, industrial scenarios. It aims to promote research and development that enables the use of innovative mobile robots with advanced manipulators for cutting-edge industrial applications. Such applications include complex tasks ranging from manufacturing, automation, and parts handling to general logistics, as well as interaction with human workers. The RoboCup at Work league is characterized by an industrial environment. This consists of manipulation objects including nuts and bolts, arena elements such as shelves, bins, and platforms of different sizes, and networked automation devices like conveyor belts and drilling machines. The actual competition tasks to be performed in the environment are defined in a set of so-called tests. Each test addresses various mobile manipulation capabilities such as grasping, transportation, precision placement, and visual serving. The complete rules of RoboCup@Work as well as further technical details are (will be) posted on the RoboCup@Work website (https://atwork.robocup.org). Participation in the Competition All teams that intend to participate in the competition have to perform the following steps: 1. Submission of qualification materials including a Team Description Paper and a video of their robot performance. Details are below. 2. Final registration (qualified teams only) Qualification The qualification process serves a dual purpose: It should allow the Technical Committee (aka TC) to assess the safety of the robots a team intends to bring to the competition, and it should allow ranking teams according to a set of evaluation criteria in order to select the most promising teams for a competition, if not all interested teams can be permitted. The TC will select the qualified teams according to the qualification materials provided by the teams. The evaluation criteria will include: - Team description paper - Relevant scientific contributions/publications - The professional quality of the robot and software - Novelty of approach - Relevance to industry - Performance in previous competitions - Contribution to RoboCup at Work league, e.g. by Organization of events and/or provision and sharing of knowledge - The quality of the robot's performance of a task (selected by the team) shown in a video - Team website Team Description Paper The Team Description Paper (TDP) is a central element of the qualification process and has to be provided by each team as part of the qualification process. The TDP should at least contain the following information in the author/title section of the paper: - Name of the team (title) - Team members (authors), including the team leader - Link to the team website - Contact information The body of the TDP should contain information on the following: - the focus of research/research interest - a description of the hardware, including an image of the robot(s) - a description of the software, esp. the functional and software architectures - innovative technology (if any) - reusability of the system or parts thereof - applicability and relevance to industrial tasks - usage of components (software or hardware) developed by other RoboCup at Work teams The team description paper should cover the technical and scientific approach in detail, while the team website should be designed for a broader audience. Both the website and the TDP have to be in English. All TDPs must be written using the following template: https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/springer-lecture-notes-in-computer… Submission and Evaluation All applications with the qualification material must be submitted by March 3rd, 2024 through the following online form: https://forms.gle/iaJnpiWKjCXpCnC49 Qualified teams will be tentatively announced by March 18th, 2024. Important Links of RoboCup@Work League Official Website: https://atwork.robocup.org Discord: https://discord.gg/WaBHRdZq LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14158849/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/i/communities/1606361981937754115 Mailing List: https://lists.robocup.org/mm/lists/rc-work.lists.robocup.org/ Regards, RoboCup@Work EC/TC/OC

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Reminder: RoboCup SPL Call for Applications for Participation 2024
by Stefan Seering 07 Feb '24

07 Feb '24

Call for Applications for Participation Monday 15th July through Monday 22th July 2024 Eindhoven, The Netherlands 2024.robocup.org <https://2024.robocup.org> More details can be found on the league homepage <https://spl.robocup.org/call-for-participation-2024/>. All applications with the (pre-)qualification material must be submitted by *15th of February 2024*, by email to rc-spl-tc(a)lists.robocup.org. / RoboCup 2024 Standard Platform League Technical and Organizing Committees/

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