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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 06 Mar '24

06 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 18 Feb '24

18 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 17 Feb '24

17 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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