We are pleased to announce that Volume 21, Issue 1 of IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (T-ASE) is now available on IEEE Xplore. Click here for the table of contents and check out the issue now on Xplore!

We are pleased to announce that a new batch of IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) papers is now available on IEEE Xplore. Check it out!

RAS welcomes a new Executive Committee under the leadership of President Aude Billard for the 2024-2025 term. The RAS Executive Committee (ExCom) is chaired by the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society President and consists of its Chair, the President-Elect, all the Vice Presidents, the Treasurer, and the Secretary.

Between meetings of the Administrative Committee (AdCom), the ExCom is empowered to act for the Society except on matters which the AdCom has by resolution expressly reserved to itself.

Below are the members of the new RAS ExCom.

President

Aude Billard

EPFL

Lausanne, Switzerland

0 billard aude

Secretary

Patrick M. Wensing

University of Notre Dame

South Bend (IN), USA

576 wensing patrick m

Treasurer

Tony Maciejewski

Colorado State University

Fort Collins (CO), USA

184 maciejewski tony

Vice President of Conference Activities

Darwin Caldwell

Italian Institute of Technology

Genova, Italy

1346 caldwell darwin

Vice President of Educational Activities

Odest Chadwicke Jenkins

University of Michigan Ann Arbor

Michigan, USA

976 chadwicke jenkins odest

Vice President of Financial Activities

Jing Xiao

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Worcester (MA), USA

166 xiao jing

Vice President of Industrial Activities

Andra Keay

Silicon Valley Robotics

Oakland, CA

1016 keay andra

Vice President of Media Services

Ludovic Righetti

New York University

Brooklyn (NY), USA

578 righetti ludovic

Vice President of Member Activities

Katja Mombaur

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Karlsruhe, Germany

73 mombaur katja

Vice President of Publication Activities

Bram Vanderborght

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Brussel, Belgium

0 vanderborght bram

Vice President of Technical Activities

Kyujin Cho

Seoul National University

Seoul, South Korea

0 cho kyujin

President Elect

Nancy Amato

University of Illinois

Urbana (IL), USA

188 amato nancy

 

Congratulations to the following IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) members who

were elevated to Fellow grade, effective 1 January 2024! Nominees for IEEE Fellow must hold

the grade of Senior Member or Life Senior Member to qualify for elevation to Fellow status.

2024 RAS Fellows Evaluated by RAS

  • Chien Cheah — for contributions to task-space robot control and dynamic multi- robot control
  • Noah Cowan — for contributions to sensing, navigation, and control in animals and machines
  • Mariagrazia Dotoli — for contributions to control of logistics systems in smart cities
  • Sami Haddadin — for contributions to robot safety, tactile robots, and interaction control
  • George Q Huang — for contributions on digitization framework and cyber-physical analytics for smart manufacturing
  • Paul Oh — for contributions to unmanned aerial vehicles and humanoid robotics
  • Danail Stoyanov — for contributions to intelligent computer-assisted surgical and diagnostical systems
  • Salah Sukkarieh — for contributions to robotic navigation in aerial and agricultural applications
  • Sheng Xie — for contribution to robotics for rehabilitation and healthcare

2024 RAS Fellows Evaluated by Other IEEE Societies

  • Evaluated by the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society: Long Cheng — for contributions to neural networks for optimization and control
  • Evaluated by the IEEE Computer Society: Niklas Karlsson — for technical leadership to vSLAM and online advertising
  • Evaluated by the IEEE Computer Society: Zhiyun Lin — for contributions to distributed multi-agent systems and autonomous systems
  • Evaluated by the IEEE Computer Society: Fumin Zhang — for contributions to autonomy of robotic sensing networks and control of marine robots
  • Evaluated by the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society: Hiroshi Fujimoto — for contributions to control of high-precision systems
  • Evaluated by the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society: Toshiyuki Murakami — for contributions to reaction torque observer and power assisted control
  • Evaluated by the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society: Chenguang Yang — for contributions to control and learning of mechatronic systems
  • Evaluated by the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society: Tao Zhang — for contributions to robot vision perception and adaptive fault- tolerant control
  • Evaluated by the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society: Azim Eskandarian — for contributions to communication and control of intelligent autonomous vehicles
  • Evaluated by the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society: Mingcong Deng — for contributions to learning and operator based uncertain nonlinear systems analysis, control, and applications

Thanks to all for participating in the 2024 AdCom Election. The votes have now been counted, and the following candidates have been elected to three-year terms (1 January 2024–31 Dec 2026):

Dudek

Gregory Dudek (GEO Area 1 Representative)

Hosada

Koh Hosoda (GEO Area 3 Representative)

Barbara Mazzolai 2023

Barbara Mazzolai (GEO Area 2 Representative)

2020 OMalley headshot 1

Marcia O’Malley (GEO Area 1 Representative)

Ogato2021

Tetsuya Ogata (At-Large Representative)

YuSun

Yu Sun (At-Large Representative)

RAS extends our hearty congratulations to the incoming AdCom class and our sincerest thanks to all candidates for their willingness to serve.

RAS leadership is currently planning a special event to celebrate ICRA's 40th anniversary. ICRA @ 40 will be a special edition, single-track conference, to be held in Rotterdam, NL, from 23-26 September 2024. Save the dates! More information will arrive soon.

Are you a research student developing the next generation of robotic technologies to assist first responders? If so, join us at the upcoming IEEE-RAS Response Robotics Seasonal School and Workshop! It will be held March 4-7 in Texas and travel support is available for IEEE-RAS students.

Travel support deadline: extended to January 12th, 2024

Application deadline: February 1st, 2024

see https://responserobotics.org for details!

Since 1963, IEEE has acknowledged outstanding Members who have contributed significantly to the advancement of engineering, science, and technology for society at large, by elevating them to IEEE Fellow.

The IEEE Fellow nomination system (the Fellow Portal) is now open and accepting nominations for the Fellow Class of 2025. 

Please consider nominating a colleague to the highest IEEE Member grade: IEEE Fellow. 

Deadline
All nominations for IEEE Fellow, including references and endorsements are due 7 February 2024. For more information, please visit ieee.org/membership/fellows.

For a list of current RAS fellows, please visit Our Fellows Page.

From Society Sentinel: Important End-of-Year Messages

The nominations deadline for the prestigious IEEE Robotics and Automation Award is 15 Jan 2024. More about the IEEE Robotics and Automation Award and evaluation process found here: https://corporate-awards.ieee.org/corporate-awards/#field-awards

Technical Field Award

We are pleased to announce that a new batch of IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) papers is now available on IEEE Xplore. Check it out!

The RAS Technical Committee on Multi-Robot Systems is organizing a 2024 edition of the IEEE-RAS Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems. The Summer School will be held at the campus of Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic from 29 July-2 August 2024.

The Summer School aims to promote the latest achievements in multi-robot systems and swarm robotics to students, academic researchers, and industrial practitioners, with the aim of helping all put systems of cooperating robots into practice. For more details on the subject matter focus and theme of this year’s Summer School, check out the website.

The early bird discounted registration deadline is 31 December 2023. To apply, submit your CV, personal information, and a brief statement of interest through this form. Additional application instructions and information are available at the website.

The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) membership will elect six new members of the Administrative Committee (AdCom) in 2024, each to serve a three-year term beginning 1 January 2025. The AdCom is the governing body of the Society.

Responsibilities of AdCom Members

AdCom members must attend two formal meetings each year, one in conjunction with ICRA and the other usually in October/November in conjunction with another major conference. Each AdCom member is expected to serve on at least two boards and/or committees of the Society.

Eligibility

Any higher-grade member of the Society is eligible to serve and all higher-grade members plus graduate students may nominate candidates and vote.

To Nominate a Candidate

To nominate a candidate, whether someone else or yourself, contact the Society at ras@ieee.org by 1 May 2024.

Petition Candidates

Candidates may also petition to be on the ballot. All persons who, by the deadline, submit petitions with valid signatures and IEEE member numbers of at least 2% of the previous year-end voting membership will be placed on the ballot. Only original signatures on paper or electronic signatures submitted through the RAS petition website will be accepted. Faxed or emailed signatures are NOT acceptable. Contact the Society at ras@ieee.org to obtain a paper petition form or to set up an electronic petition.

Note: Completed petitions must be received by 1 May 2024 to be placed on the ballot.

Selection of Final Ballot

The Nominations Committee will consider all nominations and petitions and select the candidates to be placed on the ballot.

We are pleased to announce that Nancy Amato, Head of the Computer Science Department and Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, was elected by the RAS Administrative Committee (AdCom) to serve as the RAS President for the 2026-2027 term. Professor Amato will serve as President-Elect during Professor Aude Billard’s 2024-2025 term as RAS President.

Professor Amato has served in a variety of roles previously with RAS, including on the RAS AdCom and Executive Committee (ExCom) as well as with RAS-sponsored publications, conferences.

nancy headshot

Nancy M. Amato is Head of the Computer Science Department and Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She received undergraduate degrees in Mathematical Sciences and Economics from Stanford, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from UC Berkeley and the University of Illinois, respectively. Before returning to her alma mater in 2019, she was Unocal Professor and Regents Professor at Texas A&M University and Senior Director of Engineering Honors Programs.

Amato is known for algorithmic contributions to robotics task and motion planning, computational biology and geometry, and parallel and distributed computing. Her honors include the inaugural Robotics Medal in 2023, the 2019 IEEE RAS Saridis Leadership Award in Robotics and Automation, the inaugural 2014 NCWIT Harrold/Notkin Research and Graduate Mentoring Award, and the 2014 CRA Haberman Award for contributions to increasing diversity in computing. She is a Fellow of the AAAI, AAAS, ACM and IEEE.

 

 

IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics (T-MRB) has a long-lasting connection with the IEEE International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob). The 10th edition of this conference will be held 1-4 September 2024 in Heidelberg, Germany—check out the conference website. The call for papers can be found here. Note that the submission deadline is 20 January 2024. The best papers submitted to BioRob 2024 will be invited for publication in a Special Section of T-MRB. At the end of the review process, the corresponding authors of those papers selected will receive a direct invitation from the T-MRB Editorial Board to submit the papers, with no modifications, to the journal. If the authors accept, their contributions will be published in the T-MRB Special Section instead of the BioRob proceedings, but authords will still have the opportunity to present their work at the BioRob 2024 Conference. T-MRB strongly encourages all authors in the fields of biorobotics and bionics to submit contributions to this exciting event.

cropped banner highres new december 2023

We are pleased to announce that submissions are now open for the 2024 IEEE 20th International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE 2024)! CASE 2024 will be held in Bari, Italy from 28 August-1 September 2024. CASE is one of the flagship conferences of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and provides a primary forum for cross-industry multidisciplinary research in automation.

We invite you to participate in CASE 2024 by submitting your contributions, including special session and workshop proposals, regular papers, industry papers, and presentation-only papers related to the conference topics.

Important Submission Deadlines

  • 8 February 2024: Special session proposal submission
  • 1 March 2024: Regular and special session full paper submission
  • 1 April 2024: Workshop/tutorial proposal submission, Industry paper, and work-in-progress paper submission
  • 30 April 2024: RA-L, T-RO, RAM, T-ASE presentation submission

To submit your proposals and papers, and for more information, please visit the CASE 2024 website.

Call for papers

Vote today for the IEEE RAS AdCom election so we can increase last year’s percentage rate of 11.8%. Your vote counts! 

VOTE NOW at https://eballot.app/ieee

Election Vote

You will need your IEEE Account username/password to access the ballot. For quick reference, your username is your email address. If you do not remember your password, you may retrieve it on the voter login page.

Important Access Information

Please make sure you are signed out of all other applications in your browser before attempting to log into the voting site. If you are having trouble accessing the site, it could be because you are not signed in to your IEEE Account; we recommend that you copy the link and paste into (1) a private browsing window if using Firefox or (2) an incognito window if using Chrome, and then log in with your IEEE Account information.

Voting must be completed no later than 26 December 2023. Any returns received after this date will not be counted. The online voting site will close at 4:00 pm Eastern Time.

If you have any questions about the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society voting process, please contact ieee-rasvote@ieee.org or +1 732 562 3904.

Thank you for your participation in this election.

The purpose of the IEEE/IFR Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation (IERA) Award is to highlight and honor the achievements of the inventors who value creating ideas and entrepreneurs who propel those ideas into world-class products. In a joint event, the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) and the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) will therefore recognize and honor the outstanding personal achievements of entrepreneurs in the commercialization of innovative robotic and automation technology.

These achievements will be recognized in a specially organized IEEE/IFR Joint Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation, which is being held in conjunction with the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), which will take place from 13-17 May 2023 in Yokohama, Japan.

The selected finalists will have the opportunity to present their story of the genesis of a successful innovative product in robotics and automation from its very inception to the final state of commercialization in a series of plenary lectures. The ultimate winner will be chosen by an evaluation board consisting of distinguished individuals from industry and academia. A certificate will be awarded to each finalist, and the winner will receive a prestigious plaque as well as a US$2,000 prize.


Check out this year's handout for more details on how to apply. For more information about the award, including previous winners, check out the IEEE IERA page. Please note that applications are due by February 10, 2024; they may be submitted either to secretariat@ifr.org or to ras@ieee.org.

We are pleased to announce that a new batch of IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) papers is now available on IEEE Xplore. Check it out!

The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) wants to encourage students to play an active role in existing robotics standardization efforts. IEEE-RAS has a number of approved and active standardization efforts, which you can read about here, and we have set aside funds to provide partial travel support to students interested in attending the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), which will be held in Yokohama, Japan from 13-17 May 2024. ICRA 2024 will feature numerous IEEE robotics standardization meetings.

We expect to award 3 travel grants to cover flights, hotel reservations, and conference registration within the IEEE guidelines and not to exceed $3,000 each. Priority will be given to students that would not have otherwise attended ICRA (e.g., who do not have a paper accepted), and priority will also be given to undergraduate students. Note that you do not need to be an IEEE member to apply.

Reimbursements will be processed after attendance at ICRA 2024. Selected students will be expected to participate in the full-day standards terminology harmonization meeting (if scheduled) as well as in least one standards working group meeting. They will also be required to write a 2-3 page report, submitted to IEEE-RAS, describing their experiences at the conference and how they expect to use what they learned in the future.

To apply for the travel grant, email the following to Dr. Craig Schlenoff (Associate Vice President of Standardization with the RAS Industrial Activities Board) at ras@ieee.org in a Word or PDF document.

  • Name
  • Contact Information (university, address, phone, email)
  • An essay (maximum 1000 words) describing the following:
  • Your overall interest in robotic standards
  • Which IEEE Robotics Standards efforts most interest you and why
  • Plans and expectations for how you will incorporate robotic standards in your continued education and your future career
  • Plans for continuing participation in robotics standardization efforts

Applications are due 1 February 2024 and notification of acceptance is expected on or around 1 March 2023.

SPIRSE Draft

We are pleased to announce that Volume 5, Issue 4 of IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics (T-MRB) is now available on IEEE Xplore. Click here for the table of contents and check out the issue now on Xplore!

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