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Richard A. Volz (10 July 1937 - 19 June 2013)
Richard A. (Dick) Volz died on 19 June 2013 after a long and courageous battle with cancer. Dick was an IEEE Fellow and President of the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society from 2006-2007. He was known as an exceptional researcher on robotics and control and was an excellent mentor to students and other researchers in robotics.
Dick was former department head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University. Prior to retirement from Texas A&M in 2004, Dr. Volz was the Royce E. Wisenbaker Professor of Engineering and served as department head from 1988 to 1997. In 2010 a festschrift entitled "Workshop on Intelligent Systems: A Festschrift for Richard Volz" was held at Texas A&M to honor and celebrate his career.
Before joining Texas A&M, Dr. Volz was the founding director of the Robotics Research Laboratory and professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan. While at the University of Michigan, he also served terms as associate department head, associate director of the Computer Center and director of the Computer and Image Processing Research Network (CIPRNet). In 1971, he spent the (Northern Hemisphere) summer at the University of Chile, as part of an Organization of American States program. During the summers of 1973 and 1974, he held a summer faculty position at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Northwestern University in 1960, 1961 and 1964 respectively.
He was the author or co-author of over 175 research papers and led over $15,000,000 in funded research projects. He served in numerous professional service positions, e.g., editor-in-chief of the "IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation," the leading journal in the field; associate editor of "IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems;" general chair of the "1990 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation;" vice-president for Publications for the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS); member of the IEEE Publications, Services and Products Board; member of the IEEE Board of Directors; and numerous related committees. Early in his career, he served as secretary of the IEEE Automatic Control Group. As an undergraduate, he was editor of the "Northwestern Engineer."
In honor of his efforts, the "Dick Volz Best U.S. Ph.D. Thesis in Robotics and Automation" was established. This award recognizes outstanding researchers in the field of robotics and automation who have obtained their Ph.D. degree at any U.S. institution in any topic within robotics and automation.
Dr. Volz also served on five federal advisory boards: 1) the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, 2) the Ada Board, 3) The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, a Congressional oversight committee on NASA, 4) the NASA Space Station Advisory Panel, and 5) the NASA Center of Excellence in Information Technology Advisory Panel.
While he was best known for his work in robotics and automation, especially networked telerobotics and teleautonomous systems, he worked in a broad set of interconnecting areas. Early in his career, he led the development of two computer aided design methods for control systems that were used in a number of universities and companies around the world. He also worked on optimal control systems and computational methods of optimization. Later, he worked on real time systems and distributed languages, and led the development of a distributed Ada technology and graphical system for managing the distribution of modules among networked computers. He completed his technical career working on the use of artificial intelligence concepts for training a human workforce.
In addition to his IEEE Fellow award, he received the Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service from the U.S. Air Force, the Public Service Award from NASA, two Special Service Awards from NASA, an appreciation plaque from the NASA astronauts, and the Millennium Medal and Robotics & Automation Society Distinguished Service Award from IEEE. As an undergraduate, he received the Esbach Award, the highest award given to an undergraduate engineering student at Northwestern.
At the "IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation" held in Shanghai, China, Dr. Volz was named the recipient of the prestigious IEEE RAS George Saridis Leadership Award in Robotics and Automation for 2011. This award recognized Dr. Volz for his exceptional leadership throughout the Robotics Automation Society's history in publications, conference procedures, award procedures and financial analysis and planning for publications and conferences.
An endowed scholarship for a student at Texas A&M has been established in honor of Dr. Volz. Contributions can be sent to:
The Texas A&M Foundation
401 George Bush Drive
College Station, Texas 77480, USA
Be sure to designate the "Richard A. Volz Memorial Scholarship" in the memo line of the check.
You are invited to add your remembrances of Dr. Volz at http://parasol.tamu.edu/volzfest/remembrances.
Congratulations to the following winner of the 2013 King-Sun Fu Memorial Award. This award honors the best paper printed in the IEEE Transactions on Robotics in the previous year. The authors were presented their award during the Awards Luncheon on 9 May 2013 in Karlsruhe, Germany.
"Reinforcement Learning With Sequences of Motion Primitives for Robust Manipulation"
Freek Stulp, Evangelos A. Theodorou, Stefan Schaal
IEEE Transactions on Robotics; vol. 28, no. 6, December 2012, pp. 1360-1370
Did you get a chance to join the RAS Webinar - Improving Workplace Email Using the STOP Method
Don't worry if you did not, the slides and a recording of the webinar are now posted here on the RAS website, under the Education tab.
Email: it’s the first thing we check in the morning, probably before we even get to the office, and it rules our actions throughout the day. But despite the importance of email, we don’t spend much time considering how to make it more effective at accomplishing our goals. In fact, some of the email we receive is so confusing and poorly written, we may have a difficult time understanding exactly what the message is and what the writer wants. The STOP Method is designed to help you improve your email through four concrete strategies. This webinar will introduce you to the STOP method and give you opportunities to improve your email every day. Dr. Julia Williams will offer examples of poor email and identify the elements that contribute to its ineffectiveness.
The goal of this webinar is to provide you with easy-to-use tools that will make a difference in your email right away!
Congratulations to the following ICRA 2013 Best Paper Award recipients! Winners were announced and honored during the Awards Luncheon which took place on 9 May 2013 in Karlsruhe, Germany.
Best Automation Paper Award
A Novel Virtual Metrology Scheme for Predicting Machining Precision of Machine Tools:
Hao Tieng, Haw-Ching Yang, Min-Hsiung Hung, Fan-Tien Cheng
Best Medical Robotics Paper Award
A Continuum Manipulator Made of Interlocking Fibers:
Matthew S. Moses, Michael D. M. Kutzer, Hans Ma, Mehran Armand
Best Cognitive Robotics Paper Award
Using Robotic Exploratory Procedures to Learn the Meaning of Haptic Adjectives:
Vivian Chu, Ian McMahon, Lorenzo Riano, Craig G. McDonald, Qin He, Jorge Martinez Perez-Tejada, Michael Arrigo, Naomi Fitter, John C. Nappo, Trevor Darrell, Katherine J. Kuchenbecker
KUKA Best Service Robotics Paper Award
Towards Real-World Gas Distribution Mapping and Leak Localization Using a Mobile Robot with 3D and Remote Gas Sensing Capabilities:
Victor Manuel Hernandez Bennetts, Achim J. Lilienthal, Ali Abdul Khaliq, V?ctor Pomareda Sesé, Marco Trincavelli
Best Manipulation Paper Award
A Probabilistic Framework for Task-Oriented Grasp Stability Assessment:
Yasemin Bekiroglu, Dan Song, Lu Wang, Danica Kragic
Best Vision Paper Award
Tracking Deformable Objects with Point Clouds:
John Schulmann, Alex Lee, Jonathan Ho, and Pieter Abbeel
Best Student Paper Award
Effector Form Design for 1DOF Planar Actuation:
Alberto Rodriguez (Student Author), Matthew T. Mason
Best Conference Paper Award
Control Design along Trajectories with Sums of Squares Programming:
Anirudha Majumdar, Amir Ali Ahmadi, Russ Tedrake
The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society recognized the following individuals for their outstanding accomplishments and service to RAS and the Robotics and Automation community, on 9 May at ICRA in Karlsruhe, Germany:
RAS Pioneer Award
Raja Chatila - ISIR - Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique, France
"For fundamental pioneering contributions to robotics research in the areas of navigation and control, for visionary leadership, and for life-long commitment to the field"
Peter B. Luh - University of Connecticut, USA
"For pioneering contributions to the development of near-optimal and efficient planning, scheduling, and coordination methodologies for manufacturing and power systems"
IEEE RAS Distinguished Service Award
Oussama Khatib - Stanford University, USA
"In recognition of his vision and leadership for the Robotics and Automation Society, in establishing and sustaining conferences in robotics and related areas, publishing influential monographs and handbooks and training and mentoring the next generation of leaders in robotics education and research"
Satoshi Tadokoro - Tohoku University, Japan
"For his outstanding service and activities for Technical Committees, Administrative Committee, Chapter and Conferences"
Mengchu Zhou - New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA
"For his outstanding contribution and leadership in RAS Journals, Conferences and Technical Activities"
RAS Early Career Award - Academic
Jan Peters - Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
"For the development of new robot learning approaches, architectures and methods and their application to anthropomorphic robots"
Cyril Stachniss - University of Freiburg, Germany
"For his contribution to mobile robot exploration and simultaneous localization and mapping"
RAS Early Career Award - Industry/Government
Matei Ciocarlie - Willow Garage, USA
"For major contributions to robotic manipulation research, released as open-source and widely adopted and used in both academia and industry"
Radu B. Rusu - Open Perception, Inc, USA
"For contributions to creating and leading an open source ecosystem that fosters technology transfer in 3D perception between academia and industry"
IEEE Inaba Technical Award for Innovation Leading to Production
Fan-Tien Cheng - National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan
"For contributions to the development of the Automatic Virtual Metrology (AVM) System"
IEEE Robotics and Automation Award for Product Innovation
Fain-Biomedical, Inc. - Nagoya, Japan
"In recognition of the Endovascular Evaluator (EVE), forefront of medical simulator for training and evaluation of endovascular surgery"
RAS Most Active Technical Committee Award
TC on Automated Ground Vehicles and Intelligent Transportation Systems
Chair: Philippe Martinet
Co-Chairs: Christian Laugier and Christoph Stiller
RAS Chapter of the Year Award
Italy Chapter
Chair: Gianluca Antonelli
REMINDER!!
Nominations for the 2014 Society Awards are due by 1 August 2013, and should be submitted to RAS@ieee.org, using the templates found at http://www.ieee-ras.org/awards/society.html
The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society membership will elect six new members of the Administrative Committee in 2013, each to serve a three-year term beginning in January of 2014. 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 or offer yourself as a candidate, contact the Society at ras@ieee.org by 15 July 2013.
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 with at least 2% of the 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 RAS at ras@ieee.org to obtain a paper petition form or to set up an electronic petition.
Completed petitions must be received by 15 July 2013 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.
"For contributions to computer vision, the active perception paradigm, and medical robotics"
A driving force in the field of robotics for over three decades, Ruzena Bajcsy's pioneering work on machine vision and perception has helped robots achieve humanlike performance. During the 1980s, she was the first to recognize that active perception was needed to improve computer vision/information acquisition. Active perception enables mobile robots to actively control camera positions and other image acquisition conditions. Dr. Bajcsy's landmark work on computer vision also includes modeling of deformable objects, elastic model matching, and visual hyperacuity, which has had important implications for medical robotics and imaging. Dr. Bajcsy founded the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Laboratory in 1978 at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1998, she became the first woman to lead the National Science Foundation's Directorate of Computer and Information Science and Engineering. An IEEE Fellow, Dr. Bajcsy is the NEC Chair Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley.
The IEEE Robotics and Automation Award was established in 2002 by the IEEE Board of Directors, and is presented for contributions in the field of robotics and automation. It includes but is not limited to: manufacturing automation; robotics and automation in unstructured environments; sensor design; integration and fusion; robot design; modeling; planning and control; methodologies for robotics and automation, and the quality of the nomination.
Past Recipients:
2012 – Bernard Roth
2011 – Hirochika Inoue
2010 – Toshio Fukuda
2009 – Antal Bejczy
2008 – Paul G. Backes
Eric T. Baumgartner
Larry H. Matthies
2007 – Gerd Hirzinger
2006 – George A. Bekey
2005 – Seiuemon Inaba
2004 – Joseph F. Engelberger
Karlsruhe, 8 May 2013 - The 9th annual Invention and Entrepreneurship Award in Robotics and Automation (IERA) was presented to Robert Horst, AlterG Inc. (former Tibion Corporation) for the Tibion Bionic Leg, at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Karlsruhe, Germany.
"The awards committee had a difficult choice to make with three excellent finalists. In the end, we picked the Tibion Bionic Leg for the following reason as noted in the citation for the award: 'A breakthrough product for rehabilitation of stroke patients at an affordable price, and offering a compelling story of an entrepreneurial journey with typical ups-and-downs culminating in a successful business'", commented Raj Madhavan, Vice President of IEEE-RAS Industrial Activities Board and Chairman of the Awards Committee.
"I was very happy to accept this award for the AlterG Bionic Leg because it acknowledges the growing importance of robotics for rehabilitation. It is gratifying to receive such a prestigious award after our team has worked so hard to perfect the Bionic Leg and introduce it into physical therapy. I am looking forward to working with the expanded AlterG team to accelerate the availability of Bionic Leg therapy and develop future innovations in rehabilitation robotics" stated Robert Horst of AlterG.
The Tibion Bionic Leg (TBL) is a wearable, battery-powered, robotic mobility assistance device. It is a robotic trainer that is activated by the patient's intent to move. The TBL is used by physical therapists for patients with impaired mobility and is designed to strengthen stance, improve gait, and enhance active motor learning while protecting its users.
Tibion Incorporated was founded in 2002. Robert Horst started research of the Bionic Leg years after his knee surgery. After developing the hard- and software of the product, Tibion sold the first Bionic Leg in 2009. By today the company has sold more than a hundred units. Tibion is now part of AlterG, Inc., a company who is revolutionizing modern rehabilitation through the use of the cutting edge Anti-Gravity Treadmill® and Bionic Leg. The Bionic Leg is currently available in over 100 hospitals, physical therapy facilities and skilled nursing facilities worldwide. The AlterG Anti-Gravity Treadmill® technology was originally developed for NASA and is the first FDA-cleared medical device that uses patented differential air pressure technology. AlterG products are used by major medical centers, leading physical therapy clinics, top professional and collegiate teams and athletes, and individual sports and fitness programs worldwide.
The awards committee cited the other two finalists as follows:
The Thymio II Educational Robot by Stéphane Magnenat, ETH Zürich and Fanny Riedo, EPFL, Switzerland
"An inspiring product motivating young boys and girls to enter science, technology, engineering and math disciplines."
Intelligent Grit-blasting Robots for The Surface Preparation Industry by Professor Dikai Liu, University of Technology, Australia
"A good example of bringing robotics and automation technologies to tackle dull, dirty, and dangerous tasks, and to improve infrastructure maintenance."
In 2005 the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (IEEE/RAS) and the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) agreed to jointly sponsor the Invention and Entrepreneurship Award. The purpose of this award is to highlight and honor the achievements of the inventors with value creating ideas and entrepreneurs who propel those ideas into world-class products. At the same time the joint disposition of the award underlines the determination of both organizations to promote stronger collaboration between robotics science and robotics industry. The annual presented award consists of a plaque and a $2,000 honorarium.
Let Contest Begin! Please help us choose a winner!
Do you enjoy photography, have an artistic eye and are up for a challenge? If you are attending ICRA 2013 in Karlsruhe, Germany, RAS invites you to participate in a photography contest. Photos should capture the essence of ICRA, exhibit creativity and technical skill. You are invited to submit up to three original photos taken during the event from 6-10 May 2013. The winner will receive an iPad mini.
All photos submitted to this contest may be used by RAS in future promotions, the RAS Facebook page, the RAS website or other opportunities.
Deadline for Submission of Photos: 17 May 2013
Judging: Photos will be placed in an album on the RAS Facebook Page. The photo with the most "likes" by 31 May will be the winner. RAS members and the public will be encouraged to vote for their favorite photo.
Please use the following form to submit your entry:
https://adobeformscentral.com/?f=TIH0S4q8eLEIizBYBm2dag
For questions, or to submit your entry via email: RAS@ieee.org
Conference timelines, Concentration Banking Accounts, Budgets, Whether to hire a meeting planner, Conference Closings, Hotel Contracts, Insurance, Tax Issues— organizing a conference can be a daunting task, especially a large conference like ICRA or IROS involving a thousand people or more. Anyone who is involved in organizing an IEEE Conference is urged to attend and get answers to your questions about the organization, requirements, logistics and finances of conferences, both large and small.
The RAS Panel of Conference Organizers (RAS POCO) will take place on Monday, 6 May from 9:00-14:00 during ICRA 2013, in room SR3-Konzerthaus in Karlsruhe, Germany. Lunch will be provided by RAS.
Tentative AGENDA
09:00-09:15 - Opening Remarks for the Mini POCO - David Orin
09:15-09:45 - Conferences in RAS - Nikos Papanikolopoulos
09:45-10:15 - Conference Initiation and MOUs - Kathy Colabaugh
10:15-10:45 - Conference Timeline & Checklist - Nikos Papanikolopoulos
10:45-11:15 - Conference Basics - Nikos Papanikolopoulos
11:15-12:00 - Conference Finance and Closing - Ron Lumia
12:00-12:30 - Working LUNCH
12:30-14:00 - How IEEE MCE can assist Organizers - Alicia Zupeck
14:00 - Q&A
Please register for this FREE workshop on-line
Or register by email: ras@ieee.org
Did you get a chance to join the RAS Webinar - The Power of Presentations: Make Yours Informative, Persuasive, & Memorable?
Don't worry if you did not, the slides and a recording of the webinar are now posted here on the RAS website, under the Education tab.
If you would like to address the issues mentioned below, check it out.
•Many engineers experience a kind of stage fright when they make presentations in front of groups, whether small or large. Their hands shake, their palms sweat, and they have a tendency to rock back and forth. But they may think there is nothing they can do about these physical tics.
•The success of an oral presentation depends on both the clear verbal information conveyed by the presenter and on the clear visual information conveyed by graphs, charts, tables, and other visuals. Unfortunately poor visuals can cause confusion when the presenter ignores the conventions of displaying information.
•How do you present technical information to non-technical people? Many engineers are tempted to “dumb down” technical content for non-engineers, often creating over-simplified presentations that insult the audience.
Deadline: 1 April 2013 for 2014 Proposals!
The IEEE RAS Summer School program is jointly run by the Member Activities Board (MAB) and the Technical Activities Board (TAB) of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS). The program is intended to sponsor or co-sponsor up to three summer schools per year around the world. One of the three summer schools will be fully sponsored by RAS to a level of $40,000, and it will rotate annually through RAS' three geographical regions in a round robin fashion. The other two summer schools will be cosponsored with interested organizations in the other two geographical regions up to a level of $20,000 each.
The review of summer school proposals is based on assessments from two different viewpoints, the first one with respect to the general structure, including organizational matters and budget, and the second one with respect to the technical content:
- The Education Committee will check the general organizational structure of the summer school, including budget aspects and guide through the general application process.
- Suited Technical Committees (TCs) of the RAS have to endorse theproposal. Current TCs are listed at: www.ieee-ras.org/technical-committees
More detailed information can be found in the Education Column of the March 2012 issue of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (RAM) [1]; the column is open access and can be downloaded from: ieeexplore.ieee.org
Deadlines for the submission of proposals for the coming years are as follows:
Proposals for 2014
- Deadline: 1 April 2013
- Decision: ICRA 2013
- Full sponsorship ($40,000) for Area 1 (Americas)
Proposals for 2015
- Deadline: 1 April 2014
- Decision: ICRA 2014
- Full sponsorship ($40,000) for Area 2 (Europe, Africa, Middle East)
We would like to announce that as of this Fall, the US NIST has passed on organizational duties for the annual Microrobotics Challenge to the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Micro-Nano Robotics and Automation.
For ICRA 2013, a committee composed of Prof. Dan Popa, Prof. Dave Cappelleri, and Dr. Jason Gorman will organize the Mobile Microrobotics Challenge as a Robot Challenge event.
The MMC event is an excellent motivator for students to pursue research in micro-nano robotics and we encourage submissions to this event by December 15, 2012.
The rules for next year's event are posted online at http://www.uta.edu/ee/ngs/mmc/rules.pdf Please circulate the CFP link http://www.uta.edu/ee/ngs/mmc/ to collaborators, students and colleagues who may be interested in participating.
Thank you and we hope to see you at the MMC competition in Karlsruhe!
A collection of photos from IROS 2012 in Vilamoura, Portugal have been posted to the RAS Facebook page.
The following awards were presented at the 2012 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Systems and Robots.
IROS Harashima Award
Christian Laugier - Research Director, INRIA
For his contributions to Embedded Perception and Driving Decision for Intelligent Vehicles, and his leadership in IROS conferences
NTF Award for Entertainment Robots and Systems
Winner:
Integration of Sound Source Localization and Separation to Improve Dialogue Management on a Robot - Maxime Frechette, Dominic Létourneau, Jean MarcValin, Francois Michaud
Finalists:
Learning a Projective Mapping to Locate Animals in Video Using RFID - Pipei Huang, Rahul Sawhney, Daniel Walker, Kim Wallen, Aaron Bobick, Shiyin Qin, Tucker Balch
Towards Learning of Safety Knowledge from Human Demonstrations - Philipp Ertle, MichelTokic, HolgerVoos, Dirk Söffker
Psychological Experiments on Avoidance Action Characteristics for Estimating Avoidability of Harm to Eyes from Robots - Takamasa Hattori, Yoji Yamada, Shuji Mori, Shogo Okamoto, Susumu Hara
JTCF Novel Technology Paper Award for Amusement Culture
Winner:
Synergy–based Optimal Design of Hand Pose Sensing - Matteo Bianchi, Paolo Salaris, Antonio Bicchi
Finalists:
Listen to Body’s Message: Quadruped Robot That Fully Exploits Physical Interaction between Legs - Dai Owaki, Leona Morikawa,Akio Ishiguro
Armrest Joystick -Mechanism Design and Basic Experiments - Hiroaki Ishida,Tetsuo Hagiwara, Koji Ueda, Shigeo Hirose
RoboCup Best Paper Award
Not presented this year
IROS CoTeSys Cognitive Robotics Best Paper Award
Winner:
Learning Concurrent Motor Skills in Versatile Solution Spaces - Christian Daniel, Gerhard Neumann, Jan Peters
Finalists:
DART: A Particle-based Method for Generating Easy-to-Follow Directions - RobertGoeddel, Edwin Olson
Fuzzy Optimisation Based Symbolic Grounding for Service Robots - Beisheng Liu, Dayou Li, Renxi Qiu, Shuang Gu
Global Structure Histogram - Marianna Madry, Carl Henrik Ek, Renaud Detry, Kaiyu Hang, Danica Kragic
Iteratively Learning to Classify Objects by Touch with Online Spatio-Temporal Experts - Harold Soh,Yanyu Su,Yiannis Demiris
I’ll Keep You in Sight: Finding a Good Position to Observe a Person - Jens Kessler, Daniel Iser, Horst-MichaelGross
ICROS Best Application Paper Award
Winner:
Robust Acoustic Source Localization of Emergency Signals from Micro Air Vehicles - Meysam Basiri, Felix Schill, Pedro Lima, Dario Floreano
Finalists:
Design of TELESAR V for Transferring Bodily Consciousness in Telexistence - Charith Lasantha Fernando, Masahiro Furukawa, Tadatoshi Kurogi, Sho Kamuro, Katsunari Sato, Kouta Minamizawa, Susumu Tachi
''Open Sesame!'' Adaptive Force/Velocity Control for Opening Unknown Doors - Yiannis Karayiannidis, Claes Christian Smith, Francisco Vina, Petter Ogren, Danica Kragic
Experiments in Quasi-Static Manipulation of a Planar Elastic Rod - Dennis Matthews, Timothy Bretl
6D Workspace Constraints for Physical Human-Robot Interaction using Invariance Control with Chattering Reduction - Melanie Kimmel, Martin Lawitzky, Sandra Hirche
IROS 2012 Best Video Award (Special Award)
Winner:
Intrinsically Elastic Robots: The Key to Human Like Performance - Sami Haddadin, et al.
Finalists:
SFly: Swarm of Micro Flying Robots - MarkusW. Achtelik, et al.
Spatially Targeted Communication and SelfAssembly - Nithin Mathews, et al.
IROS 2012 Best Jubilee Video Award
Winners:
Ultra High-Speed Robot Based on 1kHz Vision System - M. Ishikawa et al.
Variable Impedance Actuators: Moving the Robots of Tomorrow - B. Vanderborght et al.
Finalists:
The Power of Prediction: Robots That Read Intentions - E. Bicho et al.
Video: RoboCup Robot Soccer History 1997 – 2011 - P. Stone et al.
Development of Robotic Hands: The UB Hand Evolution - G.Palli, et al.
10 Years in the Cooperation of Unmanned Aerial Systems - A.Ollero et al.
IROS 2012 Best Student Paper Award
Winner:
Movement of Artificial Bacterial Flagella in Heterogeneous Viscous Environments at the Microscale - Kathrin Eva Peyer
Finalist:
Robust Acoustic Source Localization of Emergency Signals from MicroAirVehicles - Meysam Basiri
Online Learning of Concepts and Words Using Multimodal LDA and Hierarchical Pitman -Yor Language Model - Takaya Araki
Design of TELESAR V for Transferring Bodily Consciousness inTelexistence - Charith Lasantha Fernando
6D Workspace Constraints for Physical HumanRobot Interaction Using Invariance Control with Chattering Reduction - Melanie Kimmel
Learning Concurrent Motor Skills in Versatile Solution Spaces - Christian Daniel
A New Kinect-Based Guidance Mode for Upper Limb Robot-Aided Neurorehabilitation - Claudio Loconsole
Biologically Inspired Reactive Climbing Behavior of Hexapod Robots - DennisGoldschmidt
IROS 2011 Best Paper Award
Winner:
A High-Accuracy Visual Marker Based on a Microlens Array - Hideyuki Tanaka, Yasushi Sumi, Yoshio Matsumoto
Finalists:
Bio-Inspired TauPilot for Automated Aerial Docking and Landing of Unmanned Aircraft Systems - Farid Kendoul, BilalAhmedArain
Vision-Based Autonomous Mapping and Exploration Using a Quadrotor MAV - Friedrich Fraundorfer, Lionel Heng, Dominik Honegger, Gim Hee Lee, Lorenz Meier, Petri Tanskanen, Marc Pollefeys
Learning Concurrent Motor Skills in Versatile Solution Spaces - Christian Daniel,Gerhard Neumann, Jan Peters
Biologically Inspired Reactive Climbing Behavior of Hexapod Robots - Dennis Goldschmidt, Frank Hesse, Florentin Wörgötter, Poramate Manoonpong
Classification with Probabilistic Targets - Asher Bender, Stefan BernardWilliams, Oscar Pizarro
Human-Humanoid Haptic Joint Object Transportation Case Study - Antoine Bussy, Abderrahmane Kheddar, André Crosnier, François Keith
A High-Accuracy Visual Marker Based on a Microlens Array - Hideyuki Tanaka, Yasushi Sumi, Yoshio Matsumoto
A Resonant Electrostatic Induction Motor with Piezoelectric Elements as Inductors Connected to its Slider Electrodes - Ryosuke Saito, Takuya Hosobata, Akio Yamamoto, Toshiro Higuchi
Exploiting and modeling local 3D structure for predicting object locations - AlperAydemir, Patric Jensfelt
Call for Proposals: IEEE RAS Summer School Program
Proposals for 2013 from Americas only!!! Extended Deadline: 30. November 2012
This Call for Proposals is specifically targeted at Summer Schools taking place in 2013 in the Americas. Proposals for years other than 2013 or for regions other than the Americas have to be submitted according to the regular deadlines listed below.
The deadline for proposals for 2013 from the Americas for support from the IEEE RAS Summer School program is extended to 30 November 2012. Events that are interested in receiving up to $20,000 for e.g. participant support are encouraged to apply.
There is no extension of the deadlines for Asia and Europe for 2013 proposals. The deadline for all three regions, i.e., Americas, Asia, and Europe, is 1 April from 2013 on. So, the deadline for proposals for 2014 is still 1 April 2013.
The IEEE RAS Summer School program is jointly run by the Member Activities Board (MAB) and the Technical Activities Board (TAB) of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS). The program is intended to sponsor or co-sponsor up to three summer schools per year around the world. One of the three summer schools will be fully sponsored by RAS to a level of $40,000, and it will rotate annually through RAS' three geographical regions in a round robin fashion. The other two summer schools will be cosponsored with interested organizations in the other two geographical regions up to a level of $20,000 each.
The review of summer school proposals is based on assessments from two different viewpoints, the first one with respect to the general structure, including organizational matters and budget, and the second one with respect to the technical content:
1) The Education Committee will check the general organizational structure of the summer school, including budget aspects and guide through the general application process.
2) Suited Technical Committees (TCs) of the RAS have to endorse the proposal. Current TCs are listed at http://www.ieee-ras.org/technical/committees.html.
More detailed information can be found in the Education Column of the March 2012 issue of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (RAM) [1]; the column is open access and can be downloaded from http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6174338.
The deadlines for the submission of proposals for the coming years are as follows:
* Proposals for 2013 for Americas only!!!
- Deadline: 30. November 2012
- Decision: December 2012
* Proposals for 2014
- Deadline: 01. April 2013
- Decision: ICRAí13
* Proposals for 2015
- Deadline: 01. April 2014
- Decision: ICRAí14
The official submission of a proposal must be via email to: RAS@ieee.org
At the 13 October 2012 RAS Administrative Committee meeting, three new Technical Committees (TC) were approved. The TCs are charged with sponsoring workshops, tutorials, and special sessions at conferences, organizing special issues of the Robotics & Automation Magazine, the Transactions, and other journals, and providing a focal point for researchers interested in collaborations in new and emerging fields of research.
Joining the 28 established committees are:
Robotics and Automation in Nuclear Facilities will focus on the development of technologies, retention of running systems and networking among worldwide experts in the related science and technologies for the operation, inspection, maintenance, and incident response in nuclear facilities. It was proposed by Yoshihiko Nakamura, William Hamel, Raja Chatila, and Hajime Asama.
Model-Based Optimization for Robotics will aim to enhance the development and application of model-based optimization techniques for the generation and control of dynamic behaviors in robotics and their practical implementation. The TC was proposed by Katja Mombaur, Christopher G. Atkeson, Thomas Buschmann, Kensuke Harada, and Abderrahmane Kheddar.
Soft Robotics will investigate soft, deformable, functional materials for the use in robotic systems. It was proposed by Fumiya Iida, Cecilia Laschi, Akio Ishiguro, and Robert Wood.
For details on all 31 Technical Committees visit http://www.ieee-ras.org/technical/committees.html.
Six RAS members have been elected by the membership to serve a three-year term beginning January 1, 2013. We wish the newly elected members of the Administrative Committee success and thank all candidates afor their willingness to serve and for permitting their names to be included on the ballot.
AdCom Members Elected at Large:
William (Bill) Hamel
Max Qing Hu Meng
AdCom Members from RAS Geographic Area 1 (the Americas):
Ning Xi
AdCom Member from RAS Geographical Area 2 (Europe, Africa, Middle East--IEEE Region 8):
Martin Buss
Jianwei Zhang
- AdCom Member from RAS Geogrpahical Area 3 (Asia, Australia, Pacific Rim):
Kazuhito Yokoi
Left: William (Bill) Hamel Right: Ning Xi
Pan-African Competition – in Low cost instruments and entrepreneurship for development
The 2020 Pan-African competition in low-cost technologies will serve to identify and develop next generation of young scientists, leaders, and entrepreneurs in Africa. It is open to all countries of Africa.
The organizers
UK: Stoyan Smoukov, Kaspar Althoefer, London, UK
Africa: African Spectral Imaging Network (AFSIN, http://afsinnet.net), Ivory Coast
Objectives
- Design and fabricate a proof-of-concept low cost instruments using a microcontroller in these themes:
1. COVID-19 or malaria-related innovation
2. Robotics and/or automation in the fields of agricultural, energy, or medical use
3. Entrepreneurship in upcycling of computer hard drives into centrifuges for field diagnostics - Develop technical and entrepreneurial innovation capacities of young scientists in African countries.
How to participate?
- Write a 1-page outline describing your instrument to register. Full proposal including the steps already undertaken, , and steps necessary to finalize it (3 pages max, single space, min 11 pt font)
- Proposals should be submitted in English with a (Google Translate) French translation, or vice versa
- Medical equipment proposals should outline tests needed to certify, but not expected to be carried out
- 1. Register your team info & intent to apply before 20th March 2021 at https://afsinnet.net/2020-afsin-competition/
- Organizers will attempt to give feedback to initial proposals. Emails for questions: africalowcostcompetition@qmul.ac.uk and jzoueu@gmail.com
- 2. Final Submission: Upload your full proposal to the website before midnight 31th March 2021.
Selection of good proposals
An international jury made of experts in the field of applied physics and engineering will select 6 projects (2 in each of the 3 themes) taking into account the following criteria:
- Degree of innovation, ability to creatively solve a pressing problem
- Feasibility to create a low-cost proof-of-concept in 3 months, potential for future manufacturing
- Commercial opportunity of the instrument (the number of people who will potentially buy and use the instrument, its low cost/affordability during fabrication and when in the market).
The results of the first selection will be presented on April 15, 2021.
Financial support and training for the finalization of the realization
To help the 6 finalists realize their proof-of concept, there will be a remote training in Arduino and other low cost automation. Following, the jury will make another judgment of the projects before given an approval for the financial support in the finalization process. This will take place from April 15 to May 1, 2021. The amount to given to each project will cover the cost of materials for the prototypes, one from each finalist to be delivered to the organizers at the end of the competition. The organizers will also provide small amounts to fabricate components and support mentors who will follow the realization between daily and bi-weekly. Presentation of the prototypes of the fabricated instruments
Presentation of the prototypes of the fabricated instruments
The realization of prototypes will take place from May 1, 2021 to September 30, 2021. Finalists will submit one fully functioning prototype for evaluation along with full documentation of parts used, fabrication procedures, and any software included. This will be followed-up by experts committed by the organizers.
Results and prizes
Final results will be given in September-October 2021, based on a presentation of the final prototype, its performance, and in light of the original criteria. Three prizes will be given to best prototypes:
1st Theme prize: 1200 Euro, 2nd Theme prize: 1200 Euro , 3rd Theme prize: 1200 Euro
NB: All 6 projects will have benefited from financial support (>€600 on average) for the realization.
