RAS E-news

3. IEEE-RAS/NIST Virtual Manufacturing Automation Competition

4. RAS AdCom Election: Voting Ends November 10

If you receive a paper ballot you may either return the ballot to the IEEE by fax or post or vote electronically using the secure election web site of Intelliscan https://www.intelliscaninc.com/ieee_ras_2008.htm with your member number and the control number provided on your printed ballot.

Email voters will receive their linked log-on to their ballots on the website or they may request paper ballots. For missing ballots contact Intelliscan at pnentwig@intelliscaninc.com or phone. +1(610)935-6172. All ballots must be returned by November 10 (12:00 Noon EST).

The candidates are: David Orin, Gaurav Sukhatme, Thomas Henderson, Nancy Amato, Jing Xiao, Antonio Bicchi, Erwin Prassler, Aude Billard, Christian Laugier, Max Meng, Hugh Durrant-Whyte, Li Chen Fu, Fumihito Arai, Hideki Hashimoto.

5. Seth Hutchinson takes the reins of T-Robotics

On October 1 2008, Seth Hutchinson, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, became the second Editor-in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics. He succeeds the Founding Editor, Alessandro De Luca of the University of Roma "La Sapienza"

Prior to becoming the new EiC of T-RO, Hutchinson served as founding editor of the Robotics and Automation Society’s Conference Editorial Board from 2006 until October 2008. . He served on the editorial board of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, the predecessor to T-RO, as a guest editor, associate editor, and editor from 1996-2005, and also served on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Robotics Research and the Journal of Intelligent Service Robotics. He has also been an RAS AdCom member and chair of the Technical Committee on Computer and Robot Vision.

Hutchinson’s own research focuses on vision-based control of robotic manipulators, robot motion planning, and computer vision. He is also a talented bassist, who has played with a number of rock bands including the RAS band The Rasor.

6. Kumar and Bicchi Lead RAS SCTB and CEB

Vijay Kumar of the University of Pennsylvaniahas been appointed by RAS President Bruno Siciliano to cbair of the RAS Steering Committee for Technical Programs (SCTP), effective October 1. The SCTP is responsible for year-to-year consistency and coordination of the technical aspects of conferences such as: paper reviewing system; reviewer management process; keyword, reviewer, and reviewer performance databases; guidance on quality issues; conference review; and other matters pertaining to the technical aspects of our conferences. For questions or more information about the SCTP, contact Kumar

Antonio Bicchi of the University of Pisa has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the RAS Conference Editorial Board CEB. The CEB is in charge of providing quality reviews and acceptance/rejection suggestions for papers submitted to the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). A goal of CEB will be to provide consistency over the years for what concerns the minimum number of reviews, their constructive nature, their confidentiality and fairness. For questions or more information about the CEB, contact Bicchi.

7. IEEE T-Haptics makes its debut

8. RAS 2008 Fellowship Awarded to Cindy Bethel

Cindy Bethel, a graduate student at the University of South Florida, has been selected as the recipient of a fellowship awarded by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. Ms. Bethel's work is in the area of Human Robot Interaction and her advisor is Dr. Robin Murphy. The fellowship, in the amount of $12,500 will support Ms. Bethel for the 2008 Fall semester.

Allison Okamura and Nancy Amato, cochairs of the Fellowship Evaluation Committee, reported that 24 men and women were nominated for the fellowship and that six had such outstanding applications that the committee chose to identify them as Honorable Mentions. These students, with the names of their advisors in parentheses, are:

• Nora Ayanian, University of Pennsylvania (Vijay Kumar)
• Karla Conn, Vanderbilt University (Nilanjan Sarkar)
• Yaozhang Pan, National University of Singapore (Louis Phee)
• Dinesh Rabindran, The University of Texas at Austin (Delbert Tessar)
• Angela Schollig, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich (Raffaello D'Andrea)
• Sarah Webster, Johns Hopkins University (Louis Whitcomb)

The recipient and the Honorable Mentions will be recognized at ICRA 2009 in Kobe, Japan.

9. Time flies when deadlines approach!

The following sponsored, cosponsored, and technically cosponsored conferences andpublications have iminent deadlines. See the IEEE-RAS Web Calendar for more conference information.

• ROBOCOMM 2009: Second International Conference on Robot Communication and Coordination, Odense, Denmark Submissions due: November 15, 2008.
• Robotics and Automation Magazine: Special issue on Cognitive Robotics. Guest editors: William Harwin, Jeffrey Krichmar, Kazuhiko Kawamura, Hiroaki Wagatsuma, William Browne. Submissions due December 01, 2008
• Transactions on Automotive Science and Engineering: Special issue on Advances in Automation Science and Engineering for Automotive Manufacturing. Guest editors: Mr. Jingshan Li, Kai Furmans, Masaru Nakano, Alain Patchong,Paper submission deadline: January 01, 2009
• Jun 01, 2009 - Jun 03, 2009. RoMoCo 2009: 7th Workshop on Robot Motion and Control. Czerniejewo, Poland Submissions due January 15, 2009.
• Jun 22, 2009 - Jun 25, 2009. ICIA 2009: International Conference on Information and Automation. Zhuhai, Macao, China. Submissions due January 15, 2009
• Jun 28, 2009 - Jul 01, 2009: RSS 2009: Robotics: Science and Systems. Seattle WA, United States. Submissions due January 15, 2009.
• Jul 14, 2009 - Jul 17, 2009. AIM'09: IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics. Singapore Submissions due January 15, 2009