RAM Upcoming special issues

Special issue on Cognitive Robotics
Guest editors: Professor William Harwin, Professor Jeffrey Krichmar, Kazuhiko Kawamura, Hiroaki Wagatsuma, William Browne,
Paper submission deadline: January 23, 2009 (extended)
Special issue on Cooperative Control of Multiple Heterogeneous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Coverage and Surveillance
Guest editors: Vijay Kumar, Ronald Arkin, Marc Steinberg, Peng Cheng, J. Karl Hedrick,
Paper submission deadline: September 29, 2008 (extended)
Special issue on Software Engineering for Robotics
Guest editors: Dr. Davide Brugali, Erwin Prassler,
Paper submission deadline: June 15, 2008

Special issue on Cognitive Robotics

Researchers in the robotics community have had a long established interest in machine intelligence with many attempts to define and emulate the intelligence seen in human behaviour. Recent advances in neuroscience and cognitive science have expanded our knowledge of animal and human cognition, and these principles are inspiring roboticists to construct more intelligent machines. 'Dissection' of machine intelligence can likewise be used to test brain science theories. The proposed special issue of the Robotics and Automation magazine on Cognitive robotics is intended to illustrate the current progress and future research directions in cognitive robotics.

Special issue on Cooperative Control of Multiple Heterogeneous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Coverage and Surveillance

UAVs represent the fastest growing market segment of the robotics industry.

The price/performance ratio for UAVs is falling and networked UAV groups will soon become a reality with applications in home land security, ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) missions, law enforcement, environmental monitoring, and search and rescue missions. We are seeing a dramatic growth in research on novel UAV systems, theories, and algorithms.

Indeed the recently held ICRA workshop on "Cooperative Control of Multiple Heterogeneous UAVs for Coverage and Surveillance"

featuring technical discussions and presentations by theoreticians and practitioners and customers attracted over 80 participants. We propose a special issue in IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine on networked unmanned aerial vehicles with articles from international researchers from North America, Australia, Europe and Asia.

Special issue on Software Engineering for Robotics

Software Engineering techniques and methodologies are ubiquitously applied in many application domains, such as factory automation, telecommunications, automotive. The synergy between Robotics and Software Engineering is strategic. Their mutual benefit is to make it possible to build and evolve new software systems as integration of reusable building blocks. The keyword is "system" and the robotic field is a good and challenging example of these systems: heterogeneous structures where properties are emerging from the interaction of constituent parts. In this scenario, Software Engineering techniques and methodologies play a key role, as they are the tool to capture the fundamental elements of a robot application and their interaction patterns.