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Published: 10 January 2019

Congratulations to the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society members recently elevated to Senior Member status by the IEEE Admission and Advancement (A&A) Senior Member Review Panel.

• To be eligible for application or nomination, candidates must:
• Be engineers, scientists, educators, technical executives, or originators in IEEE-designated fields
• Have experience reflecting professional maturity
• Have been in professional practice for at least ten years (with some credit for certain degrees)
• Show significant performance over a period of at least five of their years in professional practice

Nominees for IEEE Fellow must hold the grade of Senior Member or Life Senior Member in order to qualify for elevation to Fellow status.

Paolo L Malapelle Pittsburgh Section Siemens	Gabriel Gomez Cordoba Subsection National University of Cordoba	Jianchao Yao Singapore Section DSO National Laboratories
Giampiero Campa Coastal Los Angeles Section MathWorks	Geoffrey Hollinger Oregon Section Oregon State University	Redwan Alqasemi Florida West Coast Section University of South Florida
Jindong Liu United Kingdom and Ireland Section Imperial College London	Narendra Kumar Delhi Section Delhi Technological University	Michael M. Zavlanos Eastern North Carolina Section Duke University
Ryo Kurazume Fukuoka Section Kyushu University	AlphaAgape Gopalai Malaysia Section Monash University	Liang Ding Harbin Section Harbin Institute of Technology
Luca Carlone Boston Section Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Mohammed Hoque Bangladesh Section Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology	Eva Esther Ebenezer Ghana Section BlueCrest University College
Fakheredine Keyrouz Lebanon Section Notre Dame University-Louaize (NDU)	Ji-Young Lee Busan Section University of Science & Technology (UST)	Nippun Kumaar A A Bangalore Section Amrita School of Engineering
Ilana Nisky Israel Section Ben Gurion University of the Negev	Pedro Plaza Merino Spain Section Siemens	Ravikumar K M Bangalore Section S J C Institute of Technology
Anca Sala Northeast Michigan Section Baker College	Pawel Burdziakowski Poland Section Gdańsk University of Technology

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Published: 31 December 2018

Engineering the future of medicine

IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics (T-MRB) is a multi-disciplinary journal covering the most significant advances in biorobotics and bionics and publishing papers reporting high-quality research in the field of robotics and of bionics applied to healthcare.
T-MRB lies at the intersection between biomedical engineering and robotics, fulfilling a dream shared by the two IEEE Societies (Robotics and Automation – RAS, and Engineering in Medicine and Biology – EMBS).

MAIN JOURNAL TOPICS

T-MRB publishes non-incremental results on innovative systems able to support prevention, diagnosis or treatment of human diseases. Such systems can be based on robotics and automation technology-related paradigms (e.g. surgical robots, devices for physical and cognitive rehabilitation, supporting systems for independent living, etc.) on bionics paradigms (e.g. medical systems which mimic living organisms or technologies that intimately interact with the human body), or the combinations of them, e.g. robotic artificial organs and other active implantable devices featuring direct interfaces to the human body. In addition, T-MRB promotes works investigating mechanisms and principles observed in nature in order to unravel scientific issues, and to exploit them to develop innovative bionic technologies. The Transactions also welcomes survey and commentary papers providing: critical, systematic review of research areas and trends within its scope; evidence-based studies on early clinical validation, and contributions on early ethical, social, economic, organizational impact assessment, of novel robotics and/or bionic solutions for medical and health care applications.

We are looking for high-quality, original research papers from all areas of research and development in medical robotics and bionics. We are also looking for comprehensive reviews of the state of the art, and to provide snapshots of research for a wider audience.

Publication of the inaugural issue: planned in February 2019.

The following issues will be published in May 2019, August 2019 and November 2019.

Editor-in–Chief: Paolo Dario, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna
Email: paolo.dario@santannapisa.it

Website: http://www.ieee-ras.org/publications/t-mrb

SUBMISSIONS ARE OPEN

Submit your paper here: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tmrb-ieee

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Published: 31 December 2018

The JST-CREST / IEEE-RAS sponsored school "Social and Artificial Intelligence for User-Friendly Robots" will be held from 17-24 March 2019 in Shonan Village, Japan after the Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) conference that will be held in nearby South Korea.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

I. Aim and Scope

Autonomous and intelligent systems are progressively moving into spaces, which have previously been predominantly shaped by human agency. Unlike in the past where machines obediently served their human operators, machines now increasingly act without the intervention of a human. Artificial intelligence is meeting new challenges in the world, though human-like intelligence may still be a distant goal. Robots in factories are coming out of their cages. Autonomous cars are being tested on streets with regular human-driven cars. The private household is changing with the appearance of not only robotic vacuum cleaners, but also with the first-generation of social robots and smart devices. The challenges that face both the robotics and artificial intelligence communities are how the necessary intelligence for such new environments can be created as well as how to make artificial agents capable of not only solving tasks at hand but also considering social environments around them during interaction with human users so as to behave appropriately. Within the school, we plan to address the tension created by the balance between task-specific artificial intelligence and the demands of sociability required to function effectively in human-centered environments.
** Who should apply? We invite Masters and PhD students as well as post-doctoral candidates and researchers from industry with relevant research background to apply for this spring school. Additional support could be available based on eligibility.
** This spring school is a Technical Education Program (TEP) endorsed and supported by JST-CREST / IEEE-RAS.
** The school aims at bridging the gap between social and cognitive Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Autonomous Vehicles (AV) through high level talks, tutorials, and hands-on workshops (the program will be announced soon).

II. Keynote Speakers:

1. Takayuki Nagai, Osaka University, Japan
2. Jun Tani – Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), Japan
3. Daniele Magazzeni – King's College London, UK
4. Yukie Nagai – National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Japan
5. Tetsuya Ogata – Waseda University, Japan
6. Mohamed Chetouani – University of Pierre and Marie Curie (UPMC), France
7. Silvia Rossi – University of Naples, Italy
8. Agnieszka Wykowska – Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Italy
9. Tetsunari Inamura – National Institute of Informatics (NII), Japan
10. Amit Kumar Pandey – SoftBank (Aldebaran) Robotics, France
11. Mehul Bhatt – Orebro University, Sweden (Tutorial)
12. Mohsen Kaboli – Bavarian Motor Works (BMW), Germany (Tutorial)
13. Francesco Maurelli – Jacobs University, Germany (Preparing Marie Curie funding proposal)
14. Atsuko Nakatsuka – Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Japan (Preparing JSPS funding proposal)

III. Submission 

The applications must include the following files (combined into one file). No other documents would be necessary (More information is available on the school's webpage).
1. Curriculum vitae: A CV detailing relevant aspects of the candidate's academic career that demonstrates her/his relevance to the school theme. Please consider including the list of publications.
2. Research abstract: A 200-word research abstract that the candidate intends to present during the school.
3. Letter of recommendation: A brief letter from the academic advisor or the employer of the candidate supporting her/his application. Please also indicate if additional support would be required to attend the school.

Application submission: Please use the following EasyChair web link: Application Submission.

IV. Important Dates

1. Application submission: 10-January, 2019
2. Notification of acceptance: 14-January, 2019
3. Spring School: 17-24 March, 2019

V. Organizers

1. Amir Aly – Ritsumeikan University – Japan
2. Franziska Kirstein – Blue Ocean Robotics, Denmark
3. Shashank Pathak – Visteon Corporation, Germany

For more information see: https://inic8.bitbucket.io/SoAIR19/index.html

 

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Published: 27 December 2018

A Special Issue in the IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems is planned for 2019. Topic: "Continual Unsupervised Sensorimotor Learning," with the submission deadline of 28 February 2019.

Aim and Scope

Although machine learning algorithms continue to improve at a rapid pace enabling technologies and products such as autonomous driving cars and sophisticated image and speech recognition, it is often forgotten that these applications represent tailored solutions to specific tasks. Thus it is not clear if or how these autonomous systems can pave the road to general purpose machines envisioned by many.

The pursuit for higher levels of autonomy and versatility in robotics is arguably lead by two main factors. Firstly, as we push robots out of the labs and productions lines, it becomes increasingly difficult to design for all possible scenarios that a particular robot might encounter. 
Secondly, the cost of designing, manufacturing, and maintaining such systems becomes prohibitive.

As the algorithms for learning single tasks in restricted environments are improving, new challenges have gained relevance in order to get more autonomous artificial systems. These challenges include multi-task learning, multimodal sensorimotor learning and lifelong adaptation to injury, growth and ageing. Addressing these challenges promise higher levels of autonomy and versatility of future robots.

This special issue on Continual Unsupervised Sensorimotor Learning is primarily concerned with the developmental processes involved in unsupervised sensorimotor learning in a life-long perspective, and in particular the emergence of representations of action and perception in humans and artificial agents in continual learning. These processes include action-perception cycle, active perception, continual sensory-motor learning, environmental-driven scaffolding, and intrinsic motivation.

The special issue will highlight behavioral and neural data, and cognitive and developmental approaches to research in the areas of robotics, computer science, psychology, neuroscience, etc. Contributions might focus on mathematical and computational models to improve robot 
performance and/or attempt to unveil the underlying mechanisms that lead to continual adaptation to changing environment or embodiment and continual learning in open-ended environments.

Contributions from multiple disciplines including cognitive systems, cognitive robotics, developmental and epigenetic robotics, autonomous and evolutionary robotics, social structures, multi-agent and artificial life systems, computational neuroscience, and developmental psychology, on theoretical, computational, application-oriented, and experimental studies as well as reviews in these areas are welcome.

Topics

This special issue aims to report state-of-the-art approaches and recent advances on Continual Unsupervised Sensorimotor Learning with a cross-disciplinary perspective. Topics relevant to this special issue include but are not limited to:

• Emergence of representations via continual interaction
• Continual sensory-motor learning
• Action-perception cycle
• Active perception
• Environmental-driven scaffolding
• Intrinsic motivation
• Neural substrates, neural circuits and neural plasticity
• Human and animal behaviour experiments and models
• Reinforcement learning and deep reinforcement learning for life-long learning
• Multisensory robot learning
• Multimodal sensorimotor learning 
• Affordance learning
• Prediction learning

Submission

• Manuscripts should be prepared according to the “Information for Authors” of the journal
• Submissions must be done through the IEEE TCDS Manuscript center. Please select the category “SI: Continual Unsupervised Sensorimotor Learning”.

Important Dates

28 February 2019 – Paper submission deadline
15 April 2019 – Notification for authors
16 June 2019 – Deadline revised papers submission
16 July 2019 – Final notification for authors
18 August 2019 – Deadline for camera-ready versions
September 2019 – Expected publication date

Guest Editors

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Published: 20 December 2018

Submit your application today! Application Deadline is 28 February 2019

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. This is a key element to the continuing success of robotics and automation today. Active infusion of innovation and entrepreneurship into technological advancement is regarded critical at this juncture to strengthen a healthy balance between research and practice as well as a healthy growth of industrial and commercial sectors in robotics and automation.

These achievements will be recognized in a specially organized IEEE/IFR Joint Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation, which will be held on 21 May 2019 in conjunction with the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2019) in Montreal, Canada. 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 prestigious plaque will be awarded to each finalist and a US$ 2,000 prize will be awarded to the winner.

Applications should describe the original work that has been translated into a commercial success. The application must include statements regarding:
- description of the innovation/product/application
- stages of the product genesis
- novelty/uniqueness of the product
- market analysis, economic viability and pathway for commercialization
- sustained competitive advantage
- current and future impact on and relevance to industry

DON'T MISS THE DEADLINE! Applications for the IERA Award must be submitted no later than 28 February 2019.
See more here: https://ifr.org/news/iera-award-2019-apply-now

PAST RECIPIENTS

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

Applications should not exceed a maximum length of 5 pages. Product descriptions and public relation material will not be accepted as an application. References and links to online material are permitted.

SUBMISSION OF APPLICATIONS

Please send as PDF document (< 6 MB) no later than 28 February 2019 (any time zone) to either secretariat@ifr.org or to boesl@ieee.org.

For additional information see: Call for Applications

Details

Published: 18 December 2018

This special issue aims to bring wearable robots closer to broad real-world adoption by highlighting the latest innovations in the development of robust, intelligent wearable robots and their evaluations in real-world scenarios. It will focus on papers about working systems that are ideally evaluated with human subjects in order to determine the technology’s practical potential and impact on people with disabilities, workers, sportsmen, and others. Papers on stationary wearable robots will not be considered, though papers may be accepted if they describe the transfer of knowledge from stationary to wearable robotic technologies.

Papers should follow the standard RAM guidelines. A full peer-review process will be utilized to select papers for the special issue. Submissions should be made through the RAM submission website by 1 May 2019.This special issue aims to bring wearable robots closer to broad real-world adoption by highlighting the latest innovations in the development of robust, intelligent wearable robots and their evaluations in real-world scenarios. It will focus on papers about working systems that are ideally evaluated with human subjects in order to determine the technology’s practical potential and impact on people with disabilities, workers, sportsmen, and others. Papers on stationary wearable robots will not be considered, though papers may be accepted if they describe the transfer of knowledge from stationary to wearable robotic technologies. 

Wearable robots have the potential to improve our lives in countless ways. People with weakened limbs can use exoskeletons to augment their strength or to retrain lost motor abilities, thus allowing them to nonetheless successfully perform activities of daily living. Similarly, workers of the future could use wearable robots to manipulate bigger and heavier loads, avoid injuries, and receive augmented feedback to enhance performance. Finally, wearable robots could even be used in sports, allowing wearers to move faster and farther.

Details

Published: 11 December 2018

A new scale of urbanization, digitization, and industrialization has been driving the change of our world more profoundly than ever before. The question of energy — and the way we use it — is at the center of these rapid changes. Going “energy-efficient” then becomes a major component of the missions for manufacturers and service providers to stay globally competitive. With the recent advancement of sensor informatics, the Internet-of-Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI), this mission can be better achieved through modeling, analysis, real-time monitoring and control of production service systems. The idea of “intelligent sustainable energy solutions” applies to many application areas, including but not limited to manufacturing, transportation, building management, and networking, etc. The goal of this special issue is to explore scientific models, methods and technologies with both solid theoretical development and practical importance to reshape industries, transform cities and enrich lives. The central theme of the proposed special issue is on Intelligent Energy Solutions to Sustainable Production and Service Automation, where information technology based modeling, analysis, control and optimization are the focus areas, and broad aspects and issues will be well discussed. Topics to be covered include, but are not limited to the following:

• Energy-aware product design
• Modeling/analysis of manufacturing power consumption
• Sensor based monitoring, data analytics, and control and optimization for energy efficient manufacturing processes and systems
• Sustainable energy management of production and service: planning, scheduling and control
• Applications of artificial intelligence, big data and IoT for sustainable manufacturing and service
• Energy solutions to green supply chain
• Real-time energy resource management
• Smart control in smart grid and energy management in industries
• Energy strategies for building management
• Big data enabled intelligent operation for sustainable building
• Sustainable buildings for urban sustainability
• Operations of alternative energy products
• Energy solutions to intelligent transportation systems
• Energy-efficient cloud computing systems and data centers
• Energy-efficient fog computing devices and systems for product and service automation
• Blockchain for Sustainability

Important Dates

30 June 2019 - Paper submission deadline
30 September 2019 - Completion of the first round review
31 December 2019 - Completion of the second round review
28 February 2020 - Final submission due
30 April 2020 - Tentative publication date

Guest Editors

Paper Submission

All papers are to be submitted through the IEEE’s Manuscript Central for Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/t-ase.  Please select “Special Issue” under Manuscript Category of your submission.  All manuscripts must be prepared according to the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering publication guidelines http://www.ieee-ras.org/publications/t-ase. Please address inquiries to tang@rowan.edu

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Published: 26 November 2018

Congratulations to the following RAS Members - elevated to IEEE Fellow grade, effective 1 January 2019!

2019 RAS Fellows evaluated by the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society

Hyouk Ryeol Choi - Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea
“For contributions to robotic interactive sensing”
Kerstin Dautenhahn - University of Waterloo, Canada
“For contributions to social robotics and human-robot interaction"
Emilio Frazzoli - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
“For contributions to motion planning and control of autonomous vehicles"
Anibal Ollero Baturone - University of Seville, Spain
“For contributions to the development and deployment of aerial robots"
Evangelos Papadopoulos - National Technical University of Athens, Greece
“For contributions to space and field robotics"
Jan Peters - Technische Universitaet Darmstadt, Germany
“For contributions to robot learning of dexterous motor skills"
Hong Qiao - Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
“For contributions to robotic manipulation and biologically inspired robotic cognition"
Carme Torras - Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial (CSIC-UPC), Spain
“For contributions to learning algorithms for robot perception, planning and manipulation"
Robert Wood - Harvard University, USA
“For contributions to small-scale and soft robotics"
Eiichi Yoshida - National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan
“For leadership in the development of modular reconfigurable robotic systems"

2019 RAS Fellows evaluated by other IEEE Societies

Evaluated by the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society:
Zeng-Guang Hou - Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
“For contributions to neural network optimization and control for rehabilitation”
Evaluated by the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society:
Fuchun Sun - Tsinghua University, China
“For contributions to neural network control of nonlinear systems with applications to robotic manipulators”
Evaluated by the IEEE Communications Society:
Robert Fish – NETovations, USA
“For application of visual communications and networking"
Evaluated by the IEEE Control Systems Society:
Santosh Devasia - University of Washington, USA
“For contributions to feedforward control of nonminimum-phase systems"
Evaluated by the IEEE Control Systems Society:
Keum-Shik Hong - Pusan National University, South Korea
“For contributions to adaptive estimation and brain-computer interface techniques"
Evaluated by the IEEE Control Systems Society:
Min Wu - University of Maryland, USA
“For contribution to control and automation for complex systems"
Evaluated by the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society:
Jose Luis Contreras – University of Houston, USA
“For contributions to brain-machine interfaces and wearable exoskeletons"
Evaluated by the IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society:
Xiaoping Peter Liu - Carleton University, Canada
“For contributions to system identification and networked teleoperation”
Evaluated by the IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society:
Naiqi Wu - Guangdong University of Technology, China
“For contributions to discrete-event production systems”

IEEE Fellow is a distinction reserved for select IEEE members. The honor is conferred by the Board of Directors upon a person with an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest.

If you know of an IEEE colleague who is a Senior Member or Life Senior Member in good standing, has completed five years of service in any grade of IEEE Membership and who has made an outstanding contribution to the electronic or electrical engineering profession, you can nominate this person in one of four categories:

• Application Engineer/Practitioner
• Educator
• Research Engineer/Scientist
• Technical Leader

Additional information about the IEEE Fellow program, and a list of RAS Fellows is available HERE.

Details

Published: 21 November 2018

Congratulations to the six RAS members elected by the membership to serve a three-year term beginning 1 January 2019. We wish the newly elected members of the Administrative Committee success and thank all candidates for their willingness to serve and for permitting their names to be included on the ballot. 

AdCom Members Elected at Large

AdCom Member from RAS Geographic Area 1 (the Americas):

AdCom Members from RAS Geographical Area 2 (Europe, Africa, Middle East--IEEE Region 8):

AdCom Member from RAS Geographical Area 3 (Asia, Australia, Pacific Rim):

 

Details

Published: 20 November 2018

IEEE - RAS Congratulates Recently Elevated Senior Members

Congratulations to the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society members recently elevated in October 2018 to Senior Member status by the IEEE Admission and Advancement (A&A) Senior Member Review Panel.

• To be eligible for application or nomination, candidates must:
• Be engineers, scientists, educators, technical executives, or originators in IEEE-designated fields
• Have experience reflecting professional maturity
• Have been in professional practice for at least ten years (with some credit for certain degrees)
• Show significant performance over a period of at least five of their years in professional practice

Nominees for IEEE Fellow must hold the grade of Senior Member or Life Senior Member in order to qualify for elevation to Fellow status.

Marcelo Ang Singapore Section National University of Singapore	Thomas Bak Denmark Section Aalborg University	Richard Byrne Princeton/Central Jersey Section Intel Corporation
Nevin Darwish Egypt Section Cairo University	Marcio De Queiroz Baton Rouge Section Louisiana State University	Thomas Doney Columbus Section Nestle Development Center, Inc.
David Elata Israel Section Technion – Israel Institute of Technology	Ponciano Escamilla-Ambrosio Toluca Subsection National Polytechnic Institute	Peng Fang Guangzhou Section Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology
Aleksandra Faust Santa Clara Valley Section Google Brain	Sami Hajjaj Malaysia Section Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN)	Marco Huber Germany Section University of Stuttgart
Jan-Erik Kallhammer Sweden Section Veoneer Sweden AB	Jens Kober Benelux Section Delft University of Technology (TU Delft)	Kolja Kuehnlenz Germany Section Coburg University of Applied Sciences
Dong Soo Kwon Daejeon Section KAIST	Mihai Micea Romania Section Politehnica University of Timisoara	Rajesh Panakala Vizag Bay Subsection PVP Siddhartha Institute of Technology
Md Mozasser Rahman Malaysia Section International Islamic University	David Reinkensmeyer Orange County Section University of California, Irvine	Daniel Roesler Cedar Rapids Section Applied Research Consulting Inc
Muhammad Salehuddin Indonesia Section Universitas Multimedia Nusantara	Hitesh Shrimali Delhi Section Indian Institute of Technology Mandi	Asgeir Sorensen Norway Section Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Jun Ueda Atlanta Section Georgia Tech	Gentiane Venture Tokyo Section Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology Campus	Matthew Walter Chicago Section Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago
Xiufen Ye Harbin Section Harbin Engineering University