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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 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) that will take place from 29 May–2 June 2023 in London, UK.
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 our handout for more details on the award and how to apply. Please note that applications are due by February 28, 2023; they may be submitted either to secretariat@ifr.org or to ras@ieee.org.
Each year, the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) offers financial support for its Technical Education Program (TEP), also known as its “Seasonal Schools” program. The RAS TEP program is jointly run by the RAS Educational Activities Committee (EAC) and the RAS Technical Activities Board (TAB). The program sponsors schools around the world, to be held in person, virtually, or in a hybrid format.
The submission form can be found here. More information can be found on this handout; reach out to ras@ieee.org with questions.
Key Dates and Deadlines
- Submission deadline: 15 April 2023
- Notification: 15 June 2023
The IEEE RAS Women in Engineering Committee (WiE) wants to support the community and people interested in robotics and automation research by introducing new travel support that encourages Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA).
The main goal of IDEA is to further support our community by providing the opportunity to attend one of RAS’s major flagship conferences (e.g., ICRA, CASE, or IROS). This new IDEA travel support will focus on supporting:
- Secondary/undergraduate/graduate students interested in robotics or automation topics
- Underrepresented groups
- People with disabilities
- People who have stepped down from the field for some time and want to return (e.g., due to illness or parental leave)
Our first call for applications will open on 27 January with the following schedule:
- Deadline to submit applications: 15 Feb 2023
- Decisions: 17 March 2023
To apply for IDEA travel support, please follow the steps in the Application Form.
The IDEA committee will select three applicants to attend the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in London from 29 May–2 June 2023.
Please read the full call for applications at this link: https://www.ieee-ras.org/women-in-engineering/idea-travel-support.
The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) membership will elect six new members of the Administrative Committee (AdCom) in 2023, each to serve a three-year term beginning 1 January 2024. 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 2023.
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 2023 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 Volume 20, 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!
The RAS Member Activities Board (MAB) awards a limited number of Chapter Initiative Grants to local RAS Chapters for professional development, educational outreach, and other programs. Grant proposals will be reviewed by the MAB at its meeting in late May 2023 and funds up to USD $2,000 will be awarded on a competitive basis. The deadline for proposals is 15 April 2023. Click here for submission details.
Submissions are now open for the 3rd edition of the Lifelong Learning and Personalization in Long-Term Human-Robot Interaction (LEAP-HRI) workshop, which will be held as part of the 18th annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2023), in Stockholm, Sweden and virtually. The workshop will take place 14:00–18:00 CET on 13 March 2023.
This year’s LEAP-HRI workshop aims to gather and present interdisciplinary insights from a variety of fields, such as education, rehabilitation, elderly care, service and companion robots, for lifelong robot learning and adaptation to users, context, environment, and activities in long-term interactions. The workshop aims to promote a common ground among the relevant scientific communities through invited talks and in-depth discussions via paper presentations, break-out groups, and a scientific debate. In line with the HRI 2023 conference theme, HRI for All, our workshop theme is Adaptivity for All, and is meant to encourage HRI theories, methods, designs, and studies for lifelong learning, personalization, and adaptation that aim to promote inclusion and diversity in HRI.
Check out the website for more information. Manuscripts can be submitted here. Please reach out to hatice.gunes@cl.cam.ac.uk with questions related to submissions.
Key Dates and Deadlines
- Early Bird submission deadline: 22 January 2023
- Early Bird notification of acceptance: 31 January 2023
- General submission deadline: 19 February 2023
- General notification of acceptance: 28 February 2023
- Camera-ready deadline: 9 March 2023
The 32nd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (IEEE RO-MAN 2023) will be held in Busan, Republic of Korea, from 28 to 31 August 2023. This conference is an annual event where state-of-the-art results, the latest developments, and future perspectives that relate to robot and human interactive communication are presented and discussed.
The theme of the IEEE RO-MAN 2023 is Design a New Bridge for H-R-I, where “H” stands for Human Health, Happiness and Hope, “R” for Robotic Recovery and Reconnection, and “I” for Intelligent Interface and Interaction. RO-MAN 2023 will be a hybrid conference. We look forward to your active interest and participation, whether in-person or online. For more information, check out the handout and conference website.
Key Dates and Deadlines
- Special Session proposal submission deadline: 13 January 2023
- Notification of acceptance: 27 January 2023
- Initial paper submission deadline: 17 March 2023
- Notification of acceptance: 26 May 2023
- Camera-ready deadline: 30 June 2023
- Workshop/tutorial proposal submission deadline: 3 February 2023
- Notification of acceptance: 3 March 2023
- Website link for workshop/tutorial due: 28 April 2023
We invite you to submit short abstracts and papers to the HRI 2023 Workshop on Robots for Learning, to be held in Stockholm, Sweden on 13 March 2023. This year’s theme is A Look from Stakeholders’ Perspective.
Talking about “HRI for all” raises the importance of reflecting on how to promote inclusion for every type of user and carefully consider the different layers of people potentially impacted by such systems. The 7th edition of R4L focuses on the issues that HRI experiments in educational environments may cause to stakeholders and how to better bring stakeholders' points of view into the loop. The goal of the workshop is to discuss and propose guidelines for good practices regarding how to promote the inclusion of stakeholders, especially teachers, in educational HRI activities.
R4L 2023 invites contributions on topics including but not limited to the following:
- Educational robots for adults, children and people with special needs
- Implementing robots into school curricula
- Measuring educational and qualitative outcomes like learning gain, relationships, etc.
- Reflections on best practices for working with stakeholders
- Stakeholders’ perspectives
- Robots for learning that focus on a variety of stakeholders
- Robots for inclusion
- Ethnography for robots in education
Key Dates and Deadlines
- For notification by January 20, 2023, please submit your abstract or paper by 16 January 2023
- Final deadline for submissions: 23 February 2023
- Notification of acceptance: 29 February 2023
- Camera-ready deadline: 3 March 2023
- Workshop registration deadline: 8 March 2023
- Workshop date: 13 March 2023
Other Information
- Submit your work here
- Check out our website for more details
- Reach out with any questions to Daniel Tozadore at tozadore@epfl.ch
Congratulations and welcome to the following newly organized RAS Chapters:
Region 8
United Arab Emirates
- American University of Sharjah, Robotics and Automation Society Student Branch Chapter
Region 9
Ecuador
- Universidad Tecnica de Cotopaxi, Robotics and Automation Society Student Branch Chapter
Chile
- Universidad Andres Bello, Robotics and Automation, Computational Intelligence and Computer Societies Student Branch Chapter
Mexico
- Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Robotics and Automation Society Student Branch Chapter
Region 10
India
- Chalapathi Institute of Engineering and Technology, Robotics and Automation Society Student Branch Chapter
- Indian Institute of Technology-Indore, Robotics and Automation Society Student Branch Chapter
- KG Reddy College of Engineering and Technology, Robotics and Automation Society Student Branch Chapter
- Mukesh Patel School of Technology Management & Engineering, Robotics and Automation Society Student Branch Chapter
- Santhiram Engineering College, Robotics and Automation Society Student Branch Chapter
- Sreenidhi Institute of Science & Technology, Robotics and Automation Society Student Branch Chapter
Thanks to all for participating in the 2023 AdCom Election. The votes have now been counted, and the following candidates have been elected to three-year terms (1 January 2023–31 Dec 2025):
Alin Albu-Schaeffer (GEO Area 2 Representative)
Sabine Hauert (At-Large Representative)
Yasuhisa Hirata (At-Large Representative)
Lydia E. Kavraki (GEO Area 1 Representative)
Eiichi Yoshida (GEO Area 3 Representative)
Hong Zhang (GEO Area 3 Representative)
RAS extends our hearty congratulations to the incoming AdCom class and our sincerest thanks to all candidates for their willingness to serve.
This Special Session will be held at the 19th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Robotics and Its Social Impacts (ARSO 2023), to be held in Berlin, Germany from 5–7 June 2023.
One of the growing trends in social robotics is their use as socially assistive agents, i.e., agents that assist via social interaction. Application areas of such agents include the after-care management of patients coming out of neurological disorders such as depression, or the assistance to the elderly who might be dealing with loneliness, cognitive decline, or physical disability. When considering human health professionals, regardless of the assistive goal pursued, real-time awareness of the patient’s physical and psychological status seems to always play a key role in the caregiver’s decision-making process.
This session aims to bring together sociological and technical perspectives and concerns to advance research in socio-empathic assistive agents and foster this community’s interdisciplinarity.
Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
- Perception and modeling human behaviors to inform interventions
- Methods and strategies for empathic decision making
- User-driven behavior design
- Participatory design approach for socio-empathic agents
- Reflection on values and norms in socio-technical contexts
Key Dates and Deadlines:
Initial Paper Submission Deadline: 31 January 2023
Notification of Paper Acceptance Notification: 1 April 2023
Final Paper Submission Deadline: 30 April 2023
Organizers:
Jauwairia Nasir, jauwairia.nasir@epfl.ch, EPFL/University of Augsburg
Barbara Bruno, barbara.bruno@epfl.ch, EPFL
Linda Nierling, linda.nierling@kit.edu, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
If you have any questions, please contact jauwairia.nasir@epfl.ch.
Competitions provide a unique venue for state-of-the-art technical demonstrations from research labs, academia, and industry. Conference attendees and media representatives will have the opportunity to experience live demonstrations of robotic technology via these competitions. We invite proposals for competitions that span the range of robotics disciplines. This is open to both well-established competitions and new competitions.
Proposal Content
Competition organizers should submit their proposal as a PDF by email to iros2023competitions@ieee.org with the following information:
- Title of the competition
- Organizers of the competition, including previous experience organizing similar activities
- A brief description of the competition, including the task to be evaluated and its connection to research topics covered at IROS
- Draft rules and means of assessment
- Draft time schedule for competition day(s)
- Award planning, including financials
- A list of potential participants
- Facilities request, including space (area and minimum height), power, telecommunications, human resources, and other infrastructure
Please indicate if you are proposing a new competition; certain content can be reduced/amended accordingly.
Key Dates and Deadlines
Proposal Deadline: January 15, 2023
Notification: February 1, 2023
Contact Information
If you have any questions, please get in touch with the Competitions Chair, Josie Hughes, at iros2023competitions@ieee.org.
We are pleased to announce that a new issue of IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (Volume 8, Issue 2, February 2023) is now available on IEEE Xplore. Check it out!
The 18th Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction (HRI 2023) will be fully hybrid; it will take place 13–16 March 2023 in Stockholm, Sweden and online via Zoom and Hopin.
We will provide ample opportunities to participate both in person and online. Especially given the high number of online and hybrid events in the last two years, we wish to create the best online experience for remote attendees and reduce the cognitive loads that digital events create.
If you plan to attend HRI 2023 online or in person, please fill out this brief (<1 minute) survey. And if you have any questions or further suggestions, please get in touch with the online chairs of HRI 2023 at online2023@humanrobotinteraction.org.
We invite you to contribute to an invited session on Cooperative Robots at IROS 2023.
Robotic and AI technology continues to make stunning progress over all components of function, expanding applications to industrial and commercial usage. At the same time, scalability increase enables robotic systems to handle more complex and challenging tasks. Task-oriented systems leveraging the diversity across a multi-robot fleet (e.g., air-ground vehicle teaming, diverse sensor suites, etc.) provide benefits in engineering design, cost, and capabilities. With this increased system complexity, proper strategies for incorporating redundancy, heterogeneity, and interface considerations become necessary for investigation.
Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:
Control
- Decentralized Control
- Team Formations
- Dynamic Stochastic Control
- Data-Driven Control
Planning
- Task Allocation
- Event-based Planning
- Planning
Applications
- Exploration & Mapping
- Rescuing Robotics
- UAV Fleet and Swarm
- Manned/Unmanned Teaming
Related issues
- Robustness & Resilience
- Communications/Synchronization
- Sensor Fusion
Key Dates and Deadlines
- If you intend to submit a proposal, please provide a preliminary title and abstract by 7 January 2023
- Proposal submissions are due 15 Jan 2023
Email Tianqi Li (tianqili@tamu.edu) with submissions or questions
Peter Luh, a giant in the field of automation research and an important volunteer in IEEE, passed away on 28 November 2022.
Peter worked as a Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Connecticut for over 40 years. Ken Goldberg, a RAS Member and the William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair in Engineering at UC Berkeley, writes the following: “Peter Luh was dedicated to raising the profile of Automation in many ways. He co-founded the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (T-ASE) and served as its first Editor-in-Chief, where he provided the guidance, integrity, and high standards needed to successfully launch it.”
A funeral was held on 5 December; a recording is available and can be watched here. What follows below is quoted from Peter’s obituary:
A longer in memoriam article for Peter will appear in the next issue of the IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine.
The RAS community extends its deepest sympathy to Peter’s wife Chwenhwa and his family as we remember Peter and his many contributions to the automation community, RAS, and humanity.
Congratulations to the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society members recently elevated to Senior Member status by the IEEE Admission and Advancement 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 10 years (with some credit for certain degrees)
In addition, candidates for Senior Member status must supply three references from current IEEE members holding the grade of Fellow, Senior Member, or Honorary Member. For more information, click here or email senior-member@ieee.org. The names and affiliations of the new Senior Members are as follows, listed alphabetically by region:
Region 1
Souma Chowdhury
Buffalo Section
Jignesh Panchal
Princeton/Central Jersey Section
Karthik Dantu
Buffalo Section
Region 2
Amy LaViers
Philadelphia Section
Region 3
Hao Su
Eastern North Carolina Section
Region 4
Bhushan Dharmadhikari
Southern Minnesota Section
Michael Newcomb
Nebraska Section
Eric Waydick
Milwaukee Section
Vijay Venkataraman
Twin Cities Section
Region 5
Phillip Gold
Denver Section
Xiaoli Zhang
Denver Section
Region 6
Bruce Boyes
Utah Section
Youssef Rokes
Metropolitan Los Angeles Section
Yuan Zhuang
Santa Clara Valley Section
Region 7
Ahmad Al-Dabbagh
Toronto Section
Ehsan Hashemi
Northern Canada Section
Region 8
Aamir Ahmad
Germany Section
Mahdi Bamdad
Iran Section
Andreas Bihlmaier
Germany Section
Vahid Samadi Bokharaie
Germany Section
Cosimo Della Santina
Benelux Section
Mauro Franceschelli
Italy Section
Yassen Gorbounov
Bulgaria Section
Zhanat Kappassov
Kazakhstan Subsection
Miklos Kozlovszky
Hungary Section
Mikko Lauri
Germany Section
Shayok Mukhopadhyay
United Arab Emirates Section
Gionata Salvietti
Italy Section
Tadele Tuli
Germany Section
Gurvinder Virk
United Kingdom and Ireland Section
Region 9
Rene Avila
Colombia Section
Julio Cuenca
Ecuador Section
Tiago DoNascimento
Northeast Brazil Section
Ma. Guadalupe Ortiz-Lopez
Guanajuato Section
Luis Serpa
Ecuador Section
Juan Tisza
Peru Section
Region 10
Aylchino Louise Philip A. Alcantara
Republic of Philippines Section
Maleeha Azeez
Kerala Section
Bingtuan Gao
Nanjing Section
Chengzhi Hu
Guangzhou Section
Sumit Jha
Delhi Section
Mohanraj Kalidass
Madras Section
Yasir Khan
Lahore Section
Hanna Kurniawati
Australian Capital Terr Section
Akio Kurobe
Kansai Section
Xiang Li
Beijing Section
Arvind Reddy Maram
Hyderabad Section
Jianjun Meng
Beijing Section
Hiroyuki Murata
Nagoya Section
Mani Narayanasamy
Madras Section
Shantipal Ohol
Pune Section
Thierry Peynot
Queensland Section
Arunkumar R
Madras Section
Sreekanth R
Madras Section
Sreeja S
Kerala Section
Gayatri Sakya
Uttar Pradesh Section
Murali Sivanesan
Madras Section
Jin-Ho Suh
Seoul Section
Weiqun Wang
Beijing Section
The 2023 IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration (SII) will take place in Atlanta on 17–20 January 2023.
Early Bird registration is now open, and the deadline is 15 December.
With the submission deadline of IROS 2023 and other exciting RAS conferences on the horizon, please consider participating as a Senior Reviewer in the Young Reviewers Program(YRP) of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS).
The YRP is intended to introduce young RAS members to best practices in peer review for scientific papers. Effective peer review is crucial for the scientific community, yet systematic training in peer review is often not provided. As a Senior Reviewer, you can give reviewing assignments to Junior Reviewers, and you oversee the review process in a mentor-mentee relationship. Agreeing to serve will not increase the number of papers that you review. Only papers that you have already agreed to review would be eligible for the YRP. In this way, there should be no net increase in your reviewing workload. The time you would normally spend writing a careful review would be invested instead in cultivating skills in a Junior Reviewer.
As a Senior Reviewer, you can email a Junior Reviewer listed on the YRP website. Assign to the Junior Reviewer one paper that you have been asked to review and then work with the Junior Reviewer to write and improve the review, which you will submit via PaperPlaza.
You may also ask competent members of your research group to join the YRP as Junior Reviewers and elect to work with them. Typically, a Junior Reviewer would be a doctoral graduate student or a post-doc, whereas a Senior Advisor would be the one who can be an academic advisor or a research supervisor of those Junior Reviewers. Reviewer applications will be evaluated by the YRP Chairs listed below.
Additionally, the YRP recently started to promote reviewing best practices throughout the entire RAS community with dedicated events and online material. The first YRP event was held online right after ICRA 2023 paper submission deadline; you can find the information and recordings here. And stay tuned for upcoming events!
Details of Eligibility and Procedure
Please sign up via the YRP website here.
YRP Chairs
Marta Lorenzini (IEEE-RAS YRP Executive Manager – marta.lorenzini@iit.it)
Paolo Robuffo Giordano (IEEE-RAS YRP Executive Manager - paolo.robuffo_giordano@irisa.fr)
YRP Advisory Board
Marco Morales (IEEE-RAS YRP Website Manager)
Arash Ajoudani (IEEE-RAS Chair of Young Professionals)
Nancy Amato (IEEE-RAS MAB member)
