Submit your application today!

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.

IERA logoThese 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 2017). 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 2017.

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 2017 (any time zone) to IFR Secretariat – secretariat@ifr.org

The IEEE Robotics & Automation Society recognizes and congratulates the following individuals for their outstanding accomplishments and service to RAS and the robotics and automation community. They will be honored during an award luncheon to be held at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation (ICRA 2017) on 1 June at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Singapore. Please join us in congratulating these outstanding recipients!

RAS Pioneer Award

Paolo Dario - Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (SSSA), Pisa, Italy
"For pioneering the emerging area of BioRobotics, the science and engineering of integrating robotics with biology and medicine"

RAS George Saridis Leadership Award in Robotics and Automation

Vijay Kumar - University of Pennsylvania (PA), United States
"For his leadership in building institutions and in creating national and international programs to promote robotics and automation"

Peter B. Luh - University of Connecticut (CT), United States
"For exceptional vision and leadership in strengthening and promoting the field of automation science and engineering"

IEEE RAS Distinguished Service Award

Nancy M. Amato - Texas A&M University (TX), United States
"For innovative leadership in the RAS Electronic Products and Services Board and in ICRA and IROS conferences"

RAS Early Career Award (Academic)

Conor Walsh - Harvard University (MA), United States
"For contributions to soft robotics and wearable technology for rehabilitation"

Sertac Karaman - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), (MA) United States
"For contributions to motion planning and control algorithms for robots and autonomous vehicles"

IEEE Inaba Technical Award for Innovation Leading to Production

Paulo Debenest, Michele Guarnieri, Shigeo Hirose - Hibot Corp, Japan
"For outstanding contributions to the application of robotics in the power distribution industry"

IEEE Robotics and Automation Award for Product Innovation

Clearpath Robotics - Christopher Bogdon
"Jackal Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV): A small 4-wheeled all-terrain robot with multiple payload capacity and open source software"

RAS Most Active Technical Committee Award

Technical Committee on Cognitive Robotics
Chairs: Giulio Sandini, Matthias Scheutz, Shingo Shimoda, David Vernon

RAS Chapter of the Year Award 

IEEE RAS Tunisia Chapter
Chairs: Nizar Rokbani, Adel Alimi

As we look forward to continued advances and successes for the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) and the robotics and automation industries, and we would like to take a moment to thank the 2016 RAS Officers for their hard work and dedication. Without them, RAS would not being seeing the growth and impact that has been so evident in the past few years.

2016 RAS Executive Committee (ExCom) 

RAS 2016 ExCom

A huge special thanks must be given to the following RAS Officers serving on the 2016 Executive Committee (ExCom). They have worked tirelessly to provide additional benefits and services to RAS members and the industry:
l-r: Fumihito Arai, Erwin Prassler, Yasushi Nakauchi, Torsten Kroeger, Jing Xiao, Eugenio Guglielmelli, Satoshi Tadokoro, Ning Xi, Ron Lumia, Martin Buss

 

2016 RAS Administrative Committee (AdCom)

RAS 2016 AdCom

And we must also heartily thank those serving on the 2016 RAS Administrative Committee (AdCom). Without their dedication and commitment, RAS would not be one of the leading IEEE Societies!  (l-r front): Kazuhiro Kosuge, Erwin Prassler, Satoshi Tadokoro, Raja Chatila, David Orin, Dong Soo Kwon, Yasushi Nacauchi   (l-r back): Wolfram Burgard, Lydia Kavraki, Torsten Kroeger, Hong Zhang, Carme Torras, Fumihito Arai, Hong Qiao, Gianluca Antonelli, Jing Xiao, Nancy Amato, François Chaumette, Bill Hamel, Megan Emmons, Eugenio Guglielmelli, Max Meng, Toshio Fukuda, Seth Hutchinson, Ning Xi, Peter Corke, Kevin Lynch, Ron Lumia, Richard Vaughan, Brad Nelson, Martin Buss, Zhi Dong Wang

 

Best wishes to all of our Members and Friends for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2017!

Wednesday 11 January 2017 - 11:00 AM EST - Register Now!

The IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems released the first version of its document, Ethically Aligned Design (EAD) on 13 December 2016. The document provides insights and recommendations from over one hundred global AI and ethics experts and is intended to provide a key reference for Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems (AI/AS) technologists to help them prioritize values-driven, ethically aligned design in their work.

Key Takeaways for Attendees:
1. The difference between Codes of Conduct and Applied Ethics/Values-Driven Design methodologies and how they work best together
2. How your organization can benefit by prioritizing end-user values for technology design in the algorithmic era ("Ethics is the new Green")
3. Why proactively aligning AI/AS design to human values and ethical principles will redefine innovation
4. How IEEE is prioritizing ethical considerations and how your organization can get involved

Join us on Wednesday, 11 January 2017 at 11:00 A.M. EST to discuss Ethically Aligned Design and The IEEE Global Initiative on a webinar featuring the following guests:
Raja Chatila - IEEE Global Initiative Chair and RAS Past President
Kay Firth-Butterfield - IEEE Global Initiative Vice-Chair
Konstantinos Karachalios - Managing Director, IEEE Standards Association
John C. Havens (Moderator) - IEEE Global Initiative Executive Director

Meet the Speakers

r.chatilaPanelist
Raja Chatila, IEEE Fellow, is Director of Research at the French National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS), and Director of the Institute of Intelligent Systems and Robotics (ISIR) at Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France. He is also Director of the Laboratory of Excellence "SMART" on human-machine interactions.

His work covers several aspects of autonomous and interactive Robotics, in robot navigation and SLAM, motion planning and control, cognitive and control architectures, human-robot interaction, and robot learning, and to applications in the areas of service, field and space robotics. He is author of over 150 international publications on these topics. He is past President of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (2014-2015) and member of the French Commission on the Ethics of Research in Digital Sciencesand Technologies (CERNA). IEEE Pioneer Award in Robotics and Automation.

 

k. butterfieldPanelist
Kay Firth-Butterfield is a Barrister-at-Law and part-time Judge in the United Kingdom where she has also worked as a mediator, arbitrator, business owner and Professor of Law. In the United States, Kay is Executive Director and founding advocate of AI Austin and an adjunct Professor of Law. She is a humanitarian with a strong sense of social justice and has advanced degrees in Law and International Relations. Kay advises governments, think tanks, businesses and nonprofit organizations about artificial intelligence, law and policy.

Kay co-founded the Consortium for Law and Policy of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the University of Texas and teaches: Artificial Intelligence and emerging tech ologies: Law and Policy. She thinks about how AI and other emerging technologies will impact business and society, including how business can prepare for that impact in its internal planning and external interaction with customers and other stakeholders and how society will be affected by, and should prepare for, these technologies. She has a particular interest in AI and foreign policy and the use of AI to do good globally. Kay speaks regularly to international audiences addressing many aspects of these challenging changes.

 

k. karachalioPanelist
Konstantinos is an internationally recognized leader within the standards development and intellectual property communities and has extensive expertise in public policy, strategic planning, and the not-for-profit sector. His leadership efforts played a crucial role in the successful international cooperation between Germany and France in the areas of coordinated research and scenario simulation pertaining to large-scale nuclear accidents.

Following the success of these cooperative international endeavors, he joined the European Patent Office (EPO). Among the highlights of his career within the EPO are his creation and leadership of the EPO's International Academy, the Department of Technical Assistance to the Middle East and Africa, and the Bureau for Public Policy Issues, and his guidance and insights as the EPO's envoy to a number of United Nations organizations. As member of EPO's core taskforce for the "Scenarios for the Future" project, Konstantinos contributed to repositioning the techno-political stakes, reframing the way in which they are debated in the global arena, and initiating and coordinating strategic responses to the challenges raised by those discussions.

Konstantinos earned his Ph.D. in Energy Engineering (Nuclear Reactor Safety) and his master's degree in Mechanical Engineering for the University of Stuttgart.

 

j.havensModerator
John C. Havens is a regular contributor on issues of technology and wellbeing to Mashable, The Guardian, HuffPo and TechCrunch and is author of Heartificial Intelligence: Embracing Our Humanity To Maximize Machines and Hacking Happiness: Why Your Personal Data Counts and How Tracking it Can Change the World.

John was an EVP of a Top Ten PR Firm, a VP of a tech startup, and an independent consultant where he has worked with clients such as Gillette, P&G, HP, Wal-Mart, Ford, Allstate, Monster, Gallo Wines, and Merck. He is also the Founder of The Happathon Project, a non-profit utilizing emerging technology and positive psychology to increase human wellbeing.

John has spoken at TEDx, at SXSW Interactive (six times), and as a global keynote speaker for clients like Cisco, Gillette, IEEE, and NXP Semiconductors. John was also a professional actor on Broadway, TV and Film for fifteen years.

Don't delay! Nominations are due 15 January 2017 for the 2018 IEEE Technical Field Award in Robotics and Automation (TFA). This is the most prestigious award presented by IEEE in the field of robotics and automation, and includes a medal and a $US 10,000 honorarium. IEEE TFAs are awarded for contributions or leadership in a specific field of interest of the IEEE and are among the highest awards presented on behalf of the IEEE Board of Directors.

RAS Medal Image 5 April

Visit http://www.ieee-ras.org/awards-recognition/ for a description of the award criteria and instructions on submitting a nomination.

The 2017 IEEE Technical Field Award in Robotics and Automation will be presented to Oussama Khatib - Professor, Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, California, USA - "For contributions to the development of robot control and human-centered and humanoid robotics, and leadership in the robotics community." The presentation will take place at the Award Ceremony held during ICRA 2017 in Singapore from 29 May-3 June 2017.

Autonomous Mobile Robots

MOOC AMR

This course is addressed to engineers and hobbyists who are interested in programming applications for a mobile robot to perform tasks in a complex environment. Throughout the course, practical exercises will be developed with realistic 3D simulations in the cloud.

 

 

IMPORTANT DATES
Enrollment Deadline: 13 February 2017
Calendar: 6 February to 17 March 2017
Workload: 6 hours per week.

INSTRUCTORS
Professor: Gustavo Casañ Nuñez
Professor: Enric Cervera
Professor: Ricardo Tellez

For more information about the CEMRA project please CLICK HERE

DJI RoboMasters Mobile Manipulation Challenge
http://www.robomasters.com/show-66-225.html

Team Registration Deadline: 13 January 2017

DJI initiated RoboMasters in 2015 as an educational robotics competition for students around the globe. The annual competition attracted teams who competed on building ground robots that used shooting mechanisms to battle with other robots, and the performance of the robots were monitored by a specially designed judging system. The competition is designed not only to entertain, but also to draw more attention from the general public to robotics. To encourage more participation in shaping the future of robotics, RoboMasters 2017 includes, as a special event, the ICRA 2017 DJI RoboMasters Mobile Manipulation Challenge.

This is a ground robot challenge that examines the application and competence of technologies that include positioning, object grasping, force control, target identification, and system stability. Teams are challenged to develop a lightweight mobile manipulator that can autonomously pick, transport and stack building blocks, and will compete on the bases of completion time and assembly height, while meeting the specified weight and size constraints on the robot.

The competition is suitable for researchers and students with interest and background in autonomous robotic platforms, intelligent navigation and manipulation technologies. The competition is open to everyone around the world regardless of age, nationality and academic qualifications. Participating teams are free to select the components and modules necessary for developing their own robot, and can opt for a RoboMasters mobile base. Finalists stand to win a cash prize and some of the latest innovative products from DJI.

 

Humanitarian Robotics and Automation Technology Challenge 2017
http://www.inf.ufrgs.br/HRATC2017/

According to the UN Mine Action Service, landmines kill 15,000?20,000 people every year (mostly children) and maim countless more across 78 countries. Demining efforts cost US$ 300-1000 per mine, and, for every 5000 mines cleared, one person is killed and two are injured. Thus, clearing post-combat regions of landmines has proven to be a difficult, risky, dangerous and expensive task with enormous social implications for civilians.

Motivated by these considerations, the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology (RAS SIGHT) is inviting the academic and non-academic community to participate in the second Humanitarian Robotics and Automation Technology Challenge (HRATC) at the 2017 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2017) to be held in Singapore.

Following in the footsteps of the success of the HRATC Challenge that was held at ICRA in consecutive years from 2014 to 2016, this fourth HRATC edition will continue to focus on promoting the development of new strategies for autonomous landmine detection using a mobile (ground) robot.

The Challenge will take place in three phases: 1) Simulation Phase, 2) Testing Phase, and 3) Finals Phase. The strategies developed by the participating teams will be objectively and quantitatively evaluated according to the following criteria: exploration time and environmental coverage; detection and classification quality; and landmine avoidance. Teams will be progressively eliminated after each phase and the remaining teams would move on to the next phase culminating in the Challenge (Finals) phase at ICRA 2017. It should be noted that the teams do not need to purchase or build a robot instrumented with sensors or any of the accompanying software. Every team can participate remotely in each of the phases.

 

Mobile Microrobotics Challenge 2017
https://sites.google.com/site/mobilemicrorboticschallenge/

The IEEE Robotics & Automations Society (RAS) Micro/Nano Robotics & Automation Technical Committee (MNRA) invites applicants to participate in the 2017 Mobile Microrobotics Challenge (MMC), in which microrobots on the order of the diameter of a human hair face off in tests of autonomy, accuracy, and assembly. Teams can participate in up to three events:
Autonomous Mobility & Accuracy Challenge: Microrobots must navigate within a grid of waypoints, fabricated or superimposed on the substrate. At the competition, each team will be given a list of waypoints to hit (targets), and waypoints to avoid (obstacles). The objective is to hit the most targets while avoiding the most obstacles, while moving as rapidly as possible.
Microassembly Challenge: Microrobots must assemble a planar shape out of multiple microscale components located in a confined starting region. This task simulates anticipated applications of microassembly for medical or micromanufacturing applications.
MMC Showcase & Poster Session: Each team has an opportunity to showcase and demonstrate any advanced capabilities and/or functionality of their microrobot system. Each participating team will get one vote to determine the Best in Show winner.

 

Soft Material Robot Challenge
https://sites.google.com/view/softrobotchallenge2017

Team Proposal Deadline: 15 January 2017
The Soft Material Robot Challenge invites participants from across the world to demonstrate their robots actuated using soft materials. This challenge provides an international platform to showcase soft robotics research and aims to promote research in the field of soft robotics and applicability to on?field competence. The challenge includes two categories, namely the soft component technologies challenge, and the soft robots speed competition.

* Soft component technologies showcase: Showcase newly developed soft robot technologies at Soft Component Technologies Challenge. Develop, demonstrate and document a new actuator, sensor or other component technology that advances the field of soft robotics. The entries will be judged for significance, originality, functionality and quality of documentation. The shortlisted entries will be required to demonstrate their prototype at the competition venue in ICRA 2017.

* Soft robots speed challenge: This section of the challenge aims to pick the fastest robot on land completely driven by soft actuators. The teams are required to abide by the following regulations in designing their robots:
- The robotic body should be made of soft materials. Robots which are completely driven by soft actuators are highly encouraged.
-The dimensions of the robot cannot be larger than 1m x 1m x 1m.
-Teams are free to use on?board or off?board power supply (bonus points for untethered robots ?robots with on?board power). Only inlet to 220 V power socket shall be provided. If a team chooses to use off?board power sources, all the wires/conduits connecting to the robot should be slack at all times during the run.

Please visit the respective challenge websites for detailed information on the challenge tasks, entry instructions, schedule, and rules.

Beginning in January 2017, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters will accept Special Issues proposals!

A Special Issue is proposed by one or more organizers, who upon acceptance by the RA-L Editorial Board, and under its supervision - will also act as Guest Editors. Quality standards and review procedures and schedule for papers published in a Special Issue are identical to those followed for all other IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. Guest Editors will prepare a lead Editorial article which will contain references to all Letters published in the Special Issue. Reciprocally, all Letters published in the Special Issue will have a reference to the Editorial article, which thus functions as a fulcrum for the electronically-published Special Issue. RA-L also encourages Guest Editors to submit a more extended survey paper containing a critical review of research work in the field.

For more information see: http://www.ieee-ras.org/publications/ra-l/special-issues

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) Autonomous Robot Ontology Study Group (AuR) invites your participation in the development of the autonomous robot ontology standard.

http://www.ieee-ras.org/industry-government/standards/autonomous-robotics-group

Why Get Involved

The IEEE published the  IEEE 1872-2015 standard for “Ontologies for Robotics and Automation” that provides a methodology for knowledge representation and reasoning in robotics and automation (R&A). The developed standard was even recognized by the White House in the National AI strategic plan (page 32)

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/whitehouse_files/microsites/ostp/NSTC/national_ai_rd_strategic_plan.pdf

The AuR is a subgroup of the IEEE Ontologies for Robotics and Automation Working Group. The AuR subgroup’s goal is to extend the core ontology for R&A, to represent more specific concepts and axioms commonly used in autonomous robots. The developed ontology represents the knowledge and reasoning needed to build autonomous systems that can operate in the air, on the ground and underwater. Over eighty active group members come from North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, representing stakeholders in academia, industry, and governments.

Creating a standard for knowledge representation and reasoning in autonomous robotics will have a significant impact on all R&A domains, including knowledge transmission among autonomous robots and humans. This will result in improved autonomy of autonomous systems, which will have considerable impact on how robots interact with humans. As a result, the use of autonomous robots by humans will further benefit our society. Another remarkable aspect is related to enhanced integration capabilities this standard can forster, which will allow a smooth knowledge sharing among heterogeneous robotics systems besides the enhancement in the possibilities of cooperatively perform tasks.

Who Should Participate

The following professionals interested in robotics technologies are encouraged to participate:

  • Policy makers
  • Academic researchers
  • Developers, designers and engineers
  • R&A Industry experts

How to Participate

  • The AuR had a kick-off meeting at 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2016) in Daejeon, Korea.
  • The AuR will organize a workshop at the 2017 ACM/IEEE Conference on Human–Robot Interaction (HRI 2017) in Vienna, Austria, March 6–9, 2017.
  • If you wish to participate in the AuR Study Group, please contact Dr. Howard Li, ECE, UNB (howard@unb.ca) for more information. 

A Workshop Presented by the World Top Leaders
19 January 2017 -- Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

 

PANEL DISCUSSION

Good Research, But I Regret that Your Paper is Rejected -- Why?
Panelists:
Eugenio Guglielmelli, RAS Vice-President for Publication Activities
Frank Park, Editor-in-Chief, IEEE Transactions on Robotics
Seth Hutchinson, Past Editor-in-Chief, IEEE Transactions on Robotics
Moderator:
Satoshi Tadokoro, RAS President

 

PROGRAM (tentative):

10:00 Opening
10:05 Open research challenges in Rehabilitation Robotics
Eugenio Guglielmell, Universita Campus Bio-Medico, Italy; RAS VP for Publication Activities
10:40 TBD
Nancy Amato, Texas A&M University, USA; RAS Chair of Electronic Products & Services Board
11:15 Robot Manipulation: Real-time Motion Planning and Hybrid Control
Torsten Kroeger, Google, USA; RAS Secretary
11:50 (Lunch)
13:20 Panel Discussion
14:20 (Break)
14:30 Enhanced Human Performance Assessment with Robotics and Computer Vision
Venkat Krovi, Clemson University, USA
15:05 Quality of Teleoperator (QoT) Adaptive Control for Telerobotic Operations
Ning Xi, University of Hong Kong, China; RAS President-Elect
15:40 "Intelligent" Interactions with Surprisingly Simple Robots
Richard Vaughan, Simon Fraser University, Canada; RAS AdCom
16:15 (Coffee Break)
16:30 TBD
Hong Qiao, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China; RAS AdCom
17:05 TBD
Seth Hutchinson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA; RAS AdCom
17:40 Autonomous Robotic Manipulation
Jing Xiao, Univerdity of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA; RAS VP for Membership Activities
18:15 Closing

For more information see: http://www.rm.is.tohoku.ac.jp/~tadokoro/RBBH/

Access: Center Hall, 2nd Floor, Large Meeting Room
Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University
(Nearest station: Sendai Subway Tozai Line, Aobayama Station)
Bldg. C01 in the following campus map
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.eng.tohoku.ac.jp_english_map_-3Fmenu-3Dcampus-26area-3Dc-26build-3D01&d=DwIDaQ&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=0w3solp5fswiyWF2RL6rSs8MCeFamFEPafDTOhgTfYI&m=yozEwDM9_1_xr8Dg8RxrzoPc_vCEPtQb5pw8C3BiIhM&s=huQKI7lr2_l6Lf3tF4FYgOGb916czxVaDfnGcXabeiE&e=

posted 21 December 2016

 


 

Warehouse robotic automation is attracting increasing interest. Robotics shows potential to impact logistics and efficient distribution of products. Prior successful commercial ventures, such as Kiva Systems, which was acquired and adopted by Amazon, have shown how the industrial landscape can quickly change through the adoption of emergent automation technology. An example task in this domain, which requires further development for successful adoption by industry, corresponds to picking and placing items from storage units, including shelves, bins, and boxes. This task is the focus of a robotics competition, the Amazon Picking Challenge (APC), which brings together multiple academic and industrial teams from around the world.

CASE 2016

The goal of this workshop is to bring together existing technologies and current needs for picking and transportation in warehouse automation. We provide industrial representatives the opportunity to describe their needs, and academic representatives to describe tools and capabilities that they can provide. More importantly, this workshop is an opportunity to get to know people interested in the are and foster collaboration to improve the state­-of-­the-­art in warehouse automation. We also give an opportunity to Amazon and Amazon Picking Challenge teams to describe learned lessons. We do this through a series of talks both from industrial and academic speakers, and a panel discussion to encourage interaction and discussion among participants.

Materials of the Workshop on Automation for Warehouse Logistics that was held at the IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE 2016) have been posted! 

There you will find videos of talks (both academic and industry), panel discussions, and summary videos from teams participating in the 2016 Amazon Picking Challenge.

For complete details and video recordings see: https://awl2016.mit.edu/

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) Autonomous Robot Ontology Study Group (AuR) invites your participation in the development of the autonomous robot ontology standard.
http://www.ieee-ras.org/industry-government/standards/autonomous-robotics-group

WHY GET INVOLVED

The IEEE published the IEEE 1872-2015 standard for "Ontologies for Robotics and Automation" that provides a methodology for knowledge representation and reasoning in robotics and automation (R&A). The developed standard was even recognized by the White House in the National AI strategic plan (page 32)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/whitehouse_files/microsites/ostp/NSTC/national_ai_rd_strategic_plan.pdf

The AuR is a subgroup of the IEEE Ontologies for Robotics and Automation Working Group. The AuR subgroup's goal is to extend the core ontology for R&A, to represent more specific concepts and axioms commonly used in autonomous robots. The developed ontology represents the knowledge and reasoning needed to build autonomous systems that can operate in the air, on the ground and underwater. Over eighty active group members come from North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, representing stakeholders in academia, industry, and governments.

Creating a standard for knowledge representation and reasoning in autonomous robotics will have a significant impact on all R&A domains, including knowledge transmission among autonomous robots and humans. This will result in improved autonomy of autonomous systems, which will have considerable impact on how robots interact with humans. As a result, the use of autonomous robots by humans will further benefit our society. Another remarkable aspect is related to enhanced integration capabilities this standard can forster, which will allow a smooth knowledge sharing among heterogeneous robotics systems besides the enhancement in the possibilities of cooperatively perform tasks.

WHO SHOULD PARTICIPATE

The following professionals interested in robotics technologies are encouraged to participate:
Policy makers
Academic researchers
Developers,
designers and engineers
R&A Industry experts

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

The AuR had a kick-off meeting at 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2016) in Daejeon, Korea. The AuR will organize a workshop at the 2017 ACM/IEEE Conference on Human–Robot Interaction (HRI 2017) in Vienna, Austria, March 6–9, 2017.

If you wish to participate in the AuR Study Group, please contact Dr. Howard Li (howard@unb.ca) for more information.

Congratulations to the following RAS Members - elevated to Fellow grade, effective 1 January 2017!

 

2017 RAS Fellows evaluated by the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society

Gordon Cheng
Technische Universitat Munchen, Germany
"For contributions in humanoid robotic systems and neurorobotics"

Mariapia Fanti
Polytechnic of Bari, Italy
"For contributions to modeling and control of discrete event systems"

K Kyriakopoulos
National Technical University Of Athens, Greece
"For contributions to robot motion planning and control of multirobot systems"

Bengt Lennartson
Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
"For contributions to hybrid and discrete event systems for automation and sustainable production"

Jingshan Li
University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
"For contributions to manufacturing system automation"

Robert Mahony
The Australian National University, Australia
"For contributions to control aspects of aerial robotics"

Eduardo Nebot
The University of Sydney, Australia
"For contributions to robotics and applications in vehicle navigation and mining"

Giuseppe Oriolo
Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy
"For contributions to motion planning and control methods in complex robotic systems"

Hong Tan
Purdue University, USA
"For contributions to wearable haptics"

Frank Van Der Stappen
Utrecht University, The Netherlands
"For contributions to the algorithmic foundations of robotics and automation"

 

2017 RAS Fellows evaluated by other IEEE Societies

Evaluated by the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society:
Uwe Hanebeck
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany
"For contributions to nonlinear estimation and control"

Evaluated by the IEEE Computer Society:
Ram Duvvuru Sriram
National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA
"For leadership in developing computational tools for healthcare enterprises"

Evaluated by the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society:
Zi-xing Cai
Central South University, China
"For contributions to evolutionary optimization and intelligent robotics"

Evaluated by the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society:
Pablo Estevez
University of Chile, Chile
"For contributions to feature selection and visualization of large data sets"

Evaluated by the IEEE Control Systems Society:
Calin Belta
Boston University, USA
"For contributions to automated control synthesis and robot motion planning and control"

Evaluated by the IEEE Control Systems Society:
Alessandro Giua
Aix-Marseille University, France
"For contributions to discrete event and hybrid systems"

Evaluated by the IEEE Control Systems Society:
Kristin Pettersen
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
"For contributions to control of marine vessels and snake robots"

Evaluated by the IEEE Control Systems Society:
Xiaobo Tan
Michigan State University, USA
"For contributions to modeling and control of smart materials and underwater robots"

Evaluated by the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society:
Jose Carmena
University of California-Berkeley, USA
"For contributions to the neural basis of motor skill learning and neuroprosthetic systems"

Evaluated by the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society:
Jose Del R Millan
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland
"For contributions to brain-controlled robots"

Evaluated by the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society:
Michael Gard
The Charles Machine Works, USA
"For contributions to instrumentation-and-measurement technology for petroleum exploration, computed tomography, and underground construction"

Evaluated by the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society:
Li Li
Tsinghua University, China
"For contributions to intelligent transportation systems and vehicles"

Evaluated by the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society:
Andrea Caiti
University of Pisa, Italy
"For contributions to geo-acoustic inversion and autonomous underwater vehicles"

Evaluated by the IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society:
Ching-chih Tsai
National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan
"For contributions in intelligent adaptive learning control for industrial systems and machinery"

IEEE CASE 2017 will be held on 20-23 August 2017 in Xi'an, China. IEEE CASE is a flagship automation conference of the IEEE RAS and constitutes the primary forum for cross-industry and multi-disciplinary research in automation. Its goal is to provide a broad coverage and dissemination of foundational research in automation among researchers, academics, and practitioners.

The technical program of IEEE CASE 2017 will consist of tutorials/workshops, keynote/plenary speeches, automation forums, and oral presentations. Papers describing original work on abstractions, algorithms, theories, methodologies, and case studies are invited. Accepted and presented papers will be published in the conference proceedings, and submitted for inclusion into IEEEXplore as well as other Abstracting and Indexing (A&I) databases. IEEE CASE is an offspring of the journal IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (TASE). The journal will publish a CASE Special Issue of top-rated papers. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) will also accept journal quality publications in conjunction to CASE 2017.

Regular papers and special session proposals and papers should be submitted online at the conference website at www.case2017.org. One new feature of CASE 2017 is that the authors of the papers published or accepted in and after 2016 by IEEE TASE or IEEE Transactions on Robotics can request presentation of their papers at the conference in the newly organized "transaction paper sessions". General inquiries should be addressed via Email to the Program Chair, Prof. Qing-Shan Jia at jiaqs@tsinghua.edu.cn. The best conference paper award, the best application paper award, and the best student paper award will be selected.

Xian Bell Tower front

ABOUT XI'AN
Xi'an is a famous historical and cultural city in China. It is the cradle of the Chinese nationality, the birthplace of the Chinese civilization and the representative of the Chinese culture. The city was first established more than 3100 years ago and it has been taken as a capital for 1129 years for 13 dynasties. It is one of the most ancient capitals of the world, in the company of Athens, Rome and Cairo. The city once functioned as the political, economic and cultural center of China and as the starting point of the renowned Silk Road. Due to its long history and rich culture, the city is reputed to be the natural history museum.

IMPORTANT DATES
1 December 2016 Submission site opens;
11 January 2017 Special session proposal due;
29 January 2017 Special session acceptance notification;
29 January 2017 Tutorial/workshop proposal submission due;
15 February 2017 Contributed paper submission due;
15 February 2017 RA-L/CASE submission due;
26 February 2017 Tutorial/workshop acceptance notification;
20 May 2017 Paper acceptance notification;
27 May 2017 Conference registration opens;
12 June 2017 Final paper submission due;
20 July 2017 RA-L notification

SUBMISSION SITE
https://ras.papercept.net/conferences/scripts/start.pl

FOR MORE INFORMATION SEE: http://case2017.org/

Registration Deadline is 12 December 2016!

Vacuum cleaners, drones and arguable driverless cars, assistive wearables, 3D printers and virtual headsets are examples of consumer robots. This Winter School's objective is to better define consumer robotics - and specifically, identify research topics and areas.

A Field Trip to the Consumer Electronics Show (5-7 January 2017) is a part of the Winter School. CES hosts 400+ consumer robot companies which join 170,000 attendees, 3700+ exhibitors and global media for product launches and market trends.

LOCATION
Lectures and Workshops will be held at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), USA

LECTURES
Prof. Zexiang Li (Hong Kong University of Technology) on DJI and Consumer Drones
Dr. Steve Cousins (Savioke) on Hotel Robot Room Service
Dr. Tony Lewis (Qualcomm) on Embedded Intelligence
Prof. Ayanna Howard (Georgia Tech) on Educational Robots
Dr. Martin Buehler (Disney Research)
And more to come...

These Distinguished Colleagues have academe/industry experiences that will help students and the robotics community better understand the growing field of consumer robotics.

Application Deadline: 12 December 2017

Apply online here: http://www.daslhub.org/ces/registration/registration.html

For more information see: http://www.daslhub.org/ces/index.html

The IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS2016) was held 9-14 October 2016, in Daejeon, Korea. Congratulations to the following Award Recipients - which were announced on 13 October during the Awards Luncheon.

Harashima Award small

IROS Harashima Award for Innovative Technologies
This award is to honor Professor Fumio Harashima, the Founding Honorary Chair of the IROS conferences, by recognizing outstanding contributions of an individual of the IROS community who has pioneered activities in robotics and intelligent systems.
Shigeki SUGANO - Waseda University, Japan
"For his technical contributions and innovation in human-symbiotic anthropomorphic robotics"

IROS Distinguished Service Award
This award recognizes an individual who has performed outstanding service and leadership for the benefit and advancement of the IROS Conference. Up to two awards will be given annually at the IROS Conference.
Christian LAUGIER - INRIA, France

IROS Toshio Fukuda Young Professional Award
This award recognizes individuals (from academic institutions, government, industry, or research labs) who, in their early career, have made identifiable contributions that have had a major impact on intelligent robots and systems. Up to two awards will be given annually at the IROS Conference.
Fumiya IIDA - University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

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IROS JTCF Novel Technology Paper Award for Amusement Culture 
This award recognizes technical papers which have made practical technology contributions to Toys, Toy Models and Amusement Culture.
2 Winners this Year!
"Robot Artist for Colorful Picture Painting with Visual Control System"
Ren Luo, Ming-Jyun Hong, Ping-Chang Chung

"The CableRobot Simulator - Large Scale Motion Platform Based on Cable Robot Technology"
Philipp Miermeister, Carlo Masone, Andreas Pott, Heinrich H. Buelthoff, Joachim Tesch

Robocup Best Paper small

IROS RoboCup Best Paper Award 
This award recognizes technical papers which have made identifiable contributions to RoboCup.
"Multi-Robot Search for a Moving Target: Integrating World Modeling, Task Assignment and Context"
Francesco Riccio, Emanuele Borzi, Guglielmo Gemignani, Daniele Nardi

 

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IROS KROS Best Paper Award on Cognitive Robotics
This award is to promote interdisciplinary researches on cognition for technical systems and advancements of cognitive robotics in industry, home applications, and daily life.
"Predicting Actions to Act Predictably: Cooperative Partial Motion Planning with Maximum Entropy Models"
Mark Pfeiffer, Ulrich Schwesinger, Hannes Sommer, Enric Galceran, Roland Siegwart

 

Best Paper SSRR small

IROS Best Paper Award on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics
This award is to promote advanced research on safety, security and rescue robotics. The name of the award is connected with Mr. MotohiroKisoi who was killed in Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake on 17 January 1995. He was a master student of Kobe University, Japan at that time. He had a dream to create a robot that can help people. To memorialize him and Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, the award has established.
"A Palm for a Rock Climbing Robot Based on Dense Arrays of Micro-Spines"
Shiquan Wang, Hao Jiang, Mark Cutkosky

 

 

Best Application Paper small

IROS ICROS Best Application Paper Award
This award is to promote researches on excellent robot application.
"Skeletal Structure with Artificial Perspiration for Cooling by Latent Heat for Musculoskeletal Humanoid Kengoro"
Toyotaka Kozuki, Hirose Toshinori, Takuma Shirai, Shinsuke Nakashima, Yuki Asano, Yohei Kakiuchi, Kei Okada, Masayuki Inaba

 

Best Student Paper Wulfmeier small

IROS ABB Best Student Paper Award
This award recognizes the most outstanding paper authored primarily by a student at the annual IROS Conference.
"Watch This: Scalable Cost-Function Learning for Path Planning in Urban Environments"
Markus Wulfmeier, Dominic Zeng Wang, Ingmar Posner

 

 

 

IROS Best Paper Hutter small

IROS Best Paper Award
This award recognizes the most outstanding paper at the annual IROS Conference.
"ANYmal - a Highly Mobile and Dynamic Quadrupedal Robot"
Marco Hutter, Christian Gehring, Dominic Jud, Andreas Lauber, Carmine Dario Bellicoso, Vassilios Tsounis, Jemin Hwangbo, Karen Bodie, Péter Fankhauser, Michael Bloesch, Remo Diethelm, Samuel Bachmann, Amir Melzer, Mark Hoepflinger

 

Congratulations to the six RAS members elected by the membership to serve a three-year term beginning 1 January 2017. 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:

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Seth Hutchinson
University of Illinois, USA

 

 

 

hongqiao2016 small

Hong Qiao
Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

 

 

 

 

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

TonyMaciejewski small

Anthony Maciejewski
Colorado State University, USA

 

 

 

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

Antonio Bicchi small

Antonio Bicchi
University of Pisa, Italy

 

 

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

YasuhisaHasegawa small 2016

Yasuhisa Hasegawa
Nagoya University, Japan

 

 

 

 photo Dong Soo Kwon small

Dong-Soo Kwon
KAIST, South Korea

With heartfelt gratitude the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society (RAS) and the robotics community bids farewell to Ken Goldberg, who enthusiastically served from 2011-2016 as Editor-in-Chief of T-ASE. Successor Michael Yu Wang has some big shoes to fill, but will be assisted by Samantha Jacobs and the T-ASE Editorial Team.

T ASE handoff

Ken Goldberg, UC Berkeley, took the helm in October 2011 and never looked back. The journal has grown in volume and page count, in prestige, and has seen huge growth in reach and impact factor during his tenure. In his last Editorial, Ken reviews the team effort that doubled the T-ASE Impact Factor over 5 years and quotes RAS Past President Raja Chatila: "One Robot is Robotics, Ten Robots is Automation"
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=7583767

Automation has now come of age! RAS, the T-ASE Editors and Associate Editors, and the automation community will miss the Leadership provided by Ken. We wish him well in all future endeavors!

Ken is succeeded by Michael Yu Wang, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. mywang@ust.hk
Michael's areas of expertise are as follows:
Primary areas: Human-Centered Automation, Assembly Modeling, Manufacturing, Grasping, Fixturing, Feeding.
Secondary areas: Theoretical Methods, Algorithmic Foundations, Machine Tools, Numerical Optimization.

IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems
Special Issue on Bio-inspired Social Robot Learning in Home Scenarios

http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/wtm/SocialRobotsWorkshop2016/CFP_TCDS_SI_SocialRobots.pdf

CALL FOR PAPERS
There has been considerable progress in robotics in the last years allowing robots to successfully contribute to our society. We can find them from industrial environments, where they are nowadays established, to domestic places, where their presence is steadily rising. The proposed special issue intends to explore the following question: "How well prepared are learning robots to be social actors in daily-life home environments in the near future."

The special issue is therefore not only an opportunity to address this focuses on the latest scientific contributions on bio-inspired learning and social robotics, but also links them with a clear focus to push the presence of robots in people's daily-life environment. Thus, one main goal of the special issue is offering a common foundation for roboticists from different fields of expertise to contribute beyond the current state-of-the-art of learning methods in robotics especially applied to home scenarios and recent developments in assistive robots.

The subjects of the special issue include, but are not limited to:
- Interactive reinforcement learning.
- Policy and reward shaping.
- Neural learning of object affordances and contextual affordances.
- Predictive learning from sensorimotor information.
- Learning understanding of environment ambiguity.
- Learning with hierarchical and deep neural architectures.
- Bootstrapping complex action learning in robots.
- Learning supported by external trainers, by demonstration and imitation.
- Parental scaffolding as a bootstrapping method for learning.

SUBMISSIONS
The special issue is open for all submissions which will be independently peer-reviewed in accordance with IEEE policy. Manuscripts should be prepared according to the "Information for Authors" of the journal, found at http://cis.ieee.org/publications.html, and submitted through the IEEE TCDS Manuscript center under the category: "SI: Social Robots": https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tcds-ieee. Papers submitted must not have been published previously, though they may represent significant extensions of prior work.

IMPORTANT DATES
31 January 2017 - Deadline for manuscript submission.
15 April 2017 - Notification of authors.
15 May 2017 - Deadline for revised manuscripts.
15 June 2017 - Final decisions.

For further information, please contact one of the following guest editors in this order:
Francisco Cruz - Knowledge Technology Institute, University of Hamburg, Germany - cruz@informatik.uni-hamburg.de
Jimmy Baraglia - Emergent Robotics Laboratory, Osaka University, Japan - jimmy.baraglia@ams.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp
Yukie Nagai - Emergent Robotics Laboratory, Osaka University, Japan - yukie@ams.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp
Stefan Wermter - Knowledge Technology Institute, University of Hamburg, Germany - wermter@informatik.uni-hamburg.de

2016 IEEE International Conference on Simulation, Modeling, and Programming for Autonomous Robots
San Francisco, California USA
13-16 December 2016
http://simpar2016.org

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

Early Registration Deadline: 31 October 2016

After a very selective review process, approximately half of the paper submissions were rejected, and we are looking forward to a high-quality, single track program of IEEE SIMPAR 2016.

PLENARY SPEAKERS

Emo Todorov
Erwin Coumans
Luis Sentis

WORKSHOPS

Combining Optimal Control, Reinforcement Learning and Movement
Primitives to Achieve Better Robot Motions
Organizer: Katja Mombaur

Grand Challenges in Robotic Simulation
Organizer: Evan Drumwright

Modeling and Simulating Mechanical Rigid-Body Systems Using Siconos
Organizers: Vincent Acary and Stephen Sinclair

The Role of Simulation in Robot Programming
Organizers: Maria Gini and Enrico Pagello

TECHNICAL TOURS

Technical tours will be held on 17 December 2016 (incl. robotics lab tours at UC Berkeley and Stanford University).

VENUE, ACCOMMODATION, AND SOCIAL EVENTS

The Parc 55 – A Hilton Hotel
We offer discounted room rates for SIMPAR attendees.
On 14 December 2016, all conference attendees will be able to enjoy a beautiful dinner cruise on the San Francisco Bay.

WAFR 2016

The 2016 International Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR) will take place in San Francisco from 18-20 December 2016, adjacent to SIMPAR 2016.
http://wafr2016.berkeley.edu/

SCOPE AND TOPICS

3D robot simulation and mathematical modeling of robots
Learning from simulation
Reliability, scalability and validation of robot simulation
Simulated sensors and actuators
Machine learning for robotics applications
Offline simulation of robot design
Online simulation with real-time constraints
Simulation with software/hardware in the loop
Middleware for robotics
Modeling framework for robots and environments
Testing and validation of robot software
Standardization for robotic services
Communication infrastructures in distributed robotics
Interaction between sensor networks and robots
Human robot interaction and collaboration
Simulation of multi-robot systems
Model-based optimization and optimal control
Model predictive control

CONTACT

If you have questions, need additional support, or encounter problems, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at info@simpar2016.org.

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