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RAS is pleased to arrange two Luncheon Networking events for our Members attending CASE 2016 in Fort Worth, Texas USA. Space is limited for these popular events. Don't miss the chance to attend either or both because the space has been filled.
Advanced registration is required. The cost is $5 per lunch. Register Now!
https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?EventID=1864249
RAS Women In Engineering (WIE) Luncheon
Tuesday, 23 August 2016
12:00-13:30 in the Hacienda Room
The Worthington Renaissance Hotel, Fort Worth, Texas
The WiE luncheon provides the opportunity to foster discussion on the role of women in robotics and automation, inspire girls and promote collaborations and initiatives to advance women in leadership. As the goal for this event is to be more than a lunch for women, but a lunch with women. Therefore, men are more than welcome to participate and enjoy the discussion.
Speaker information coming soon!
To join WIE luncheon, please register HERE: https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?EventID=1864249
RAS Lunch with Leaders (LwL) for Students and Young Professionals
Wednesday, 24 August 2016
12:00-13:30 in the Hacienda Room
The Worthington Renaissance Hotel, Fort Worth, Texas
This luncheon is open to student and young professional attendees offering the chance to meet and interact with and leaders from RAS and industry. Informal discussion over lunch will take place round table style. Join us for career advice, insights into where the field is headed, or general conversation to get to know Leaders in the field of robotics & automation.
The list of Leaders coming soon!
To join LwL, please register HERE: https://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?EventID=1864249
The IEEE CASE Broadening Participation Travel Grants program is an outreach effort to broaden the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) community by enabling participation at the 2016 IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE) by RAS members who would otherwise not be able to attend. In particular, this program is for non-author faculty and post-doctoral researchers from developing countries ( as defined by the IEEE) and by non-author students who are not yet fully engaged in RAS.
CASE 2016 will be held in Fort Worth, TX USA from 21-24 August 2016 at the The Worthington Renaissance Fort Worth Hotel
Travel awards will cover conference registration and partial reimbursement for lodging and travel. Reimbursements will be processed after attendance at CASE 2016.
The application deadline is 22 July 2016. We expect award decisions to be made within one week.
Online travel grant application: https://parasol.tamu.edu/ieee/production/apps/case_travelgrants/
The application requests should include the following:
- Information about the applicant.
- Resume/CV of the applicant to be uploaded to the system.
- Statement about how attendance at CASE 2016 will impact the applicant.
- Letter of support from department head/chair (for faculty) and advisor (for students/postdocs).
- Letter of endorsement from local or regional IEEE RAS chapter, if applicable.
If an applicant receives travel support, he/she must report at the conference site with a flight receipt and passport (international applicants) or ID (US citizens). Instructions regarding the reimbursement process will be available later.
For questions regarding the CASE BP Travel Grants, please contact casebptravelgrant@gmail.com
This award recognizes the entrepreneurial commercialization of ideas into actual products. Nominations cite and describe the original work that has been translated into commercial application as well as the commercial product and its success. Nominations must also describe the unique characteristics of the transformation into the commercialized product that justify the award. The current and future impact of the commercial product is a fundamental element of the merit for selection.
Selected finalists had 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 during a special session on 21 June 2016 at the 47th International Symposium on Robotics in Munich, Germany. The ultimate winner, chosen by an evaluation board consisting of distinguished individuals from industry and academia, receives a prestigious plaque and a US$ 2,000 prize.
The twelfth IERA Award for robotics and automation goes to the collaborative dual-arm robot "YuMi®" by ABB Robotics this year. The name stands for "you and me – we work together" – since the robot was specially designed to work side by side with its human colleagues without protective fencing. The International Federation of Robotics IFR together with the Robotics and Automation Society of the international association of engineers, IEEE-RAS, awarded the invention and entrepreneurship prize in Robotics and Automation (IERA) to ABB Robotics in Munich.
L-R: Joe Gemma, IFR President; Erwin Prassler, Awards Chair; Phil Crowther, ABB; Per Vegard Nerseth, ABB; Esben Østergaard, Universal Robots; Johan Frisk, OpiFlex Automation
Other 2016 Finalists include:
John Frisk - OpiFlex Automation AB, Sweden
"OpiFlex - Mobile Robot Solution"
Esben Ostergaard - Universal Robots, Denmark
"UR 3"
We are pleased to announce IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, has won an American Graphic Design Award for the March 2016 issue: Bioinspired Motor Control - Biology Meets Robotics cover, Correcting for Change.
For more than five decades, Graphic Design USA has sponsored competitions that spotlight areas of excellence and opportunity. This program is the original and premier showcase for outstanding work by inhouse designers, recognizing their talent, the special challenges they face and, most important, the value they bring to their business and institutions. In 2016, nearly 6,000 entries were submitted; a highly selective 15 percent are recognized with a Certificate of Excellence.
Congratulations to all staff and volunteers on this outstanding achievement!!!
Call for Papers: Two special tracks on Consumer Robotics
To be held at the IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE 2017)
8-11 January 2017
Las Vegas, NV USA
co-organized by IEEE Consumer Electronics Society and IEEE Robotics and Automation Society
co-located with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2017)
In a joint effort, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and IEEE Consumer Electronics Society are co-organizing two special tracks on consumer robotics at the 2017 IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics:
1. Special track "Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles"
2. Special track "Key technologies for Consumer Robotics"
"Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles"
We are soliciting contributions describing systems as well as basic technologies in this area. Papers with a focus on the consumer applications, such as people tracking or guarding are equally welcome as papers describing UAVs in professional service application such a delivery or surveillance.
"Key technologies for Consumer Robotics"
Papers contributed to the special track on key technologies for consumer robotics should not describe robotics technologies at large but have a clear and demonstrated relation to a consumer robotics application. We invite papers describing novel systems and applications as well key technologies, such as low-cost perception or low-cost actuation enabling new consumer robots. Preliminary considerations on business models are desired but not a must.
Submissions either in form of a 2-page extended abstract or a 4-page short paper shall be submitted to www.icce.org/ Here: http://www.icce.org/instructions-for-authors/
IMPORTANT DATES
Due date for submissions: 22 July 2016
Notification of acceptance: 2 September 2016
Camera-ready paper due: 23 September 2016
Organizers:
Erwin Prassler (Bonn-Rhein-Sieg UoA/Locomotec) Germany
Paul Oh (UN Las Vegas) USA
Satoshi Tadokoro (Tohoku University), Japan
Zexiang Li (HKUST), Hong Kong
Nominate a Colleague Today!! The Deadline for RAS Award Nominations is Monday, 1 August.
Who are the Leaders in the robotic and automation field? Who should be honored with a prestigious IEEE RAS Award? Consider nominating them! But hurry, the deadline for IEEE Robotics & Automation Society Award nominations is midnight (US EST) 1 August 2016.
Details for each award, including eligibility, nomination requirements and lists of previous recipients, may be found at www.ieee-ras.org/awards-recognition/society-awards
Competition to be held in conjunction with 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS'16) http://iros2016.org/index.php/program/entrepreneurship-forum-start-up-competition
PURPOSE OF THE EVENT
To foster the entrepreneurial spirit and to provide a platform to encourage researchers and practitioners to transition ideas and prototypes to commercializable products, the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (IEEE RAS) is inviting the robotics and automation community to participate in an Entrepreneurship Forum and Start-up Competition (EFSC) at the 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS'16) in Daejeon, South Korea (http://www.iros2016.org/).
The event is intended to inspire, educate, enable, and empower researchers, students, young professionals, and anyone else who has the 'start-up bug' in starting companies of their own but is not sure of how to go about it. We also believe that this event will create an ecosystem that will provide the much-needed support for start-ups to launch their initiatives while being realistic about their envisioned ideas and products.
EFSC at IROS'16 will consist of three stages:
• In the first stage, submitted applications will be down-selected to arrive at a pool of qualified applicants based on a defined set of criteria developed by the organizers (see 'Application Form' information below).
• This will be followed by a remote stage where the selected applicants will be paired with coaches based on the proposal content and the expertise of the coaches. The coaches will then critique, and provide technical and professional assistance to refine the idea/product pitches.
• The final stage would allow for the refined pitches and content to be presented in front of a distinguished panel of venture capitalists, industry, and academic experts who have successfully funded, transitioned and have experience in commercialization of robotics and automation technologies.
WHO CAN PARTICIPATE?
Anyone with an idea or a prototype/product utilizing robotics and/or automation technology is welcome to submit an application provided that the entity is 1) less than 3 years old, and 2) has not received any funding from angel investors or venture capitalists in the last 5 years.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE?
Interested applicants should complete the Application Form available for download from http://www.iros2016.org/entrepreneurship_forum.html.
Please email completed forms to efsc@iros2016.org
TRAVEL SUPPORT & AWARDS
We anticipate travel support for all qualified applicants invited to IROS'16 (~$1500/team) and awards for the top 3 finishers (pending funding approval at the time of this Call). Qualified applicants will further receive a free mini-booth in the IROS'16 exhibition area for an interactive presentation of their product (idea).
IMPORTANT DATES
Submission of Application Forms: 15 July 2016
Announcement of Selected Applicants: 19 August 2016
Final Presentations at IROS'16: 12 October 2016
For more information see: http://www.iros2016.org/entrepreneurship_forum.html
Congratulations to the following ICRA 2016 Award Recipients! Winners were announced and honored during the RAS Awards Luncheon which took place on 19 May 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden.
Best Associate Editor Award
Margarita Chli, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Jason Corso, University of Michigan, USA
Best Reviewer Award
Jan Rosell, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
Xiaolong Zhou, Zhejiang University of Technology, China
Klaus Strobl, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Germany
Giuseppe Loianno, University of Pennsylvania, USA
BEST PAPER AWARDS
ICRA Automation Best Paper
Beyond Layers: A 3D-Aware Toolpath Algorithm for Fused Filament Fabrication
Samuel Lensgraf, Ramgopal Mettu
Best Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) Paper Award
A Highly Sensitive Dual Mode Tactile Proximity Sensor Using Carbon Microcoils for Robotic Applications
Hyo Seung Han, Junwoo Park, Tien Dat Nguyen, Uikyum Kim, Canh Toan Nguyen, Hoa Phung, Hyouk Ryeol Choi
ICRA Medical Robotics Best Paper Award
Image-Based Robotic System for Enhanced Minimally Invasive Intra-Articular Fracture Surgeries
Giulio Dagnino, Ioannis Georgilas, Paul Köhler, Sanja Dogramadzi
ICRA Robot Manipulation Best Paper Award
Optimal Control with Learned Local Models: Application to Dexterous Manipulation
Vikash Kumar, Emanuel Todorov, Sergey Levine
ICRA Robot Vision Best Paper Award
Multi-Type Activity Recognition in Robot-Centric Scenarios
Ilaria Gori, J.K. Aggarwal, Larry Matthies, Michael S. Ryoo
ICRA Best Student Paper
Supersizing Self-supervision: Learning to Grasp from 50K Tries and 700 Robot Hours
Lerrel Joseph Pinto, Abhinav Gupta
ICRA Best Conference Paper
A Convex Polynomial Force-Motion Model for Planar Sliding: Identification and Application
Jiaji Zhou, Robert Paolini, James Bagnell, Matthew T. Mason
CHALLENGES
Airbus Shop Floor Challenge
1st Place - Team Naist, Japan
2nd Place - Team CriGroup, Singapore
3rd Place - Team Sirado, France
Humanitarian Robotics and Automation Technology Challenge
Winner: Team Autobots: Qbotics Labs & Sastra Robotics, Kerala, India
Formal Methods for Robotics (FMR) Challenge
Winner: Team WPI, Worcester, MA, USA (Rohit Sheth, Nishan Srishankar, Joseph McMahon, Jie Fu)
Winner: Team Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA (Sumanth Dathathri, Richard Cheng, Richard M. Murray)
Mobile Microrobotics Challenge
1. Mobility Challenge
Winner: Team UTV Romania: Valahia University of Targoviste (Ioan-Alexandru Ivan, Florin Dragomir, Ioana Dulama Valentin Gurgu, Alin Bucurica, Nicolae Radulescu)
2. Assembly Challenge
Winner: University of Waterloo Nanorobotic Group: University of Waterloo (Tammy Liu, Manasa Kaniselvan, Ciara Azam, Natalie Pinchin)
3. Best in Show
Winner: Team UTV Romania: Valahia University of Targoviste (Ioan-Alexandru Ivan, Florin Dragomir, Ioana Dulama Valentin Gurgu, Alin Bucurica, Nicolae Radulescu)
Congratulations to the following Authors for their outstanding achievement as recipients of RAS Publication Awards! The awards were announced and presented at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) on 19 May 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden.
2016 King-Sun Fu Memorial Award: Best Paper in the IEEE Transactions on Robotics
Congratulations to the following winners of the 2016 King-Sun Fu Memorial Award. This award honors the best paper printed in the IEEE Transactions on Robotics in the previous year, and was presented by Frank Park - Editor in Chief.
"ORB-SLAM: A Versatile and Accurate Monocular SLAM System"
Raúl Mur-Artal, J. M. M. Montiel and Juan D. Tardós
IEEE Transactions on Robotics, vol. 31, no. 5, October 2015, pp. 1147-1163
NEW For 2016: IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine Best Paper Award
Congratulations to the following winners of the 2016 RAM Best Paper Award. This award honors the best paper printed in the IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine in the previous year, and was presented by Bram Vanderborght - Editor in Chief.
"Robot Makers: The Future of Digital Rapid Design and Fabrication of Robots"
Nicola Bezzo, Ankur Mehta, Cagdas D. Onal and Michael T. Tolley
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, vol. 22, no. 4, December 2015, pp. 27-36
1st Biannual Summer School on Control of Surgical Robots (COSUR 2016)
Sponsored by IEEE RAS, project MURAB
http://metropolis.scienze.univr.it/altair/events/cosur-2016/
5-9 September 2016
Department of Computer Science
University of Verona, Italy
General enquiries: info_robotics_summer_school@ateneo.univr.it
The 1st Biannual Summer School on Control of Surgical Robots (COSUR 2016) is a new summer school to be held at University of Verona from September 5th to 9th. COSUR 2016 is jointly organized by the Altair Robotics Lab at University of Verona, the European project MURAB (MRI and Ultrasound Robotic Assisted Biopsy) and the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) Technical Committee on Robotic Surgery, and funded by the IEEE RAS, the MURAB project, and the Doctoral Program in Computer Science of the University of Verona.
COSUR 2016 focuses on the control and sensing aspects of robotic surgery. Together with the basics on teleoperation algorithms, the school will address vision and image based control, to introduce students to the main concepts of surgical automation. By introducing automation in surgery, we aim at showing students how to leverage the increased accuracy of robots and medical imaging, to develop new diagnostic and therapeutical tools that can support advanced procedures.
IMPORTANT DATES
Application deadline: 8 June 2016
Acceptance by: 15 June 2016
Registration deadline: 8 July 2016
APPLICATION AND REGISTRATION
The school is opened to PhD students and Post-Doctoral fellows working in the field of Robotic Surgery, provided that they have a basic knowledge of control systems and image processing. Due to space availability limitations, the applicants will be selected based on their CV and a motivation letter.
IEEE-RAS student members are encouraged to attend and they will receive a refunding of 50% of the registration+travel expenses, up to €500.
The applicants need to send an email to
registration_robotics_summer_school@ateneo.univr.it
attaching their CV and a motivation letter that should include a statement of research specifying why they intend to attend the school. In the email, the applicants need to specify if they need a visa for Italy and if they are IEEE-RAS student members (sending their IEEE ID number).
The deadline for applications is 8 June 2016.
PROGRAM
The preliminary program is online! See the school website https://metropolis.scienze.univr.it/altair/events/cosur-2016/
The list of international speakers includes:
· Prof. Paolo Fiorini, Università degli Studi di Verona
· Dr. Riccardo Muradore, Università degli Studi di Verona
· Prof. Arianna Menciassi, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna
· Dr. Leonardo Mattos, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
· Dr. Elena De Momi, Politecnico di Milano
· Prof. Tamas Haidegger, Óbuda University
· Prof. Mirko D'Onofrio, University Hospital in Verona
· Prof. Marco Zenati, Harvard Medical School
· Prof. Stefano Stramigioli, Universiteit Twente
· Prof. Chris de Korte, Radboud University Medical Centre
· Prof. Philippe Poignet, Université de Montpellier
The school is held the week before the workshop on Computer and Robot Assisted Surgery (CRAS 2016) that will be held in Pisa on 12-14 September 2016 https://www.cras-eu.org/cras-2016
The students of the school will have the opportunity to present the results of their team projects at the CRAS workshop in a dedicated poster session. To register for the workshop, the school attendees will receive a special COSUR2016 registration fee.
Each year, the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society offers financial support for three Technical Education Programs (RAS-TEP), also known as "summer schools." In efforts to bring RAS closer to its membership, these programs rotate though the Americas, Europe and Asia and Pacific.
The RAS-TEP program is jointly run by the Member Activities Board (MAB) and the Technical Activities Board (TAB). The program is intended to sponsor or co-sponsor up to three summer schools per year around the world. One of the three summer schools will be fully sponsored by RAS to a level of $40,000, and it will rotate annually through RAS' three geographical regions in a round robin fashion. The other two summer schools will be cosponsored with interested organizations in the other two geographical regions up to a level of $20,000 each. In 2017, full sponsorship ($40,000) is available for Geographical Area 1 (Americas). The other two summer schools will be cosponsored with interested organizations in the remaining two geographical regions up to a level of $20,000 each.
The review of summer school proposals is based on assessments from two different viewpoints, the first one with respect to the general structure, including organizational matters and budget, and the second one with respect to the technical content. Suited Technical Committees (TCs) of the RAS have to endorse the proposal. Current TCs are listed at: www.ieee-ras.org/technical-committees.
Technical Education Program Proposal - online proposal form
IMPORTANT DATES
Deadlines for the submission of 2017 proposals: 1 May 2016
Decision: ICRA 2016
The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society membership will elect six new members of the Administrative Committee in 2016, each to serve a three-year term beginning 1 January 2017. 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 or offer yourself as a candidate, contact the Society at ras@ieee.org by 1 May 2016.
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 with at least 2% of the 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.
Completed petitions must be received by 1 May 2016 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.
RAS to again sponsor luncheons at ICRA 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden! Space is limited for both popular events. Don't miss the chance to attend either or both because the space has been filled.
Advanced registration is required. The cost is $5 per lunch.
Register Now!
RAS Women in Engineering Luncheon
Tuesday, 17 May 2016
12:20-13:30
Room 24/25, Stockholm Waterfront Convention Center (SWCC), Sweden
The WIE luncheon provides an opportunity for IEEE members, both female and male, who are interested in women engineering education to discuss the subjects of career path, career/family choices, and other topics.
Hong Qiao, RAS AdCom member, has been confirmed as Speaker for this event!
RAS Young Professionals Luncheon
Wednesday, 18 May 2016
12:00-13:10
Room 24/25, Stockholm Waterfront Convention Center (SWCC), Sweden
Under the umbrella of IEEE Young Professionals program, the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society (RAS) is further empowering its young professionals through the RAS Young Professionals (YP) group. The 2016 YP Lunch at ICRA will feature some recent "RAS Early Career Award" recipients, who will give edifying insights into their approach to robots, R&D, science and life and a 2016 IEEE Fellow.
Our distinguished speakers are as follows:
Danica Kragic (IEEE Fellow) – "For contributions to vision?based systems and robotic object manipulation"
Dimitry Beresnson (2016 RAS Early Career Award) - "For contributions to the theory and implementation of robot motion planning and manipulation"
Ludovic Righetti (2016 RAS Early Career Award) - "For contributions to the theory of, and experiments in, robot locomotion and manipulation"
RAS Lunch with Leaders (Student Luncheon)
Wednesday, 18 May 2016
12:00-13:10
Sheraton Stockholm Hotel, Sweden
This luncheon is open to student attendees offering the chance to meet and interact with RA Society Leaders. At ICRA 2016, the format of the luncheon will be modified slightly, each table will be associated with a focus area and several discussion topics. Leaders will be paired with tables according to their interests and background. Leader list to be announced soon!
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
IEEE RAS Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems (MRSSS 2016)
6-10 June 2016
Singapore
General enquiries: mrsss2016@googlegroups.com
The IEEE RAS Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems (MRSSS 2016) is a new summer school to be held at National University of Singapore over five days in tropical Singapore, from 6-10 June 2016. MRSSS 2016 is jointly organized by the National University of Singapore (NUS), the Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R) from the Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (A*STAR) of Singapore, the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), and the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Multi-Robot Systems, and supported and funded by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS).
Multi-robot systems research is an area of increasing interest within IEEE RAS and has the potential to bring about profound economic and social benefits. The Summer School aims to promote multi-robot systems research that will enable the students, academic researchers, and industrial practitioners to realize its growing need in our society to improve our quality of life and the exciting possibilities surrounding its use in real-world application domains, as well as raise their awareness to the challenges and issues faced by the multi-robot systems community in putting theory into practice and scaling up single-robot algorithms to that for multiple robots.
THEMES
The main technical objective of the School is to cover the motivation driving research in multi-robot systems, existing projects and results, and open research problems in key areas of multi-robot systems. Underlying research topics include (1) sensing/perception and estimation, (2) task allocation and role assignment, (3) control, (4) planning and decision making, and (5) real-world applications.
Please check the website for our preliminary program, and the list of our invited speakers.
APPLICATION AND REGISTRATION
Application details can be found on the MRSSS 2016 website: http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~lowkh/mrsss.html
Applications will be processed as received. Spaces are limited so please send your application as soon as possible.
Application DEADLINE: 8 April 2016
REGISTRATION FEES
IEEE RAS student members - SGD$300
All Others - SGD$350
General enquiries can be addressed to mrsss2016@googlegroups.com
ORGANISERS
Dr. Bryan Kian Hsiang Low (National University of Singapore)
Dr. Somchaya Liemhetcharat (Uber Advanced Technologies Center)
Dr. Roland Bouffanais (Singapore University of Technology and Design)
Prof. David Hsu (National University of Singapore)
Prof. Marcelo H. Ang, Jr. (National University of Singapore)
Dr. Robert Fitch (Australian Centre for Field Robotics)
Dr. Lorenzo Sabattini (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)
Dr. Antonio Franchi (LAAS-CNRS)
Dr. Nora Ayanian (University of Southern California)
Act Now! Call for Papers Deadline is 28 March 2016!
The twelfth annual IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (IEEE CASE 2016), sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS), will be held in Fort Worth Texas, USA, 21-24 August 2016. IEEE CASE is the flagship automation conference of the IEEE RAS and constitutes the primary forum for cross-industry and multidisciplinary research in automation. Its goal is to provide a broad coverage and dissemination of foundational research in automation among researchers, academics, and practitioners.
The IEEE International Symposium on Assembly and Manufacturing (ISAM), formerly known as IEEE International Symposium on Assembly and Task Planning, aims at providing a forum for researchers and practitioners working on the diverse issues of assembly and manufacturing in various product sizes (from nano to macro), production scales (from workstation to global production network), and product life-cycle (from early stage product design to post-production). Contributed papers cover all aspects of theories, methodologies, applications, and case studies related to assembly and manufacturing in this context.
The IEEE International Symposium on Assembly and Manufacturing is sponsored by the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society and this year, will be collocated with CASE 2016.
For more information see: http://case2016.org/
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.
In a joint event the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and the International Federation of Robotics will therefore recognize and honor outstanding 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 on 21 June 2016 in conjunction with the International Symposium on Robotics (ISR) in Munich, Germany. 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. An evaluation board consisting of distinguished individuals from industry and academia will choose the winner. A prestigious plaque 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 15 March 2016.
Call for Applications
Submit your application today!
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 15 March 2016 (any time zone) to IFR Secretariat – secretariat@ifr.org
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.
In a joint event the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and the International Federation of Robotics will therefore recognize and honor outstanding 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 on 21 June 2016 in conjunction with the International Symposium on Robotics (ISR) in Munich, Germany. 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. An evaluation board consisting of distinguished individuals from industry and academia will choose the winner. A prestigious plaque 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 15 March 2016.
Call for Applications
Submit your application today!
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 15 March 2016 (any time zone) to IFR Secretariat – secretariat@ifr.org
posted 8 March 2016
Special Issue on Open Source and Widely- Disseminated Robot Hardware
IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (RAM)
The open-source movement has already revolutionized a number of industries by empowering end-users to contribute to the products that they need and want, and fueling grass-roots development of projects in completely new areas, as well as their continual improvement. While there have been innumerable successes in software and electronics hardware, open mechanical hardware is taking longer to catch on, in large part due to the complexity and expense associated with fabricating mechanical systems. However, rapid fabrication technologies have improved to the point of being able to produce parts that are strong, robust, and precise enough for practical robotic systems and the many of these machines are available in fabrication facilities at most universities. With these and other technologies, users can more easily fabricate and improve upon open-source mechanical hardware without requiring large commitments in terms of cost, time, and domain expertise. This special issue seeks a collection of papers that address topics in open mechanical robot hardware, including issues related to design, fabrication, and dissemination, among others. Lessons learned in both development and in operation are pertinent to the discussion. Experimental results are strongly encouraged.
Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
- Novel open hardware for research, education, or commercial applications that has been specifically developed for easy and widespread fabrication, assembly, customization, and/or repair
- Projects that combine substantial mechanical hardware with open software/electronics hardware
- Research results that strongly rely on open mechanical hardware, such as performance results
- Novel fabrication techniques that facilitate open hardware fabrication and dissemination
Additionally, it is suggested that papers include, in addition to technical content, discussion of challenges and lessons learned as a result of their efforts in open-source or widely-disseminated research hardware such that researchers can learn from them for future efforts. Topics that do not speak to issues specific to open-source mechanical
hardware are out of scope, including:
- Projects that are entirely or largely based on open-source software or electronics hardware
- Mechanical hardware that is not open, such as commercial hardware
Traditional mechanical hardware that has not been designed specifically for easy implementation (e.g. requiring extensive machining) is likely to be out of scope (even if the designs have been made publically available), unless there is strong evidence of wide-spread adoption/implementation and provides insight for other open-source hardware efforts.
Authors of prospective papers are encouraged to send an abstract or description of the work to the special issue editors to discuss its relevance to the SI scope.
Timeline
* 1 April 2016 - Submission deadline
* 15 July 2016 - End of first review round and author notification
* 15 November 2016 - Final decisions made
* 1 December 2016 - Final manuscripts due
* March 2017 - Issue in print
Guest Editors
Aaron Dollar (aaron.dollar@yale.edu) - YaleUniversity
Giorgio Metta (Giorgio.Metta@iit.it) - Italian Institute of Technology
Francesco Mondada (francesco.mondada@epfl.ch) - EPFL
Alberto Rodriquez (albertor@cmu.edu) - MIT
Complete details here: http://www.ieee-ras.org/publications/ram/ram-special-issues/special-issue-on-open-source-and-widely-disseminated-robot-hardware
The 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2016) will be held in Daejeon, Korea, during 9-14 October 2016. The venue for IROS 2016 is the Daejeon Convention Center (DCC). The conference theme is "Road to Companionship with Intelligent Robots in Everyday Life and Workspaces."
Innovative research results on topics related (but not limited) to the following are invited: robot design, robot kinematics/dynamics/control, system integration, AI in robotics, sensor/actuator networks, distributed and cloud robotics, bio-inspired systems, service robots, robotics in automation, biomedical applications, autonomous vehicles (land, sea, and air), robot perception, manipulation with multi_ nger hands, micro/ nano systems, sensor information, multimodal interface and human robot interaction, and robot vision.
Prospective authors are invited to submit high-quality papers representing original results in all areas of robotics. Best Conference Papers and Best Student Papers will be awarded.
IROS 2016 provides authors with four options of preference to present their paper. Authors are expected to indicate their preference when the papers are submitted. The IROS 2016 Senior Program Committee, which is in charge of making the final decisions about accepted papers and presentation modes, will try to respect the preferences of the authors as much as possible thereby also considering the contents of the paper and the capacity of the facility. The presentation preference expressed by the authors has no effect on the evaluation of the paper and its acceptance. The four different options for presenting the papers are:
* Oral Presentation: 12-minute presentation (each) + 3 minutes of discussion (each) (venue capacity: 140).
* Interactive Presentation: 1 minute of semi-plenary teaser presentation (each)+ 90 minutes of interactive discussion (total) (30 presenter in each session) with PDP TV (40?) to be provided (venue capacity: 600).
* Interactive Demonstration: 1 minute of semi-plenary teaser presentation(each)+ 90 minutes of demonstration & discussion (total) (required) / One day of demonstration (recommended) / A booth (2m x 2m) to be provided free of charge (venue capacity: 600, Halls).
* Video Presentation: 1~3 minutes of video play (each) + 5 minutes of discussion (each)/ videos to be played repeatedly throughout the day (venue capacity: 200, IROS Lounge)
More information is available on the conference website: http://www.iros2016.org/
Workshops & Tutorials
As with previous IROS conferences, the organizers intend to arrange an extensive program of workshops and tutorials to be held prior to the conference. Proposals that address topics related to the conference theme and innovated topics of future robotics are welcome.
IMPORTANT DATES
Deadline of full-length papers submission: 1 March 2016
Supplementary videos upload due: 7 March 2016
Workshop/tutorial proposals due: 7 March 2016
Notification of acceptance for workshops/tutorials: 15 April 2016
Notification of acceptance for papers/videos: 1 July 2016
Deadline of final papers submission: 1 August 2016
Supplementary final videos upload due: 7 August 2016
Late breaking result reports submission: 7 August 2016
The Young Reviewers Program (YRP) is a new initiative being launched by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS). RAS invites you to participate as a Senior Reviewer in this new and exciting training/mentorship program. The YRP officially starts with the review process for IROS 2016.
The Young Reviewers Program (YRP) is intended to introduce young RAS members to the best practices in peer-reviewing of scientific papers. As a Senior Reviewer, your role would be to give reviewing assignments to Junior Reviewers, and to oversee the review process in a mentor-mentee relationship.
Accepting to serve will not increase the number of papers that you review. Only papers that you have already accepted to review (for IROS 2016) would be eligible for the YRP. In this way, we believe that there will 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 contact a Junior Reviewer found from the YRP website and assign to the Junior Reviewer one IROS paper that you have been asked to review and then work with the Junior Reviewer to perfect the review, which you will submit via PaperPlaza (see more details here).
As a Senior Reviewer, you can contact a Junior Reviewer found from the YRP website and assign to the Junior Reviewer one IROS paper that you have been asked to review and then work with the Junior Reviewer to perfect the review, which you will submit via PaperPlaza (see more details here).
As a Senior Reviewer, you can contact a Junior Reviewer found from the YRP website and assign to the Junior Reviewer one IROS paper that you have been asked to review and then work with the Junior Reviewer to perfect the review, which you will submit via PaperPlaza (see more details here).
As a Senior Reviewer, you can contact a Junior Reviewer found from the YRP website and assign to the Junior Reviewer one IROS paper that you have been asked to review and then work with the Junior Reviewer to perfect the review, which you will submit via PaperPlaza.
Please Volunteer and sign up using the YRP web site. Details of the program eligibility and the procedure can be found here: parasol.tamu.edu/ieee/ras-yrp/
More Details on the Young Reviewers Program can be found here: http://www.ieee-ras.org/member-communities/ieee-young-professionals/young-reviewers-program
Arash Ajoudani (IEEE-RAS YRP Executive Manager - arash.ajoudani@iit.it)
Seth Hutchinson (IEEE-RAS YRP Director - seth@illinois.edu)
YRP Technical Advisory Board
Marco Morales (IEEE-RAS YRP Website Manager)
Nancy Amato (IEEE-RAS Chair of EPSB)
Jing Xiao (IEEE-RAS Vice President for Member Activities)
