[robocup-humanoid] CFP: IROBOT'07 - 2nd Intelligent Robotics Workshop

[Nuno Lau]

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Call For Papers
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IROBOT'07: 2nd Intelligent Robotics Workshop
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To be held at EPIA'07 - 13th Portuguese Conference on Artificial
Intelligence, 03-07, December, 2007, Guimaraes, Portugal
(http://epia2007.appia.pt)

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Workshop Description
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Research in robotics has traditionally emphasized low-level sensing and
control tasks, path planning, and actuator design and control. In contrast,
several Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers are more concerned with
providing real/simulated robots with higher-level cognitive functions that
enable them to reason, act and perceive in an autonomous way in dynamic,
inaccessible, continuous and non deterministic environments. Combining
results from traditional robotics with those from AI and cognitive science
will be thus essential for the future of intelligent robotics.

The purpose of the 2nd International Workshop on Intelligent Robotics
IROBOT'07 is to bring together researchers, engineers and other
professionals interested in the application of AI techniques in
real/simulated robotics to discuss current work and future directions. The
workshop will also promote discussion on two specific topics:

* Simulated vs. Real Robotics: How to bridge the gap between simulation and
real robotics?
* Benefits and dangers of robotic competitions to promote scientific
progress?

These topics will be the subject of two panel discussions led by known
researchers with vast experience in organizing/participating in
national/international real or simulated robotic competitions and on
migrating approaches tested on simulators to real robotic platforms.

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Topics of Interest
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The workshop will be structured around the following themes:

* AI Planning for robotics
* Autonomous vehicles
* Cognitive Robotics
* Computer vision and object recognition
* Coordination in robotics
* Evolutionary robotics and reactive intelligence
* Human-robots interfaces
* Intelligent buildings and warehouses
* Intelligent transportation technologies and systems
* Learning and adaptation in robotics
* Mobile robot performance measures
* Modelling and simulating complex robots
* Multi-Robot systems
* Real Robots
* Real-time reactivity
* Robot behaviour engineering
* Robot Expressiveness and Emotional Awareness
* Robotic surveillance
* Sensor fusion
* Simulation and virtual reality systems in robotics

This topic's list is not exhaustive. Papers may address one or more of the
listed topics, although authors should not feel limited by them. Unlisted
but related topics are also acceptable, provided they fit in the workshop
main subject.

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Panel Discussions
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Panel Discussion 1: Simulated vs. Real Robotics: How to Bridge the gap
between Simulation and Real Robotics?

For a long time simulation was not recommended for robotics, mainly due to
robot embodiment, environment complexity, dynamics and uncertainty, noise in
sensors and actuators. It was often said that the world is its own best
model and it was better to experiment with a real robot. With the
development of more powerful and accurate simulation models and tools,
enabling to model and simulate very complex robotic and multi-robotic
systems, it was clear that simulation is becoming an essential tool for
robotics. Simulation tools enable researchers to perform experiences that
would be to dangerous, expensive or time-consuming if performed using real
robots. However, there are still few reports of AI methodologies developed
using simulators successfully migrated into real robots. This panel
discussion, lead by researchers with experience in migrating approaches
developed in simulation into real robotic platforms, intends to discuss the
usefulness of using simulators for developing intelligent robotics
methodologies and the complexities of migrating those methodologies into
real robotic platforms.

Panel Discussion 2: Robotic Competitions: Benefits/Dangers to Promote
Scientific Progress?

Robotic competitions such as Robotic Soccer, Robotic Search and Rescue,
Autonomous Driving, Micro-Mouse or Fire-Fighting, have a huge potential to
accelerate scientific progress within Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and
related domains. They constitute a common research challenge enabling
different research groups to exchange ideas, compare and evaluate approaches
thus stimulating research innovations and continually improving solutions
from year to year. They are also very exciting for students at all levels
but at the same time impose hard deadlines for the creation of fully
functional robots/robotic teams that must be sufficiently robust to also
work outside of the lab. However there are also several potential hazards to
scientific progress involved in holding deficiently organized competitions.
The main hazard is the stimulation of the obsession with winning typical of
most students that tend to forget that they are in scientific events. Some
argue that research awards and stimulation through invited publications for
the winners may diminish this hazard. Other dangers come from: the need to
buy expensive material to participate, constrains to innovation imposed by
the competition rules and the need to develop many domain dependent
solutions without proper generalization afterwards. Finally, erroneous
conclusions may be taken from competition results without proper validation
of the research contributions through extensive controlled experiments. This
panel discussion, lead by some of the organizers of known
national/international robotic competitions, intends to discuss the benefits
and dangers from these competitions to promote scientific progress.

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Paper Submission
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Authors are invited to submit original research contributions or experience
reports in English. Scientific or technical articles describing
state-of-the-art techniques, algorithms, systems, environments, problems or
applications relevant to the area of Intelligent Robotics may be submitted.
Papers discussing application transfer from simulated to real robots and
papers showing socially useful robotic applications generated by
participations in robotic competitions are particularly welcome.

Submissions must follow the guidelines specified in the conference site. The
Springer LNCS format must be used (instructions in
http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html/). The length of submitted
full papers must not exceed 8 pages. Authors must remove their names from
the submitted papers, and should take reasonable care not to indirectly
disclose their identity. Paper submissions will be made in PDF format,
through the submission page available in EPIA 2007 website.

Three program committee members will be assigned to review each paper.
Acceptance will be based on the paper's significance, technical quality,
clarity, relevance and originality. Accepted papers, must be presented at
the conference by one of the authors. Accepted papers will be scheduled for
presentation, which requires that at least one of the authors should
register at the Conference. All accepted papers will be published in the
Workshop Proceedings.

More detailed and up-to-date information, including types and maximum
lengths of submissions, may be found in http://epia2007.appia.pt.

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Proceedings
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Workshop papers of higher quality will be selected for publication in the
main volume of the conference proceedings, to be published by Springer, in
the LNAI series. The remaining accepted papers will be published in local
workshop proceedings, in hard-copy, in CD-ROM and in the web.

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Conference Site
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Further and up-to-date information can be found in the official site of the
conference at: http://epia2007.appia.pt

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Important Dates
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30-Jun-07 Paper Submission Deadline
28-Jul-07 Author Notification
01-Set-07 Deadline for Final Camera-Ready Copies
03/07-Dec-07 EPIA Conference

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Organising Committee
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Luís Paulo Reis
Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto
Laboratório de Inteligência Artificial e Ciência de Computadores
Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal
Tel. +351 22 5081829, Fax. +351 22 5081443
http://www.fe.up.pt/~lpreis
E-mail: lpreis at fe.up.pt

Nuno Lau
Universidade de Aveiro
Departamento de Electrónica, Telecomunicações e Informática
Campo Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
Phone: +351 234 370524, Fax: +351 234 370545
http://www.ieeta.pt/~lau
Email: lau at det.ua.pt

César Analide
Universidade do Minho, Departamento de Informática
Grupo de Inteligência Artificial
Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal
Phone: +351 253 604 470 (ext. 604 437), Fax: +351 253 604 471
http://www.di.uminho.pt/~car/
Email: analide at di.uminho.pt

Luís Correia
Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa
Artificial Life Group - LabMAg Research Center
Campo Grande, 1749 - 016 Lisboa, Portugal
Phone: +351 217 500 238, (ext. 26307) Fax: +351 217 500 084
http://www.di.fc.ul.pt/~lcorreia/
Email: luis.Correia at di.fc.ul.pt

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Program Committee
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Alan Winfield (University of the West of England, Bristol, UK)
Alexander Kleiner (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany)
Anna Helena Costa (EPUSP, São Paulo, Brazil)
Ansgar Bredenfeld (Fraunhofer Inst. Auton. Intelligent Systems, Germany)
António Paulo Moreira (Universidade do Porto - FEUP, Portugal)
Armando Sousa (Universidade do Porto - FEUP, Portugal)
Carlos Carreto (Instituto Politécnico da Guarda, Portugal)
Cesar Analide (Universidade do Minho, Portugal)
Daniel Polani (Univ. of Hertfordshire, Dep. Computer Science, UK)
Eduardo Silva (Instituto Sup. Engenharia do Porto, Portugal)
Enrico Pagello (University of Padua, Italy)
Fernando Lobo Pereira (Universidade do Porto - FEUP, Portugal)
Fernando Ribeiro (Universidade do Minho, Portugal)
Guy Theraulaz (CRCA, Toulouse, France)
Hans-Dieter Burkhard (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany)
J. Norberto Pires (Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal)
Jacky Baltes (University of Manitoba, Canada)
Javier Ruiz-del-Solar (Universidad de Chile, Chile)
Jorge Dias (Universidade de Coimbra, ISR, Portugal)
Junji Nishino (University of Electro-Communications, Japan)
Luís Correia (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal)
Luís Paulo Reis (Universidade do Porto - FEUP/LIACC, Portugal)
Luis Seabra Lopes (Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal)
Marco Dorigo (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium)
Maria Isabel Ribeiro (Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal)
Martin Riedmiller (University of Osnabrueck, Germany)
Mikhail Prokopenko (CSIRO ICT Centre, Sidney, Australia)
Nuno Lau (Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal)
Paulo Urbano (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal)
Raul Rojas (Free University of Berlin, Germany)
Stephen Balakirsky (National Institute of Standards & Technology, USA)
Vijay Kumar (Eng. & App. Sciences Univ. Pennsylvania, USA)
Xiaoping Chen (University of Science and Technology, China)

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