Special Issue Editors:
Wolfram Burgard, University of Freiburg, Germany
Ken Goldberg, UC Berkeley, USA
Gerard McKee, University of Reading, UK
Important Dates:
Deadline for paper submission:
1 October 2002
Paper reviews returned to authors:
15 January 2003
Deadline for camera ready papers:
1 March 2003
Expected journal publication date:
July 2003
Remote-controlled robots were developed in the 1940s
and were used by trained experts in space, undersea and in nuclear
cleanup operations.
A new class of remotely controlled robots
are now accessible on the Internet. These "Online Robots"
allow users from all over the world to visit museums, tend gardens,
navigate undersea, float in blimps, or handle protein crystals.
Online Robots have great potential for industry,
education, entertainment, and security by making valuable robot
hardware accessible to a broad audience.
Online robots pose a number of technical challenges. In addition to the problems associated with time delay, supervisory control, and stability, online robots must be designed to be operated by non-specialists through intuitive user interfaces and to be accessible 24 hours a day. New methods are needed for coordinating simultaneous users, coping with large variations in demand and time delay, and for detecting and recovering from un-supervised errors. New capabilities arise frequently with the introduction of new hardware and Internet standards such as wireless protocols, java, and streaming audio/video broadcasting.
The aim of this special issue is to collect important new theory, applications, metrics, models, surveys, and systems that provide innovative solutions to these challenging problems.
For more information and examples, see the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Technical Committee on Online Robots:
http://www.ieor.berkeley.edu/~goldberg/tc/
Possible Topics:
* Applications: Medical, educational, industrial;
Space,
* Remote science and exploration; Laboratory assistants,
* Search and rescue, environment monitoring and
protection.
* Systems components, technology and integration.
* Networking, multimedia and visualisation methods
and tools.
* Networks and protocols for Internet Robots.
* Component and multi-agent technologies and systems.
* Visualisation and modelling of the remote environment.
* Online Robot laboratories.
* Robot architectures for Online Robots.
* Man-machine interfaces, devices and environments.
* Multi-user applications and human-robot systems.
* User models and application views.
* Adapting/accommodating novice and expert users.
* Acquiring user profiles.
* Access methods and controls, guarded command
and control.
* Internet robots in computer supported cooperative
working.
* Quality of service guarantees.
* Safety and security.
* User experience, benefits and quality of life.
Questions:
Paper Submission:
Authors should submit an electronic copy of their paper
(in PDF format only) by email. Papers should be no more
than 11 pages in length, including figures and references,
and use single line spacing with a 10pt font. Please send inquiries
and submissions to:
Gerard McKee <g.t.mckee@reading.ac.uk>
Autonomous Robots Journal information, formats, templates,
and links:
http://www-robotics.usc.edu/auro/
Special ISSUE on Industrial Robotics Applications and Industry-Academia Cooperation in Europe New Trends and Perspectives.
Deadline: 31 December 2002
Editors: J. Norberto Pires, Klas Nilsson, H.G. Petersson
Read more at:
http://robotics.dem.uc.pt/norberto/ram
Special Issue on Industrial Robotics Applications &
Industry-Academia Cooperation in Europe New Trends and Perspectives
Details in http://robotics.dem.uc.pt/norberto/ram/ (Flash 5 version) or http://robotics.dem.uc.pt/norberto/ram/ram.htm (non Flash version)Objectives:
Give an overview of the applied research works in Europe, mainly the ones that reached industry. Authors are invited to submit papers that meet all of the following criteria:
1. Reflect collaboration work being carried out in cooperation between industry and academia, with mutually provided efforts and resources, and that reached prototype phase.
2. Reflect advances in the area of robotics and automation which have been matured for industrial use.
3. Describe in detail the problem under study, options available, and reasons to have followed the presented path.
4. Give enough technical details, nevertheless avoiding long system descriptions.Selection
All papers submitted will have 3 independent reviews. The editors will write an introduction describing the present situation in Europe. Small invited papers from major robot manufacturers, sharing their vision and point of views for the near future, will be also presented.Deadlines
Full paper to any of the editors below: 31 of December, 2002 Note: Please specify that paper is for this special issue.
Notification of Acceptance: 1 March, 2003 Final Paper Due: 15 March 2003 Publication is targeted to: May/June 2003
Journal: IEEE Robotics and Automation MagazineFor detailed submission information please refer to:
http://www.ieee.org/organizations/pubs/magazines/submit.htm.
Editors
J. Norberto Pires
Mechanical Engineering Department
University of Coimbra, Portugal
norberto@robotics.dem.uc.pt
http://robotics.dem.uc.pt/norberto/
Klas Nilsson
Department of Computer Science,
Lund Institute of Technology, Sweden
klas@cs.lth.se
http://www.cs.lth.se/~klas/
Henrik Gordon Petersen
The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute for Production Technology
University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
hgp@mip.sdu.dk
http://www.mip.sdu.dk/~hgp
Human Centered Robotics and Dependability
Following up on the First IARP/IEEE-RAS Joint Workshop on Technical Challenge for Dependable Robots in Human Environments (May 21-22, 2001, Séoul, Korea, (see the post workshop report at: http://www.laas.fr/rdhe/)) and concurrently with the second edition which will take place in Toulouse, France (October 7-8, 2002), the objective of this special issue on Human Centered Robotics and Dependability is to pursue the assessment of the state of the art and the main research directions in this emerging field.Many new robotic applications require the robots to closely interact with humans. Applications such as public-oriented service, assistive and personal robots, surgical robots involve interactions where the person may be a non-professional user, a by-stander, or both. This clearly raises critical questions of Physical Safety and Operating Robustness. Both aspects can be captured by the concept of Dependability.
Unlike the industrial robotics domain where the workspace of machines and humans can be segmented, service and personal robots must, by definition, have physical contact and interaction with the user. The safety aspect entailed is, of course, already an important challenge addressed by Robotics research. However, a more difficult and far-reaching challenge concerns operating robustness. Here, the issues are central to the very concept of ³Intelligent robots.
Indeed Machine Intelligence is a necessity as soon as we consider applications not strictly related to a sole and very simple task. Task diversity in not completely engineered environments and in the presence of non-professional users, implies necessarily significant levels of Robot Autonomy and sophisticated, efficient, robust, friendly machine-intelligence based interfaces.
Contributions that expand on dependability aspects are welcomed from researchers from the robotics field, and from the dependability and softwareengineering fields, in the following areas (but not limited to):
* Reliablesensing and control
* Fault tolerant behavior
* Operabilitydiagnosis
* Robust Robotics software development (standard software and decisional software)
* Fault locationand isolation
* Decisional autonomy and exception cases handling
* Specification and verification of Robotics software
* User-robot communication robustness
* Evaluation of robot dependability
* NetworkedoperationContributions on application cases where the dependability issues have been put forward are also welcomed as study cases to enlighten the adopted solutions:
* Surgery, rehabilitation, personal assistance
* Robotic guidesand public oriented services
* Robotics cleaning and house keeping
* Hospital deliveryOther applications such as space robotics and planetary exploration could be considered since they may exhibit some similar technical concerns on
dependability.The papers are due by July 1, 2002 (send them to one of the editors below and indicate that these papers are being submitted for this special issue).
Notification of acceptance will be sent by December 1, 2002 Deadline for submitting the final copy of the manuscript to the editors of the special issue is January 1, 2003. The special issue is targeted for March 2003. All papers will be refereed as per the guidelines of the magazine. For detailed submission information please refer to http://www.ieee.org/organizations/pubs/magazines/submit.htm.
Georges Giralt LAAS/CNRS Toulouse, France giralt@laas.fr
Felix Ingrand LAAS/CNRS Toulouse, France felix@laas.fr
Special issue on: Anchoring Symbols to Sensor
Data in Single and Multiple Robot Systems
The anchoring problem is an important aspect of the connection between symbolic and sensory based processes in autonomous robotic systems. Anchoring is the problem of how to create, and to maintain in time, the connection between the symbol- and the signal-level representations of the same physical object.Web portal "Robotics in Europe"Most current solutions to the anchoring problem are developed on a system by system basis for restricted domains. This is unfortunate, since having
a general theory of anchoring would greatly advance our ability to build intelligent embedded systems, and to transfer techniques and results across different systems. The aim of this special issue is to collect relevant pieces of work that can be instrumental in building such a theory.We solicit original papers which report novel contributions to the analysis and the solution of the anchoring problem in autonomous robots.We especially encourage papers that present techniques which have been experimentally validated on real single or multiple robot systems. Papers of a more theoretical nature reporting strong fundamental results will also be considered. Submissions will be peer reviewed for scientific and presentation quality, and for relevance to this special issue.
- Detailed information: http://www.aass.oru.se/Agora/RAS02/
- Guest editors: S. Coradeschi and A. Saffiotti
- Submission deadline: March 1, 2002
The web portal "Robotics in Europe" (www.robotics-in-europe.org) has gone online. "Robotics in Europe" is an activity of the EURON key area "Industrial Links".In "Robotics in Europe" we collect the competence profiles of research laboratories and enterprises throughout Europe which have developed expertise
in the field of robotics. "Robotics in Europe" wants to become the prime source of information for anybody, who is interested in the European industrial and academic robotics community and its activities.
Advanced Robotics Series ARS Status Report – January 2, 2002· Name
ARS: Advanced Robotics Series· Aims and ScopeThe Advanced Robotics Series (ARS) publishes new developments and advances in the fields of robotics research – rapidly and informally but with a high quality. Its aim is to cover all the technical contents, applications, and multidisciplinary aspects of robotics, embedded in the fields of Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechatronics, Control, and Life Sciences – as well as the methodologies behind. Published are monographs, lecture notes, selected contributions from specialized conferences and workshops, as well as selected PhD theses.· Editorial Board
In references Advanced Robotics Series is abbreviated as Adv. Robotics Ser. as a journal.Series Editors: B. Siciliano, F. Groen, O. Khatib· Possible Projects
Advisory Board: To be DefinedFocused workshops/tutorials held in conjunction with major conferences (IEEE, ASME …)· Cooperation Partners
Open to all forthcoming robotics workshops, upon steer selection of revised contributions
Monographs promoted by EURON Interest Groups
Selected contributions from EURON workshops
Selected PhD theses (e.g. runners for EURON Award)
Open to any project proposal independently submitted to Springer
Selected contributions from ISER'02 8th International Symposium on Experimental Robotics, 8-11 July 2002, Sant'Angelo d'Ischia, Italy, Chair: B. SicilianoEURON and its members.· Launch of New SeriesIt is planned to officially launch the new series during the next EURON annual meeting in early 2002.· Information for Authors (planned backcover text)Publication in ARS is free of charge. There is no formal contract and no royalties are paid. Authors of published monographs receive 30 free copies; editors of published proceedings receive 20 free copies. Springer-Verlag retains copyright. However, all authors are free to use the material in other publications, with acknowledgement to Springer-Verlag.
Manuscripts should be written in English and be no less than 100, preferably no more than 600 pages. The manuscript in its final and approved version must be submitted in camera-ready form. You are strongly encouraged to use LaTeX together with the corresponding Sringer LaTeX macro packages. The corresponding electronic files are also required for the production process, in particular the online version. Detailed instructions for authors can be found at ARS homepage http://www.spinger.de/…Manuscripts should be sent electronically as PDF files to one of the series editors, Professor B. Siciliano, Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Via Claudio 21, 80125 Napoli, Italy, siciliano@unina.it, Professor F. Groen, Department of Computer Science, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Kruislaan 403, 1098 SJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands, groen@science.uva.nl, Professor O. Khatib, Robotics Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-9010, USA, khatib@cs.stanford.edu, or else directly to the Engineering Editor, Springer-Verlag Tiergartenstr. 17, D-69121 Heidelberg, Germany, ditzinger@Springer.de
Book.
Title : M0DELING, IDENTIFICATION AND CONTROL OF ROBOTS
Authors: Wisama Khalil (IRCCyN-Nantes-France), and Etienne Dombre (LIRMM-Montpellier-France)
Summary: This book covers the three fundemental issues of manipulators (modeling, identification and control) using a unified approach for serial, tree structure and closed loop robots. It is intended for researchers, university lecturers, engineers, and postgraduate students in the field of automatic control, robotics and mechanics. It is a revised and augmented edition of the french version "Modélisation, identification et commande des robots" published by Hermès in 1999 and whose first edition "Modelisation et commande des robots" was published in 1988.
For further informations consult www.hermespenton.com
Title : BEYOND WEBCAMS, AN INTRODICTION TO ONLINE ROBOTS
Authors: Ken Goldberg and Roland Siegwart (eds.)
Summary: Remote-controlled robots were first developed in the 1940s to handle radioactive materials. Trained experts now use them to explore deep in sea and space, to defuse bombs, and to clean up hazardous spills. Today robots can be controlled by anyone on the Internet. Such robots include cameras that not only allow us to look, but also go beyond Webcams: they enable us to control the telerobots' movements and actions.This book summarizes the state of the art in Internet telerobots. It includes robots that navigate undersea, drive on Mars, visit museums, float in blimps, handle protein crystals, paint pictures, and hold human hands. The book describes eighteen systems, showing how they were designed, how they function online, and the engineering challenges they meet.
Publication Date: December 28, 2001
ISBN 0-262-07225-4 * $45.00 cloth * 7 X 9 * 331 pages * 158 illustrations
Contact: The MIT Press * Kerry Murphy * 617-258-0564 * kerrym@mit.edu
Available in bookstores or from The MIT Press * 800.356.0343 *
mitpress-orders@mit.edu * http://mitpress.mit.edu
Title : EVOLUTIONARY ROBOTICS THE BIOLOGY, INTELLIGENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY OF SELF-ORGANIZING MACHINES
Authors: Stefano Nolfi and Dario Floreano
Summary: Evolutionary robotics is a new technique for the automatic creation of autonomous robots. Inspired by the Darwinian principle of selective reproduction of the fittest, it views robots as autonomous artificial organisms that develop their own skills in close interaction with the environment and without human intervention. Drawing heavily on biology and ethology, it uses the tools of neural networks, genetic algorithms, dynamic systems, and biomorphic engineering. The resulting robots share with simple biological systems the characteristics of robustness, simplicity, small size, flexibility, and modularity.
In evolutionary robotics, an initial population of artificial chromosomes, each encoding the control system of a robot, is randomly created and put into the environment. Each robot is then free to act (move, look around, manipulate) according to its genetically specified controller while its performance on various tasks is automatically evaluated. The fittest robots then "reproduce" by swapping parts of their genetic material with small random mutations. The process is repeated until the "birth" of a robot that satisfies the performance criteria.
This book describes the basic concepts and methodologies of evolutionary robotics and the results achieved so far. An important feature is the clear presentation of a set of empirical experiments of increasing complexity. Software with a graphic interface, freely available on a Web page (http://gral.ip.rm.cnr.it/evorobot/simulator.html), allows the reader to replicate and vary (in simulation and on real robots) most of the experiments.Editor: MIT Press/ Bradford Books
Distribution: MIT Press http://mitpress.mit.edu/book-home.tcl?isbn=0262140705
To download the Evorobot software visit: http://gral.ip.rm.cnr.it/evorobot/simulator.html
Title: MODELING AND IPC CONTROL OF ITERACTIVE MECHANICAL SYSTEMS: A COORDINATE-FREE APPROACHAuthor: Stefano Stramigioli
Editor: Springer, Lecture Notes in Control and Information Sciences 266
ISBN: 1852333952 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1852333952/qid%3D984571841/107-799632
9-6538961
Title: Motion control systems for wheeled robots.
Authors: S.F. Burdakov, I.V. Miroshnik, R.E. Stelmakov.
Summary: The book is devoted to the problems of modelling, analysis and control of multi-wheeled (mobile) robots. Dynamical and kinematic models of the robots, theoretical problems of path planning and design of trajectory control systems, as well as applied aspects of motion control in mobile environments and those of the use of vision systems, are considered. The text is based on the modern techniques of analysis and design of complex mechanical systems, a geometric approach to nonlinear control and fuzzy logic control theory. Technical methodologies of the implementation of the control systems for typical samples of wheeled robots are represented; numerous examples and results of simulation are included in the book.
The book contains results of the cooperative research accomplished by the Laboratory ``Control of Complex Systems'' of the Institute for Problems of Mechanical Engineering of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Department ``Mechanics and Control Processes'' of the
State Technical University and the Laboratory of Cybernetics and Control Systems of the State Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics. The research was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Russian Federal Program ``Integration'', as well as the Scientific and Educational Center ``St. Petersburg Academical University''.