technical activities report ken goldberg, vp technical activities spring 2007, icra, rome

Technical ActivitiesReport

Ken Goldberg, VP Technical ActivitiesSpring 2007, ICRA, Rome

The Future of Robot Operating Systems

ieee icra panel, 12 april, 2007

Tandy Trower Herman Bruyninckx

Gian Paolo Gerio Nobuto Matsuhira Paolo Pirjanian Bruno Siciliano Ken Goldberg

RAS Technical Activities Board

• Vice President, Technical Activities• Associate VPTAs• RAS Officers• 45 Technical Committee Co-Chairs• 24 Distinguished Lecturers• “At-large” members: Tatsuo Arai,

Alicia Casals, Satoshi Tadokoro, and Sebastian Thrun

Agenda, TAB Meeting, ICRA, Rome, April 2007

1. Review of Progress to date2. GOLD Lunch, Panel on Robot Operating Systems3. Review of TCs and DLs: Most Active TC and DL4. Proposed New RAS Field of Interest (FOI) Statement 5. Proposed Statement of Support for TCs6. Proposed new category: Technical Communities7. Proposed Wiki on RAS Research Milestones8. Increasing TC's role in ICRA, IROS, CASE Session

Assignments9. "Birds of a Feather" meetings during conferences10.Other Topics

TAB Report, ICRA, Orlando, 20 May 2006

1. Approved: Establish 2 New TCs:• Algorithms for Planning and Control of Robot Motion• Space Robotics

2. Approved: Expanding DL program from 15 to 24 DLS3. Approved: Most Active DL Award (+$1000/year)4. Approved: Expand Young Professionals Lunch to IROS (+

$5000/year)5. Approved: Approve TAB Charter

TAB Report, IROS, Shanghai, Oct 2006

1. Proposal: Name Change: 1. Young Professionals Lunch2. GOLD Lunch (Graduates of the Last Decade)

2. Proposal: Establish New TC:• Technical Committee on Haptics (TCH)

3. New DL Candidates from Under-Represented Areas4. Future Work: RAS Focus of Interest (FOI)

GOLD LunchWednesday, 12:40-2:00pm

Microsoft Robotics StudioReleased Fall 2006

Panel on Future of Robot Operating SystemsThursday, 5:10-6:30pm

IEEE CASE 2007Scottsdale, Arizona, USA22-25 September, 2007

Submissions Due 30 April 2007

www.ieee.org/t-ase

Majid NiliKlas NilssonBruno SicilianoRoland Siegwart

AmericasNancy AmatoMario CamposVijay KumarPeter LuhDeirdre MeldrumTim SalcudeanMetin SittiAlfredo Weitzefeld

RAS Distinguished LecturersAsia and PacificHugh Durrant-WhyteLi-Chen Fu Shuuji KajitaFrank ParkYoshihiko NakamuraShigeki SuganoN. Vishu ViswanadhamMichael Wang

EuropeWolfram BurgardAlicia CasalsDan HalperinJean Paul Laumond

Technical Committee TAB Database Last Updated

1. Aerial Robotics and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles September 30, 20062. Agricultural Robotics October 22, 20063. Bio Robotics January 25, 20074. Computer & Robot Vision April 1, 20075. Humanoid Robotics October 8, 20066. Human-Robot Interaction & Coordination September 30, 20067. Intelligent Transportation Systems April 3, 20078. Manufacturing Automation April 6, 20079. Micro/Nano Robotics and Automation February 11, 200710. Networked Robots March 1, 200711. Programming Environments January 8, 200712. Prototyping for Robotics and Automation March 12, 200613. Rehabilitation Robotics April 6, 200714. Robo-Ethics January 25, 200715. Safety Security and Rescue Robotics August 31, 200516. Service Robotics January 12, 200717. Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation January 16, 200718. Surgical Robotics January 25, 200719. Underwater Robotics March 5, 200620. Planning and Control of Robot Motion January 18, 200721. Space Robotics February 27, 200722. Haptics April 4, 2007

Aerial Robotics and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Flying opens new opportunities to robotically perform field services and tasks like search and rescue, observation and mapping. Key areas to be addressed include autonomous missions, localization and multi-vehicle coordination.

Activities:•IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine Special Issue "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Enabling Technologies and Roadmap for Autonomy", Guest Editors: K.P. Valavanis (USF) and G.J. Vachtsevanos (Georgia Tech)

•Springer-Verlag Book on UAVs (to be published)

•2006 2nd Annual Indoor Aerial Robot Competition, May 7, 2006 - Philadelphia•ICRA 2006:

•Full day workshop, “UAVs: Missions and Payloads”•Full day tutorial, “Hands-on Lessons for UAV Construction”

•To Join, Contact Paul Oh: [email protected]

IEEE Robotics & Automation SocietyAgricultural Robotics Technical Committee

Australia and theNational Centre for Engineering in Agriculturedevelop Vision/GPS/Inertial guidance systemsfor farm machinery

University of Southern Queensland researchers and the National Centre for Engineering in Agriculturedevelop image processing systems for livestock recognition

University of Georgia researchers develop networked autonomous GPS guided farm vehicles

To Join: Jason Stone: [email protected] John Billingsley: [email protected]

Contact email to join: • Jorge Solis (Waseda University) [email protected]

Recent Advances:

TC Co-Chairs:

Atsuo Takanishi, Waseda University

Blake Hannaford, University of Washington

TC on Bio Robotics

The WABIAN-2R reproduces more closely the human-like walking with stretched knees, heel contact and toe-off motions. Reference: Y. Ogura, K. Shimomura, H. Kondo, A. Morishima, T. Okubo, S. Momoki, H. Lim, A. Takanishi. “Human-like walking with knee stretched, heel-contact and toe-off motion by a humanoid robot,” In Proc. IROS 2006, pp. 3976-3981.

A novel bio-inspired articulated robotic probe (HARP) was developed based on a snake-like mechanism for minimally invasive surgery. Reference: S. Au, P. Dilworth, H. Herr. “An ankle-foot emulation system for the study of human walking biomechanics”, In Proc. ICRA 2006, pp. 2939-2945.

A novel bio-inspired articulated robotic probe (HARP) was developed based on a snake-like mechanism for minimally invasive surgery. Reference: A. Degani, H. Choset, A. Wolf, T. Ota, M.A. Zenati, “Percutaneous Intrapericardial interventions using a highly articulated robotic probe”, Proc. BIOROB 2006, pp. 7-12.

Remote-controlled surgical robots promise to save lives by imitating surgeons’ dexterity in cases where patient cannot be transferred to the hospital. Reference: J. Rose and B. Hannaford, “DOC at a distance”, IEEE Spectrum, Vol. 43, No. 10, pp. 28-33, October 2006.

Algorithms for Planning and Control of Robot Motion

To Join: Oliver Brock ([email protected])Tsutomu Hasegawa ([email protected]); Steve LaValle ([email protected])Thierry Simeon ([email protected])

Funding:SToMP: $7.8 million DARPA program headed by UIUC to investigate sensor-based planning and associated mathematical and algorithmic challenges; others: Penn, U of Chicago, Rochester, Carnegie-Mellon, Melbourne University, Arizona State, and Bell Labs/Lucent

Applications in Molecular Biology:Protein folding kinetics (Texas A&M, Stanford); Simulating large-amplitude molecular motion (LAAS); Protein structure prediction (UMass Amherst); other results at CMU, Rice, …

Integration of Planning and Control:Planning based on local feedback

control policies (Connor, Choset, Rizzi, CMU); others results at UIUC, UMass

Amherst, …

Real-World Implementation:Motion planning algorithms are being implemented on real-world humanoid

robots at U Tokyo, AIST, CMU, …

..

To join: [email protected]

Computer and Robot Vision Technical CommitteeChairs: Danica Kragic (KTH) and Ioannis Kakadiaris (UH)

Vision Based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping

Real-time, Stereo Based Object Recognition and Pose Estimation

Vision Based Activity Interpretation for Robot Learning by Demonstration

Haptics Technical Committee

Contact co-chairs to join: Hong Tan [email protected] Harders [email protected] Kajimoto [email protected]

Recent advances: 2006 conferences best papers:

Q. Wang and V. Hayward, “Compact, Portable, Modular, High-performance Distributed Tactile Display Device Based on Lateral Skin Deformation”, Haptic Symposium, pp. 10-16, 2006.

Y.-S. Lee, S. Lai-Yuen, “Energy-Field Optimization and Haptic-Based Molecular Docking and Assembly Search System for Computer-Aided Molecular Design”, Haptic Symposium, pp. 34-40, 2006.

M. Reiner, D. Hecht, G. Halevy, M. Furman, “Semantic Interference and Facilitation in Haptic Perception”, EuroHaptics Conference, pp. 31-35, 2006.

E. van West, A. Yamamoto, T. Higuchi, "Development of ‘Haptic Tweezer’, a non-contact object handling system using magnetic levitation and haptic device“, EuroHaptics Conference, pp. 87-92, 2006.

New consumer level low-cost haptic interface (Novint Falcon)

Human-Robot Interaction and Coordination Co-Chairs: Cecilia Laschi , Cynthia Breazeal, Yasushi Nakauchi

• Recent Technical Developments– Computational models of core human socio-

cognitive skills (such as perspective taking and shared attention) have been successfully demonstrated to improve the quality of human-robot teamwork and interaction

– HRI frameworks have successfully been applied to traditional machine learning methods to enable humanoid and mobile robots to learn from natural human interactions via imitation, demonstration, and tutelage.

– The HRI community has embarked on developing evaluation metrics that embrace multi-disciplinary perspectives such as human factors, psychology, robotics, etc. for diverse areas of HRI such as Urban Search and Rescue, Social Robotics, H-R teams for Space Exploration, and more.

• To Join: [email protected] (teleop)-astronaut teams at NASA JSC

DB learning by demonstration to play air-hockey at ATR

Leonardo sharing attention during collaborative tasks at MIT Media Lab

Humanoid RoboticsIEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots 2005 Event - conference December 5, 2005 - Tsukuba, Japan The conference theme was "Humanoid Robots that Interact with Humans and the Society," reflecting growing interests in personal service and entertainment robots that can interact with humans. The conference was part of a series started in Boston in 2000, and traveled through Tokyo (2001), Karlsruhe/Munich (2003), and Santa Monica (2004), and brought the spirit to Tsukuba. The 2005 World Exposition, Aichi, Japan had taken place from March 25 to September 25, 2005 with a theme on "nature's wisdom" for rediscovering the relationship between humanity and technology, and featuring the robotic exposition. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, anthropomorphism in robotics (hardware/software/theory), Robotics for human science (behavioral/psychological/cognitive/neural science), Human science for robotics, Human-robot interaction, Humanoid robot applications, Key-components for humanoid robots.

•To Join:Sugano, Shigeki ([email protected])Hirukawa, Hirohisa (hiro. [email protected])Lee, C. S. George ([email protected])

The DARPA Grand Challenge

•The first race ever that saw 5 autonomous vehicles reach the finish line after 130+ miles of desert, rough terrain, and extreme conditions.

•The first time that unmanned vehicles succeed in this extremely complex task.

Christian Laugier; Urbano Nunes; Alberto Broggi

Cybercars: a new approach for sustainable mobility

Emerging as an alternative to the private passenger car, cybercars try to offer the same flexibility and much less nuisances based on fully automated electrical vehicles with on-demand and door-to-door capability. Fleets of such vehicles are being deployed in several worldwide cities and are already operational in specific environments such as shuttle services for passenger transportation.

Steering Control

Combination of Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Lane Keep Assist System (LKAS).

Join: Urbano Nunes, [email protected]

Manufacturing Automation

Co-Chairs:• Michael Yu Wang

Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Zexiang Li Hong Kong University of Science & Technology

• Kin Huat LowNanyang Technological University, Singapore

"Steady-State Throughput and Scheduling Analysis of Multi-Cluster Tools for Semiconductor Manufacturing"Jingang Yi, (Lam Research Corporation), Shengwei Ding, (University ofCalifornia at Berkeley) and Dezhen Song, (Texas A&M University, USA)

"Geometric Computation for Assembly Planning with Planar Toleranced Parts"Yaron Ostrovsky-Berman and Leo Joskowicz (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)

"Analysis of Andon Type Transfer Production Lines: A Quantitative Approach"Jingshan Li and Dennis E. Blumenfeld (General Motors Research & Development Center, USA)

To join:• Kin Huat Low

[email protected]

Micro / Nano Robotics and Automation TC

Contact Co-Chairs to Join: Fumihito Arai [email protected] Chaillet [email protected] Requicha [email protected]

Recent Advances:Electron micrograph of a nanoactuator built from telescoping carbon nanotubes. Note the difference in length between top and bottom panels. Reference: L. Dong, B. J. Nelson, T. Fukuda and F. Arai, “Towards Linear Nano Servomotors”, IEEE Trans. on Automation Science & Engineering, 2006, pp. 228-235.

Fully automatic manipulation of nanoparticles with sizes ~ 10 nm. Planned sequence of operations on left AFM image result on the pattern on right. Reference: B. Mokaberi, J. Yun, M. Wang and A. A. G. Requicha, “Automated Nanomanipulation with Atomic Force Microscopes”, ICRA 07, Rome, Italy, 2007.

Networked RobotsA "networked robot" is a robotic device connected to a communications network such as the Internet or LAN. The network could be wired or wireless, and based on any of of a variety of protocols such as TCP, UDP, or 802.11. Many new applications are now being developed ranging from automation to exploration. There are two subclasses of Networked Robots:

1) Tele-operated, where human supervisors send commands and receive feedback via the network. Such systems support research, education, and public awareness by making valuable resources accessible to broad audiences.

2) Autonomous, where robots and sensors exchange data via the network. In such systems, the sensor network extends the effective sensing range of the robots, allowing them to communicate with each other over long distances to coordinate their activity.

Networked robots pose a number of technical challenges related to network noise, reliability, congestion, fixed and variable time delay, stability, passivity, range and power limitations, deployment, coverage, safety, localization, sensor and actuation fusion, and user interface design. New capabilities arise frequently with the introduction of new hardware, software, and protocol standards.

Co-Chairs: Dez Song, Nori Hagita, Klaus SchillingPast Chairs: Wolfram Burgard, Nak-Young Chong, and Gaurav SukhatmeTo Join: [email protected]

Programming Environments in Robotics & AutomationAdvances in Robot Software Development• Domain Analysis : identification of issues and challenges in

robot software development– Hardware heterogeneity– Prototype/Simulation/Reality

• Component-based Development : definition of reusable software component models– Component internal behavior– Component external interface– Component integration

• Framework-based Development : definition of software architectures for robot control application– Middleware for distribution– Functionality customization

To Join:Brugali, Davide brugali.unibg.it

Prototyping for Robotics & Prototyping for Robotics & AutomationAutomation

• TC Chairs:TC Chairs:– I-Ming Chen (Nanyang Technological I-Ming Chen (Nanyang Technological

UniversityUniversity– Metin Sitti (Carnegie Mellon Metin Sitti (Carnegie Mellon

University)University)• Recent Technical DevelopmentsRecent Technical Developments

– Spherical Actuators (3-DOF ball-joint Spherical Actuators (3-DOF ball-joint like direct-drive actuator)like direct-drive actuator)

– Micro- & Nano manipulation Micro- & Nano manipulation components (Flexure-based components (Flexure-based Electromagnetic Linear Actuator for Electromagnetic Linear Actuator for high precision force control and high precision force control and positioning)positioning)

– Reconfigurable Automation Reconfigurable Automation (Reconfigurable and modular robotics)(Reconfigurable and modular robotics)

• To Join: I-Ming Chen To Join: I-Ming Chen ([email protected])([email protected])

Spherical actuator

Flexure linear actuator

Reconf. automation

Rehabilitation Robotics

Michelle J. Johnson Eugenio Guglielmelli Takahori Shibata Marquette University, USA Università Campus Bio-Medico, Italy AIST, Japan

(From RAS Area 1: Americas) (From RAS Area 2: Europe, Middle Est & Africa) (From RAS Area 3: Asia & Oceania)

• MEMOS is a novel low-cost, 2 d.o.f. mechatronic system for elbow-shoulder rehabilitation

• Developed by the ARTS Lab of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Pisa) and experimented at Fondazione S. Maugeri (Veruno), Italy

• Preliminary clinical trials on post-stroke patients show very encouraging results

• This robot consists of two Stewart Platform type legs and waist with a passenger seat

• Developed by Waseda University (Tokyo) in co-operation with the TMSUK company

• Preliminary tests confirmed the stability and effectiveness of the system carrying one 60 Kg passenger

• The KineAssist is a robotic device for gait and balance motor training

• It results from a partnership of the Rehab Institute of Chicago with the IDEO company

• Key novel feature is therapist-robot physical interaction and co-operation for assisting the patient exercise

RECENT ACHIEVEMENTSROBOT-THERAPIST CO-OPERATION FOR LOWER LIMB MOTOR THERAPY

A NEW SIMPLE SYSTEM FOR ROBOT-MEDIATED UPPER LIMB MOTOR THERAPY

THE WL-16 LEGGED CHAIR FOR MOBILITY OF THE ELDERLY AND THE DISABLED

Gianmarco Veruggio <[email protected]> (Corresp. Co-chair)Ronald C. Arkin <[email protected]> (Co-chair)Atsuo Takanishi <[email protected]> (Co-chair)

Roboethics is Ethics applied to Robotics. It is the human-centered ethics guiding the design,

construction and use of the robots.

[email protected]

MEMBERCOUNTER

78

RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS• New website http://www.roboethics.org/ieee_ras_tc/ • Humanoids’06: During the Poster Session of the IEEE-

RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, poster displaying the TC activities and announcing the ICRA07 Workshop on Roboethics.

• ICRA’07 Workshop on Roboethics, Rome, 14 April 2007. http://www.roboethics.org/icra07The goal of the Full Day Workshop is a cross-cultural update for engineering scientists who wish to monitor the medium and long effects of applied robotics technologies.

Robo-Ethics

Safety Security and Rescue Robotics

* IEEE International Workshop on Safety, Securitiy and Rescue Robotics (SSRR 2006) Workshop August 25, 2006 - NIST, Gaithersburg, MD, USA Contact Information: Adam Jacoff (adam dot jacoff at nist dot gov) * IEEE International Workshop on Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics (SSRR 2005) Workshop June 9, 2005 - Kobe, Japan

o Nardi, Daniele ([email protected]) + Univ. Roma "La Sapienza", Dip. Informatica e Sistemistica o Voyles, Richard (voyles.cs.umn.edu) + University of Minnesota o Matsuno, Fumitoshi (matsuno.hi.mce.uec. Ac.jp) + The University of Electro-Communications + corresponding chair - send email to join committee * Committee Chairs Emeritus: o Tadokoro, Satoshi (tadokoro.rm.is.tohoku.ac. jp) + Tohoku University

To Join: : Satoshi Tadokoro ([email protected])

TC homepage: http://ford.ieor.berkeley.edu/tzhang/TC/

Contact : Mike Tao Zhang, [email protected]

230+ members worldwide; 2 journal special issues

7 TC meetings, and 6 conferences 2006-2007

Service Robots TC

Contact Co-Chairs to Join: Hadi Moradi [email protected] Muscato [email protected]

Recent Advances:Robot learns to grasp everyday chores, Stanford Report, November 8, 2006.

Brain Waves Guide Walking Robots, Discovery News, 1/10/07.

Space Robotics

• Founding co-chairs :• Rick Wagner (NGC)

• Dimi Apostolopoulos (CMU)

• Hobson Lane (Northrop Grumman Corp.)

• Richard Volpe (JPL)

• Membership increased to 13 in 2006.

• Cooperation with other organizations initiated

• The TC membership voted overwhelmingly to broaden the initial scope of the TC from orbital (in-space) robotics only to include planetary robotics.

• An ICRA ’07 workshop on Space Robotics was proposed and accepted by the ICRA committee.

To Join: [email protected]

Surgical Robotics

To join, please contact Corresponding Chair:Jaydev P. Desai - [email protected]

Some examples of recent applications…

Locomoting Devices

MRI-Compatible Robotics

Credit: S. DiMaio et al., BioRob 2006

Credit: Metin Sitti, CMU

TC Co-Chairs:Jaydev P. Desai, [email protected] Tendick, [email protected]

Mamoru Mitsuishi, [email protected]

Automatic Detection of Instruments in Laparoscopic

Images

Credit: (Voros, et. al., TIMC)

Underwater Robotics Co-Chairs: J. Yuh and Dan Stilwell

The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) has developed a deep-sea vehicle, URASHIMA for ocean science and exploration of ocean resources. This vehicle is one of the first underwater vehicles powered by fuel cell technology. http://www.jamstec.go.jp/

The Autonomous System Laboratory (ASL) of the University of Hawaii, MASE, Inc, and The Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) have developed the SAUVIM AUV for intervention missions in up to 6,000m depth and demonstrated its autonomous robotic arm operation in 2005. http://www.eng.hawaii.edu/~asl/

To Join: stilwell.vt.edu

Technical Committee TAB Database Last Updated

1. Aerial Robotics and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles September 30, 20062. Agricultural Robotics October 22, 20063. Bio Robotics January 25, 20074. Computer & Robot Vision April 1, 20075. Humanoid Robotics October 8, 20066. Human-Robot Interaction & Coordination September 30, 20067. Intelligent Transportation Systems April 3, 20078. Manufacturing Automation April 6, 20079. Micro/Nano Robotics and Automation February 11, 200710. Networked Robots March 1, 200711. Programming Environments January 8, 200712. Prototyping for Robotics and Automation March 12, 200613. Rehabilitation Robotics April 6, 200714. Robo-Ethics January 25, 200715. Safety Security and Rescue Robotics August 31, 200516. Service Robotics January 12, 200717. Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation January 16, 200718. Surgical Robotics January 25, 200719. Underwater Robotics March 5, 200620. Planning and Control of Robot Motion January 18, 200721. Space Robotics February 27, 200722. Haptics April 4, 2007

Agenda, TAB Meeting, ICRA, Rome, April 2007

1. Past TAB meeting summaries2. GOLD Lunch, Panel on Robot Operating Systems3. Review of TCs and DLs: Most Active TC and DL4. Revisions to RAS Field of Interest (FOI) Statement 5. Proposed Wiki on RAS Research Milestones6. Increasing TC's role in ICRA, IROS, CASE Session

Assignments7. "Birds of a Feather" meetings during conferences8. Technical Communities9. Other Topics

RAS Field of Interest Statement (FOI) (1998):

The Society is interested in both applied and theoretical issues in robotics and automation. Robotics is here defined to include intelligent machines and systems used, for example, in space exploration, human services, or manufacturing; whereas automation includes the use of automated methods in various applications, for example, factory, office, home, or transportation systems to improve performance and productivity.

{Asked to Revise and Update by Pres. Volz}

Proposed New RAS Field of Interest Statement (2007-)The Society encourages fundamental and applied research in Robotics and Automation. Robotics focuses on sensor and actuator systems that operate autonomously or semi-autonomously (in cooperation with humans) in unpredictable environments. Robot systems emphasize intelligence and adaptability, may be networked, and are being developed for many applications such as service and personal assistants; surgery and rehabilitation; haptics; space, underwater, and remote exploration and teleoperation; education, entertainment; search and rescue; defense; agriculture; and intelligent vehicles. Automation focuses on systems that operate autonomously in predictable environments over extended periods. Automation emphasizes efficiency, productivity, quality, and reliability, with primary applications in manufacturing, including industrial robots. Today automation has many applications such as agriculture, biotechnology, healthcare, home and laboratory automation, maintenance, packaging, retail, security, semiconductors, service, supply chains, and transportation.

Proposed Assertion ofSupport for TCs

(Dick Volz)

• Technical Area development & growth– It is a fundamental goal of the Society to

help technical areas develop and grow to their full potential, both technically and organizationally

• Scientific autonomy– Within broader IEEE/Society polices

and procedures and constraints, TCs shall have scientific autonomy in their technical activities, including such areas a conference and publication activities, e.g., selection of committees, editors, reviewers.


(Dick Volz)

– The society shall encourage TCs and be willing to invest financially in TCs that demonstrate exceptional initiative


(Dick Volz)

TECHNICAL COMMUNITIES

A Subject For Consideration

Dick Volz

Motivation

• We want to stimulate technical committees

• As we grow, some technical committees become large, active and need more flexibility

• Generally, we should, from time to time, examine how we can best serve our members and help our field to prosper (in the broadest terms, not only financial)

• Presently, we have a community or two that are large and there might well be benefit from some restructuring

• Create a class of technical activity groups that have greater responsibility/authority than typical technical committees

• Possible qualifications– Size, e.g. > 200– Significant level of technical activity, measured in terms

such as• Number of conferences, workshops, tutorials, symposia• Number of attendees as above events• Dollar level of activities• Publications

• Possible rights/authority– Get a percentage of conference surplus IF conference

closes in time– Representation on some major society boards– Get percentage of publication surplus in excess of some

minimum IF target metrics achieved, e.g., review times under target

– Part of annual budget process

• Possible responsibilities– Maintaining some specified level of

membership and activity– Paying for IEEE imposed fines for late

conference closings– Can there be some quality metric?

• Probable constraints (largely due to IEEE policies)– No accumulation of resources from year to

year, i.e., unspent budget goes back into society reserves, where is largely untouchable.

– Conference rules, especially closings• Certain actions can be costly to society and might

be cause for undesired consequences

– Publication policy goals

• Is this a worth considering at all? If so, then

• What should be specifics of membership?• What should be the rights and

responsibilities?• What are the financial implication?

– In view of substantial decreases in income, can the society afford it?

• What additional administrative load would result and do we have the capacity to handle it, especially our financial team?

• Should we establish a small sub-committee or working group to come up with a concrete plan?

Better Coordinating RAS Research Efforts:

Benchmarks, Metrics, and Milestones

New opportunities:

TC Chairs role in ICRA, IROS, CASE Session Assignment?

TC’s organizing informal “Birds of a Feather” meetings (lunches, dinners, gatherings at the hotel bar, etc) during conferences

RAS Wiki on Research Milestones

Scope of T-ASE

The IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (T-ASE) publishes fundamental papers on Automation, emphasizing scientific results that advance efficiency, quality, productivity, and reliability. T-ASE encourages interdisciplinary approaches from computer science, control systems, electrical engineering, mathematics, mechanical engineering, operations research, and other fields. We welcome results relevant to industries such as agriculture, biotechnology, healthcare, home automation, maintenance, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, retail, security, service, supply chains, and transportation. T-ASE addresses a research community willing to integrate knowledge across disciplines and industries. For this purpose, each paper shall include a Note to Practitioners that summarizes how its results can be applied or how they might be extended to apply in practice.

Scope of T-RO

The IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO) publishes fundamental papers on all aspects of Robotics, featuring interdisciplinary approaches from computer science, control systems, electrical engineering, mathematics, mechanical engineering, and other fields. Robots and intelligent machines and systems are critical in areas such as industrial applications; service and personal assistants; surgical operations; space, underwater, and remote exploration; entertainment; safety, search, and rescue; military applications; agriculture applications; and intelligent vehicles. Special emphasis in the T-RO is placed on intelligent machines and systems for unstructured environments, where a significant portion of the environment is unknown and cannot be directly sensed or controlled.

technical activities report ken goldberg, vp technical activities spring 2007, icra, rome

Documents

foi slide

rome slide

pm slide

topics slide

tab charter slide

sebastian thrun slide

technical communities

new tcs