Archive 11.10.2024

The Interactive and Robotic Systems Lab (IRS) group at the Universitat Jaume I of Castelló has developed a mobile, lightweight, modular and reconfigurable manipulator robot, which includes a remote control station with 3D perception, modular and multi-device 3D simulation software that implements a digital twin for operator training, with the aim of operating in hazardous scenarios for human health, initially in the inspection of plastic pipes by probing and artificial vision.

Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh will accelerate innovation and public-private collaboration through a pair of joint technology centers with NVIDIA.

Claire chatted to Matt Beane from the University of California, Santa Barbara about how humans can learn to work with intelligent machines.

Matt Beane conducts field research on robots and AI in the workplace, focusing on positive exceptions applicable to the broader world of work. He has published his award-winning research in top management journals and presented on the TED stage. He’s been recognized as a Human-Robot Interaction Pioneer and named to the Thinkers50 Radar list. Matt is an assistant professor in the Technology Management department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a Digital Fellow with Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab and MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy.

The 2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2024) will be held from 14-18 October in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The programme includes plenary and keynote talks, workshops, tutorials, and forums. We (AIhub) are also holding a science communication session, run in collaboration with IEEE Spectrum.

Plenary talks

There are four plenary talks on the programme this year:

• Oussama Khatib – Mission in Dubai, collaboration with UAE
• Najwa Aaraj – Building Trust in Autonomous Systems: Security Strategies for the Next Generation of Robotics
• Yoshihiko Nakamura – Embodiment of AI and Biomechanics/Neuroscience
• Magnus Egerstedt – Mutualistic Interactions in Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Systems: From Environmental Monitoring to the Robotarium

Keynote talks

The keynotes this year fall under the umbrella topics of: flying machines, biorobotics, AI and robotics, and robotics competitions.

• Flying machines
• Davide Scaramuzza – Drone Racing
• Guido De Croon – DelFly Explorer
• Giuseppe Loianno – Agile Robotics and Perception Lab
• Mirko Kovac – Drones for Environmental Health
• Biorobotics
• Auke Ijspeert – Bio Robotics, Computational neuroscience
• Barbara Mazzolai – Bioinspired Soft Robotics
• Kaspar Althoefer – Graphene and 2D materials, sensor applications
• AI and robotics
• Barbara Caputo – Applied Artificial Intelligence
• Merouane Debbah – TelecomGPT
• Concepción Alicia Monje – (soft) robot control
• Jianwei Zhang – Crossmodal Learning
• Robotics competitions
• Pedro Lima – Europe: European Robotics League, euROBIN Coopetitions
• Timothy Chung – Americas: DARPA Challenges
• Ubbo Visser – RoboCup Federation
• Thomas McCarthy – Grand Challenges as a Mechanism to Hasten Translation from Lab to Market

Forums

The forums are three-hour events that focus on a particular topic. Each forum will have keynote speakers, with some including a poster session and other talks.

• Robots for Sustainability and Sustainable Robots
• Europe Regulates Artificial Intelligence: the Challenge for Robotics
• Government Forum: Funding for Robotics Research
• Robotics in Africa Forum
• Robotics & AI in the UAE: Research Innovation and Entrepreneurship
• Human-Avatars Symbiosis: Can you imagine a future society where you can remotely control multiple avatars?
• Empowering Diverse Voices in Robotics
• Sustainable Medical and Surgical Robotics
• Moonshot R&D Program Goal 3 Forum. Envisioning a Future of Human-Robot Co-living: Potential for Robotics to Transform Human Lives
• Marine Robotics in Ocean Decade Initiative for Sustainable Development
• The Future of Work: AI-Enhanced Robotics and Human Interaction Research in M3S
• Industrial Opportunities and Socio-Economic Impact of Medical Robotics
• Robots for a Better Tomorrow: Wellbeing Through Advanced Technology

Science communication for roboticists

This session is a collaboration between AIhub.org/Robohub.org and IEEE Spectrum. We will cover different ways to communicate about your work to a more general audience, and how to work with media. You can find out more here.

Workshops

The 46 workshops take place on 14 and 15 October.

• AI Meets Autonomy: Vision, Language, and Autonomous Systems
• Interactive Robots and AI for Healthcare
• Brain Over Brawn: Workshop on Label Efficient Learning Paradigms for Autonomy at Scale
• XR-ROB 2024 – Horizons of an Extended Robotics Reality – a Converging Future of XR and Robotics
• Maritime Heterogeneous Unmanned Robotic Systems
• The Evolving Landscape of Haptic Technologies: Research Challenges and Industry needs
• Agricultural Robotics for a Sustainable Future
• 3rd Workshop on Mobile Manipulation and Embodied Intelligence: Generalization Challenges for Real-World Deployment
• Collecting, Managing and Utilizing Data through Embodied Robots
• The Grand Challenge of Cybernetic Avatars: Dreams and Facts
• Nonverbal cues for human-robot cooperative intelligence
• Real-World Challenges in Multi-Robot Cooperation
• 3D/4D Printing and Smart Materials for Sustainable Soft Robotics
• Advanced Robotics and Visualization for micrO Surgery
• Equivariant Robotics: The Role of Symmetry Across Perception, Estimation, and Control
• Environment Dynamics Matters: Embodied Navigation to Movable Objects
• R-, r-, reply- Articles, what are they? Case Studies of Reproducibility and Benchmarking in Robotic Research
• Standing the Test of Time: Retrospective and Future of World Representations for Lifelong Robotics
• The Workshop and Competition on Multi-Robot Perception and Navigation Challenges in Logistics and Inspection Tasks
• The Grand Challenge of Cybernetic Avatars: Ethical and Social Sustainability
• Unlocking the Potential: Innovations in Drone-Assisted Infrastructure Inspection and Maintenance
• AI and Robotics for Future Farming
• Self-healing and Damage Resilient Soft Robots
• Autonomous Robotic Systems in Aquaculture: Research Challenges and Industry Needs
• 2nd Workshop on Machine Learning in Medical Robotics: Bridging ML Theory and Clinical Frontiers
• ROMADO: 4th workshop on RObotic MAnipulation of Deformable Objects: beyond traditional approaches
• Trustworthy Human-swarm Interaction
• Multisensory Transparency-Augmented Teleoperation in Extreme Environments
• Long-Term Perception for Autonomy in Dynamic Human-centric Environments: What Do Robots Need?
• Embodied Neuromorphic AI for Robotic Perception and Control
• Integrating Physical and Cognitive Perspectives in Assistive Robotics Design
• 3rd Workshop Toward Robot Avatars
• From Learning-based to Foundation models for mapping: challenges and opportunities (LFM)
• Robot Safety in Times of AI: Data, Decision, and Multimodal Interaction
• Bio-inspired, Biomimetics, and Biohybrid (Cyborg) Systems
• Benchmarking Autonomous Service Robotics in Real Life
• The 2nd Workshop on Formal methods techniques in robotics systems: Design and control
• Workshop on 14th Planning, Perception and Navigation for Intelligent Vehicles
• Workshop on Interaction-aware Autonomous Systems
• The SOFT frontier: adaptive technologies in soft robotics
• Variable Impedance Learning and Control: Navigating Challenges, Exploring Opportunities, and Shaping the Future
• Workshop on Ethical, Legal and User Perspectives on Assisting Robots and Systems (WELUPARS)
• Safety of Intelligent and Autonomous Vehicles: Formal Methods vs. Machine Learning approaches for reliable navigation (SIAV-FM2L)
• Building and Evaluating Ethical Robotic Systems
• From Geometry to General Autonomy of Robotic Systems
• Benchmarking via Competitions in Robotic Grasping and Manipulation

Tutorials

The tutorials take place on 14 and 15 October. There are 10 to choose from this year.

• Multi-Robot Path Planning: Heuristic Search Meets Reinforcement Learning
• ML in Autonomous Systems and Mobile Robots: Security and Privacy Issues for ML
• Edge AI for Aerial Robots: Enhancing Drone Operations with AI
• From Hover to Horizon: Mastering Drone Control in MATLAB
• KOMPASS: An event-driven advanced navigation stack for autonomous mobile robots
• Low-code design and simulation of robotics capabilities
• State-of-the-art Simulation in Autonomous Robotic Systems
• Foundations of interaction control for contact robots (part I): Interaction control in humans and with robots
• Foundations of interaction control for contact robots (part II): Energy-based methods and interactive learning
• Humanoid Hybrid sprint

You can view the programme overview here.

A new computer simulation of how our brains develop and grow neurons has been built. Along with improving our understanding of how the brain works, researchers hope that the models will contribute to neurodegenerative disease research and, someday, stem cell research that helps regenerate brain tissue.

Though Europe is perceived as lagging behind in areas like cloud computing, infrastructure, chip manufacturing, and AI—particularly in creating large language models (LLMs)—it is not solely the regulations that account for these delays.

In recent years, roboticists have developed a wide range of systems designed to tackle various real-world tasks, ranging from completing household chores to delivering packages or finding target objects in delineated environments.

Using mechanisms inspired by nature to create new technological innovations is a signature of one Virginia Tech research team. The group led by Associate Professor Michael Bartlett has created an octopus-inspired adhesive, inspired by the shape of octopus suckers, that can quickly grab and controllably release challenging underwater objects.

New artificial intelligence models for plasma heating can do more than was previously thought possible, not only increasing the prediction speed 10 million times while preserving accuracy but also correctly predicting plasma heating in cases where the original numerical code failed.

Scientists have developed and successfully tested a new chatbot based on artificial intelligence: 'UroBot' was able to answer questions from the urology specialist examination with a high degree of accuracy, surpassing both other language models and the accuracy of experienced urologists. The model justifies its answers in detail based on the guidelines.

Researchers have developed a soft robotic 'finger' with a sophisticated sense of touch that can perform routine doctor office examinations, including taking a patient's pulse and checking for abnormal lumps.

Researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China have developed a soft robotic "finger" with a sophisticated sense of touch that can perform routine doctor's office examinations, including taking a patient's pulse and checking for abnormal lumps. This work was published October 9 in Cell Reports Physical Science.

The new plant in northwest Morocco is intended to be a model for energy optimization, while simultaneously significantly increasing Stellantis’ production capacity for battery-powered vehicles and hybrid models.

The award recognizes their work developing AlphaFold, a groundbreaking AI system that predicts the 3D structure of proteins from their amino acid sequences.

The award recognizes their work developing AlphaFold, a groundbreaking AI system that predicts the 3D structure of proteins from their amino acid sequences.