Robotics and Automation Update - IEEE RAS Technical Activities Summary

1. Technical Activities Board ICRA 2009, Kobe Eugenio Guglielmelli, Assoc.VP Technical Activities Yasuhisa Hasegawa, Assoc.VP Technical Activities tab.ieee-ras.org

2. RAS Technical Activities Board • Ken Goldberg, VP Technical Activities goldberg@berkeley.edu • RAS Officers • 45 Technical Committee co-chairs • 24 Distinguished Lecturers • Eugenio Guglielmelli, Assoc. VPTA • Yasuhisa Hasegawa, Assoc. VPTA • “At-large” members: Frank van der Stappen, Katsu Yamane, Henrik Christensen, Matt Mason, Ruediger Dillman, Satoshi Tadokoro

3. RAS TAB Agenda, F09 Meeting Fall 2008 Adcom Decisions 2008 Review of DLs activities & Most Active Nominations 2008 Review of TCs & Most Active Nominations Triennial Review of TCs in 2009 (2006-2008) - results Triennial Review of TCs in 2010 - announcement Proposal of a new TC on ‘Biologically-inspired Robots’ Proposal for a new TC on 'Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking of Robotic and Automation Systems’ Recognizing RAS Research Milestones GOLD events

4. RAS TAB Agenda, F09 Meeting Fall 2008 Adcom Decisions Motion on new TC on Environment\Energy and Safety – passed Limited resources for RAS projects in 2009

5. RAS Distinguished Lecturers Asia/Pacific: Tatsuo Arai (Japan) Hugh Durrant-Whyte (Australia) Xiaohong Guan (China) Hideki Hashimoto (Japan) Katsu Ikeuchi (Japan) Frank Chongwoo Park (Korea) Michael Wang (Hong Kong) N. Vishu Viswanadham (India) Europe: Alicia Casals (Spain) Dan Halperin (Israel) Jean Paul Laumond (France) Brad Nelson (Switzerland) Paul Newman (UK) Majid Nili (Iran) Klas Nilsson (Sweden) Gianmarco Veruggio (Italy) Americas: Greg Dudek (Canada) Lydia Kavraki (US) Vijay Kumar (US) Deirdre Meldrum (US) Robin Murphy (US) Javier Ruiz-del-Solar (Chile) Sebastian Thrun (US) Alfredo Weitzenfeld (Mexico) The DL database is available at: http://dl.ieee-ras.org/

6. RAS Distinguished Lecturers Summary of 2008 Activities

7. RAS Distinguished Lecturers Most Active TC and DL Award Nominations Committee: Ken GoldbergKatsu Yamane Most Active TC and DL Award Evaluation Committee: Eugenio Guglielmelli Yasuhisa Hasegawa 2008 Most Active DL Nominations Hugh-Durrant Whyte Katsushi Ikeuchi

8. Technical Committees –2009 Aerial Robotics and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Agricultural Robotics Algorithms for Planning and Control of Robot Motion Autonomous Ground Vehicles and Intelligent Transportation Systems Bio Robotics Computer & Robot Vision Energy, Environment, and Safety Issues in Robotics and Automation Haptics Human-Robot Interaction & Coordination Humanoid Robotics Marine Robots Micro/Nano Robotics and Automation Networked Robots Rehabilitation & Assistive Robotics Roboethics Robot Learning Safety Security and Rescue Robotics Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation Service Robotics Software Engineering for Robotics and Automation Space Robotics Surgical Robotics Telerobotics

9. Membership Drive: from outdated list of 10 members to an updated list of 25 research active members. Mailing list: ieee-tc-agricultural-robotics@googlegroups.com – provides an effective communication media within the community. Workshop: Proposed the first workshop in ICRA 2008. Publications: A plan is being drafted for a special issue in TRO in the area of agricultural robotics in 2008. Comments: Current response in membership and participation come mostly from research groups in Australia and the US. It is desirable to obtain more participation from Asia (e.g. Japan) and Europe. Any assistance within the RAS community in spreading the word is most appreciated. IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Agricultural Robotics Activity Report 2007 By: John Billingsley and Denny Oetomo (Co-Chairs) Website last updated on August 2008

10. Algorithms for Planning and Control of Robot Motion Integration of Planning and Control: Planning based on local feedback control policies (Connor, Choset, Rizzi, CMU); other results at UIUC, Penn, UMass Amherst, … Research Program: $7.8 million DARPA SToMP, headed by UIUC, to study minimalism, sensing, and planning, with a team from Penn, U of Chicago, Rochester, Carnegie-Mellon, Melbourne University, Arizona State, and Bell Labs. Workshops: IROS 2007: Algorithmic Motion Planning RSS 2008: Minimalist Robotics and Sensor Networks 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, … Real-World Implementation: Motion planning algorithms impacting the world in numerous systems: autonomous vehicles, humanoid robots, and factory automation. Contact Co-Chairs to Join: Oliver Brock (oli@cs.umass.edu)‏ Tsutomu Hasegawa (hasegawa@irvs.is.kyushu-u-ac.jp); Steve LaValle (lavalle@uiuc.edu)‏ Thierry Simeon (nic@laas.fr)‏ Website last updated on April 2009

11. TC on Computer and Robot Vision Real-time, stereo based vision systems for scene modeling, segmentation, object and activity recognition Things Objects Attention points 3D Segmentation Grouping 2D Attributes 3D Attributes 2D/3D Attributes Object modeling for grasp planning and execution Active humanoid head (University of Karlsruhe) Vision Based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping To join contact: Danica Kragic (dani@kth.se)

12. TC on Energy, Environment, and Safety Issues in Robotics and Automation Spring 2009 Committee Chairs: Tarn, Tzyh Jong: Washington University (tarn@wuauto.wustl.edu) Fukuda, Toshio: Nagoya University (fukuda@mein.nagoya-u.ac.jp) corresponding chair - send email to join committee Merlet, Jean-Pierre: INRIA (Jean-Pierre.Merlet@inria.fr) De Almeida, Anibal: ISR-University of Coimbra (adealmeida@isr.uc.pt)

13. Technical Committee on Haptics (TCH) Recent developments • The TCH Early Career Award has been launched and the first awardee is Allison Okamura (Johns Hopkins Univ.) • The 2008 TCH student exchange program supported two interdisciplinary research visits • A new position of Vice Chair for Education has been created to focus on teaching & learning about haptics • “Augmentation of a low-cost haptic device to display realistic contact accelerations by a dedicated vibration actuator” (McMahan & Kuchenbecker, Univ. of Pennsylvania) Opportunities supported by TCH The system was exhibited at WorldHaptics 2009 Recent activities • International conferences on haptics • WorldHaptics (every two years in Europe, Asia, and North America) • Haptics Symposium and EuroHaptics (every other year in the USA and Europe) • IEEE Transactions on Haptics has been launched in fall 2008http://www.computer.org/toh • Special session on neuroscience was organized at WorldHaptics 2009 • WorldHaptics 2009 TCH Best Student Paper Award went to In Lee (POSTECH) for “System Improvements in Mobile Haptic Interface” Visit our Web site and contact co-chairs to join: http://www.worldhaptics.org/ Matthias Harders mharders@vision.ee.ethz.ch Marcia O’Malley omalleym@rice.edu Yasuyoshi Yokokohji yokokohji@me.kyoto-u.ac.jp Website last updated on April 2009

14. TC on Humanoid Robotics Spring 2009 Committee Chairs: Lee, C. S. George: Purdue University (csglee@purdue.edu) Laumond, Jean-Paul : LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France(jpl@laas.fr) Yokoi, Kazuhito: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Kazuhito.Yokoi@aist.go.jp) corresponding chair - send email to join committee

15. TC on Marine Robotics http://webuser.unicas.it/MarineRoboticsTC/ Spring 2009 Committee Chairs: Antonelli, Gianluca: Universita' degli Studi di Cassino (antonelli@unicas.it) corresponding chair - send email to join committee Marani, Giacomo: University of Hawaii (marani@hawaii.edu) Rikoski, Richard: Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City (rikoski@mit.edu) Bennett, Andrew: MIT (abennett@alum.mit.edu) Kondo, Hayato: Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology (hkondo@kaiyodai.ac .jp)

16. Recent Innovations Summary TC Robot Learning was established on May 22, 2008. TC Chairs: Nick Roy (MIT), Russ Tedrake (MIT), Jan Peters (Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics), Jun Morimoto (ATR) Steering Committee established. Acquired new members: 154 with 54 from the Americas, 71 from Europe and 29 from Asia/Pacific. Website: http://www.learning-robot.de, mailing list: all@learning-robots.de are set up. Workshops organized by the TC: NIPS Workshop on Robotics Challenges for Machine Learning I IROS Workshop on Robotics Challenges for Machine Learning II Dual workshop series will be continued at R:SS and NIPS in 2009. Special Issue: Autonomous Robots Special Issue on Robot Learning, submission deadline: November 10, 2008 Website last updated on October 2008

17. Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics TC Outreach to Response Organizations Emergency response organizations around the world are being exposed to research and commercial robots at training exercises and field demos in Japan, Italy, USA, .... Workshops: IROS 2007: Rescue Robotics - DDT Project on Urban Search and Rescue SICE 2008 Organized Session: Safety, Security, and Rescue Robot Systems 6th IEEE International Workshop on Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics (SSRR 2008) October 28-31, 2008 – Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan General Chair: Satoshi Tadokoro Research Directions Mobility in collapsed structures remains a key area of research, worldwide. Human/Computer Interaction under stress is receiving increasing emphasis. The first systematic studies of Wilderness Search and Rescue are starting to appear. New Research Installations: $2M National Testbed for Safety Security Technologies broke ground this spring at USF (USA). This testbed will house indoor collapsed structure simulation capabilities including smoke and rain. Contact Co-Chairs to Join: Daniele Nardi (Daniele.Nardi@dis.uniroma1.it)‏ Richard Voyles (rvoyles@du.edu); Fumitoshi Matsuno (matsuno@hi.mce.uec.ac.jp)‏ Or contact ssrr-info@hi.mce.uec.ac.jp‏

18. Check out new activities in our website!

19. Service Robots: Robotics and Automation TC Recent Advances/inventions: Humanoid sales representative, Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute, Japan, January 2008. Tankpitstop, Winding Road, 2/5/08. Contact Co-Chairs to Join: http://www.service-robots.org Hadi Moradi moradih@ut.ac.ir/ moradi@usc.edu Giovanni Muscatogmuscato@diees.unict.it

20. Software Engineering for Robotics and Automation Pursuing the synergy between Robotics and Software Engineering STAR book “Software Engineering for Experimental Robotics” 2007 SDIR-II Workshop at ICRA2007 SDIR-III Workshop at ICRA2008 (proposal) Robotic software frameworks and tools NASA / JPL CLARAty open source September 2007 “Robot Software” @ Wikipedia : several projects ROSTA http://wiki.robot-standards.org/ Domain engineering Software Abstraction for robot embodiment: The AnyMorphology project at UniBG Measures and Procedures for the Evaluation of Robot Architectures The EU ROSTA project Current Number of Members: 24 Davide Brugali, brugali@unibg.it Giuseppe Menga menga@polito.it Franco Guidi Polanco fguidi@ucv.cl TCPROG Advances in Robot Software Development

21. Space Robotics Website last updated on January 2009 2008 Moses Lake Sand Dunes Field Test: Examine early lunar mission tasks (deploy infrastructure, site surveys, resource prospecting) Multi-robot and coordinated human-robot activities Experiment with various ops concepts and scenarios… Planetary Robotics: Mars rovers (JPL, ESA, LAAS-CNRS, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Tohoku University, CMU, MIT, Stanford University, Universität Bremen); Lunar operations (NASA Ames) … Orbital Robotics: Inspection and Maintenance Robot (Northrop Grumman); Manipulation of Flexible Space Structures (Georgia Tech); Form Based Control Algorithm (Cleveland State University); Coordinated Control of Space Robot Teams (MIT); Space Manipulator Analysis (JAXA); Autonomous Spacecraft Proximity Maneuvers (Naval Postgraduate School) … Organizational: Membership increased from 18 to 22 in 2008; ICRA workshops in ’08 and planned for ’09, attendance at ICRA ’08 RAS TAB meeting … Contact a Co-Chair to Join: Dimi Apostolopoulos (da1v@cs.cmu.edu) Richard Volpe (volpe@jpl.nasa.gov) Rick Wagner (Rick.Wagner@NGC.com) Kazuya Yoshida (yoshida@astro.mech.tohoku.ac.jp)

22. IEEE Robotics and Automation's Technical Committee onSurgical Robotics MRI Compatible Robotic Radiofrequency Ablation with Haptic FeedbackRebecca Kokes, Kevin Lister, Rao Gullapalli, Bao Zhang, Howard Richard, Jaydev P. Desai TC Co-Chairs: Jaydev P. Desai, RAMS Lab, jaydev@umd.edu Frank Tendick, frank.tendick@ucsf.edu Mamoru Mitsuishi, mamoru@nml.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp Robot-Assisted Lung BrachytherapyA.L. Trejos, S. Mohan, H. Bassan, A. Lin, A. Kashigar, R.V. Patel, R. Malthaner In-Vivo Pan/Tilt Endoscope with Integrated Light Source Tie Hu, Peter K. Allen, Dennis L .Fowler

23. Technical Committees – Triennial Review 2009 Aerial Robotics and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Agricultural Robotics Algorithms for Planning and Control of Robot Motion Autonomous Ground Vehicles and Intelligent Transportation Systems Bio Robotics Computer & Robot Vision Energy, Environment, and Safety Issues in Robotics and Automation Haptics Human-Robot Interaction & Coordination Humanoid Robotics Marine Robots Micro/Nano Robotics and Automation Networked Robots Rehabilitation & Assistive Robotics Roboethics Robot Learning Safety Security and Rescue Robotics Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation Service Robotics Software Engineering for Robotics and Automation Space Robotics Surgical Robotics Telerobotics

24. IEEE, RAS, Technical Committee on Aerial Roboticsand Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Kimon Valavanis (DU), Robert Wood (Harvard), Samir Bouabdallah (ETHZ) • Objective: Promotion of exchanges among researchers from academia, industry and government. The purpose is to identify the technologies and technical approaches to advance and mature the field of aerial robotics. • Recent Activities: More than 10 workshops and conferences organized • Member Count: 111 • Topics of Interest: Include but not limited to: • Airframe design • Sensor suites • Field service • Propulsion and Engines • Vision-based navigation • Miniaturization • Latest News: MAV workshop accepted for IROS’2009 Website: http://www.flyingrobots.org/

25. RAS TC Triennal Review - results Aerial Robotics and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, since 2004, member 111 1 competition (2006) Workshops organized at IROS 2007 and ICRA2008 (+ IROS 2009) 4 other workshops 1 book (Springer 2007 + 1 in 2009). UAV Symposium (2008) Plans for an annual world class conference dedicated to aerial robotics and UAVs Partial report, Website last updated Sept. 2008 No proposal for new co-chairs Post-review request: renew at least 1 co-chair in order to improve communication and dissemination of TC activities E. Guglielmelli, RAS Ass. VP for TA TAB Meeting - Kobe, May 15, 2009

26. Co-chairs: 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. Some examples of recent technical developments in robotics technologies applied to ITSfor quality of life, efficiency, mobility, safety, challenge. 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. Major breakthrough in automobile Combination of Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Lane Keep Assist System (LKAS). Join RAS TC on ITS:Contact: Urbano Nunes, urbano@isr.uc.pt

27. RAS TC Triennal Review - results Autonomous Ground Vehicles and ITS, since 2002, member 185 6 Workshops organized at ICRA2007 and IROS (2006, 2007, 2008). 2 more Workshops accepted for ICRA2009 and IROS2009 (+ 6 external) 1 special session at ICRA2006 (+1 external) 5 Special issues (1 on IEEE Trans. ITSC) + 2 ongoing Supported 6+ Conferences\Symposia Proposed co-chairs:, Christian Laugier, Urbano Nunes, Alberto Broggi, Ljubo Vlacic (new - Griffith University, Australia). Commitment to renew one TC cochair each year, starting in 2010 Relationship with the SLAM community? TC Website is not linked to the TAB Database E. Guglielmelli, RAS Ass. VP for TA TAB Meeting - Kobe, May 15, 2009

28. A new bio-inspired climbing robot designed to scale smooth vertical surfaces has been presented. The robot, called Stickybot, draws its inspiration from geckos and other climbing lizards and employs similar compliance and force control strategies to climb smooth vertical surfaces. M. Cutkosky, et al., “Whole body adhesion: hierarchical, directional and distributed control of adhesive forces for a climbing robot,” Proc. ICRA 2007, pp. 1268-1273. A bipedal jumping and landing robot with artificial musculoskeletal system inspired on an animal has been presented. Experiments showed the abilities of the robot to realize vertical jumping. Reference: R. Niiyama, A. Nagakubo, Y. Kuniyoshi, “Mowgli: A bipedal jumping and landing robot with an artificial musculoskeletal system”, in Proc. of ICRA, pp. 2546-2551, 2007. A humanoid two-arm system developed as a research platform for studying dexterous two-handed manipulation. Two arms and hands are combined with a three degrees-of-freedom movable torso and a visual system to form a complete humanoid upper body. G.  Hirzinger, et al.,   “A humanoid upper body system for two-handed manipulation,” Proc. ICRA 2007, p. 2766-2767 IEEE Robotics and Automation TC on Bio Robotics Recent Advances: TC Co-Chairs: Atsuo Takanishi, Waseda University Blake Hannaford, University of Washington Contact email to join: • TC_contact@takanishi.mech.waseda.ac.jp

29. RAS TC Triennal Review - results Bio Robotics since 2004, member 10 Workshops organized at ICRA2008 and IROS 2009. Special issue of T-RO 2008. Conference “BIOROB” organized in 2006, and 2008. Proposal for retiring this TC and for launching a new TC on Biologically-Inspired Robots. Y. Hasegawa, RAS Ass. VP for TA TAB Meeting - Kobe, May 15, 2009

30. Human-Robot Interaction and CoordinationCo-Chairs: Cecilia Laschi , Cynthia Breazeal, Yasushi Nakauchi Recent Technical Developments in HRI 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. TC email list: tchric@hri.iit.tsukuba.ac.jp Leonardo sharing attention during collaborative tasks at MIT Media Lab DB learning by demonstration to play air-hockey at ATR Robonaut (teleop)-astronaut teams at NASA JSC

31. RAS TC Triennal Review - results Human-Robot Interaction & Coodination since 1999, member 30 Workshops organized at ICRA2006 and ICRA2009. Spcial issue for T-RO in 2007 Proposed new co-chairs: Hiroshi Ishiguro (new), Monica Nicolescu(new), Pericle Salvini (new) Plans to increase membership? Y. Hasegawa, RAS Ass. VP for TA TAB Meeting - Kobe, May 15, 2009

32. Micro / Nano Robotics and Automation TC- Recent advances - Artificial Bacterial Flagella (ABF) have comparable geometries and dimensions to their organic counterparts and can swim in controllable fashion using weak applied magnetic field. Reference: L. Zhang, J. J. Abbott, L. X. Dong, B. E. Kratochvil, D. J. Bell, B. J. Nelson, "Artificial Bacterial Flagella: Fabrication and Magnetic Control", Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 94, No. 6, February 2009. Manipulation of salmon testes DNA, cut in an automated way (green arrows) using the AFM. In order to present an alternative to the currently used self assembling technologies, a nanorobotic system for the direct and automated manipulation of DNA was implemented. Reference: M. Weigel-Jech, S. Fatikow, "Development of a novel nanorobotic system for the characterization and manipulation of biomaterials", The Fifth International Conference on Microtechnologies in Medicine and Biology. Québec City, Canada. April 1-3, 2009. In order to achieve high-efficiency nanomanipulation, a parallel imaging/manipulation microscope, which consists of two individually actuated microcantilevers that can fulfill image scan and manipulation in parallel, was presented. Reference:H. Xie, S. Haliyo, S. Régnier, “Parallel imaging/manipulation force microscopy”, Applied Physics Letters, 94, 153106, 2009. Wireless resonant magnetic microactuator for untethered mobile microrobots. Reference: K. Vollmers, D. R. Frutiger, B. E. Kratochvil, B. J. Nelson, "Wireless resonant magnetic microactuator for untethered mobile microrobots", Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 92, No. 14, 2008. Scale-appropriate locomotion models for millimeter-scale mobile robots. Reference: S. Bergbreiter, "Effective and Efficient Locomotion for Millimeter-Sized Microrobots“, IROS 2008, Nice, France, 2008. Contact Co-Chairs to Join (see TC website http://rastc-mnra.in2p3.fr ) Fumihito Arai arai@imech.mech.tohoku.ac.jp Nicolas Chaillet nicolas.chaillet@femto-st.fr Ari Requicha requicha@usc.edu

33. RAS TC Triennal Review - results Micro/Nano robotics & Automation since 1997, member 30 Workshops organized at ICRA2006, IROS2007(2) and IROS2008 (+2 accepted for ICRA2009) 1 Tutorial at IROS2007 3 special issues of journals (1 T-ASE), 2 books (+ 1 to be published in 2009, directly born from a Workshop organized at IROS 2007) and 4 tutorial/survey papers in RAM Support to 4 International Symposia Proposed new co-chairs: Fumihito Arai (confirmed), Nicolas Chaillet (confirmed), Sylvain Martel(new) Region 7 - Associate Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal (Québec), Canada and Director of the NanoRobotics Laboratory Plans to increase membership? E. Guglielmelli, RAS Ass. VP for TA TAB Meeting - Kobe, May 15, 2009

34. Networked Robots TC Recent Advances: Coordinating large heterogeneous mobile robot team. Reference: A. Howard, L.E. Parker, and G. S. Sukhatme “Experiments with Large Heterogeneous Mobile Robot Team: Exploration, Mapping, Deployment and Detection”, Internal Journal of Robotics Research, 5 2006; vol. 25: pp. 431 - 447 Surveillance, search, and rescue applications. Reference: B. Grochosky, J. Keller, V. Kumar, and G.J. Pappas, “Cooperative Air and Ground Surveillance ”, IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, Volume 13, Issue 3, September 2006, pages 16-25. . Contact Co-Chairs to Join: Asia: Norihiro Hagita <hagita@atr.jp> Europe: Klaus Schilling <k_schi@t-online.de> USA: Dez Song <dzsong@cs.tamu.edu>

35. RAS TC Triennal Review - results Networked Robots since 2004, member 239 Workshops organized at ICRA2008 and IROS 2007, ICRA2008, IROS2008 (+3 external symposia) Organization of Collaborative Field Trial (EU-Japan) 2 Special issues Conference “BIOROB” organized in 2006, and 2008. New portal, google group, regular emails, etc. Proposed co-chairs: Norihiro Hagita (confirmed), Klaus Schilling (confirmed), Volkan Isler (new) E. Guglielmelli, RAS Ass. VP for TA TAB Meeting - Kobe, May 15, 2009

36. IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Rehabilitation & Assistive Robotics CO-CHAIRS: Michelle J. Johnson Silvestro Micera Takahori Shibata Marquette University, USA Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Italy AIST, Japan (From RAS Area 1: Americas) (From RAS Area 2: Europe, Middle Est & Africa) (From RAS Area 3: Asia & Oceania) EMERGING TREND: REHAB & ASSISTIVE ROB FOCUS ON NEURODEVELOPMENT EXOSKELETON FOR LOWER LIMB MOTOR THERAPY MECHATRONIC TOYS AND WEARABLE DEVICES FOR EARLY DIAGNOSIS OF NEURODEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS ROBOTIC TOYS FOR TREATMENT OF AUTISTIC CHILDREN Keepon, the robot developed in Japan by H. Kozima et al. as part of the Infanoid project to investigate the underlying mechanisms of social intelligence A sensorized rattle toy equipped with multiple inertial, magnetic and tactile sensors for behavioral analysis of infants in ecological settings The Pediatric Lokomat (Hocoma Ltd) for intensive locomotion therapy of children with neurological disorders To join the TC and receive most updated information in the field just e-mail: RehabRob@ieee.org To know more about these news access our website through the TAB link from the RAS Homepage

37. Rehab & Assistive Robotics since 2001, member 500 • Workshop at ICRA2006, ICORR2007, and BioRob2008. • Special issue for T-RO 2008. • EURON summer school in 2008. • Current co-chairs are willing to retire. Proposals for new co-chairs are: Robert Riener or Rui Loureiro in Europe, Tomas Sugar or Rajiv Dubey in America, Kiyoshi Nagai or Kengo Ohnishi in Asia • Website is not updated since 2008 RAS TC Triennal Review Y. Hasegawa, RAS Ass. VP for TA TAB Meeting - Kobe, May 15, 2009

38. RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS International Symposium “Robotics: A New Science” @ Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, February 20, 2008 - Rome, Italy. (G.Veruggio: “Roboethics: Philosophical, Social and Ethical Implications of Robotics”) Table Ronde “Roboéthique” @ JNRR07 - Journées Nationales de la Recherche en Robotique. October 10, 2007 - Obernay, France. “Keynote by G.Veruggio and Rodolphe Gelin). Seventh International Computer Ethics Conference, July 14, 2007 - University of San Diego, USA. (Keynote by G.Veruggio on “Ethical and Societal issues in Robotics”). Track on “Philosophy and Ethics of Robotics” @ ECAP07 - European Computing and Philosophy Conference. June 23, 2007 - University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands. Chair G.Veruggio. Roboethics is the Ethics applied to Robotics. It is the human-centered ethics guiding the design, construction and use of the robots. MEMBERCOUNTER80 Gianmarco Veruggio <gianmarco@veruggio.it> (Corresp. Co-chair) Ronald C. Arkin <arkin@cc.gatech.edu> (Co-chair)Atsuo Takanishi <takanisi@waseda.jp> (Co-chair) info@roboethics.org http://www.roboethics.org/ieee_ras_tc/

39. RAS TC Triennal Review Roboethics since 2004, member 100 Workshop organized at ICRA 2005, 2007, and 2009. Two workshops and one symposium. Three tracks in international conferences. New co-chairs: Gianmarco Verruggio (confirmed), Matthias SCHEUTZ (new) and Jorge SOLIS (new) Website does not include 2009 activities Important publications mainly from co-chairs, more diversity? No report on communication with members Y. Hasegawa, RAS Ass. VP for TA TAB Meeting - Kobe, May 15, 2009

40. Telerobotics Multi-master/multi-slave teleoperation: Multiple robots for increasing telepresence and remote functionalities Technische Univ. München, Teleoperation of Mobile Robots (UIUC),… Teleoperation of mobile robots: Mobile haptic interface and mobile teleoperator Technische Univ. München, Univ. di Roma, Univ. Politecnica de Madrid Comm. Channel Master Side Workshops: ICRA 2008: New Vistas and Challenges in Telerobotics Slave Side Advanced bilateral control New control strategies for improving telepresence Port-Hamiltonian strategies (Univ. of Modena and Reggio Emilia and Univ Twente), Synchronization (UMD and UIUC), Wave variables (Stanford), … Contact Co-Chairs to Join: Manuel Ferre(mferre@etsii.upm.es)‏ Nikhil Chopra (nchopra@umd.edu); Angelika Peer (angelika.peer@tum.de)‏ Cristian Secchi (cristian.secchi@unimore.it)‏

41. RAS TC Triennal Review Telerobotics, since 2007, member 40 Workshop organized at ICRA 2008 1 RAM special issue (+ 1 planned in 2010 on the Mechatronics magazine - Elsevier) Proposed new co-chairs: Angelica Peer (confirmed),Christian Secchi (confirmed), Katsumori Sato (new), M. Cenk Cavusoglu (new) Weak website, improve dissemination\communication Suggestion: merging with Networked Robots TC? E. Guglielmelli, RAS Ass. VP for TA TAB Meeting - Kobe, May 15, 2009

42. TAB MEETING FALL 2009 Motion • - To retire the RAS Technical Committee on Biorobotics

43. RAS Technical Committees Most Active TC and DL Award Nominations Committee: Ken GoldbergKatsu Yamane Most Active TC and DL Award Evaluation Committee: Eugenio Guglielmelli Yasuhisa Hasegawa 2008 Most Active TC Nominations Algorithms for Planning and Control Micro/nano Robotics and Automation Networked Robots Surgical Robotics

44. Technical Committees – Triennial Review 2010 Aerial Robotics and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Agricultural Robotics Algorithms for Planning and Control of Robot Motion Autonomous Ground Vehicles and Intelligent Transportation Systems Bio Robotics Computer & Robot Vision Energy, Environment, and Safety Issues in Robotics and Automation Haptics Human-Robot Interaction & Coordination Humanoid Robotics Marine Robots Micro/Nano Robotics and Automation Networked Robots Rehabilitation & Assistive Robotics Roboethics Robot Learning Safety Security and Rescue Robotics Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation Service Robotics Software Engineering for Robotics and Automation Space Robotics Surgical Robotics Telerobotics

45. New TC on Biologically-Inspired Robots Proposed Co-Chairs: Jorge, Solis, Kin-Huat Low, Ravi Vaidyanathan, Xinyan Deng Scope The Biologically-Inspired Robot research is focused in applying biological concepts/strategies to improve the current capabilities of robots. This research field is therefore focused in extending the robot flexibility and robustness by adopting design principles of biological systems. Biological inspiration can be drawn from many aspects of biological systems, including their behavioral strategies, their locomotion principles, the physical design of their bodies, the organization of their sensory and nervous systems, etc. Priority areas include, but are by no means limited to: 1) Biologically-Inspired Robot Architectures 2) Biomimetic Perception, Action, and Behavior 3) Learning and Adaptation 4) Evolutionary Robotics 5) Neuromechanical Systems 6) Development of Academic Curricula in Biologically Inspired Robotics

46. Motivation In recent years, the benefits of biologically inspired approaches have become increasingly clear in engineering design, in particular as evidenced the first IEEE/RAS-EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BIOROB 2006), Living organisms are complex systems exhibiting a range of desirable engineering characteristics that have proved difficult to realize using traditional engineering methodologies. Research in this field has successfully fused techniques from sensor development, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, simulation/modelling, and robotics. The goal of this TC is to provide a forum for the examination of the interplay between biological and artificial (autonomous or semi-autonomous) systems, and present biology as a learning tool for novel robotic paradigms. As a part of a renovation initiative, the TC on Biologically-Inspired Robots is an international effort to provide more focus to the TC. The number of publications (conference papers, journals as well as books) worldwide that mention Biologically-Inspired Robots could be considered of an order of thousands. For this purpose, the aim of the TC on Biologically Inspired Robots is to bring together the international research to debate challenges and opportunities, and to make concerted efforts towards experimental and theoretical breakthroughs in this continuously growing field. New TC on Biologically-Inspired Robots

47. New TC on Biologically-Inspired Robots Relationship to existing TCs Fundamentally, the proposed TC is an initiative to renew the current TC on Biorobotics (co-chaired by Atsuo Takanishi and Blake Hannaford). From the point of view of a TC, the Biorobotic research field is too broad (too difficult to define the borders among other TCs). From several discussions among experts of the field, it became necessary to propose a more focused TC which provides a clear definition of the scope and arguments. As a result, the TC on Biologically-Inspired Robot is proposed. The proposal TC is focused on in applying biological concepts/strategies to improve thecurrent capabilities of robots from a technological point of view. Therefore, it is expected that the renewed TC will have a positive impact on many of the existing RAS TCs by proposing workshops/tutorials as well as journals/books to contribute the growing international integration of this research field. Goal Three-Year-Goal: to provide a focal point for and to coordinate the activities of the international biologically inspired robot research community, both in academia and in industry.  Six-Year-Goal: to promote the field on biologically inspired robot research by proposing and coordinating activities such as workshops and special issues in journals.

48. TAB 2009 Fall Meeting Motion To establish the RAS Technical Committee on Biologically-Inspired Robots, with the following scope: The Biologically-Inspired Robot research is focused in applying biological concepts/strategies to improve the current capabilities of robots. This research field is therefore focused in extending the robot flexibility and robustness by adopting design principles of biological systems. Biological inspiration can be drawn from many aspects of biological systems, including their behavioral strategies, their locomotion principles, the physical design of their bodies, the organization of their sensory and nervous systems, etc. Priority areas include, but are by no means limited to: 1) Biologically-Inspired Robot Architectures 2) Biomimetic Perception, Action, and Behavior 3) Learning and Adaptation 4) Evolutionary Robotics 5) Neuromechanical Systems 6) Development of Academic Curricula in Biologically Inspired Robotics

49. PROPOSED SCOPE The proposed TC will serve as a forum to address performance evaluation and benchmarking for robotic and automation systems, in general. It will emphasize the need and solutions for developing standardized methods for quantitatively evaluating and benchmarking emerging robotic systems technologies. It will bring together what is currently an amorphous community to provide a baseline for comparison and mechanisms for targeting specific aspects of a system thus allowing researchers to assess the performance of various systems in different scenarios and environmental conditions. Providing the research community access to standardized tools, reference data sets, and an open-source library of solutions, will enable researchers and consumers to evaluate the cost and benefits associated with robotic and automation systems and associated technologies. New TC on Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking of Robotic and Automation Systems

50. 3. MOTIVATION Currently, there is no accepted standard for quantitatively measuring the performance of intelligent systems - particularly robotics or automation systems - against user-defined requirements; and furthermore, there is no consensus on what objective evaluation procedures need to be followed to deduce the performance of these systems. The lack of reproducible and repeatable test methods have precluded researchers working towards a common goal from exchanging and communicating results, inter-comparing robot performance, and leveraging previous work that could otherwise avoid duplication and expedite technology transfer. This lack of cohesion in the community hinders the progress in many domains, such as manufacturing, service, healthcare, and security. The need for benchmarking and performance evaluation is now well understood within the community and is gaining traction among researchers and practitioners as evidenced by a steady increase in papers and workshops dedicated to this topic. Several workshops and conferences have been organized to address this issue including the annual Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems (PerMIS) and the IROS Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking for Intelligent Robots and Systems workshops organized by the Chairs of this proposed TC. Other notable efforts of our collaborators include the work under the RAS Standing Committee on Standards Activities, RoSta (both lead by Prof. Erwin Prassler), and the RAWSEEDS project, to name a few. New TC on Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking of Robotic and Automation Systems