Technical Activities Report

Technical ActivitiesReport Ken Goldberg, VP Technical Activities Spring 2007, ICRA, Rome

The Future of Robot Operating Systems • Tandy Trower • Herman Bruyninckx • Gian Paolo Gerio • Nobuto Matsuhira • Paolo Pirjanian • Bruno Siciliano • Ken Goldberg ieee icra panel, 12 april, 2007

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 • Review of Progress to date • GOLD Lunch, Panel on Robot Operating Systems • Review of TCs and DLs: Most Active TC and DL • Proposed New RAS Field of Interest (FOI) Statement • Proposed Statement of Support for TCs • Proposed new category: Technical Communities • Proposed Wiki on RAS Research Milestones • Increasing TC's role in ICRA, IROS, CASE Session Assignments • "Birds of a Feather" meetings during conferences • Other Topics

TAB Report, ICRA, Orlando, 20 May 2006 • Approved: Establish 2 New TCs: • Algorithms for Planning and Control of Robot Motion • Space Robotics • Approved: Expanding DL program from 15 to 24 DLS • Approved: Most Active DL Award (+$1000/year) • Approved: Expand Young Professionals Lunch to IROS (+$5000/year) • Approved: Approve TAB Charter

TAB Report, IROS, Shanghai, Oct 2006 • Proposal: Name Change: • Young Professionals Lunch • GOLD Lunch (Graduates of the Last Decade) • Proposal: Establish New TC: • Technical Committee on Haptics (TCH) • New DL Candidates from Under-Represented Areas • Future Work: RAS Focus of Interest (FOI)

GOLD Lunch Wednesday, 12:40-2:00pm

Panel on Future of Robot Operating Systems Thursday, 5:10-6:30pm Microsoft Robotics StudioReleased Fall 2006

IEEE CASE 2007 Scottsdale, Arizona, USA 22-25 September, 2007 Submissions Due 30 April 2007 www.ieee.org/t-ase

RAS Distinguished Lecturers Asia and Pacific Hugh Durrant-Whyte Li-Chen Fu Shuuji Kajita Frank Park Yoshihiko Nakamura Shigeki Sugano N. Vishu Viswanadham Michael Wang Europe Wolfram Burgard Alicia Casals Dan Halperin Jean Paul Laumond Majid Nili Klas Nilsson Bruno Siciliano Roland Siegwart Americas Nancy Amato Mario Campos Vijay Kumar Peter Luh Deirdre Meldrum Tim Salcudean Metin Sitti Alfredo Weitzefeld

Technical Committee TAB Database Last Updated • Aerial Robotics and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles September 30, 2006 • Agricultural Robotics October 22, 2006 • Bio Robotics January 25, 2007 • Computer & Robot Vision April 1, 2007 • Humanoid Robotics October 8, 2006 • Human-Robot Interaction & Coordination September 30, 2006 • Intelligent Transportation Systems April 3, 2007 • Manufacturing Automation April 6, 2007 • Micro/Nano Robotics and Automation February 11, 2007 • Networked Robots March 1, 2007 • Programming Environments January 8, 2007 • Prototyping for Robotics and Automation March 12, 2006 • Rehabilitation Robotics April 6, 2007 • Robo-Ethics January 25, 2007 • Safety Security and Rescue Robotics August 31, 2005 • Service Robotics January 12, 2007 • Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation January 16, 2007 • Surgical Robotics January 25, 2007 • Underwater Robotics March 5, 2006 • Planning and Control of Robot Motion January 18, 2007 • Space Robotics February 27, 2007 • 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: paul@coe.drexel.edu

IEEE Robotics & Automation SocietyAgricultural Robotics Technical Committee Australia and the National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture develop Vision/GPS/Inertial guidance systems for farm machinery University of Southern Queensland researchers and the National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture develop image processing systems for livestock recognition University of Georgia researchers develop networked autonomous GPS guided farm vehicles To Join: Jason Stone: stonej@usq.edu.au John Billingsley: billings@usq.edu.au

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. 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. 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. TC on Bio Robotics Recent Advances: TC Co-Chairs: Atsuo Takanishi, Waseda University Blake Hannaford, University of Washington • Contact email to join: • Jorge Solis (Waseda University) • TC_contact@takanishi.mech.waseda.ac.jp

Algorithms for Planning and Control of Robot Motion Integration of Planning and Control: Planning based on local feedback control policies (Connor, Choset, Rizzi, CMU); others results at UIUC, UMass Amherst, … 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, … Real-World Implementation: Motion planning algorithms are being implemented on real-world humanoid robots at U Tokyo, AIST, CMU, … 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)

Computer and Robot Vision Technical Committee Chairs: Danica Kragic (KTH) and Ioannis Kakadiaris (UH) . . Real-time, Stereo Based Object Recognition and Pose Estimation Vision Based Activity Interpretation for Robot Learning by Demonstration Vision Based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping To join: danik@nada.kth.se

Haptics Technical Committee 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”, EuroHapticsConference, 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“, EuroHapticsConference, pp. 87-92, 2006. Recent advances: New consumer level low-cost haptic interface (Novint Falcon) Contact co-chairs to join: Hong Tan hongtan@purdue.edu Matthias Harders mharders@vision.ee.ethz.ch Hiroyuki Kajimoto kajimoto@hc.uec.ac.jp

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: tchric-all@hri.iit.tsukuba.ac.jp Human-Robot Interaction and CoordinationCo-Chairs: Cecilia Laschi , Cynthia Breazeal, Yasushi Nakauchi 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

Humanoid Robotics • IEEE-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 (sugano@waseda.jp) • Hirukawa, Hirohisa (hiro. Hirukawa@aist.go.jp) • Lee, C. S. George (csglee@purdue.edu)

Christian Laugier; Urbano Nunes; Alberto Broggi • 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. 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, urbano@isr.uc.pt

Co-Chairs: Michael Yu WangChinese University of Hong Kong Zexiang LiHong Kong University of Science & Technology Kin HuatLowNanyang 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) Manufacturing Automation To join: • Kin HuatLowmkhlow@ntu.edu.sg

Micro / Nano Robotics and Automation TC 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. Contact Co-Chairs to Join: Fumihito Arai arai@imech.mech.tohoku.ac.jp Nicholas Chaillet nicolas.chaillet@ens2m.fr Ari Requicha requicha@usc.edu

Networked Robots A "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 Schilling Past Chairs: Wolfram Burgard, Nak-Young Chong, and Gaurav Sukhatme To Join: dzsong@cs.tamu.edu

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 Programming Environments in Robotics & AutomationAdvances in Robot Software Development To Join: Brugali, Davide brugali.unibg.it

TC Chairs: • I-Ming Chen (Nanyang Technological University • Metin Sitti (Carnegie Mellon University) • Recent Technical Developments • Spherical Actuators (3-DOF ball-joint like direct-drive actuator) • Micro- & Nano manipulation components (Flexure-based Electromagnetic Linear Actuator for high precision force control and positioning) • Reconfigurable Automation (Reconfigurable and modular robotics) • To Join: I-Ming Chen (michen@ntu.edu.sg) Prototyping for Robotics & Automation Spherical actuator Reconf. automation Flexure linear actuator

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) RECENT ACHIEVEMENTS THE WL-16 LEGGED CHAIR FOR MOBILITY OF THE ELDERLY AND THE DISABLED ROBOT-THERAPIST CO-OPERATION FOR LOWER LIMB MOTOR THERAPY A NEW SIMPLE SYSTEM FOR ROBOT-MEDIATED UPPER LIMB MOTOR THERAPY • 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 • 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

MEMBERCOUNTER78 Robo-Ethics 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. Roboethics is Ethics applied to Robotics. It is the human-centered ethics guiding the design, construction and use of the robots. 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

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 (nardi@dis.uniroma1.it) + 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 (tadokoro@rm.is.tohoku.ac.jp)

Welcome to join us! TC homepage: http://ford.ieor.berkeley.edu/tzhang/TC/ Contact : Mike Tao Zhang, mike.zhang@cal.berkeley.edu 230+ members worldwide; 2 journal special issues 7 TC meetings, and 6 conferences 2006-2007

Service Robots TC Recent Advances: Robot learns to grasp everyday chores, Stanford Report, November 8, 2006. Brain Waves Guide Walking Robots, Discovery News, 1/10/07. Contact Co-Chairs to Join: Hadi Moradi moradi@usc.edu Giovanni Muscato gmuscato@diees.unict.it

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: Rick.Wagner@NGC.com Space Robotics

Automatic Detection of Instruments in Laparoscopic Images Surgical Robotics Some examples of recent applications… MRI-Compatible Robotics Credit: (Voros, et. al., TIMC) Locomoting Devices To join, please contact Corresponding Chair: Jaydev P. Desai - desai@coe.drexel.edu Credit: S. DiMaio et al., BioRob 2006 TC Co-Chairs: Jaydev P. Desai, desai@coe.drexel.edu Frank Tendick, frank.tendick@ucsf.edu Mamoru Mitsuishi, mamoru@nml.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp Credit: Metin Sitti, CMU

Underwater RoboticsCo-Chairs: J. Yuh and Dan Stilwell To Join: stilwell.vt.edu 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/

Technical Committee TAB Database Last Updated • Aerial Robotics and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles September 30, 2006 • Agricultural Robotics October 22, 2006 • Bio Robotics January 25, 2007 • Computer & Robot Vision April 1, 2007 • Humanoid Robotics October 8, 2006 • Human-Robot Interaction & Coordination September 30, 2006 • Intelligent Transportation Systems April 3, 2007 • Manufacturing Automation April 6, 2007 • Micro/Nano Robotics and Automation February 11, 2007 • Networked Robots March 1, 2007 • Programming Environments January 8, 2007 • Prototyping for Robotics and Automation March 12, 2006 • Rehabilitation Robotics April 6, 2007 • Robo-Ethics January 25, 2007 • Safety Security and Rescue Robotics August 31, 2005 • Service Robotics January 12, 2007 • Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation January 16, 2007 • Surgical Robotics January 25, 2007 • Underwater Robotics March 5, 2006 • Planning and Control of Robot Motion January 18, 2007 • Space Robotics February 27, 2007 • Haptics April 4, 2007

Agenda, TAB Meeting, ICRA, Rome, April 2007 • Past TAB meeting summaries • GOLD Lunch, Panel on Robot Operating Systems • Review of TCs and DLs: Most Active TC and DL • Revisions to RAS Field of Interest (FOI) Statement • Proposed Wiki on RAS Research Milestones • Increasing TC's role in ICRA, IROS, CASE Session Assignments • "Birds of a Feather" meetings during conferences • Technical Communities • 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.

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 Proposed Assertion ofSupport for TCs(Dick Volz)

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. Proposed Assertion ofSupport for TCs(Dick Volz)

The society shall encourage TCs and be willing to invest financially in TCs that demonstrate exceptional initiative Proposed Assertion ofSupport for TCs(Dick Volz)

TECHNICAL COMMUNITIES A Subject For Consideration Dick Volz

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 Motivation

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

Technical Activities Report