10th International Conference on Computer Vision Systems (ICVS 2015) Copenhagen

While most computer vision conferences focus on specific methods for experimental applications, ICVS primarily addresses issues arising in the design and deployment of comprehensive computer vision systems for a broad spectrum of applications, such as robotics, inspection, monitoring, video analysis, and scene interpretation.

ICVS 2015, continuing a series of successful events in Europe and America, aims at bringing together researchers and developers from academia and industry from around the world. The perspective on systems offers a unique opportunity for sharing competence in application development and for identifying application-driven research questions.

We warmly welcome contributions of papers targeting the conference scope.
For further information please click here.

The 11th Anniversary Asian Conference on Computer Aided Surgery (ACCAS2015)

The 11th Asian Conference on Computer Aided Surgery will be in Singapore on 9-11 July 2015. Computer Aided Surgery is an interdisciplinary field. The Asian Conference on Computer Aided Surgery series (ACCAS) is designed to provide a venue in Asia for academic researchers, clinical scientists, roboticists, surgeons and i ndustrial partners to exchange new ideas as well as the latest development in the field. ACCAS is also interested to promote collaborations in the field for people from different countries, and different disciplines.

The 1st Asian Conference on Computer Aided Surgery was held in Japan in 2005.

The 2nd conference was held in conjunction with the 2006 World Congress of M edical Physics and Bio-engineering in Korea. The 3rd Asian Conference on Com puter Aided Surgery was held in Singapore on Dec 1-2, 2007.

Organizing Committee

ACCAS 2015 will be organized by Biomedical Engineering Society of Singapore (BMS) and IEEE EMBS Singapore Chapter.

·         Prof James Goh, National University of Singapore, Singapore

·         Dr Jimmy Liu, Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore

·         A/Prof Toh Siew Lok, National University of Singapore, Singapore

·         Asst Prof Chee-Kong Chui, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Program Co-chairs

·         Prof Ichiro Sakuma, The University of Tokyo, Japan

·         Prof Byung-Ju Yi, Hanyang University, Korea

·         Asst Prof Chee-Kong Chui, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Important Dates:

Paper submission deadline:  Apr 1, 2015
Notification of acceptance: Apr 15, 2015
Final camera-ready paper submission deadline: May 15, 2015

Website: serve.me.nus.edu.sg/accas2015/

EMBC 2015 in Milano

The 37th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) will take place in Milano, Italy, in the period August 25th-29th, 2015. It will be a remarkable event as it is the first time that Italy will host a conference of the world’s largest member-based scientific Society in Biomedical Engineering (BME): at the same time, it will be a unique opportunity to come in touch with the actual BME activities all over the world.The Conference will take place in MiCo – Milano Congressi, recently rebuilt (2011) and located in downtown Milano. It is one of the largest conference facilities in Europe and worldwide, catering for up to 18,000 people in 70 or so fully appointed conference rooms.

Submission Deadlines

Proposals for Workshops, Tutorials, Invited Sessions, Mini-Symposia and Special Sessions

October 15th 2014 – Proposals Start
February 15th 2015 – Proposals Deadline
Call for Papers (4 pages)

January 15th 2015 – Paper Submission Start
March 31st 2015 – Paper Submission Deadline
May 15th 2015 – Author Notification
June 1st 2015 – Author Final Submission
Call for Papers (1 pages)

March 31st 2015 – Paper Submission Start
May 26th 2015 – Paper Submission Deadline
June 15th 2015 – Author Notification
June 30th 2015 – Author Final Submission

For more information check the EMBC 2015 website.

KM RoBoTA

Call for Contributions and Participation
ICRA 2014 Full Day Tutorium on low-cost, fast-development Modular Snake Robot Open Platforms

Accessibility to narrow spaces is a desirable capability of any search and rescue robot system. The chances for a conventional robot to access these spaces are limited. Therefore, there is a need for another type of robots with enhanced mobility capabilities to negotiate with these environments. Modular snakes belong to this kind of robots and they have become a promising tool for several possible tasks like: operate in dangerous places, inspect critical infrastructure, serve as disaster first responders and so on.

This tutorial is centered in the idea that the future of some of these robotic platforms, intended to be used in search and rescue tasks, require two important characteristics: simplicity in the conception of the platform (design, construction, control and deployment), and its disposability in the case of self-failure or environment collapse.

Thus, the main purpose of this tutorial is to introduce a Modular Snake Robot Open Platform, released with the intention to fulfil these last requirements, providing an alternative to produce modular snake robots as low-cost and fast-development-time platforms, for rapid and secure deployment in dangerous areas.

Moreover, an expected side effect of this initiative is to spread possibilities for other labs, to contribute on Modular Snake Robot locomotion, better actuators and gait/task controllers design, towards the improvement of these robot's navigation capabilities and propose and solve real field tasks.

Click here to submit your contributions.

Important Dates

Submission deadline  I  27Apr
Notification of acceptance  I  30Apr
Final submission  I  15May
Tutorial  I  01Jun

This Tutorial will take place on June 1, 2014 during the 2014 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2014) and is Fully Sponsored by:
KM-RoBoTa s.a.s., Colombia.

Springer Open journal:  Robotics and Biomimetics

Call for paper
Hong Kong

Robotics and Biomimetics is a high-quality journal that publishes original theoretical and experimental works in Robotics and Biomimetics. It covers all topics in robotics, mechatronics, automation and biomimetics. The journal adopts a policy of continuous publication. In other words, accepted papers will appear on-line without the need of waiting being combined with others to form issues.
All papers will be reviewed through a fast process. The first decision will be made in two months and the final decision will be made within four months. Therefore, the papers, if accepted, will appear on-line in 5-6 months from the submission.

The journal publish articles in the following 5 categories with different focuses:

• Research articles
• Book reviews
• Letters to the Editor
• Review articles
• Short reports

We also welcome special issues on focused topics. A special issue usually consists of 6-10 papers. If you are interested in organizing a special issue, please contact the editor-in-chief. Each article published by Robotics and Biomimetics follows a specific format, as detailed in the corresponding instructions for authors.

Special Issue of the Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems on "Cognitive Robotics Systems: Concepts and Applications"

Call for paper
April 30th, 2014

Future robotic systems need to reach a level of cognition that will allow them to understand and effectively operate in household and industrial environments, interact with humans, and adapt their actions to an ever growing range of situations. They are expected to be able to predict the perceptual changes that result as a consequence of human actions and replicate human activities, taking into consideration their own capabilities and limitations. This special issue draws inspiration from these themes, as addressed in the series of IROS workshops CAS-2012: "Cognitive Assistive Systems: Closing the Action-Perception Loop" and CRS-2013: "Cognitive Robotics Systems: Replicating Human Actions and Activities".

This special issue aspires to elucidate advances in Cognitive Robotics Systems ranging from sensing through to learning and interaction, as well as their applications addressing domestic and industrial requirements. Emphasis will be given to closing the action-perception loop and reproducing human actions and activities

Papers are solicited on concepts and applications related to cognitive robotics systems.

Invited topics include, but are not be limited to

• Robot imitation and learning by demonstration
• Symbiotic interaction between robots and humans
• Motion and activity capture
• Robot grasping, tools and object manipulation
• Active perception
• Visual perception and representation of 3D information
• Perceptual search and attention
• Motion planning and motion generation
• Adaptive and unsupervised activity learning
• Workflow monitoring and activity recognition

Important Dates

• Paper submission deadline: 30 April 2014
• Notification to authors: 15 July 2014
• Revised papers submission: 15 August 2014
• Final acceptance: 15 October 2014

The special issue is open to high-quality contributions that fall within its scope. Papers should be up to 20 pages, prepared according to the "Instructions for Authors" of the Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, as found here and submitted here choosing "SI on Cognitive Robotics Systems: Concepts and Applications" as the article category. Please contact any of the guest editors for further information.

Guest Editors

• Lazaros Nalpantidis, Aalborg University, Denmark: lanalpa(at)m-tech.aau.dk
• Renaud Detry, University of Liege, Belgium: renaud.detry(at)ulg.ac.be
• Dima Damen, University of Bristol, UK: dima.damen(at)bristol.ac.uk
• Gabriele Bleser, DFKI, Germany: gabriele.bleser(at)dfki.de
• Maya Cakmak, University of Washington, USA: mcakmak(at)cs.washington.edu
• Mustafa Suphi Erden, EPFL, Switzerland: mustafasuphi.erden(at)epfl.ch
  
  
  
  

ALIFE 2014 Workshop: Exploiting synergies between biology and artificial life technologies: tools, possibilities, and examples

Call for paper
July 30th 2014 New York, NY, USA

Overview
Artificial life research is typically performed isolated in the context of one of the three main strands of artificial life: soft, hard, or wet. While this division is both practically and historically rooted, we feel it will be fruitful for the artificial life community to consider potential overlaps and synergies between these strands and, further, to also consider overlaps and synergies with biological life. We hope that considering these overlaps and synergies may be a source for new science and applications of artificial life research.

The goal of this workshop is to look at how these artificial and biological life forms can complement each other and potentially form synergistic relationships. At this early stage we are interested in looking at which  tools can form the practical basis for exploring synergies and examples of specific interactions among at least two of the four life forms. Given that this is a workshop, we are also highly interested in discussing possibilities that are purely speculative. The organizers are particularly interested in discussing overlaps between robotics, artificial life chemistry, and microbials systems, but other topics falling under the workshop theme are also welcome.

Organizers
Kasper Stoy, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark Martin Hanczyc, University of Trento, Italy Ioannis Ieropoulous, University of West of England, U.K.
Michal Wagner, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany Lee Cronin, University of Glasgow, Scotland

Important Deadlines
Paper submission deadline: May, 18, 2014.
Author notification: June, 8, 2014.
Registration: June 13 (for early rates), see Alife 14 conference registration.
Workshop date: July 30, 2014, from 1pm-7pm

Submission Instructions
The workshop accepts the same submission types and formatting as the main ALIFE conference: you can either submit a two-page extended abstract or an eight-page full paper. For formatting instructions, please click here. Please e-mail your contribution to ksty(at)itu.dk by the deadline stated above. The proceedings will be made available online on the workshop website.