What’s coming up at #IROS2024?

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.

Lucy Smith is Senior Managing Editor for AIhub.

Lucy Smith is Senior Managing Editor for AIhub.