CFP: Workshop on Autonomous Robot Design at ICRA 2018

This workshop focuses on technologies that allow robots to be designed by software, which stands in stark contrast to the traditional engineering-centric approach of constraints capture, and fitting together a library of pre-existing components to meet those requirements. We aim to generate discussion into the design of bespoke specialized robotic systems that are poised to provide superior performance compared to currently-available options. In such an approach, robots may optimize their hardware (morphologies, sensor/actuator configurations, and the materials they are made from), and software (controllers). In each case the onus is on techniques that automatically design and create robots, or robot components, with no (or minimal) human intervention. Such an approach is becoming increasingly feasible, due to the rapidly-advancing push in manufacturing technologies, including 3D printing & high-throughput materials characterization.

Submissions

We welcome submissions of between 2 and 4 pages in the double-column IEEE ICRA format (see http://icra2018.org/). Submissions will be judged on novelty, scientific contribution, clarity, and relevance. We encourage submissions in the following areas:

. Automatic generation of bodies and controllers
. Evolutionary and machine learning approaches
. Designing materials for robots, characterization, high-throughput techniques
. Limits of morphological complexity, designing for morphological computing
. Use of Additive Manufacturing, printable components
. Online/offline environmental adaptation, shape-change
. Autonomous evaluation/validation techniques
. Combining simulation and physical tests, surrogate modelling
. Removing humans from the design and construction process

Submissions may be accepted as oral presentations or posters. Authors of accepted papers are expected to give a 10 minute presentation at the workshop. Authors of accepted posters are expected to give a 3 minute presentation, and to present a poster at the workshop. All submissions must be original and not previously or simultaneously submitted to another venue. Please submit here:

https://easychair.org/cfp/icra_ws_ard18

After the workshop, selected authors will be invited to extend their work for a special issue of the Springer Evolutionary Intelligence journal on The Autonomous Design of Robots.