CALL FOR DEMONSTRATIONS
RoboCup@Space
1 - 10 July 2007, Georgia Tech,
Atlanta, Georgia, USA

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

Robotics role in space exploration has become prominent in recent years both due to the complexity and duration of the missions which makes human presence difficult and dangerous, and also encouraged by the success of NASA Mars Exploration Rovers. The world’s top space agencies (NASA, JAXA, ESA) currently have their own roadmap on space robotics research and development, particularly targeting planetary rovers for Mars and Moon missions, as well as robotic assistants to help astronauts perform their tasks, on board the spacecraft and/or at the planetary surface.

RoboCup has been showing, for more than 10 years, how robotic competitions foster considerable advances in Robotics research and development. IEEE is now preparing its first official robot competition in 2008, during ICRA, and the theme will be Space Robotics. NASA, JAXA and ESA have expressed interest in these kinds of activities, as a mean of providing extra inputs to their research.

The Board of Trustees of the RoboCup Federation has decided to start a new RoboCup league, RoboCup@Space, under the theme of Space Robotics. As
a first step towards reaching that goal, demonstrations of space robots will take place during RoboCup 2007, in Atlanta.

TOPICS

The demonstrations will be open, and can cover different topics of interest for Space Robotics research, such as

• system architecture and middleware for robotic systems
• autonomous navigation and control
• mobility in rough and possibly unknown terrain
• human-robot interfaces and interaction methodologies
• cooperative robots
• planetary rovers
• robotic assistants

SUBMISSIONS

We solicit submissions of demonstration proposals, based on a (max 1-page A4) description of the activity to be carried out. The proposal should include
Demo title Name, affiliation, and email of all authors Name, email, and postal address of corresponding author Phone and fax of corresponding author
Keywords concerning involved research (max 5) Main description (including brief summary of infrastructure needed at venue)

All submissions will be acknowledged within a few days. Proposals will be reviewed for quality and feasibility, taking into account the available space at the venue and the required infrastructure.

Important Dates

April 30, 2007 Submissions due
May 19, 2007 Notification of acceptance/rejection
July 3-8, 2007 Demonstrations

ORGANIZATION

Chairs:

Ayanna M. Howard
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30319 USA
email: ayanna.howard at ece.gatech.edu
http://humanslab.ece.gatech.edu

Daniele Nardi
Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica
Universita' di Roma "La Sapienza"
Via Salaria 113, 00198 ROMA, Italy
email:nardi at dis.uniroma1.it
http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~nardi

Pedro U. Lima
Instituto de Sistemas e Robotica
Instituto Superior Tecnico
Av. Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal
email: pal at isr.ist.utl.pt
http://omni.isr.ist.utl.pt/~pal