CFP

DGRS2019: 2019 Do Good Robotics Symposium

College Park Marriott Hotel

College Park, MD, United States, October 2-3, 2019

Conference website	http://dgrs.umd.edu/
Submission link	https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=dgrs2019

Topics: robotics/ai for good societal impact and considerations regulations and ethics

Robotics, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies hold tremendous potential in addressing many of the societal challenges exemplified in the seventeen sustainable development goals of the 2030 agenda of the United Nations. The inaugural 2019 Do Good Robotics Symposium (DGRS) aims to bring together researchers, practitioners, and groups engaged in multidisciplinary and cross-cutting research and deployment of technologies for the benefit of the society and the planet.

The Symposium will be held at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD), the nation’s first Do Good Campus. UMD's Do Good Campus works to equip and empower all students to apply their passions and ideas to make a positive impact in their communities and across the world. Organized by the Maryland Robotics Center within the Institute for Systems Research, in collaboration with the Do Good Institute in the School of Public Policy at UMD, the Symposium will provide a platform for exchanging and understanding the state of the art, and for sharing new ideas in the fields of robotics, automation, and AI across industry, academia, government, and non-profit domains for societal benefit. DGRS intends to address concerns and identify gaps stemming not only from development and innovation perspectives but also the ones arising from either overly-regulated or laissez-faire evolution of cutting-edge technologies.

In the current era dominated by 24/7 news cycles and often questionable veracity of disseminated information coupled with skepticism of robotics and AI in the minds of the public, the Symposium will also consider controversial topics via presentations and panel discussions involving experts and audience members. Some of the topics within the purview of the Symposium range from ethical design and deployment of technologies to autonomous systems to applications of self-driving cars/trucks, aerial vehicles, and their implications on the existing workforce.

A good mix of practitioners, faculty, graduate students involved in robotics and AI for societal good and technology policy, governance and regulation of emerging technologies from industry, academia, government, think tanks, and non-profit domains are expected to attend.

Submission Guidelines

Prospective presenters are requested to submit an extended abstract in PDF format. All submissions will be reviewed and must be written in English, starting with a succinct statement of the problem, how the solution addresses societal concerns or contributes to the betterment of humankind, comparison to existing work by others, and significance of the results achieved. Accepted submissions will be presented as either oral or poster presentations.
Two pages in the standard IEEE conference format are allowed for each submission including figures and references. Extended abstracts are to be submitted at the using the two-column IEEE Conference template (see http://dgrs.umd.edu/call-for-papers for submission information and format).
Selected submissions will be considered for publication in an edited volume subject to reviewers’ comments and authors’ willingness to expand and revise their submissions.

List of Topics

Topic areas include, but are not limited to:

Robotics/AI research, development and applications in the following domains:
- Manufacturing including logistics and human-robot interaction systems
- Service and domestic
- Collaborative and cooperative robot systems
- Human-centered design and resulting interactions and relationships
- Intelligent transportation systems and assisted-driving
- Hazardous environments (e.g. nuclear site monitoring and hazardous waste cleanup)
- Healthcare including rehabilitation, patient care, medical, surgical devices and systems
- Disaster preparedness, response, and recovery efforts (including search, rescue, firefighting, casualty assessment, and victim revival and extraction during floods, landslides, and earthquakes)
- Agriculture and aquaculture
- Demining
The role of academia and industry in shaping the design and use of robotics and AI systems
Government regulations and technology-policy considerations
Ethical design of robots and autuonomous systems
The role of NGOs/NPOs and funding agencies in deployment and sustainability
Socio-economic, cultural, political, and environmental factors in developing and developed economies
Privacy, safety, and security issues
Education, reskilling, and training of next generation workforce

Committees

Program Committee

Yiannis Aloimonos (UMD, USA)
Sarah Bergbreiter (CMU, USA)
Gil Blankenship (UMD, USA)
Nikhil Chopra (UMD, USA)
Francisco Cuellar (PUCP, Peru)
Jorge Dias (KhalifaU, UAE)
Sara Gallagher (UMD, USA)
S.K. Gupta (USC, USA)
Dylan Hazelwood (UMD, USA)
Volkan Isler (UMN, USA)
Axel Krieger (UMD, USA)
Dinesh Manocha (UMD, USA)
Lino Marques (UCoimbra, Portugal)
Mira Olson (DrexelU, USA)
Derek Paley (UMD, USA)
Edson Prestes (UFRGS, Brazil)
Anindo Roy (UMD, USA)
Selma Šabanović (IU, USA)
Matt Scassero (UMD, USA)
David Tomblin (UMD, USA)
James Tongarra (DrexelU, USA)
Carme Torras (UPC, Spain)
Daniela Tulone (Sense4Green, Italy)

Organizing committee

General Chair Miao Yu (UMD, USA)
Program Co-Chairs Raj Madhavan (UMD, USA) and Mumu Xu (UMD, USA)
Local Arrangements Chair Ania Picard (UMD, USA)

Venue

The conference will be held at the College Park Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, MD, USA.

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to <mrcsymposium@umd.edu>.