Workshop on the Autonomous Design of Robots at ICRA 2018

This workshop focuses on technologies that allow robots to be designed by software.  This workshop aims to generate discussion into the design of bespoke task-sensitive and environmentally-specialized robotic systems potentially comprised of advanced and bespoke materials, that are poised to provide superior performance compared to currently-available robotic systems. In such an approach, robots may optimize their hardware (morphologies, sensor/actuator configurations), the materials they are made from (including discovery and characterization of such materials), and software (controllers).  In each case, the onus is on techniques that automatically create robots, or robot components, with minimal human intervention. Such an approach is becoming increasingly feasible, due to the rapidly-advancing push in materials technologies, including Additive Manufacture & high-throughput materials characterization.

We are proud to be supported by the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Mechanisms and Design http://www.ieee-ras.org/mechanisms-and-design. 

Please see the full workshop website here: https://sites.google.com/view/icraws-adr/

Submission Guidelines

We seek participation from diverse fields, including robotics, mechatronics, materials characterization, structural design, and controller optimization, to overview the current state of the art, and to propose new directions.  Submissions will be judged on novelty, scientific contribution, clarity, and relevance.   

We welcome submissions of between 1 and 4 pages (extended abstracts or full papers) in the double-column IEEE ICRA format in the following areas. 

• Automatic generation of bodies and controllers
• Evolutionary approaches, including body/brain coevolution, evo-devo, genotype-phenotype maps
• 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.   All submissions must be original and not previously or simultaneously submitted to another venue. 

Please email all submissions directly to david.howard@csiro.au  

Publication

All accepted presentations will be made available on the workshop website and Arxiv. After the workshop, selected authors will be invited to extend their work for submission to a special issue of the Springer Evolutionary Intelligence journal on The Autonomous Design of Robots.

Invited Speakers

We are proud to announce a list of internationally recognized speakers from evolutionary robotics, materials science, and additive manufacture.

• Gusz Eiben: The triangle of life and the evolution of things.

• Josh Auerbach: How much complexity is enough for robot body design?

• Dave Winkler: Discovering, characterizing, and synthesizing materials for robots.

• Jean-Baptiste Mouret: Illuminating the design space of shapes and behaviors with quality diversity algorithms.

• Jared Donovan: Design Robotics - using robots to design robots.

• Stephane Doncieux: Towards creative robots

• Kyrre Glette: Automatic design of bodies and behaviors for real-world robots

Venue

This workshop will be held as part of ICRA 2018 https://icra2018.org/ on the 21st-25th of May 2018 in the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre in Brisbane, Australia.  The workshop will be held on the 21st May in the afternoon session.

Organizing Committee

• David Howard, CSIRO Robotics Group, Australia.  David is a research scientist specializing in evolutionary robotics and cognitive systems, who leads cluster of projects around Autonomous Design, funded through CSIRO's Future Science Platform initiative.
• Joshua Auerbach, Champlain College, USA. Joshua is an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Computer Science and Innovation at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont, USA and also lead developer of the RoboGen open source robotics platform. His research is centered around building artificial systems inspired by neuroscience, evolution, and other biological processes. 
• Jonathan Roberts (Senior RAS member), Queensland University of Technology, Australia.  Jonathan is a Professor in Robotics at Queensland University of Technology and is a Chief Investigator of the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision. Jonathan works with colleagues from the School of Design and industrial partners on projects in the Design Robotics area.

Contact

All questions should be emailed to david.howard@csiro.au