[alife] CFP: IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 2006)

[Chrystopher Nehaniv]

CALL FOR PAPERS

IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication
(RO-MAN 2006)

Theme: Getting to Know Socially Intelligent Robots

6-8 September 2006, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, United Kingdom

Sponsors:
IEEE Industrial Electronics Society
IEEE Systems, Man & Cybernetics Society
IEEE Robotics & Automation Society
The Robotics Society of Japan

Contact:
Web: http://ro-man2006.feis.herts.ac.uk
Email: R.O-Man at herts.ac.uk


Topics and Theme

Human-Robot Interaction and Communication is a quickly growing research area at 
the intersection of research fields such as robotics, engineering, psychology, 
ethology and cognitive science. Significant initiatives are currently underway 
funded by public, academic, governmental as well as industrial initiatives, 
exploring and aiming at advancing this research field and opening up novel and 
challenging applications. Robots moving out of laboratory and manufacturing 
environments face hard problems of perception, action and cognition. For robots 
to be accepted as assistants or companions in people's private homes and 
everyday environments technological solutions do not suffice: The 'human in the 
loop', as the potential customer and user will decide on the ultimate success 
of a 'home robot' as a product. Application areas that heavily involve human 
contact are a particularly challenging domain.

Human societies have easily assimilated new technologies, such as mobile 
phones, but it is less clear in which application areas robots will be 
accepted. Robots as embodied beings, physical, possibly humanoid or android 
entities that share our living environments and accompany our lives will have a 
certain degree of autonomy, initiative, cognitive skills and will communicate 
and interact with people in ways inspired by human-human contact. Interaction 
and communication of embodied physical robots with humans is multi-modal, and 
involves deep issues of social intelligence, communication and interaction that 
have traditionally been studied primarily in psychology and other areas. The 
design of a robot’s behaviour, appearance, and cognitive and social skills is 
highly challenging, and requires interdisciplinary collaborations across the 
traditional boundaries of established disciplines.

IEEE Ro-man 2006 provides a forum for an interdisciplinary exchange for 
researchers dedicated to advancing knowledge in the field of human-robot 
interaction and communication. Importantly, Ro-man has traditionally adopted a 
broad perspective encompassing research issues of human-machine interaction and 
communication in networked media as well as virtual and augmented tele-presence 
environments. Submissions are invited from a variety of research areas that can 
advance our understanding of human-robot interaction and communication, 
including areas of engineering and information sciences as well as psychology, 
social sciences, cognitive science and related areas.

The annual Ro-man International Workshop series originated in 1992, with the 
first workshop held at Hosei University in Japan. Since then, different 
Japanese, European and USA institutions have hosted the workshop. In 2006 IEEE 
Ro-man is a symposium and will be hosted in United Kingdom by the Adaptive 
Systems Research Group at University of Hertfordshire. The event will include 
tutorials, special organized sessions, and distinguished invited keynote 
speakers.

Relevant topics include but are not limited to:

-innovative robot designs for HRI research
-user-centred design of social robots
-novel interfaces and interaction modalities
-long-term experience and longitudinal HRI studies
-evaluation methods and new methodologies for HRI research
-androids
-degrees of autonomy and teleoperation
-human factors and ergonomics in HRI research
-virtual and augmented tele-presence environments
-ethical issues in human-robot interaction research
-robots in education, therapy and rehabilitation
-medical and surgical applications of robots
-robot companions and social robots in home environments
-assistive robotics for supporting the elderly or people with special needs
-applications of social robots in entertainment, service robotics, space travel 
and others
-anthropomorphic robots and virtual humans
-interaction with believable characters
-non-verbal cues and expressiveness in interactions: gesture, posture,
social spaces and facial expressions
-interaction kinesics
-monitoring of behaviour and internal states of human subjects
-robotic etiquette
-social intelligence for robots
-social presence for robots and virtual humans
-creating relationships with robots and humanoids
-personalities for robotic or virtual characters
-embodiment, empathy and intersubjectivity in interaction with robotic
and virtual characters
-motivations and emotions in robots
-curiosity, intentionality and initiative in interaction
-linguistic communication and dialogue with robots and intelligent interfaces
-multimodal interaction and conversational skills
-cognitive and sensori-motor development in robots
-cognitive skills and mental models for social robots
-social learning and skill acquisition via teaching and imitation
-programming by demonstration
-cooperation and collaboration in human-robot teams
-human-robot interaction and collaboration in manufacturing environments
-motion planning and navigation in the vicinity of humans
-machine learning and adaptation in human-robot interaction
-multi-modal situation awareness and spatial cognition
-computational architectures for human-robot interaction
-detecting and understanding human activity
-narrative and story-telling in interaction

Instructions for Authors

Papers reporting original and unpublished work are invited. Submissions should 
include the paper title, names, tel/fax numbers, email and postal addresses of 
all authors, and an abstract on the first page. All submissions should be in 
English (6 pages maximum length in IEEE two-column format). Papers will be 
peer-reviewed according to IEEE standards and selected for oral or poster 
presentations based on their quality, originality, significance, relevance and 
clarity of presentation. The paper submission deadline is 15 March 2006. Final 
camera-ready submissions of accepted papers to be published in the Proceedings 
are due on 10 June 2006.
ONLY ON-LINE SUBMISSIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED (please consult 
http://ro-man2006.feis.herts.ac.uk where updates of the submission procedure 
will be posted)

Tutorials

We are inviting suggestions for half-day tutorials relevant to the themes of 
IEEE Ro-man06 to be held on the first day of the event (6th September 2006). 
Please submit the following information (1-2 pages maximum) to the Programme 
Chairs (K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk and C.L.Nehaniv at herts.ac.uk) as soon as 
possible but no later than 15th February 2006:

-Title of tutorial
-Tutorial speaker(s), including short CVs
-Motivation/Background (half a page)
-Structure/Overview of tutorial including topics covered
-Links and references relevant to the tutorial
-Any other relevant material
If accepted, the submitted material will be used for advertising the tutorial 
as part of IEEE Ro-man06.

Special Sessions

IEEE Ro-man06 is inviting proposals for organized sessions. Please submit the 
following information to the Programme Chairs (K.Dautenhahn at herts.ac.uk and 
C.L.Nehaniv at herts.ac.uk) as soon as possible but no later than 15th February 
2006:

-Organizer(s) of special session
-Proposed theme of special session
-One paragraph motivating the relevance of theme to IEEE Ro-man06
-List of 4-5 proposed contributions, including planned titles of papers, names 
and affiliations of authors, and short abstracts of papers

Double special sessions (8-10 papers) will also be considered but should be 
discussed with the programme chairs. If accepted, the organizers of the special 
session are responsible for high-quality peer-review of the submitted papers 
according to IEEE standards (2-3 anonymous peer-reviews, using the ROMAN 2006 
review criteria plus any additional criteria particular to the special 
session). Additional reviewers will be acknowledged in the proceedings.

Important Dates

15 February 2006 Deadline for proposals for organized special sessions and 
tutorials
25 February 2006 Notification for organized special sessions and tutorials
15 March 2006 Submission of full-length papers due
10 May 2006 Notification for paper submissions
10 June 2006 Submission of camera-ready final papers
6-8 September 2006 IEEE Ro-man Symposium

Organizing Committee

Conference Chair:

Kerstin Dautenhahn (University of Hertfordshire, UK)

Programme Chairs:

Kerstin Dautenhahn (University of Hertfordshire, UK)
Chrystopher Nehaniv (University of Hertfordshire, UK)

Treasurer:

Bob Guscott (University of Hertfordshire, UK)

Student Programme Chair:

René te Boekhorst (University of Hertfordshire, UK)

Publicity Chairs:

Guido Bugmann (University of Plymouth, UK)
Terry Fong (NASA Ames Research Center, USA)

Local Arrangements Chair:

Bob Guscott (University of Hertfordshire, UK)

Publications Chairs:

Lola Cañamero (University of Hertfordshire, UK)
David Lee (University of Hertfordshire, UK)

Secretariat:

R.O-Man.herts.ac.uk

Webmaster:

Mike Blow (University of Hertfordshire, UK)

Programme Committee

Ana Paiva (INESC, Portugal)
Aude Billard (EPFL, Switzerland)
Ben J.A. Kröse (UvA, The Netherlands)
Catherine Pelachaud (Université de Paris 8, France)
Elisabeth André (University of Augsburg, Germany)
Erwin Prassler (B-IT and Fraunhofer Institute, Germany)
François Michaud (University of Sherbrooke, Canada)
Frederic Kaplan (Sony CSL, France)
Gernot Kronreif (ARCS, Austria)
Giorgio Metta (University of Genova, Italy)
Giulio Sandini (University of Genova, Italy)
Guido Bugmann (University of Plymouth, UK)
Henrik I Christensen (KTH, Sweden)
Hideki Kozima (Communications Research Laboratory, Japan)
Hiroshi Ishiguro (Osaka University and ATR, Japan)
Hisato Kobayashi (Hosei University Research Institute, Japan)
Karl F. MacDorman (Indiana University, USA)
Kazuhiko Kawamura (Vanderbilt University, USA)
Kerstin Severinson Eklundh (KTH, Sweden)
Lola Cañamero (University of Hertfordshire, UK)
Lynne Hall (University of Sunderland, UK)
Marge Skubic (University of Missouri-Columbia, USA)
Naoyuki Kubota (Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan)
Nilanjan Sarkar (Vanderbilt University, USA)
Patrizia Marti (University of Siena, Italy)
Peter Kahn (University of Washington, USA)
Peter Wallis (Sheffield University, UK)
Rachid Alami (LAAS, France)
René te Boekhorst (University of Hertfordshire, UK)
Ruth Aylett (Heriot-Watt University,UK)
Sara Kiesler (CMU, USA)
Stacy Marsella (USC-ISI, USA)
Stephen J. Cowley (University of Hertfordshire, UK)
Takanori Shibata (AIST, Japan)
Takayuki Kanda (ATR, Japan)
Tatsuya Nomura (Ryukoku University and ATR, Japan)
Terry Fong (NASA Ames Research Center, USA)
Toyoaki Nishida (Kyoto University, Japan)
Yiannis Demiris (Imperial College, UK)
Yoshihiro Miyake (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan)