Robotic Wireless Networks Workshop

Call for Submissions

Important Dates

Paper contributions due: April 15, 2017 (extended)
Notification of acceptance: May 1, 2017 (extended)
Camera ready submission: May 15, 2017 (extended)
Workshop date: June 12, 2017

Accepted papers will be published on IEEE Xplore.
 

Scope

We are entering an age of unprecedented access to information, where transformational methodologies are demonstrating a clear vision of a robotics-driven future. Autonomous driving, industrial automation, environmental monitoring, agricultural autonomy, assistive rehabilitation, and disaster recovery are but a few areas currently experiencing evolution through robotic intervention. The key problems that must be solved in shaping such a future lie at the intersection of decision-making, information optimization, sensing, mobility, and ultimately, collaboration. It is quite unlikely that robots sensing and acting on vast streams of spatially localized information, on large scales and with predictable coherence, will be possible without sound inter-robot and human-robot interaction.

Wireless communication is of course the most natural mode of interaction in robotic networks. Indeed, next generation cellular networks will enable coordination across a broad range of mobile devices and cloud resources, and in particular, heterogeneous robotic platforms. Future-looking scenarios often involve large teams or swarms of robots coordinating to achieve complex mission objectives in dynamic environments. To support such a vision, the communication component must provide highly reliable, delay-tolerant, and high-throughput links for both command and control, and data offload. At the same time, mobile robotic platforms, such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), offer the capability to form ad-hoc wireless networks, for example to facilitate operations in remote environments (such as in search and rescue), or to act as temporary communication infrastructure in disaster or public emergency situations. In order to fulfill the potential of robotics, we must explore ways to overcome the significant complexities posed at the intersection of robotic system deployment and wireless communication.

The Robotic Wireless Networks workshop aims to solicit contributions and promote discussion on the novel algorithms and models, protocols and architectures, methodological studies, and experimental paradigms that will drive wireless interconnectivity in future autonomous robotic systems. In particular, contributions focused on communication-driven cooperative motion control, dynamic communication performance guarantees in stochastic settings, technologies for high-throughput line-of-sight communication for agile mobile robots, on-demand wireless connectivity with aerial robots, and robotic wireless networks operating in harsh, potentially adversarial environments are encouraged.


In line with such objectives, original contributions are solicited in topics of interest including, but not limited to, the following:

  • ●  Communication architectures and protocols for autonomous robots

  • ●  Ad-hoc networking, routing, handover and meshing

  • ●  Sampling-based techniques for online channel estimation

  • ●  Algorithms for communication-driven motion control

  • ●  Characterization of impact of communication loss on robot stability and control

  • ●  Co-optimization of robot control and communication objectives

  • ●  Novel sensing techniques and/or algorithms for communication-aware robots

  • ●  Task, context, and energy aware spectrum access for robotic teams

  • ●  Stochastic wireless performance guarantees in dynamic environments

  • ●  Emerging line-of-sight technologies for robot-to-robot communication

  • ●  5G communication for autonomous robots

  • ●  On-demand wireless connectivity via aerial robotic teams

  • ●  Security in robotic wireless networks

  • ●  Robotic wireless network testbeds

  • ●  Applications in novel environments

  • ●  Experimental outcomes

All accepted papers will be published by the IEEE Computer Society Conference Publishing Services and IEEE Xplore Digital Library.

Submission Instructions

Prospective authors are invited to submit original technical paper by the deadline of 31st March 2017. Submissions will be accepted through EDAS (submission link is coming soon). All submissions must be written in English and be at most six (6) printed pages in length, including figures.

All papers must be submitted via the EDAS submission site
 

TPC Co-Chairs

Stephanie Gil, MIT, USA
Ryan K. Williams, Virginia Tech, USA