TAROS 2013

TAROS (Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems) is aimed at the presentation and discussion of the latest results and methods in autonomous robotics research and applications. TAROS offers a friendly environment for robotics researchers and industry to take stock and plan future progress.

TAROS is a platform for robotics researchers with a wide range of interests from the UK, Europe and worldwide. TAROS welcomes paper submissions on a wide range of topics related to the principles and practice of robotics. The TAROS conferences have been annual since 2003 and lead on from the bi-annual TIMR workshop before that.

TAROS 2013 invites both full papers and extended abstracts. The proceedings will be published in the Springer Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence series. All contributions will be refereed. Full papers are invited from researchers at any stage in their career but should present significant findings and advances in robotics research; more preliminary work would be better suited to extended abstract submission. Full papers (up to 12 pages in LNCS format) will be accepted for either oral presentation (single track) or poster presentation. Extended abstracts will be accepted for poster presentation only.

TAROS welcomes senior researchers and research students alike, and specifically provides opportunities for research students and young research scientists to present their work to the scientific community. As in previous years, all accepted papers will be included in the printed proceedings. Authors of selected papers will be invited to submit extended versions to a companion journal issue of Robotics and Autonomous Systems (TAROS-11 RAS special issue, TAROS-09 RAS special issue).

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) are sponsoring an invited public lecture (Prof. Paul Newman, University of Oxford), Springer have agreed to sponsor the best paper prize, and the British Automation and Robot Association (BARA) are sponsoring the TAROS industry day (30th August) in conjunction with the BARA Academic Forum for Robotics (AFR).

Claudia and Henrietta Nehmzow have given a prize for best student paper at TAROS 2013 in memory of the late Prof. Ulrich Nehmzow (1961–2010), a founder and leading light of the TAROS conference series.

Keynote Speakers include:
Prof. John Hallam, The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute, Odense, Denmark.
Prof. Paul Newman, Head of Mobile Robotics Group, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Dr. Arnoud Visser, Intelligent Autonomous Systems Group, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The TAROS conference presentations will take place on the 28–29th August. The industry day on the 30th will focus on the forthcoming Horizon 2020 research call, with speakers from the EU and industry.

Submissions of papers are invited in, but not limited to, the following topics and related areas:

• Advanced applications of autonomous robots (industrial and research)
• Advanced materials and techniques
• Advanced medical robotics, robots for surgery, assistive robotics, Service robotics
• Applications development, hardware issues, devices and techniques, advanced sensors and actuators
• Autonomous assembly robotics, Autonomous vehicles
• Bio-mimetic and bio-inspired robotics, Bio-hybrid robotic systems, Evolutionary robotics
• Cognitive robotics, Developmental robotics, Personal robotics, Robot communication and language
• Ethical and societal issues in robotics, Robots in education, the arts and entertainment
• Aerial robots (unmanned- and micro- air vehicles), Space and planetary robotics
• Humanoid robotics, Human-Robot interaction and interfaces, Legged robots
• Safety, Verification and Validation for Robotic Applications
• Swarm robotics, Collective robots, Field robotics
• Learning and adaptation, Long-term interaction and operation, Intelligent prostheses
• Modelling and analysis of robot models, Modular reconfigurable robots
• Navigation, localization, map building and path planning, Analysis of robot-environment interaction
• Robot autonomy including energy self-sufficiency, Robot control architectures, Robot vision, sensing and perception

Contact: organiser@taros.org.uk