Call for Papers

Accepted Papers for the AQ²UASIM Workshop at ICRA 2025

We’re pleased to announce the following accepted contributions to the AQ²UASIM workshop, covering a wide range of topics from reinforcement learning platforms to high-fidelity simulation frameworks and novel sensing modalities. These papers exemplify the state of the art in marine robotics simulation and bridging the sim-to-real gap. Congratulations!

1. MarineGym: A High-Performance Reinforcement Learning Platform for Underwater Robotics — Shuguang Chu; Zebin Huang; Yutong Li; Mingwei Lin; Dejun Li; Ignacio Carlucho; Yvan Petillot; Canjun Yang
   
   

2. OceanSim: A GPU-Accelerated Underwater Robot Perception Simulation Framework — Jingyu Song; Haoyu Ma; Onur Bagoren; Advaith Sethuraman; Yiting Zhang; Katherine A. Skinner
   
   

3. A Robot Simulation Environment for Virtual Reality Enhanced Underwater Manipulation and Seabed Intervention Tasks — Sumey El-Mufti; Berke Gür
   
   

4. DeepSonar: AI-Assisted Synthetic Sonar Data Generation — Puneeth Sarma; Aadi Palnitkar; Arjun Suresh; E. Baker Herrin; Jane Shin; Yiannis Aloimonos; Xiaomin Lin
   
   

5. An Underwater Action Dataset for Scuba Gesture Recognition in Human-Machine Teaming — Baker Herrin; Zi-Hao Zhang; Puneeth Sarma; Xiaomin Lin; Jane Shin
   
   

6. AquaSim: A Unity3D-Based Framework for Multimodal Underwater Simulation in Computer Vision Research — Zeyu Chen; Jingyi Tang; Kunyi Li; Gu Wang; Xiu Li
   
   

7. SOLAQUA: SINTEF Ocean Large Aquaculture Robotics Dataset — Sveinung Johan Ohrem; Bent Haugaløkken; Eleni Kelasidi
   
   

8. Volans: a Physics Simulator for Evaluating UUV and USV Autonomy at Scale — Mark Moll
   
   

9. Tethered Multi-Robot Systems in Marine Environments — Markus Buchholz; Ignacio Carlucho; Michele Grimaldi; Yvan Petillot
   
   

10. A Preview of HoloOcean 2.0 — Blake Romrell; Abigail Austin; Braden Meyers; Ryan Anderson; Carter Noh; Joshua Mangelson
    
    

11. A Unified Framework for Simulating Strongly-Coupled Fluid-Robot Multiphysics — Jeong Hun Lee; Junzhe Hu; Sofia Kwok; Carmel Majidi; Zachary Manchester
    
    

12. Real-Time Buoyancy Estimation for AUV Simulations Using Convex Hull-Based Submerged Volume Calculation — Ad-Deen Mahbub; Md Ragib Shaharear
    
    

13. Toward Standard Interfaces for High-Level Autonomy Simulation with MOOS-IvP — Mathew Schwartzman
    
    

14. A Numerical Modeling Framework for Batoid Fish Robots with Two-Phase Flow and Physics-Informed Neural Networks — Justin Conzola; Vishesh Vikas
    
    

15. EREBUS: End-to-End Robust Event-Based Underwater Simulation — Hitesh Kyatham; Arjun Suresh; Aadi Palnitkar; Yiannis Aloimonos; Xiaomin Lin
    
    

16. Sim-to-Real Evaluation of Scanning and Multibeam Sonar for Object Detection in Underwater Environments — Huy Huynh; Paul Robinette
    
    

17. Benchmarking and Training Simulation Frameworks for USV Navigation in Congested and Disturbance-Filled Environments — Xi Lin; Brendan Englot
    
    

18. Learning to Dock: Learning-Based 6-DOF Docking Control of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Under Varying Payloads — Kevin Chang; Rakesh Vivekanadan; Noah Pragin; Sean Bullock; Geoffrey Hollinger
    
    

19. AAM-SEALS: Developing Aerial-Aquatic Manipulators in Sea, Air, and Land Simulator — William Yang; Karthikeya Kona; Yashveer Jain; Tomer Atzili; Abhinav Bhamidipati; Xiaomin Lin; Yantian Zha
    
    

20. UnrealAquaSim: A High-Fidelity Underwater Simulation Framework Using Unreal Engine 5 and ROS2 — Christian Meurer; Niklas Stockfisch; Maurice Zerreßen; Ralf Bachmayer
    
    

21. An Evaluation of Koopman Algorithms for Modelling of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles — Yang Yang; Sümer Tunçay; Ignacio Carlucho

 — Fast tracked papers —

22. Underwater Multi-Robot Simulation and Motion Planning in Angler — Akshaya Agrawal, Evan Palmer, Zachary Kingston, Geoffrey A. Hollinger

23. Stonefish: Supporting machine learning research in marine robotics — Grimaldi, Michele, Patryk Cieslak, Eduardo Ochoa, Vibhav Bharti, Hayat Rajani, Ignacio Carlucho, Maria Koskinopoulou, Yvan R. Petillot, and Nuno Gracias. 

24. Learning to Swim: Reinforcement Learning for 6-DOF Control of Thruster-driven Autonomous Underwater Vehicles —  Levi Cai, Kevin Chang , and Yogesh Girdhar

25. 3DSSDF: Underwater 3D Sonar Reconstruction Using Signed Distance Functions —  Simon Archieri, Juliette Drupt, Ahmet Cinar, Michele Grimaldi, Ignacio Carlucho, Jonatan Scharff, Yvan R Petillot
    
    

                                — Demos —

26. OpenMAUVe: an Open-Source Modelica-Based Simulator for Multibody Underwater Vehicle Dynamics – Demo — Davide Grande; Stefano Farì; Gianluca Corsini; Andrea Grech La Rosa; Tom Smith; Rachel Pawling; Giles Thomas

We are happy to invite you to our workshop AQ²UASIM: Advancing Quantitative and QUAlitative SIMulators for marine applications, to be held at ICRA 2025

Underwater robotics is a less developed field due to high-entry barriers, including the need for costly equipment and specialized facilities such as pools or access to seas and lakes for testing. These factors make engaging in underwater robotics difficult for many research institutions.

With this workshop, we aim to familiarize participants with existing simulators and explore areas for future research and development to enhance these tools, ensuring they better meet the evolving needs of industry and academia. 

Furthermore, we aim to highlight the role of simulation systems in overcoming these challenges, enabling researchers and industry leaders to design, test, and optimize control strategies, autonomy and software architectures in a cost-effective, risk-free environment. By advocating for the use of realistic, open-source simulators, we aim to lower these barriers, allowing more institutions to participate in underwater robotics research

This workshop is planned to be in-person mode. Our wokshop has two submission deadlines: 

    1st Round

Submission Deadline: 5th of March 2025 (AoE)

Notifications: 15th of March 2025

2nd Round

Submission Deadline: 1st of April 2025 (AoE)

Notifications: 15th of April 2025

Workshop: 23/05/2025

Both deadlines are identical. If you submit a paper on deadline 1 or deadline 2, we will treat it the same way. We split our submission into two deadlines mostly thinking of people that needed to secure a visa and need to make travel arrangements with time. That way they could apply to the first deadline early on, get notification on their paper and apply to the visa with sufficient time. 

*Important* if your paper was accepted to ICRA'25 we provide a fast track option to authors that want to participate in the workshop. Using this option means that your paper will be accepted automatically to the workshop, however, it will not be considered for the best paper prize. To use this option email us your accepted paper with proof of acceptance at ignacio.carlucho@hw.ac.uk.

We invite researchers to submit work that advances marine robotics, underwater applications, and realistic simulation environments. While our main focus is simulation, we also welcome contributions that inform or enhance simulation development—especially those that help bridge the gap between simulation and real-world performance. Authors are encouraged to describe their research pipelines, including how and where their methods are tested (e.g., in simulation, field trials, or hybrid approaches), and to demonstrate relevance to practical marine or underwater applications.

Relevant topics include (but are not limited to):

• - Practical solutions for ocean exploration, aquaculture, or environmental projects

• - Underwater manipulation and intervention

• - Sonar, computer vision, and hybrid sensing technologies

• - SLAM and navigation strategies for marine environments

• - Artificial intelligence or machine learning to reduce the sim-to-real gap

• - Novel simulation techniques for underwater robotics (e.g., multibody dynamics, fluid-structure interactions)

• - Open-source datasets, tools, and frameworks for marine robotics

Submission Guidelines

We accept long papers (6 pages + references) and short pages (2 pages), presenting mature or early preliminary work. The submission website is: https://easychair.org/cfp/AQ2UASIM

To recognize outstanding contributions, we will present a Best Paper Award. The winner will be awarded a prize of 300USD, and will be selected by an independent committee based on technical merit. We thank IEEE RAS Computer & Robot Vision technical committee. All accepted papers will be made available on the workshop's website.

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