Introduction
Recent developments in industrial and assistive robotics foresee an ever-increasing tendency to operate robotic manipulators in complex unmodeled environments. Such applications require safe and proficient operation in any kind of environment, far from the idea of a ‘fixed manipulation station’ that can be commonly found in industrial settings. However, to operate in highly unpredictable scenarios, robots should be fully aware of physical and geometrical properties of the environment, including human presence.
The complementary exploitation of distributed tactile and proximity sensors represents a promising solution to address the described problem, since they allow a robot to gather information both on physical contacts and surrounding space.
In this workshop we will investigate some of the latest advances in large-area multimodal sensing architectures. The discussion on their involvment in complex manipulation tasks will be supported by industry representatives. Also, we will investigate possible challenges and novel potential research questions.
Objectives
In this workshop, we plan to bring the discussion on distributed sensing systems toward the fusion of touch and proximity, spreading the awareness on real industrial use cases that can benefit enormously from the two integrated sensing modalities.
In more details, the workshop's major objectives are the following:
To analyze specific real-world applications in unstructured environments and discuss sensor-based solutions which embed tactile and proximity sensing
To evaluate and discuss current state-of-the-art solutions for distributed tactile and proximity sensing architectures, with a particular focus on (but not limited to) robotic manipulation
To present the goals and contents of the SestoSenso Horizon Europe project to the Robotics & Automation community
To stimulate interaction between research groups focused on single-modality distributed sensors (i.e. tactile-only, proximity-only), possibly paving the way for collaborations leading to multi-modal integration
To encourage communication between researchers and industry representatives, opening a discussion on both current and future applications, defining engineering problems related to system integration level and analyzing viable solutions
Challenges
The following topics and related challenges will be addressed through talks and panel discussions:
Industrial robotics applications in unmodeled environments
Large-area tactile and proximity sensing technologies and their integration
Methodologies for multi-sensor data acquisition and networking
Proxy-tactile fusion for Human-Robot Interaction and Safety challenges
Algorithms for human intention understanding
Certification challenges in industrial applications of proximity and tactile sensors
Cross-modal Proxy-Tactile data generation
Proxy-Tactile reactive robot control
Multi-sensor environment representation techniques
Exploration of unmodeled environments with tactile and proximity sensing
Proxy-Tactile algorithms for planning-under-uncertainty
Invited Speakers
Confirmed speakers are listed below:
Jelizaveta Konstantinova
OCADO Technology
Martin Laurenzis
ISL (French-German Research Institute of Saint-Louis)
Peter Andersson-Erssman
RISE (Research Institutes of Sweden)
Mohsen Kaboli
RoboTac Lab, BMW Group
Sylvain Calinon
IDIAP Research Institute
Lorenzo Natale
IIT (Italian Institute of Technology)
Marco Camurri
UNIBZ (University of Bolzano)
Workshop Format
This workshop will be held in a hybrid format: Onsite (Yokohama, Japan) and Online. (see here for a glance at the program)
We plan to avoid invited talk-oriented WS style, where common participants hardly have time to join discussions with speakers due to lengthy talks, by planning reasonable timing for talks and focusing on fostering poster sessions (or breakout sessions on Online meeting tool) and panel discussions. Details can be found below:
The invited talks will be limited to a maximum of 15 mins (10 mins talk + 5 mins Q&A). Speakers will be required to shortly summarize their results, while also indicating vision or discussion points facilitating interactions with the participants;
Invited talks will be interspersed by panel discussions involving all the participants. Topics for discussion will be suggested by invited speakers during their presentations and Q&A;
Posters will be called in advance to promote the interactive session. We will encourage invited speakers to send their students/colleagues to the presenting posters at the interactive session. Before the poster session, a quick teaser session will allow contributors to summarize their work with a single slide
Whoever is interested to present a contribution to this workshop can submit a contribution
Important Dates
Deadline for poster submission: 15th, April
Notification of acceptance: A notification will be given on a rolling basis within the 14 days of submission
