15th International Workshop on Field and Asssistive Robotics (WFAR-15)

1. Mission

The 15^th International Workshop on Field and Assistive Robotics (WFAR-15) is scheduled on 13 Oct, 2018. The one day event will be organized by a consortium of universities. The workshop will unfold new and exciting horizons of research in the field of Robotics. We shall have speakers from Pakistan and outside. Experts from the field of Agriculture, Food Security and Water Efficiency among Government, Industry and Academia will be invited to share their work. A Robotic Project Competition and a Research Poster competition will be held during the workshop.

2. History

WFAR is a long series of events initiated with the 1st Pak-German Workshop on Field Robotics held in October 2011 in Lahore, followed by the 2nd German-Pakistani Workshop on Field and Assistive Robotics held in June 2012 in Dagstuhl, Germany. The 3rd Workshop on Field and Assistive Robotics was held in November 2012 in Lahore, followed by the 4th Workshop on Field and Assistive Robotics held in June 2013 in Dagstuhl, Germany. The 5th Workshop on Field and Assistive Robots was held in November 2013 at LUMS and the 6th Workshop was held in June 2014 in Germany. The 7th Workshop was held on Oct 18-19 2014 at FAST National University. The 8th workshop was held on July 30-31, 2015 in Dagstuhl Germany. 9^th workshop was held in FAST-NU, Lahore on 30 Oct-1 Nov, 2015. WFAR-10 took place on July 7-8, 2015 in Dagstuhl Germany. The WFAR-11 Workshop was held at University of Central Punjab Lahore on Oct 13-15, 2016. Finally WFAR-14 Workshop will be held in Kaiserslautern Germany in July 2018.

3. Planned Activities:

• Tutorials on basics of Robotics for students
• Invited Talks by international and national experts in the field
• Poster Competition by people doing research in robotics
• Robotic Competition among universities

Following the concept from previous events, this event will cover a diverse range of related topics, such as agricultural robotics, robots for security, robotics for assisted living, sustainable robotics; motion planning algorithms; biomimetic robotic mechanisms; robotics in society; and other issues associated with the development of autonomous robots. It will feature research presentations, invited talks, a robotics competition and a poster competition by researchers in field of robotics from universities and industry in Germany and Pakistan. It will also provide an opportunity for robotics researchers in Pakistan and Germany to exchange ideas and develop new collaborations in this emerging area.

4. Target Audience

The target audience of the workshop are faculty and students of Pakistan. Universities have the capability of advancing the country in the field of Robotics and hence this sector is the primary focus of the workshop. Another target of the workshop is to display the output of universities to the industry so that the industry can also pick up projects from universities and convert them into Products.