CogRob 2014
The 9th International Workshop on
Cognitive Robotics
An ECAI-2014 Workshop
August 18-19, 2014, Prague, Czech Republic

Research in robotics has traditionally emphasized low-level sensing and control tasks including sensory processing, path planning, and manipulator design and control. In contrast, research in cognitive robotics is concerned with endowing robots and software agents with higher level cognitive functions that enable them to reason, act and perceive in changing, incompletely known, and unpredictable environments. Such robots must, for example, be able to reason about goals, actions, when to perceive and what to look for, the cognitive states of other agents, time, collaborative task execution, etc. In short, cognitive robotics is concerned with integrating reasoning, perception and action with a uniform theoretical and implementation framework.

The use of both software robots (softbots) and robotic artifacts in everyday life is on the upswing and we are seeing increasingly more examples of their use in society with commercial products around the corner and some already on the market. As interaction with humans increases, so does the demand for sophisticated robotic capabilities associated with deliberation and high-level cognitive functions. Combining results from the traditional robotics discipline with those from AI and cognitive science has and will continue to be central to research in cognitive robotics.

This workshop aims to bring together researchers involved in all aspects of the theory and implementation of cognitive robots, to discuss current work and future directions. The workshop is concerned with foundational research questions on cognitive robotics, as well as robotic system design and robotic applications that utilize AI methods.

Program

Monday Aug 18

9:00-10:00Collaborative Unmanned Aircraft Systems
Patrick Doherty, Linköping University, Sweden
10:00-10:30ExpCog: Experiments in Commonsense Cognitive Robotics
Manfred Eppe, Mehul Bhatt, Jakob Suchan and Brian Tietzen
10:30-11:00Coffee break
11:00-11:30An Experimental Comparison of Classical, FOND and Probabilistic Planning
Andreas Hertle, Christian Dornhege, Thomas Keller, Robert Mattmueller, Manuela Ortlieb and Bernhard Nebel
11:30-12:00Sensor Fusion in the Epistemic Situation Calculus
Christoph Schwering, Tim Niemueller, Gerhard Lakemeyer, Nichola Abdo and Wolfram Burgard
12:00-12:30Find Out Why Reading This Paper is an Opportunity of Type Opp0
Jasmin Grosinger, Federico Pecora and Alessandro Saffiotti
12:30-14:00Lunch break
14:00-15:00Robotic Models of the Cultural Evolution of Natural Language Semantics
Michael Spranger, Sony CSL, Japan
15:00-15:30PREGO: An Action Language for Belief-Based Cognitive Robotics in Continuous Domains
Vaishak Belle and Hector Levesque
15:30-16:00Coffee break
16:00-17:00Learning Modular Control Policies in Robotics
Gerhard Neumann, TU Darmstadt, Germany
17:00-17:10A MCS-based methodology for computing coalitions in Multirobot Systems
Antonis Bikakis and Patrice Caire
17:10-17:20Improving Planner Performance in Grid Worlds with Macro Actions
Matthew Crosby and Ronald Petrick
17:20-17:30Semantic Perception using Spatial Potential Fields
Malgorzata Goldhoorn and Ronny Hartanto

Tuesday Aug 19

Wolfram Burgard, University of Freiburg, Germany
9:00-10:00Embodied Object Recognition
Markus Vincze, TU Wien, Austria
10:00-10:30Scene Interpretation for Lifelong Robot Learning
Mustafa Ersen, Melodi Deniz Ozturk, Mehmet Biberci, Sanem Sariel and Hulya Yalcin
10:30-11:00Coffee break
11:00-11:30Mobile Robot Object Recognition through the Synergy of Probabilistic Graphical Models and Semantic Knowledge
Jose Raul Ruiz Sarmiento, C. Galindo and J. Gonzalez-Jimenez
11:30-12:00Hybrid Reasoning for Geometric Rearrangement of Multiple Movable Objects on Cluttered Surfaces
Giray Havur, Guchan Ozbilgin, Esra Erdem and Volkan Patoglu
12:00-12:30Knowledge-Aware Execution of Programs in IndiGolog
Clemens Muehlbacher and Gerald Steinbauer
12:30-14:00Lunch break
14:00-15:00Qualitative Spatial Reasoning for Cognitive Robotics
Jochen Renz, The Australian National University, Australia
15:00-15:30Too Cool for School - Adding Social Constraints in Human Aware Planning
Stevan Tomic, Federico Pecora and Alessandro Saffiotti
15:30-16:00Coffee break
16:00-17:00Techniques for Object Detection from 3D Range Data
17:00-17:30Conclusions Esra Erdem and Fredrik Heintz

Invited speakers

Accepted Papers

Accepted Short Papers

Topics

We invite submissions of research papers from all researchers and practitioners interested in AI and robotics, and their integration.

Topics of interests include (but are not limited to):

We especially welcome discussions and demonstrations of robotic applications and implemented robotic systems that utilize AI methods.

Format

This will be a two-day workshop with several sessions including presentations of research papers, position papers, and posters. The workshop will also include discussion panels and a session for live system demonstrations, providing an opportunity to showcase and discuss emerging technologies.

Important dates

Submission Instructions

Potential participants are invited to submit either

All papers will be presented during the workshop.

We are actively working towards making a special issue on Cognitive Robotics in a suitable journal. Papers accepted to CogRob will get invited to submit extended versions to the special issue.

Papers accepted at the main ECAI conference (technical sessions) should not be submitted to the workshop unless they are substantially extended or revised; in that case the submission should state how the final version will differ from the ECAI paper.

Submissions are accepted in PDF format only, using the ECAI formatting guidelines at http://ecai2014.guarant.eu/ecai2014.tar.gz.

Author names should be included.

Regular papers must not exceed six (6) and short papers must not exceed two (2) pages, excluding references and appendices. Over-length submissions will be rejected without review.

Papers must be submitted by the due date at the following EasyChair submission site: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cogrob2014

Organising Committee

Programme Committee

Steering Committee

Sponsors

CogRob 2014 is generously supported by the AI Journal.

Previous Workshops

First International Cognitive Robotics Workshop (Orlando, Florida), held as part of the AAAI Fall Symposium 1998
Second International Cognitive Robotics Workshop (Berlin, Germany), held in conjunction with ECAI-2000
Third International Cognitive Robotics Workshop (Edmonoton, Canada); held in conjuncion with AAAI-2002
Fourth International Cognitive Robotics Workshop (Valencia, Spain); held in conjunction with ECAI-2004
Fifth International Cognitive Robotics Workshop (Boston, Massachusetts); held in conjunction with AAAI-2006 (http://oldias.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/research/ias/events/cogrob06/)
Sixth International Cognitive Robotics Workshop (Patras, Greece); held in conjunction with ECAI-2008 (http://www.cse.yorku.ca/cogrob08/)
Seventh International Cognitive Robotics Workshop (Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany), 2010 (http://www.dagstuhl.de/en/program/calendar/semhp/?semnr=10081)
Eight International Cognitive Robotics Workshop (Toronto, Canada), 2012 (http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cogrob/2012/)