IROS 2010 workshop: Semantic Mapping and Autonomous Knowledge Acquisition

IROS 2010 Workshop: Semantic Mapping and Autonomous Knowledge Acquisition

Abstract:

As robots and autonomous systems move away from laboratory setups towards complex real-world scenarios, both the perception capabilities of these systems and their abilities to acquire and model semantic information must become more powerful. For example, a general-purpose service robot collaborating with a human user needs to know human spatial concepts and have an understanding of three-dimensional objects, their use and functional relationships between them. More generally, semantic perception and mapping must become a resource for the robot, which links sensory information to the robot's knowledge base and high-level deliberative components. A key issue is the robot's ability to autonomously acquire and model the perceived semantic information, as well as (exploration) strategies for deciding where and how to acquire such information.

In this full-day workshop we will try to analyze the requirements of such a system, and discuss alternatives for achieving this goal, by bringing together researchers from areas such as Computer Vision, Cognitive Robotics, 3D Mapping, Mobile Manipulation, Machine Learning, Knowledge Representation, Exploration and Decision Theory.

Motivation and objectives:

Semantic perception for intelligent systems such as robots has seen a lot of progress recently, with many new and interesting techniques being developed in parallel by different research groups. To cope with a wide variety of tasks, service robots need to plan in spaces exceeding their local perceptual space. For deployment in human living environments, these robots need to aggregate and model perceived semantic information. A further requirement, for autonomous operation in the long-term, is the ability to acquire and update the necessary information, which involves actively exploring the environment.

A number of previous workshops have brought together researchers working on use of semantic information in a variety of domains including mapping for mobile robots, mobile manipulation, and semantic robot vision. The main focus of this workshop is on the autonomous acquisition of semantic information in intelligent robots and systems, as well as the use of semantic knowledge to guide further acquisition of information from the environment. The workshop will provide a common forum where people can exchange ideas and experiences on all aspects of this problem, and identify the common questions and concerns.

Submissions:

We solicit paper submissions, optionally accompanied by a video, both of which will be reviewed (not double-blind) by the program committee. The review criteria will be: technical quality, significance of system demonstration, and topicality. We aim to accept 9 to 12 papers for oral presentation at the meeting. Papers should be up to 6 pages in length, formatted according to IEEE IROS style. Videos will be shown during an afternoon session open to the public.

Accepted papers and videos will be assembled into proceedings and distributed in CD format at the workshop. If there is sufficient interest, we will pursue publication of a special journal issue to include the best papers.

Topics of interest include, but are not necessary limited to:

Semantic robot vision and scene interpretation for mobile manipulation
Segmentation and annotation of natural scenes (e.g. from images or point clouds)
Exploration strategies for semantic mapping and knowledge acquisition
Semantic approaches for long-term operation in dynamic environments
Ontologies and efficient representations for managing semantic information in robotics
Use of semantic information in mapping (e.g. registration of sensory information) or knowledge acquisition

Email submissions to: iros10wssm@ais.uni-bonn.de. Please do not attach video files to email; include a URL instead.

Important Dates:

Submissions Due: July 23, 2010
Notification of Acceptance: August 1, 2010
Final Papers Due: August 15, 2010
Workshop at IROS: October 22, 2010

Organizers:

Dirk Holz, Autonomous Intelligent Systems Group, University of Bonn

Program Committee:

Francesco Amigoni, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Michael Beetz, Technische Universität München, Germany
Sven Behnke, University of Bonn, Germany
Wolfram Burgard, University of Freiburg, Germany
Dieter Fox, University of Washington, USA
Brian Gerkey, Willow Garage, USA
Joachim Hertzberg, University of Osnabrück, Germany
Patric Jensfelt, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Kurt Konolige, Willow Garage, USA
Jim Little, University of British Columbia, Canada
Eitan Marder-Eppstein, Willow Garage, USA
Bhaskara Marthi, Willow Garage, USA
Daniel Munoz, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Alessandro Saffiotti, Örebro University, Sweden
Markus Vincze, TU Vienna, Austria

Schedule:

08:20 - 08:30	Welcome / Opening remarks (by Organizers)
08:30 - 09:00	Tables, Counters, and Shelves: Semantic Mapping of Surfaces in 3D Alexander J. B. Trevor, John G. Rogers III, Carlos Nieto-Granda, Henrik I. Christensen
09:00 - 09:30	Autonomous Knowledge Acquisition of a Service Robot by Probabilistic Perception Planning Robert Eidenberger
09:30 - 10:00	Invited Talk: Point Cloud Library (PCL) - Let's Solve 3D Processing Building Blocks already! Radu Bogdan Rusu Willow Garage Inc., USA
10:00 - 10:20	Coffee break
10:20 - 10:50	Robust Room-Structure estimation in Manhattan-like Environments from dense 2.5D range data Sven Olufs and Markus Vincze
10:50 - 11:20	Invited Talk: Robots@Home - towards robots in every home Markus Vincze and Sven Olufs Vienna University of Technology, Austria
11:20 - 12:00	Invited Talk: Acting and Interacting in Natural Environments Danica Kragic, Jeannette Bohg, and Matthew Johnson-Roberson Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden
12:00 - 13:40	Lunch break
13:40 - 14:10	A Visual Exploration Algorithm using Semantic Cues that Constructs Image based Hybrid Maps Aravindhan K. Krishnan and K. Madhava Krishna
14:10 - 14:40	Toward an Object-Based Semantic Memory for Long-Term Operation of Mobile Service Robots Feras Dayoub, Tom Duckett and Grzegorz Cielniak
14:40 - 15:20	Invited Talk: Techniques for Object Recognition from Range Data Wolfram Burgard University of Freiburg, Germany
15:20 - 15:40	Coffee break
15:40 - 16:10	Environment Classification and Semantic Grid Map Building Based on Laser Range Finder Data Lei Shi, Sarath Kodagoda, and Gamini Dissanayake
16:10 - 16:40	Semantic Place Classification and Mapping for Autonomous Agricultural Robots Ulrich Weiss and Peter Biber
16:40 - 17:10	Panel discussion
17:10 - 17:20	Closing remarks (by Organizers)