The 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2016) began yesterday in Daejeon, Korea. It will run until Friday October 14, 2016.
The IROS Conferences are annual events that began in 1988 in Tokyo and have grown into one of the largest robot conferences in the world.
The event will be held at the Daejeon Convention Center (DCC) – at the heart of Daejeon’s Daedeok Valley – also referred to as “Korea’s Silicon Valley.” The conference will integrate workshops and tutorials, plenaries, mini-plenaries, special sessions, more than 40 exhibitions from the world, as well as robot demonstrations and competitions.
The world-wide robotics community will gather at this event to talk shop, so to speak. The participants will have the opportunity to share their ideas on technological and scientific ways to push the boundaries of what robots are capable of and ways to circumvent key hindrances to the robots’ development, as well as to discuss their applications. This year, the focus of the talks will be on Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Systems (such as driverless vehicles), and Medical Robots. Already, dependence on technology in these fields have progressed to the point of no return; the resolutions made at this conference are likely to have a profound ripple effect on the lives of almost everyone on this planet. As such, this conference is not merely concerned with the technicalities of robotics; it is meant to stimulate and inspire the robotics community to build more intelligent systems that will enhance the development and prosperity of all nations.
The breadth of the meetings is staggering. Of 1719 papers submitted from 57 countries, 832 papers and 36 workshops and tutorials were accepted. The overwhelming number of submissions represents the intense interest in robotics not only in academia, but in industry and society as a whole. Because the idea of robots is still an emotive one in society, part of the challenge for experts is to provide a measured response to criticisms that scientists are setting the dystopian stage for “Terminator-like machines,” according to Gill Pratt of the Toyota Research Institute. Referring to the dystopian future inhabited by uncontrolled robots, Dr. Pratt is reassuring. “There’s nothing to worry about,” he says, recalling the empathy shown by the (human) spectators at the DARPA Robotics Challenge. So far, in Korea at least, that seems to be the case, as HUBO’s win (KAIST’s entry) evoked nationwide feelings of jubilation rather than fear.
Throughout the weeklong event, plenaries will be given by Manuela M. Veloso from Carnegie Mellon University, Tae Won Lim from Hyundai-Kia Motors, Gill Pratt from Toyota Research Institute and Guang-Zhong Yang from the Hamlyn Centre, Imperial College London. Keynote talks will be given on a wide variety of technical, societal, and economic issues regarding robotics development, and in an IROS first, Lifetime talks will be given by three legends in the robotics community, Fumio Harashima of Tokyo Metropolitan University, Gerd Hirzinger, Former Director of DLR’s Robotics and Mechatronics Center, and Wayne J. Book of Georgia Tech, USA.
There will also be a government forum, industry forum, futurist forum, entrepreneurship forum, and an autonomous technologies forum.
Il Hong Suh from Hanyang University and Dong-Soo Kwon from KAIST are IROS 2016 General Chair and IROS 2016 Program Chair, repectively.
This event was sponsored by Daejeon Metropolitan City and the Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.
