Cooperative Robotics (CoopRob)

Coordinator: Alessandro Saffiotti

The purpose of this SIG is to meet the tremendously increased interest in cooperative robots of different types for many emerging applications and to foster Europe's position as leader in the field. The SIG will act as a catalyst in amalgamating the increasing number of European research groups in this field. It will provide an infrastructure for scientific exchange and high-level education in this area, and a point of contact between academia and industry. CoopRob will organize educational and scientific events. It will also maintain links with other related entities in Europe and worldwide, including: the European Robotic Platform EUROP, the Robocup International Federation, and the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Netrworked Robots.

The key technology areas addressed by CoopRob include: task allocation, cooperative planning and execution, cooperative perception, multirobot mapping and localization, formal models of multirobot plans, multirobot learning, self-configuration, middleware for multirobot systems, heterogeneity, networked robotics, robot ecologies, the inclusion of humans in multirobot teams, as well as benchmarking of cooperative robotics. The key application domains include: collaborative manipulation, space and underwater exploration, domestic robotics, entertainment, surveillance, search and rescue.

Each year, CoopRob will define a set of explicit themes, which will constitute the priority focus of the SIG activities for that year. The themes will be decided depending on what's "hot" in the field, and on what are the strategic research priorities in Europe. The themes for the first year will be "networked robotics" and "formal models for cooperation".

CoopRob will be managed by the two SIG coordinators, with the help of a Board consisting of the partners below. Membership to CoopRob will be open to all the interested EURON members. Members outside EURON will also be allowed, but financial support cannot be granted to them. This strategy is intended to maximize the visibility and impact of the SIG activities, while encouraging new people to join EURON.

CoopRob is a continuation of the EURON-1 SIG on Cooperative Robotics, which has been very active during the period 2001-2005. This continuation is most needed given the rapidly increase in the level of interest in cooperative robotics in Europe and worldwide, and the continous emergence of new reseach issues.

SIG Deliverables:

The activities of CoopRob will be concretized in the following deliverables.

(1) Community portal. The existing website (www.aass.oru.se/Agora/EuronCoop) will be extended and re-organized, with the ambition to become the main reference point for European researchers in cooperative robotics. A wiki space will be added to allow contributions by all members. This will include a student space to exchange ideas, references, and comments; and a catalog of papers and software. The existing CoopRob mailing list (currently 78 entries) will continue to be maintained.

(2) Scientific events. We organized several workshops and special sessions, which helped to create a network of European researchers in this area, and to give them international visibility. We will continue this tradition. Workshops will be colocated with major international conferences hosted in Europe, to increase visibility and reduce costs. The first events will be within Robocomm (Greece, Oct 2007) and AAMAS (Portugal, May 2008). Submission of student papers will be strongly encouraged.

(3) Educational events. We organized a successful summer school on cooperative robotics in 2002. We plan a second school in Darmstadt in 2008. We will also supervise the organization of activities targeting high-school students, especially female students, in concert with the Roberta project (www.roberta-home.eu).

(4) SIG meetings. At least two SIG meetings per year will be organized, co-located with SIG or EURON events.

(5) Publications. We foresee the production of journal special issues and/or edited volumes reporting the results of the SIG workshops and summer schools. A white paper will be produced every year for each yearly theme, and published on the CoopRob website.