AIR 2014 - The AAAI 2014 Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

One of the early goals of AI consisted of building complete intelligent robots. This goal has shown to be quite challenging, and AI and robotics researchers have isolated its many facets and focused on making progress on each facet separately. Both AI and robotics have matured enormously since those days, and today there is a growing interest in getting the two fields back together. Many in robotics believe that the next quantum leap will come by adding capabilities which lie at the core of AI research, like task planning, knowledge representation, learning, and natural interaction. Symmetrically, AI researchers show interest in embedding their techniques in platforms that can perceive, reason and act in real, dynamic physical environments.
Despite this mutual interest, there is no mainstream venue where the AI and robotics communities can meet. Researchers in either field are thus often unaware of the methodology, the successes and the limitations in the other one. The goal of this workshop is to contribute to the creation of a joint community of AI and Robotics researchers that can fill this gap.
Topics
The workshop will focus on interdisciplinary works in the integration of AI and Robotics, with an emphasis toward the development of complete intelligent robots. The workshop will discuss questions like: (a) What are the methods and tools that can be transferred between the two fields? (b) What are the new research questions that must be addressed to enable this transfer? (c) What new application opportunities will be created? (d) What is the scientific profile needed to make progress in this combined field? (e) How can we foster the creation and consolidation of a truly integrated community?
Format
The workshop will consist of invited talks, presentations of accepted contributions, and an open-floor discussion. In a true workshop spirit, ample room will be left for both spontaneous and guided discussions. The latter will be guided by a set of questions similar to (a?e) above, and provided to the presenters before the workshop.
Submissions
We invite papers describing work on the above topics. Papers should enable AI and Robotics researchers to build upon each other's work, and should be relevant to the questions above. Papers only focusing on AI or on Robotics, with little attention to their integration, are not suitable for this workhop.
Contributions can be full-length papers (up to 6 pages in AAAI format) or work-in-progress papers (2 pages). They should be submitted in PDF to EasyChair. All papers will be peer reviewed.
Organizing Committee
Alessandro Saffiotti (University of Orebro, Sweden (chair), asaffio-AT-aass.oru.se), Nick Hawes (University of Birmingham, UK), George Konidaris (MIT CSAIL, Cambridge MA, USA), Moritz Tenorth (University of Bremen, Germany)