Recently, we have witnessed a surge in interest in embodied agents that could explore and interact with complex and unstructured environments. The design and control of such intelligent agents raise a large number of interesting research questions. It is worth noting that, recent embodied AI learning works are mostly first trained in simulated environments (e.g., AI Habitat, AI2THOR, RoboSuite, SAPIEN) and then transferred to the real world. However, the simulation for embodied AI landscape is quite fragmented and immature so far. It is yet an open question how to build a robotic-ready simulation environment, which is typically multi-disciplinary involving challenges from both computer vision, computer graphics, machine learning and robotics.

The key goal of this workshop is to assemble experts in simulation technology and embodied AI learning to synchronize and coordinate the efforts. First of all, this workshop would help simulation researchers to understand embodied AI learning and tailor their techniques for more effective and convenient learning. More importantly, embodied AI researchers will improve their understanding of the limitation (e.g., domain gap) of current simulation techniques, and use these simulators in a proper way. Finally, the workshop has also invited learning-based simulation experts, and we hope to take the chance to discuss the possible role of learning-based techniques in improving embodied AI learning environments.

The workshop will be held virtually in conjunction with ICCV 2021. We invited keynote speakers to cover a wide range of topics from physics-based modeling and simulation, learning-based simulation, human body simulation to embodied vision and robot learning. In addition, the workshop will feature a spotlight section for various existing simulation platforms, a spotlight section for accepted papers, a poster session, and a live panel discussion.

We invite both 4-page short papers and 2-page abstracts for works falling onto the simulation for embodied AI landscape. Paper topics may include but are not limited to:
• Simulation of important actuators such as hands and feet
• Contact simulation
• Simulation of fluids and materials
• Assets modeling and curation
• Sensor simulation and data modality analysis
• Human simulation for human-robot-interaction
• Simulation of agent-to-agent or agent-to-infrastructure communication and crowd simulation
• Differentiable simulation
• Data-driven simulation
• Model composition and hierarchical structure in a simulation environment
• Sufficient level of fidelity in simulation
• Reduced simulation
• Trade-off between efficiency and fidelity in simulation

All submissions will be handled electronically via the workshop CMT website (https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/SEAI2021). Submissions should use the ICCV template. Submissions could be either 4-page short papers or 2-page abstracts in the ICCV format, excluding references, acknowledgments, and supplementary materials. All the accepted submissions will be published separately from the main conference in the post-proceedings by default, though authors could indicate explicitly if they want to opt out of the post-proceedings. Dual submission is allowed, but must be explicitly stated at the time of submission and will not be included in the post-proceedings. Reviewing will be double-blind. Each submission will be reviewed for originality, significance, clarity, soundness, relevance, and technical content.

Contact: iccv21.seai@gmail.com