The goal of building intelligent robots has been a motivating problem for generations of AI researchers, going back at least as far as Shakey the robot in 1966. Creating such a robot is both the fully realized expression of the original impulse behind AI and an immensely rich source of research questions that address real-world problems.

However, AI is fragmented field: well-developed and largely independent research communities exist for learning, planning, reasoning, language, perception and control. Since the challenges posted by each of these subfields are immense, most researchers have found it necessary to devote their careers to specializing in a single subfield. While immense progress has been made in each of these subfields in the last few decades, it remains unclear how they can be integrated to produce an intelligent robot. Unifying these disparate technologies will open up new avenues of research and create new application opportunities.
Therefore, we believe that integration should be considered a valid research endeavor in its own right.

This symposium aims to bring together a diverse and multidisciplinary group of researchers interested in the specific objective of designing intelligent robots. The first such symposium, held in 2012, resulted in many interesting discussions across subfields, and the current one aims to continue these interactions, thereby actively encouraging the integration of various AI techniques. We also hope to foster an active discussion about setting a realistic and feasible medium-term objective for integrative research so that progress can be made. The symposium will include invited talks as well as a poster session with ample time for discussion.

-- Invited Speakers --

* Brian Gerkey, Open Source Robotics Foundation.
* Peter Stone UT Austin.
* Richard Sutton, University of Alberta.

More speakers to be announced shortly.

-- Call for Contributions --

We invite contributions describing research aimed at producing a functional, integrated robot system. *Papers that provide a high-level overview of existing work or summarize the results of an extended research program along these lines are most welcome, as are papers that integrate two usually distinct areas of research.*

Interested participants may submit either full-length papers (up to 6 pages in AAAI format) or short papers/extended abstracts (2 pages) in PDF format to dir.aaai.ss13@gmail.com.

-- Important Dates --

Submit manuscripts by: October 5, 2012
Acceptance notification: November 2, 2012 Camera-ready submission: January 18, 2013

Symposium: March 25-27, 2013

-- Organizers --

George Konidaris, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Byron Boots, Carnegie Mellon University Nick Hawes, University of Birmingham Todd Hester, University of Texas Bhaskara Marthi, Willow Garage Benjamin Rosman, University of Edinburgh Lorenzo Riano, University of California, Berkeley