TAROS (Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems) is aimed at the presentation and discussion of the latest results and methods in autonomous robotics research and applications. TAROS offers a friendly environment for robotics researchers and industry to take stock and plan future progress.

TAROS welcomes senior researchers and research students alike, and specifically provides opportunities for research students and young research scientists to present their work to the scientific community. As in previous years, all accepted papers will be included in the printed proceedings. Authors of selected papers will be invited to submit extended versions to a companion journal issue of Robotics and Autonomous Systems (TAROS-11 RAS special issue, TAROS-09 RAS special issue).

TAROS is a platform for robotics researchers with a wide range of interests from the UK, Europe and worldwide. TAROS welcomes paper submissions on a wide range of topics related to the principles and practice of robotics.

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) are sponsoring an invited public lecture (speaker tba), Springer have agreed to sponsor the best paper prize, and the British Automation and Robot Association (BARA) are sponsoring the TAROS industry day (30th August) in conjunction with the BARA Academic Forum for Robotics (AFR).

TAROS 2013 invites both full papers and extended abstracts. All contributions will be refereed. Full papers are invited from researchers at any stage in their career but should present significant findings and advances in robotics research; more preliminary work would be better suited to extended abstract submission. Full papers will be accepted for either oral presentation (single track) or poster presentation. Extended abstracts will be accepted for poster presentation only.

Paper Submission Deadline: 22 April 2013

Submissions of papers are invited in, but not limited to, the following topics and related areas:

Advanced applications of autonomous robots (industrial and research)
Advanced materials and techniques
Advanced medical robotics, robots for surgery, assistive robotics, Service robotics
Applications development, hardware issues, devices and techniques, advanced sensors and actuators
Autonomous assembly robotics, Autonomous vehicles
Bio-mimetic and bio-inspired robotics, Bio-hybrid robotic systems, Evolutionary robotics
Cognitive robotics, Developmental robotics, Personal robotics, Robot communication and language
Ethical and societal issues in robotics, Robots in education, the arts and entertainment
Flying robots (unmanned- and micro- air vehicles), Space and planetary robotics
Humanoid robotics, Human-Robot interaction and interfaces, Legged robots
Safety, Verification and Validation for Robotic Applications
Swarm robotics, Collective robots, Field robotics
Learning and adaptation, Long-term interaction and operation, Intelligent prostheses
Modelling and analysis of robot models, Modular reconfigurable robots
Navigation, localization, map building and path planning, Analysis of robot-environment interaction
Robot autonomy including energy self-sufficiency, Robot control architectures, Robot vision, sensing and perception