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Call for Papers for the
Intelligent Robotics and Multi-Agent Systems (IRMAS)
Technical track on SAC 2016 - 31st ACM Symposium on Applied Computing
http://ap.isr.uc.pt/events/sac2016-irmas/

April 4-8, 2016
Pisa, Italy
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:: Important Dates

Paper submission: Sep. 11, 2015
Acceptance notification: Nov. 13, 2015
Final paper submission: Dec. 11, 2015
Conference dates: Apr. 4-8, 2016


:: Objectives and Scope

The ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC) has been a primary gathering
forum for applied computer scientists, computer engineers, software
engineers, and application developers from around the world. SAC2016
(http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2016/) is sponsored by the ACM
Special Interest Group on Applied Computing (SIGAPP), and will be held in
Pisa, Italy. In SAC2015, the technical track on Intelligent Robotics and
Multi-Agent Systems (IRMAS) joined the former tracks on Intelligent Robotic
Systems (ROBOT) and Cooperative Multi-Agent Systems and Applications (CMASA)
which had been organized as separate technical tracks in past editions of
SAC. In SAC2016, the IRMAS track will be organized for the second time,
exploiting the inherent synergy between Robotics and Multi-Agent Systems,
thus aiming to bring together these highly related and exciting research
fields.
Robotics is a multidisciplinary research area that presents an enormous
potential. It concerns about developing intelligent robotic systems that are
capable of making decisions and acting autonomously in real and
unpredictable environments to accomplish tasks and assist humans in relevant
application domains for society. Several complex problems require the use of
teams of robots that share some of the same challenges studied in
multi-agent systems.
Multi-agent systems (MAS) are groups of intelligent agents that can perceive
and act in a given environment to achieve their individual and collective
goals. MAS enable solving problems that are beyond the individual
capabilities and knowledge of single agents, not suffering from resource
limitations, performance bottlenecks, or critical failures usually found in
centralized problem solvers. Multi-robot systems are often used to evaluate
and validate MAS with physical robot platforms.
For many years, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers have
worked separately in these fields, both fields have matured enormously, and
today there is a growing interest in getting the two fields together. Many
in Robotics believe that the focus in the near future should be adding
capabilities to robots that lie at the core of AI research. Reciprocally, AI
researchers aim at embedding their techniques in physical robots that can
perceive, reason and act in real, dynamic physical environments. Despite
this mutual interest, although there are many conferences focusing either on
Robotics or AI separately, there is a lack of scientific venues where both
communities can meet.
The purpose of this track is therefore to provide a venue to exploit
synergies between Intelligent Robotics and MAS, bringing together
researchers from both fields to share experiences, expose issues, and
discuss about these exciting fields. Papers that make fundamental
contributions in either of these two areas are welcome, and research that
spans both areas is especially encouraged. *Accepted papers will be included
in the ACM SAC 2016 proceedings and published in the ACM digital library,
being indexed by Thomson ISI Web of Knowledge and Scopus*.


:: Topics

- Autonomous robotic systems
- Multi-agent systems (MAS) theory
- Human-robot interaction
- Cooperative robotics and cooperative MAS
- Multi-robot systems
- Coordination and cooperation
- Distributed control architectures
- Human-robot team interaction
- Real-world applications of MAS
- Self-adaptation and learning
- MAS in mobile ad-hoc sensor networks
- Robot localization, mapping and navigation
- Artificial perception and computer vision
- Field robotic applications
- Deployment, coverage and patrolling
- Evolutionary robotics and swarm robotics
- Humanoid robots
- Social and service robotics
- Entertainment and educational robots
- Micro and nano robotics
- Robotic dexterous grasping
- Simulation and programming tools for MAS


:: Submission Procedure

Original papers addressing any of the listed topics of interest (or related
topics) will be considered. Each submitted paper will be fully refereed and
undergo a double-blind review process by at least three referees. *Accepted
papers will be included in the ACM SAC 2016 proceedings and published in the
ACM digital library, being indexed by Thomson ISI Web of Knowledge and
Scopus*.
Paper size is limited to 6 pages. A maximum of 2 additional pages may be
included for an additional fee. The reviews will be blind: authors' names
and affiliations must not appear in the paper and self-citations should be
in the third person. Submitted papers must be formatted using the ACM SIG
format (http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html).
For accepted papers, registration for the conference is required by at least
one of the authors or a proxy, who *must* attend SAC and present the paper.
This is a strict requirement for the paper to be included in the conference
proceedings and published in the ACM digital library.
Graduate students are invited to submit research abstracts (maximum 2 pages)
to the Student Research Competition (SRC), following the instructions
published at SAC 2016 website. Authors of selected abstracts will have the
opportunity to give poster presentations of their work and compete for three
top-winning places. The winners will receive cash awards and SIGAPP
recognition certificates during the conference banquet. Authors of selected
abstracts are eligible to apply to the SIGAPP Student Travel Award program
for support..

Paper submission link:
http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2016/Paper-SubmissionUploadPage.htm


:: Track Chairs

Rui P. Rocha, University of Coimbra, Portugal
Christopher D. Kiekintveld, Univ. of Texas at El Paso, TX, USA
M. Ani Hsieh, Drexel University, PA, USA

For further information on SAC 2016 IRMAS track, please contact one of the
track chairs:
rprocha@isr.uc.pt, cdkiekintveld@utep.edu, or mhsieh1@drexel.edu