Description and scope
Now in its 16th edition, the International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS) provides a forum for scientific advances in the theory and practice of distributed autonomous robotic systems. It is a highly selective, single-track meeting that will be soliciting submissions presenting significant, original, and previously unpublished research. DARS will take place in Montbéliard, the city of Princes, a historical city located near Switzerland, Germany and on the Jura and Vosges mountains range.

Distributed robotics is an interdisciplinary and rapidly growing area, combining research spanning computer science, communication and control systems, electrical and mechanical engineering, life sciences, and humanities. DARS 2022 will build upon past successes and provide an exciting environment for researchers to present and discuss the latest technologies, algorithms, system architectures, and applications.

Distributed robotic systems are at a tipping point, with the potential to power a large breadth of real-world applications where large numbers of robots need to work together in complex unstructured environments. The shift is powered by an increase in robot capabilities and cognition, machine learning, connectivity, and algorithm discovery. This opens opportunities to impact society, including environmental monitoring, the circular economy through local manufacturing and logistics, sustainable farming, construction, and disaster relief. Achieving these visions also requires new ways for humans to monitor, interact with, and control swarms, and to best use the technology in a trustworthy and responsible way.

Beyond robotics, lessons learned on the design of distributed systems also have the potential to power sciences, from soft matter physics to biology and chemistry. This in turn inspires the next generation of distributed robots.

Given the breadth of interests and applications, we invite all interested researchers and engineers to take part in DARS 2022.

The proceedings will be published in the Springer STAR series (Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics).

Papers are solicited in all areas of distributed autonomous robotics, including, but not restricted to:

Architectures for teams of robots
Self-organizing and self-assembling robotic systems
Swarm robotic systems
Hybrid symbiotic teams (humans and robots, animals and robots)
Modular robotics
Learning and adaptation in teams of robots
Localization and navigation in multi-robot systems
Multi-robot motion coordination
Distributed cooperative perception
Distributed cooperative action
Distributed control and planning
Distributed decision making
Control issues in multi-robot systems
Performance metrics for robot teams
Sensor and actuator networks
Networking issues in multi-robot systems
Wireless and robotic sensor networks
Applications in exploration, inspection, coverage, search and rescue, service, environmental monitoring, agriculture, logistics, etc.
Human-swarm interactions.
Applications and inspirations in soft matter physics, biology, medicine, and chemistry.
Trustworthy and verifiable distributed systems.
Societal/economic/ethical/regulatory/educational considerations for distributed autonomous robotic systems
Submitting to DARS 2022
Please submit your paper using https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=dars2022

Papers should be formatted according to the style files of Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics (SPAR) that can be found at https://www.springer.com/gp/authors-editors/book-authors-editors/your-publication-journey/manuscript-preparation. Use “contributed books” style file.
The page limit is 12 pages.

Publication details
All accepted contributions will be included as full-length papers in the Proceedings of DARS 2022. The proceedings will likely be published in the Springer SPAR series (Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics).

DARS 2022 Committee
General chairs

Julien Bourgeois - University of Franche-Comté, FEMTO-ST Institute, CNRS, France
Justin Werfel - Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Jamie Paik - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Switzerland

Executive General chair

Benoît Piranda - University of Franche-Comté, FEMTO-ST Institute, CNRS, France

Program chair

Sabine Hauert - University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
Alyssa Pierson - Boston University, Boston, USA

Program co-chairs

Fumitoshi Matsuno - Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
Negar Mehr - University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA
Heiko Hamann - University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany
Tin Lun Lam - The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen

Publication chair

Abdallah Makhoul - University of Franche-Comté, FEMTO-ST Institute, CNRS, France

Finance chair

Dominique Dhoutaut - University of Franche-Comté, FEMTO-ST Institute, CNRS, France

Publicity chairs

Hakim Mabed - University of Franche-Comté, FEMTO-ST Institute, CNRS, France