Call for Papers

VIRTUAL RO-MAN 2021 CONFERENCE
30th IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication
University of British Columbia and University of Waterloo, Canada
August 8 – 12, 2021
https://ro-man2021.org/

Submission deadline for full papers: March 21, 2021

As we write this in the fall of 2020, the world is in the grip of a pandemic that shows no definitive sign of abating, although there are hopeful indications in many countries. This year’s RO-MAN conference that was meant to be held in Naples was held virtually, transformed by a resourceful organizing committee who responded quickly and expertly to bring our research community a great conference under very difficult and unprecedented circumstances.

We do not know what the summer of 2021 will bring in terms of global travel restrictions, local gathering norms, and personal desires to risk venturing from our respective bubbles. Given the uncertainties, we have decided to hold this conference virtually. But no matter the format, the Organizing Committee for RO-MAN 2021 is committed to delivering a rich and dynamic conference. We therefore welcome all of you to participate, to learn, to teach, to network, and, in the words of our province’s Health Officer Dr. Bonny Henry, to be “kind, calm and safe”. Even though you can’t journey to the original venue of Vancouver, BC, take a moment to soak in the geography, our Vancouver and Waterloo campuses, our summer weather, and the spirit of our people in photos, videos and other media, and you will appreciate why this is a great country to live and work. We hope to be able to share it with you, even if not in real life, then vicariously and in spirit.

The theme of our conference is trustworthiness and cooperation. We chose this term well before the pandemic put the world on edge and added a new reason for us to question our own personal safety when in the company of others. But what about in the company of social robots? What would cause us to trust, or not trust, them? How do we as researchers create that feeling, that critical component of any relationship? With social robots, it is of course largely in our power to design the physical form, the control code and the interface software to maximize trustworthiness, facilitate cooperation and enhance the quality of human-robot interaction. This theme also touches upon people’s expectations and perceptions of robots, as well as other social, cognitive and cultural factors that will influence human-robot interactions. We will have a special session/track on this topic, invite targeted submissions and include plenary speakers who are specialist in this area. We sincerely hope that this focus will help enlighten the design-thinking of all of us as we fabricate and program our own various systems.

We wish you a productive year ahead, whether in your labs or working remotely, and look forward to a fantastic RO-MAN conference in the summer of 2021.

Respectfully,

Mike Van der Loos, Stephen Smith: General Chairs
Kerstin Dautenhahn: General Co-Chair

THEME AND TOPICS

The theme of the RO-MAN 2021 Virtual Conference is Trustworthiness and Cooperation

Topics of Interest Include (but are not restricted to):

• Androids
• Anthropomorphic Robots and Virtual Humans
• Applications of Social Robots
• Assistive Robotics
• Cognitive Skills and Mental Models
• Cognitive and Sensorimotor Development
• Computational Architectures
• Cooperation and Collaboration in Human-Robot Teams
• Creating Human-Robot Relationships
• Curiosity, Intentionality and Initiative in Interaction
• Degrees of Autonomy and Teleoperation
• Detecting and Understanding Human Activity
• Embodiment, Empathy and Intersubjectivity
• Ethical Issues in Human-robot Interaction Research
• Evaluation Methods and New Methodologies
• HRI and Collaboration in Manufacturing Environments
• Human Factors and Ergonomics
• Innovative Robot Designs
• Interaction Kinesics
• Interaction with Believable Characters
• Linguistic Communication and Dialogue
• Long-term Experience and Longitudinal HRI Studies
• Machine Learning and Adaptation
• Medical and Surgical Applications
• Monitoring of Behaviour and Internal States of Humans
• Motion Planning and Navigation in Human-Centered Environments
• Motivations and Emotions in Robotics
• Multi-modal Situation Awareness and Spatial Cognition
• Multimodal Interaction and Conversational Skills
• Narrative and Story-telling in Interaction
• Non-verbal Cues and Expressiveness
• Novel Interfaces and Interaction Modalities
• Personalities for Robotic or Virtual Characters
• Philosophical Issues in Human-Robot Coexistence
• Programming by Demonstration
• Robot Companions and Social Robots
• Robotic Etiquette
• Robots in Education, Therapy and Rehabilitation
• Social Intelligence for Robots
• Social Learning and Skill Acquisition Via Teaching and Imitation
• Social Presence for Robots and Virtual Humans
• User-centered Design of Robots
• Virtual and Augmented Tele-presence Environments
• Robots in art and entertainment
• Art pieces supported by robotics
• Sound design for robots
• Story-telling in HRI

IMPORTANT DATES

Full Papers (Regular or Special Session):

Deadline:  March 21, 2021
Notification of Acceptance:  May 25, 2021
Final Submission:  June 20, 2021

Special Sessions:

Proposal Submission:  March 1, 2021

Workshop/Tutorial:

Proposal Submission:  March 28, 2021

FULL PAPERS

Authors should submit their papers electronically in PDF format via Papercept. For the first submission, a manuscript can be of 6-8 pages. For the final submission, a manuscript should be of 6 pages, with 2 additional pages allowed but at an extra charge. All papers are reviewed using a single-blind review process.

Templates and Procedures for Submission:
All papers submitted to RO-MAN 2021 will undergo a peer-review process. A manuscript will be reviewed by at least two reviewers, who will provide detailed comments. If the paper is accepted, the authors will submit a revised (“camera-ready”) version that takes into account this feedback. The review process is managed by the program chair, the program co-chairs, the editors, and the conference associate editors.

All papers are reviewed using a single-blind review process: authors declare their names and affiliations in the manuscript for the reviewers to see, but reviewers do not know each other’s identities, nor do the authors receive information about who has reviewed their manuscript.

Authors should use the templates provided by the electronic submission system. The templates for US Letter format paper should be used.

The manuscript submission website will require that you submit your abstract and make any final changes to the author list and title of the paper before uploading the paper.

All authors and co-authors must be registered in the electronic system. It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure that the complete author list and the correct title are being entered. This information will be used for the conference program and the proceedings.

Detailed Steps for Initial Submission:

1. Create an account: go to https://ras.papercept.net/, then PIN and fill out the form. Ask all your co-authors to do the same if they do not have an account on the system yet, write down the authors’ PINs (this information is needed for manuscript processing purposes).
2. Go to Support Menu and depending on how you are preparing your paper, download a template: LaTeX or MS-Word, Use these templates/style files to create the paper and save in PDF format.
3. Upload the paper: go to https://ras.papercept.net/ and click on “Submit a contribution to RO-MAN 2021”.
4. Submit (regular paper, special session paper).
5. Fill in the form presented on the next page (make sure to enter all author PINs created in Step 1).

RO-MAN 2021 CALL FOR WORKSHOPS AND TUTORIALS

Important Dates:

Proposal Submission Deadline:  March 28, 2021
Notification of Acceptance: May 11, 2021
Active Website Link for Workshop/Tutorial Due: June 1, 2021

Details:

Workshops should focus on key areas of active research and provide a forum for participants to exchange new ideas and discuss recent results. We encourage proposals for topics that have substantial community interest, with a creative and innovative workshop program that will attract a broad audience. Workshops and tutorials focusing on academia-industry partnership and technology transfer of robotics research are welcome. The primary criteria for selection are anticipated level of interest, impact, novelty or creativity, and opportunities for interaction among participants.

Tutorials should target established and emerging research topics, provide up-to-date descriptions of the state of the art, and be organized by individuals who are recognized leaders in their respective fields.

Workshop and tutorial proposals should include the following information:

• Title
• Format (indicate full or half day, workshop or tutorial)
• Main Organizer (one person only, complete address, phone, and email)
• Co-Organizers (complete address and email)
• Statement of Objectives
• Intended Audience and Expected Number of Attendees
• List of Speakers and Format (schedule, topics)
• Statement of Inclusion and Diversity (see below)

Template files can be downloaded from here:
Submission (Word File)
Submission (PDF File)

The proposal must be submitted through the Papercept Conference Site.

If you have any questions about the workshops and tutorials proposal submission, please contact the Workshop Co-Chairs, Alexander Aroyo (alexander.aroyo@uwaterloo.ca) and Jonathan Kelly (jkelly@utias.utoronto.ca).

Upon approval, workshop and tutorial organizers will be asked to produce and maintain a dedicated webpage, which will be used to disseminate updated information about the workshop/tutorial and for promotion.

The conference takes place Aug 8 – 12, 2021, and the Workshops and Tutorials are tentatively scheduled for Aug 08 and Aug 12.

INCLUSION @ RO-MAN 2021

In addition to general inclusion and diversity considerations for your workshop, consider the following needs of attendees of a virtual conference.

Attendees may be in different time zones, have caregiving/other responsibilities, have less reliable access to internet, or lack quiet private space to participate during the scheduled timing of the event.

You may consider offering:

• asynchronous access to materials,
• asynchronous forms of interaction discussions or Q&A (e.g., text-based),
• recordings of the event for participants to access the material later,
• an alternative to using a camera/microphone during breakout sessions if participants are unable to use it during the event,
• session timing details provided well in advance for planning purposes, and
• inclusive time zone schedule display.