[iva] [meeting][cfp] Call for Participation: The human in the loop: perspectives and challenges for robots' behaviours in RoboCup 2050

[Alessandra Rossi]

[Apologies for multiple postings of this announcement]

Dear colleagues,

Inspired by the success of the workshop held in conjunction with the Virtual
Humanoid RoboCup Open Workshops (V-RoHOW) 2020
<https://humanoid.robocup.org/virtual-rohow-2020/>, we would like to invite
you to contribute as an author to the article on: The human in the loop:
perspectives and challenges for robots' behaviours in RoboCup 2050.

Read below further information, and please do not hesitate to contact us if
you have any questions.

Kind regards,
Alessandra Rossi

Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow / PhD student
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Adaptive Systems Research Group
School of Computer Science
University of Hertfordshire
College Lane
Hatfield, Herts AL10 9AB
United Kingdom



[image: image.png]

The human in the loop: perspectives and challenges for robots' behaviours
in RoboCup 2050

Inspired by the success of the workshop held in conjunction with the Virtual
Humanoid RoboCup Open Workshops (V-RoHOW) 2020
<https://humanoid.robocup.org/virtual-rohow-2020/> we are bringing together
leading researchers to contribute to an article on: The human in the loop:
perspectives and challenges for robots' behaviours in RoboCup 2050.
About the Research Topic

The long term goal of RoboCup is to develop a robotic soccer team that is
capable of challenging the best human soccer team in a regular match by
2050. At the moment the most pressing obstacles to reaching this goal are
still mostly technical, such as walking on grass, recognising the ball and
field lines, localising teammates and opponents, and identifying which goal
is the opponent's. However, robots will also have to learn how to play with
humans, which opens a different set of challenges for roboticists.

Indeed, current literature in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) shows that a
robot aware of human social conventions increases people’s acceptance, and
positively affects the outcome of the interaction. For example, we know
that people do not like to be approached by a robot too fast, or from the
back, or they might not prefer a robot to come into their personal or
intimate space. However, human soccer players will have close physical
contact with robots when they play against them in RoboCup 2050. Will
players’ and audience’s perception of robots change? Will human players
actually be comfortable in playing against robots even when the initial
thrill of the challenge wears off? How will they perceive their own and the
robots' safety?

Moreover, robots will not only need to plan, navigate and play soccer
according to the FIFA rules, but they will also need to understand and
infer the human players’ intentions and multi-modal communication signals.
To what extent will people's mental models, including the perceived
implications of task outcomes and consequences on their persona, affect
their interaction with robots? How will roboticists and robots’ producers
be able to ensure the safety of human players?

In this context, we want to go beyond a mere state-of-the-art review of
approaches to the implementation of robotics acceptable behaviours.
Instead, this article aims to discuss the main research objectives and
challenges for developing robot behaviours that will allow autonomous
robots to effectively play against humans in the RoboCup 2050.

Keywords: RoboCup, Human-robot interaction, Robot acceptance, Social
robotics, Human-robot dynamics
Target Audience

We strongly encourage submissions of high-quality research contributions
from leading researchers in the fields of Robotics and HRI which address
(but are not limited to) the following topics:


   -

   Robot cognition and learning in HRI
   -

   Human-Multi-robot systems
   -

   Robot hardware and software for improved human-robot interactions
   -

   Human’s and Robot’s perceptions and actions
   -

   Ethical and legal implications in HRI

How to participate

Participation will consist of three different stages: 1) submission of a
proposed topic, 2) submission of a longer version of the paper (e.g. two
pages including bibliography) on the accepted topic, 3) editing of the
manuscript.


In order for the Editors to select relevant contributions, interested
researchers must send an Abstract (maximum of 200 words) to the Editors by
email. The short Abstract needs to sufficiently describe a challenge for
RoboCup 2050 from a human-robot interaction perspective that the authors
propose. The submission should include a discussion of the significance of
the specific challenge, influence of its outcome and, if possible at this
stage, some proposed solutions or a path to further address these.

Researchers whose contribution received approval will be invited to submit
a longer (possibly two pages long) document on the proposed topic.

Once contributions are received the editors will structure the manuscript,
and participants will be invited for a final revision before submission to
a high-impact journal.

Publishing solutions

The final manuscript will be sent to a relevant peer reviewed journal with
good impact factor, such as the Paladyn Journal of Behavioral Robotics,
Science Robotics Journal, IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, Journal of
Intelligent and Robotic Systems.
Important dates

Submission of a proposal: September 30th, 2020

Notification of acceptance: October 18th, 2020

Submission of contribution: December 6th, 2020

Final manuscript: February 28th, 2021
Editors

Alessandra Rossi, University of Hertfordshire -
alessandra.rossi at ieee.org - Bold
Hearts <http://robocup.herts.ac.uk> (lead editor)

Maike Paetzel, University of Uppsala - maike.paetzel at it.uu.se - Hamburg
Bit-Bots <https://robocup.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/en/>

Merel Keijsers, University of Canterbury -
merel.keijsers at pg.canterbury.ac.nz - Electric Sheep
<https://humanoid.science>

[image: image.png]
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.uni-bielefeld.de/mailman2/unibi/public/iva-list/attachments/20200903/d50d5bff/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image.png
Type: image/png
Size: 114285 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.uni-bielefeld.de/mailman2/unibi/public/iva-list/attachments/20200903/d50d5bff/attachment-0002.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image.png
Type: image/png
Size: 46050 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.uni-bielefeld.de/mailman2/unibi/public/iva-list/attachments/20200903/d50d5bff/attachment-0003.png>