Abstract
Recent trends in logistics and manufacturing clearly indicate an increasing demand for flexibility, modularity, and re-configurability of material flow systems. Whereas in the past plant installations have been used for decades without change, nowadays product life cycles and the demand for product variety rely on innovative technologies that allow to flexibly reconfigure automation processes without reducing their availability. Therefore, distributed and self-organized systems, such as teams of robots which autonomously organize transportation tasks, are playing an increasingly important role in present logistic centers and manufacturing plants. Mapping the operational environment is central to achieving these tasks. Enabling technologies for mapping, navigation, planning, and task allocation in large heterogeneous robot teams have to guarantee safety, robustness, and reliability. In order to meet these requirements, scientifically sound and statistically significant metrics, measurement, and evaluation methodologies, for example to evaluate the usability of mapping algorithms, are of utmost importance. Since all aspects of AGV handling, from navigation to task allocation to the evaluation thereof are closely intertwined, it is necessary to provide a forum for experts to exchange and discuss the different facets of applying AGV technology to industrial environments.
Motivation and Objectives
The MMART-LoG workshop will provide a forum for discussing robust AGV technology solutions for industrial environments and their performance metrics to satisfy industrial standards. MMART-LoG is an opportunity for researchers from different disciplines, industry experts, vendors and end-users of AGVs to share and discuss experiences and ideas. Development of methodologies and metrics for industrial AGV technology should be based on end-user requirements, the workshop aims to gain insights from differing perspectives.
With respect to evaluation and benchmarking, the workshop will emphasize discussions and focus on deriving concrete steps towards the development of metrics and measures in quantifying the operation (e.g. navigation) capabilities of AGVs and forklifts working in close proximity with humans and in unstructured industrial environments. As part of the workshop, the organizers invite input and feedback from the participants to formulate test methods and performance metrics that take into account industry requirements.
The workshop program will consist of both featured and regular presentations, and will conclude with a panel
discussion involving all participants to summarize presented research and to decide future research directions and collaborations.
Submission
We solicit paper submissions, optionally accompanied by a video, which will be reviewed by the program committee
under the following review criteria: technical quality, significance, and quality of system demonstration.
Papers should be up to 6 pages in length and be formatted according to the
IEEE IROS style.
Please submit your contribution with
EasyChair by following this
LINK.
Accepted papers and videos will be included into proceedings and distributed in CD format at the workshop
and will also be made available under http://kaspar.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~mmartlog/.
If there is sufficient interest, we will pursue publication of a journal Issue to include the best papers.
Topics of interest include, but are not necessary limited to:
- Robot Motion Planning
- Decentralized Task Allocation
- Multi-Robot Planning and Scheduling
- Distributed Constraint Optimization (DCOP)
- Team Formation
- Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) in Industrial Environments
- Localization in Dynamically Changing Environments
- Evaluation and Benchmarking methodologies for AGV technologies
- Experiences, Applications, Use Cases
Important Dates
Submissions Due: July 8, 2011
Notification of Acceptance: August 12, 2011
Final Papers Due: August 26, 2011
Workshop at IROS: Friday, September 30, 2011
Invited Speakers
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Dr. Patrick Pfaff KUKA Laboratories GmbH Research and Development Zugspitzstrasse 140 86165 Augsburg, Germany Patrick.Pfaff(at)kuka(dot)com |
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Dr. Nicola Tomatis CEO BlueBotics SA PSE-C CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland Phone: +41 21 693 83 14 nicola(dot)tomatis(at)bluebotics(dot)com |
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Prof. Dr. Henrik I. Christensen Robotics and Intelligent Machines @ GT KUKA Chair of Robotics, Georgia Institute of Technology Interactive Computing / College of Computing Atlanta, GA 30332-0280 Phone: +1 404 385 7480 hic(at)cc(dot)gatech(dot)edu |
Organizers
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Dr. Alexander Kleiner Former address: Dept. of Computer Science University of Freiburg Georges-Koehler-Allee 52 79110 Freiburg New address: Dept. of Computer and Information Science Linköping University SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden alexander DOT kleiner AT liu DOT se |
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Dr. Rolf Lakaemper Dept. of Computer and Information Sciences Temple University, 1805 N Broad St Philadelphia, PA, USA Phone: +1 (215) 204 7996 lakamper AT temple DOT edu |
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Dr. Raj Madhavan Institute for Systems Research, University of Maryland, College Park & Intelligent Systems Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 100 Bureau Drive Gaithersburg, MD, USA Phone: +1 (301) 975 2865 madhavan AT umd DOT edu / madhavan AT nist DOT gov |
Programm Committee
Christian Dornhege, Freiburg University, GermanyAchim Lilienthal, Örebro University, Sweden
Andreas Kolling, University of Pittsburgh, US
Lutz Frommberger, Bremen University, Germany
Giorgio Grisetti, La Sapienza University di Roma, Italy
