Danny Amor's Online Library/Danny Amor's Online Library - Volume 1.iso/html/faqs/faq/robotics-faq/part1

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Subject: comp.robotics Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) part 1/3
Newsgroups: comp.robotics,news.answers,comp.answers
From: [e-mail] (Kevin Dowling)
Date: 13 Nov 1994 03:53:33 GMT

Archive-name: robotics-faq/part1
Last-modified: Mon Oct 10 14:05:43 1994

This is part 1 of 3 of the comp.robotics Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQ) list. This FAQ addresses commonly asked questions relating to
robotics.

____________________________________________________________________________
This FAQ was compiled and written by Kevin Dowling with numerous
contributions by readers of comp.robotics. Acknowledgements are listed
at the end of the FAQ.

This post, as a collection of information, is Copyright 1993 Kevin
Dowling. Distribution through any means other than regular Usenet
channels must be by permission. The removal of this notice is
forbidden.

This FAQ may be referenced as:
Dowling, Kevin (1994) "Robotics: comp.robotics Frequently Asked
Questions" Usenet news.answers.  Available via anonymous ftp from
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq/
part1, part2 and part3. 70+ pages.

Please send changes, additions, suggestions and questions to:
Kevin Dowling                 tel:    [phone]
Robotics Institute            fax:    [phone]
Carnegie Mellon University        net:    [e-mail]
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

___________________________________________________________________________
    This FAQ's purpose is to provide a resource of information,
pointers, and a guide to robotics related questions. If the
Last-modified date above is more than two months old you should obtain
a new copy.  See the Where to Find This FAQ Section.

Table of Contents:    [use +++ to search quickly]

Part 1
    +++Where to find this FAQ and comp.robotics archives
    +++Related FAQ's
    +++What is Robotics?
    +++Where can I find Robotics on the Net?
    +++Robotics Related Organizations
    +++Robotics Associations of Many Countries
    +++Robotics Clubs
    +++Robotics Publications
    +++Conferences and Competitions

Part 2
    +++Graduate Programs in Robotics
    +++What is the State of the Robot Industry?
    +++Other Organizations doing robotics
    +++Mobile robot companies
    +++Manipulator companies
    +++Small Inexpensive Robots
    +++Architectures for Robots

Part 3
    +++Sensors
    +++Actuators
    +++Imaging for Robotics
    +++Wireless Communication
    +++Robot Parts: Suppliers and Sources
    +++Hero Robots
    +++Puma Manipulators
    +++Simulators
    +++What is NuTank?
    +++Real-Time Operating Systems
    +++Survey of Robot Development Environments
    +++What is the Miniboard?
    +++What is the F1 Board?
    +++What is the Bot Board?
    +++Microcontrollers
    +++Books, Online Information and Videos

    +++Acknowledgements

_____________________________________________________________________________
+++Where to find this FAQ and comp.robotics archives

If you haven't done so, new users on the net should read
news.announce.newusers. In particular, the following posts are a good
idea:
    -A Primer on How to Work With The Usenet Community
    -Answers to Frequently Asked Questions About Usenet
    -Hints on Writing Style for Usenet

This FAQ is currently posted to comp.answers, news.answers and
comp.robotics.  All posts to news.answers are archived and are
available via anonymous FTP and e-mail from the following locations:

The World Wide Web:

WorldWideWeb (W3) is the universe of network-accessible information,
an initiative started at CERN, now with many participants. It has a
body of software, and a set of protocols and conventions. W3 uses
hypertext and multimedia techniques to make the web easy for anyone to
roam, browse, and contribute to. Future evolution of W3 is coordinated
by the W3 Organization. The W3 has grown into an extraordinary means
of finding information about organizations, people, companies,
products and many, many other things. Many browsers have been
developed to search the net. One of the most popular is Mosaic.

If you are not using the Web or browsers: Learn! - it is already a
main source of information on the net and it is very easy to use with
the browsing and surfing tools now available. Within the robotics
community it is already providing robotic tools, images, videos,
teleoperation and observation.

The following is a general introduction to the WWW:
    http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

If you have electronic mail, then it possible (though slow!) to get W3
information by mail. try sending a mail to [e-mail] with
a line in it saying just HELP to get back instructions. Your mail
system must have a mail gateway onto internet mail, but that is quite
likely. You might have to take the internet address above and ask your
friendly system manager how to convert it into the equivalent mail
address on the system you are using.

Ways to get the FAQ:

HTML:
    Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is a description language for
    the Webpages on the net. It provides links and pointers to
    other Web pages as well as formatting the documents.

    Jason Almeter at Indiana Univ has converted the c.r. FAQ
    to html format. Go to the Table of Contents at:
    http://www.cs.indiana.edu/robotics/FAQ/copy.html

    OSU has a very useful site for the different FAQs:
    http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/FAQ-List.html

FTP:
    FTP is a way of copying file between networked computers. If
    you need help in using or getting started with FTP, send
    e-mail to [e-mail] with
        send usenet/news.answers/ftp-list/faq
    as the body of the message.

    ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq
    part1, part2, part3
    Internet address: 18.181.0.24

    ftp://ftp.uu.net/archive/usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq
        part1.Z, part2.Z [use uncompress]
        Internet address: 137.39.1.9

    ftp://nic.switch.ch/info_service/Usenet/periodic-postings
    [Check info_service/Usenet/00index for filenames]
    Internet address: 130.59.1.40

    ftp://ftp.cs.cmu.edu/user/nivek/ftp/robotics-faq
    part1, part2
    128.2.206.173

E-mail:
    Send email to [e-mail] containing these lines:
    send usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq/part1
    send usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq/part2
    send usenet/news.answers/robotics-faq/part3

Archives:
    You can find a dozen or more sites in the US, Europe and Japan
    that store the FAQ and archives for comp.robotics by using the
    Internet search programs, Archie, Gopher or Wais.

    One location is:
    ftp://wilma.cs.brown.edu/pub/comp.robotics/

    In addition to the FTP archive maintained at
    wilma.cs.brown.edu, there are a couple of other mechanisms
    available:
    - The comp.robotics archive at wilma is also available as a WAIS
    source (called "comp.robotics.src"), and hence it is also
    available to WWW browsers, via the appropriate WAIS gateway.
    - Moises Lejter maintains a mailing list of individuals who
    would rather receive comp.robotics via Email as a daily digest
    of all messages posted to comp.robotics in each 24-hour
    period.  Anyone interested should send email directly to
    <[e-mail]>.  It's a lot of mail though...

____________________________________________________________________________
+++Related FAQ's

    There are a number of newsgroups with topics related to
robotics.  These include comp.realtime, comp.ai, sci.electronics,
sci.virtual worlds, and for fabricating there is also
rec.metalworking. In a number of the sections of this faq are
locations of related materials on the net.

Most regularly posted FAQ's can be found at rtfm.mit.edu (rtfm is an
acronym for Read The #$%*! Manual)

        ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/<newsgroup>
        where <newsgroup> is the name of a given newsgroup.

For sci.virtual-worlds:
        ftp://milton.u.washington.edu/public/virtual-worlds
        cheap-vr

Also see: ftp://ftp.ipa.fhg.de//pub/VIRTUAL_REALITY/WWW/hmepage.html

There are papers, productsheets, publications and information.

See the Microcontroller section for several other FAQs related to a
variety of microcontrollers.
____________________________________________________________________________
+++What is Robotics?

    A reprogrammable, multifunctional manipulator designed to move
material, parts, tools, or specialized devices through various
programmed motions for the performance of a variety of tasks"
                Robot Institute of America, 1979

Obviously this was a committee-written definition. It's rather dry and
uninspiring. Better ones might include:
    Force through intelligence.
    Where AI meet the real world.

Webster says:
    An automatic device that performs functions normally ascribed
    to humans or a machine in the form of a human.

-Where did the word robot come from?

The word 'robot' was coined by the Czech playwright Karel Capek
(pronounced "chop'ek") from the Czech word for forced labor or serf.
Capek was reportedly several times a candidate for the Nobel prize for
his works and very influential and prolific as a writer and
playwright.  Mercifully, he died before the Gestapo got to him for his
anti-Nazi sympathies in 1938.

The use of the word Robot was introduced into his play R.U.R.
(Rossum's Universal Robots) which opened in Prague in January 1921.
The play was an enormous success and productions soon opened
throughout Europe and the US. R.U.R's theme, in part, was the
dehumanization of man in a technological civilization. You may find it
surprising that the robots were not mechanical in nature but were
created through chemical means. In fact, in an essay written in 1935,
Capek strongly fought that this idea was at all possible and, writing
in the third person, said:

    "It is with horror, frankly, that he rejects all
    responsibility for the idea that metal contraptions could ever
    replace human beings, and that by means of wires they could
    awaken something like life, love, or rebellion. He would deem
    this dark prospect to be either an overestimation of machines,
    or a grave offence against life."

    [The Author of Robots Defends Himself - Karl Capek, Lidove
    noviny, June 9, 1935, translation: Bean Comrada]

There is some evidence that the word robot was actually coined by
Karl's brother Josef, a writer in his own right. In a short letter,
Capek writes that he asked Josef what he should call the artifical
workers in his new play. Karel suggests Labori, which he thinks too
'bookish' and his brother mutters "then call them Robots" and turns
back to his work, and so from a curt response we have the word robot.

R.U.R is found in most libraries. The most common English translation
is that of P. Selver from the 1920's which is not completely faithful
to the original. A more recent and accurate translation is in a
collection of Capek's writings called Towards the Radical Center
published by Catbird Press in North Haven, CT. tel: [phone]

The term 'robotics' refers to the study and use of robots. It coined
by the late Isaac Asimov, the prolific science and science fiction
writer, in a number of his robot stories. First use was back in the
late 30's or early 40's.

-When did robots, as we know them today, come into existence?

The first industrial modern robots were the Unimates developed by
George Devol and Joe Engleberger in the late 50's and early 60's. The
first patents were by Devol for parts transfer machines. Engleberger
formed Unimation and was the first to market robots.  As a result,
Engleberger has been called the 'father of robotics.'

Modern industrial arms have increased in capability and performance
through controller and language development, improved mechanisms,
sensing, and drive systems. In the early to mid 80's the robot
industry grew very fast primarily due to large investments by the
automotive industry. The quick leap into the factory of the future
turned into a plunge when the integration and economic viability of
these efforts proved disastrous. The robot industry has only recently
recovered to mid-80's revenue levels. In the mean time there has been
an enormous shakeout in the robot industry. In the US, for example,
only one US company, Adept, remains in the production industrial robot
arm business. Most of the rest went under, consolidated, or were sold
to European and Japanese companies.

In the research community the first automata were probably Grey
Walter's machina (1940's) and the John's Hopkins beast. Teleoperated
or remote controlled devices had been built even earlier with at least
the first radio controlled vehicles built by Nikola Tesla in the
1890's. Tesla is better known as the inventor of the induction motor,
AC power transmission, and numerous other electrical devices. Tesla
had also envisioned smart mechanisms that were as capable as humans.
An excellent biography of Tesla is Margaret Cheney's Tesla, man out of
time, Published by Prentice-Hall, c1981.

SRI's Shakey navigated highly structured indoor environments in the
late 60's and Moravec's Stanford Cart was the first to attempt natural
outdoor scenes in the late 70's. From that time there has been a
proliferation of work in autonomous driving machines that cruise at
highway speeds and navigate outdoor terrains in commercial
applications.

____________________________________________________________________________
+++Where can I find Robotics on the Net?

Robotics Internet Resource Page:

This is an excellent source of pointers to a wide variety of Robotics
related work on the Internet. This includes files, video, images,
teleoperation etc etc. - Use your favorite browser (Mosaic,
MacWeb etc to check it out)
    http://piglet.cs.umass.edu:4321/robotics.html

-----
European Robotics Archive:

ROBOTS is a European based archive dedicated to storage of robotics
related information. It can be accessed via Internet at
    ftp:ftp.essex.ac.uk/pub/robots.
There is a rudimentary (ie will be upgraded as soon as manpower
allows!) WWW access mode at http://www.essex.ac.uk. The archive may
also be accessed via Gopher.

____________________________________________________________________________
+++Robotics Related Organizations
    There are a number of organizations and societies related to
robotics. Some are related specifically to industry, several to
academia and a number of hobbyist groups. In addition, a number of the
groups, such as the ASME or IEEE, are very large organizations and
robotics is one of many sub-disciplines in their respective fields.

Advanced Robot Technology Research Association (Japan)
Kikai-shinko Bldg
3-5-8 Shiba-Kohen, Minato-ku, Tokyo
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
Has joint research programs with member companies.
Members are 20 or so Japanese companies including:
Ishikawajima-Harima, Oki Electric, Kawasaki Heavy Industry, Kobe
Steel, Komatsu, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Toshiba, JGC, NEC,
Hitachi, Fanuc, Fujitsu, Fuji, Matshushita Research Institute, Mitsui,
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Electric, Yaskawa

American Society of Mechanical Engineers, (ASME)
345 E. 47th Street
New York, NY 10017
Mechanical Engineering magazine, like the IEEE's Spectrum, is
an excellent general publication on aspects of mechanical engineering.
There are often publications on robotics and the ASME sponsors a
number of other publications and conferences that are relevant to
robotics. The ASME also has a BBS service, MechEng, with an email
server. send email to <[e-mail]> with 'send info' in
the body.

Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems (AUVS)
1735 North Lynn Street
Suite 950
Arlington, VA 22209-2022
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
Promoting worldwide advancement of unmanned vehicle systems.
Membership includes subscription to Unmanned Systems magazine, AUVS
News Bulletin, regional seminars, annual symposium and trade show, and
other opportunities. AUVS also sponsors an annual aerial Robotics
Competition. See Conference announcements for more details.
or see:
http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/robotics/other/auvsarc/auvsarc.html
and ftp://usc.edu/pub/nn_robotics/other/auvsarc/

Also [e-mail]

Student membership: $15/year
Educational Institutions/Libraries $100/year
Individual: $40/year
Corporate memberships also available.

Center for Autonomous and Man-controlled Robotic and Sensing Systems
Charles Jacobus, CAMRSS director
ERIM
PO Box 8618
Ann Arbor, MI 48107
tel: [phone] X2457
Member companies include: Ball Aerospace, Coulter Electronics, ERIM,
Fairchild, Ford Aerospace, Geospectra, Grumman, Industrial Technology
Institute, KMS Fusion, Michigan State, UofM.

American Insitute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)
370 L'Enfant Promenade, SW
Washington, DC 20024
tel: [phone]
tel: [phone] (Technical Information Service)
Conferences and publications, several cover automation technologies
for servicing on the ground and in space as well as exploration.

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Service Center
445 Hoes Lane
Piscataway, NJ 08854-4150
tel: [phone]
tel: 800.678.IEEE
net: ftp://ftp.ieee.org/
A large organization with hundreds of publications including journals,
transactions, Spectrum, sponsoring conferences, workshops and meetings.
   IEEE membership is $95 regular ($23 students)
   For membership in the IEEE Computer Society, add $22.
   $20 for IEEE Expert (Intelligent Systems and their Applications)
   $12 for Transactions on Neural Networks
   $12 for Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics
   $15 for Transactions on Robotics and Automation
   $19 for Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering
   $24 for Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine IntelligenceIEEE



The International Society for Optical Engineering, (SPIE)
P.O.Box 10
Bellingham, Washington 98227-0010.
tel: [phone] (PST)
fax: [phone]
tlx: 46-7053
net: [e-mail]
ftp://mom.spie.org/
    SPIE has publications, meetings and conferences in the field
of intelligent robots, mobile robots, teleoperation, machine vision,
etc.
    SPIE is a nonprofit society dedicated to advancing engineering
and scientific applications of optical, electro-optical, and
optoelectronic instrumentation, systems and technology. Its members
are scientists, engineers, and users interested in the reduction to
practice of these technologies. SPIE provides the means for
communicating new developments and applications to the scientific,
engineering, and user communities through its publications, symposia,
and short courses.

SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering, has started
up four new listservers, covering robotics, fiber optics, optical
computing and processing, and optomechanical engineering/instrument
design. This brings the total to eight (see list below).

SPIE maintains several e-mail Listserver Groups dedicated to various
technical specialties. These groups are a way for colleagues to share
information, solve problems, and discuss issues related to their
interests. While the topics are tied to the various International
Technical Working Groups of SPIE, membership is not required to join a
listserver group.

Currently available e-mail listservers maintained by SPIE:
Listname        Group
--------        -----
info-bios       BiOS (Biomedical Optics Society)
info-ei         Electronic Imaging
info-holo       Holography
info-adopt      Adaptive Optics
info-fibers     Fiber Optics
info-opcom      Optical Computing and Processing
info-robo       Robotics
info-optomech   Optomechanical and Instrument Design

To subscribe to one of these groups, send an e-mail message to
   [e-mail]
and include the words:   subscribe info-listname
in the message body area, where listname matches one of the names
listed above. For a complete set of instructions, send a message to
[e-mail] with the word HELP in the message
body. For an up-to-date list of SPIE listserver groups at any time,
send the word LISTS to the same address.

The Material Handling Institute
8720 Red Oak Blvd, Suite 201
Charlotte, NC 28217
  Primary robotics focus is on AGV's.

National Service Robots Association (NSRA)
900 Victors Way
PO Box 3724
Ann Arbor, MI 48106
tel: [phone]
An organization devoted to robots other than on the factory floor.

Robotics Industry Association (RIA)
(same address as NSRA)

Society of Manufacturing Engineers, (SME)
One SME Drive
PO Box 930
Dearborn, MI  48121
tel: [phone]

Utility/Manufacturer Robot Users group (UMRUG)
Contact: Harry T. Roman
MC: 16-H
Public Service Electric and Gas Company
80 Park Plaza
PO Box 570
Newark, NJ 07101
tel: [phone]

______________________________________________________________________________
+++Robotics Associations of Many Countries

Compilied from a list provided by the British Robot Association.
Alphabatized by English spelling of country.

Australian Robot Association Inc
G.P.O. Box 1527
SYDNEY 2001
New South Wales
Australia
Contact: Mr Michael Kassler
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

Osterreichisches Forschungszentrum
Seibersdorf GmbH
Hauptabteilung Fertigungstechnik und Automation
A-2444 SEIBERSDORF
Austria
Contact: Mr Erwin Fugger
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

SOBRACON - Sociedade Brasileira de Comando
Numerico, Automazacao e Computacao Grafica
Rua General Jardim, 645-7 andar, cjto.72
01223 011 - Sao Paulo, SP
Brazil
Contact: Mr. Arnaldo Pereira Ribeiro
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

British Robot Association (BRA)
BRA Aston Science Park
Love Lane
Birmingham B7 4BJ
England
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
  Meetings, newsletters, information, contacts, sponsor of several
  events in the UK.  Individual and Student rate is 60 pounds UK.

"Robot" Interindustry Research and Production Association
(MNTK "Robot")
Izmailovskaya sq.,7
MOSCOW - Russia
CIS
Contact: Mr. Vladimir P Stepanov
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

China Society of Industrial
Automation & Automated Industries
8, 7F, Tun Hwa N. Rd.
TAIPEI - China
Contact: Mr. Chen, Chen-Chang
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

Danish Industrial Robot Association (DIRA)
Teknologiparken
DK-8000 AARHUS C
Denmark
Contact: Mr. John Nielsen
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

Robotics Society in Finland
c/o Suomen Automaation Tuki Oy
Asemapaallikonk. 12 C
FIN-00520 HELSINKI
Finland
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
Contact: Mr. Hannu Lehtinen
e-mail: [e-mail]

Fachgemeinschaft MHI im VDMA
P.O. Box 71 08 64
D-6000 FRANKFURT (MAIN) 71
Germany
Contact: Mr. Berndt Knoerr
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

IPA
Nobelstrasse 12
D-7000 STUTTGART 80
Germany
Contact: Mr Rolf D Schraft
tel:[phone]
fax: [phone]

Association Francaise de Robotique
Industrielle (AFRI)
Tour 66
4, Place Jussieu
F-75252 PARIS CEDEX 05
France
Contact: Mr. Arnauld Laffaille
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

Hungarian Robotics Association
c/o Tungsram T.H. Co.Ltd.
Centre of Robotics and Automation
H-1340 Budapest
IV., Vaci ut 77
Hungary
Contact: Dr. Jozsef K. Tar
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

Government of India
Ministry of Science & Technology
Dept. of Science & Technology
Technology Bhavan
New Mehrauli Road
New Delhi-110 016
India
Contact: Mr. A.N.N. Murthy, Director
tel: [phone], 654-793
fax: [phone]

SIRI - Associazione Italiana di Robotica
c/o ETAS Periodici
Via Mecenate 91
I-20138 MILANO
Italy
Contact: Mr Daniele Fabrizi
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

Japan Industrial Robot Association
c/o Kikaishinko Bldg
3-5-8, Shibakoen, Minato-Ku
TOKYO
Japan
Contact: Mr Kanji Yonemoto
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

KIST - Korea Institute of Science and Technology
P.O. Box 131, Cheongryang
Seoul
Korea
Contact: Mr. Chun Sik-lee
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

Meininger Automation bv
P.O. Box 743
NL-2280 AS RIJSWIJK
Netherlands
Contact: Mr Jack B Eijlers
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

Federation of Norwegian Engineering Industries (TBL)
Box 7072 - H
N-0306 OSLO 3
Norway
Contact: Mr Johan Ulleland
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

Polish Federation of Engineering Associations (NOT)
Czackiego Str 3/5
PL-00950 WARSZAWA
Poland
Contact: Mr. Kazimierz Wawrzyniak
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

Singapore Industrial Automation Association (SIAA)
151 Chin Swee Road
#03-13 Manhattan House
SINGAPORE 0316
Singapore
Contact: Mr Stephen Teng
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

MVVZ Robot
Nam. Legionarov 3
CZ-080 01 PRESOV
Slovakia
Contact: Mr Vladimir Cop
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

"J. Stefan" Institute
Jamova 39
61000 Ljubljana
Slovenia
Contact: Mr Jadran Lenarcic
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone], 273-677

Asociacion Espanola de Robotica
Rambla de Catalunya 70, 3r 2a
E-08007 BARCELONA
Spain
Contact: Mr Luis Basanez
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

Swedish Industrial Robot Association (SWIRA)
Box 5506
S-114 85 STOCKHOLM
Sweden
Contact: Mr Thomas Hardenby
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

Schweizerische Gesellschaft fur
Automatik, Arbeitsgruppe Robotik
Postgasse 17
CH-3011 BERN
Switzerland
Contact: Mr Charles Giroud
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

British Robot Association (BRA)
Aston Science Park, Love Lane
Aston Triangle
BIRMINGHAM B7 4BJ
United Kingdom
Contact: Mr. Donald Pitt
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

Robotic Industries Assoc (RIA)
P.O. Box 3724
ANN ARBOR, MI 48106
USA
Contact: Mr. Donald A. Vincent
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

Secretariat of IFR
c/o Sveriges Verkstadsindustrier
Box 5506
S-114 85 STOCKHOLM
Swden
Contact: Mr Lennart Djupmark
     Mrs Kerstin Teglof Delgado
tel: [phone] or
     [phone]
fax: [phone]

__________________________________________________________________________
+++Robotics Clubs

The original computer club in Silicon Valley was the Homebrew computer
club, out of which evolved a major portion of the personal computer
industry. In that spirit, if not the hope for history repeating
itself, a number of robotics societies and clubs have sprung up.

Maintainer of this list:

Ed Severinghaus <[e-mail]>
listserver: send message "get society" to [e-mail] listserver
            or "help" for list of other options

Atlanta Hobby Robotics Association
P.O. Box 2050
Stone Mountain, GA 30086
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone],,,11
net: <[e-mail]>
bbs: Robots R4U 404.978.7300 - 300-14400 - 8N1 - 24hrs - 7days
Supporting Hobby Robot activity in Atlanta and more. Source of "Robot
Hobby; The Complete Manual, for Individuals and Clubs" See Books Section.

The Robot Group
PO Box 164334
Austin, TX 78716
tel: [phone]
net: <[e-mail]>
     gopher://gopher.cs.utexas.edu/Other Interesting Gophers/Robogopher

Connecticut Robotics Society
c/o Jake Mendelssohn   [e-mail]
190 Mohegan Drive
West Hartford, CT 06117
tel: [phone]

The Dallas Personal Robotics Group
Dallas Personal Robotics Group
c/o Eric Yundt - President
5112 Hardaway Circle
The Colony, TX  75056
Voice #: 214-625-4454
Fax #: [phone]
Email:  [e-mail]    [e-mail]    [e-mail]
BBS:  The Interociter BBS  214-258-1832

LA Area Robotics and Automation Group
<[e-mail]>
Los Angeles, CA
    If you wish to subscribe to the <la-ragroup> mailing list,
please send a message to:
        [e-mail]
with a blank Subject: line and the body of the message reading:
        subscribe la-ragroup <First Name> <Last Name>
[David Lee                              e-mail: [e-mail]]

Palo Alto Homebrew Robotics Club
c/o Richard Prather
91 Roosevelt Circle
Palo Alto, CA 94306

Portland Area Robotics Society (PARTS)
821 SW 14th
Troutdale, OR 97060
tel: [phone].
net: [e-mail]
contact: Marvin Green
    The purpose of the Portland Area Robotics Society is to
support and promote the development of personal robotics, and to
facilitate the exchange of information between robot enthusiasts.
P.A.R.T.S will help provide practical and technical assistance to its
members, by promoting experimentation, construction, discussions,
seminars, exhibitions, and contests, in the field of hobby robotics.
    Membership to P.A.R.T.S shall be open to all persons, who are
interested in learning more about robotics, and furthering the
objectives of the club.  To get the most from P.A.R.T.S, active
participation is wholeheartedly encouraged.  After all, you only get
out of it what you put into it. Membership is $20 a year and includes
the PARTS newsletter.
    PARTS also has a newsletter that focuses on robotics for the
hobbyist. Each issue contains valuable information on electronics,
microcontrollers, sensors, hardware construction and software for
robotics.  You can obtain a set of twelve newsletters for only $9.95.
This includes shipping and handling.

Robotics Society of Southern California
c/o Jerry Burton, President
10471 S. Brookhurst
Anaheim, CA 92804
714-535-8161
Robotics Society BBS at [phone]
[e-mail]

Robotics Club of Maryland
Computer Science Dept.
A.V. Williams Bldg. (115)
University of Maryland
College Park, Md.  20742-3255
contact: Stephen Klueter, President
net: <[e-mail]>

robotics group
President/founder: Franco Arteseros
13702 East Lehigh Ave, unit E.
Aurora, CO 80014
tel: [phone]

The Robotics Society of America
PO Box 1205
Danville, CA 94526-1205
tel:[phone]
fax: [phone]
bbs: 415.648.6427 (supports 14.4Kb)
net: <[e-mail]>
    Subscription to SFRSA "Magazine" The normal subscription rate
will be $25 for 12 monthly issues.

Rochester Institue of Technology
Brace Peters, President       [e-mail]
RIT Robotics Club                  An RIT recognized club.
1502 Grace Watson Hall
Rochester, New York 14623
meetings are held every Sunday,
7:00 pm in building 09, room 2139 (Gleason building)

San Francisco Robotics Society of America
Brad Smallridge, Director   [e-mail]
P.O.Box 1205
Danvile, CA 94526-1205
415-550-0588
BBS 415-648-6427, 14.4K N81

Seattle Robotics Society
c/o Jeff Sandys
P.O.Box 30668
Seattle, WA 98103-0668
206-782-5989 (8AM-9PM PST, ask for Bob)

Triangle Amateur Robotics Club
P.O. Box 17523
Raleigh, NC 27619
tel: [phone]
net: [e-mail] (Rodney Radford)
tel: [phone] x7703
hme: 919.469.9359
Meets first Monday of every month at 7:30pm on NCSU campus (110 Clark Lab)

Twin Cities Robotics/AI Group
St Paul, Minnesota
Contact:  Alan Kilian, [phone]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
via Mosaic:  http://lenti.med.umn.edu/~mwd/robot.html

University of North Carolina Asheville Robotics Club
contact: Paul Schuh
Home phone: [phone]          [e-mail]

A related group:
MicroMechanics Information Clearinghouse
Requests to join list are sent to: <[e-mail]>
FTP site:
ftp://mems.isi.edu/
directories: /pub/prm, /pub/prospero, /pub/mems, /pub/papers
WWW-URL:    http://mems.isi.edu/mems

Robot related performance art:
-----------------------------
Survival Research Laboratories
1458-C San Bruno Ave.
San Francisco, CA  94110
tel/fax: [phone]
contact: SRL director Mark Pauline
net: <[e-mail]>
    Survival Research Laboratories is a not-for-profit machine-
performance art group conceived of and founded by Mark Pauline in
November 1978.  Since its inception SRL has operated as an
organization of creative technicians dedicated to re-directing the
techniques, tools, and tenets of industry, science, and the military
away from their typical manifestations in practicality, product or
warfare.  Since 1979, SRL has staged over 45 mechanized presentations
in the United States and Europe.  Each performance consists of a
unique set of ritualized interactions between machines, robots, and
special effects devices, employed in developing themes of
socio-political satire.  Humans are present only as audience or
operators.

    Survival Research Laboratories is now available for email and
time-restricted Gopher and anonymous FTP access from 0000-0600 PST
daily. [NOTE TIME RESTRICTION!]: ftp://srl.org/pub/SRLImageBank and
ftp://srl.org/pub/SRLInfo The directory holds scanned-in photographs
and video images of SRL shows in GIF format; SRLInfo has news. Image
file sizes range from 70 to 250 Kbytes, but our link speed is only
9600 baud; please be patient. Always select BINARY mode before FTP
file transfers.  Filenames can be specified in upper or lower case.
Comments or questions to [e-mail].

 Joel Plutchak has a WWW mirror site for SRL at:
 http://lager.geo.brown.edu:8080/pub/srl/
 ftp://lager.geo.brown.edu

There are two SRL tapes carried by Media Magic - a company that has all
sorts of great books, programs, CD-ROMs, laser disks, videos, etc dealing
with computers in science and art.  The tapes are:

    #v112a The Pleasures Of Unihibited Excess ($30) and
    #v112b The Will To Provoke ($25)

Media Magic
P.O. Box 598
Nicasio, CA   94946
tel: [phone] or orders
tel: [phone]

__________________________________________________________________________
+++Robotics Publications

There are a number of academic journals and trade magazines devoted to
robotics.  There are no magazines currently devoted to the hobbyist or
designer of robotic mechanisms. In the 1980's Robotics Engineering
(nee Robotics Age) lasted for 7-8 years but folded. The one difficulty
I noted as a subscriber was that the magazine attempted to address the
hobbyist, the curious and those whose work was devoted to robotics
without successfully catering to all groups.

This list of periodical covers the academic journals, the trade
magazines devoted to both robotics and relevant sub-areas, and the
lone newsletter for hobbyists.

Advanced Robotics (in English)
    The International Journal of the Robotics Society of Japan.
    ISSN 0169-1864
    Editor-in-Chief, Robotics Society of Japan, 6FL. Bunkyo-Shogaku Bldg.,
    1-15-4, Hongu, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113, Japan.
    Subscriptions and orders:
    VSP, PO. Box 346, 3700 AH Zeist, The Netherlands.
    Bimonthly, DM525 (1993 price).

Automation in Construction
    Publisher: Elsevier Science Publisher B. V., Amsterdam.
    Desk Editor: Erik de Vries
    The Editor of the journal is
    Dr. T. Michael Knasel
    10324 Lake Avenue
    Cleveland, OH 441102-1239.
    fax: [phone].

Autonomous Robots
    ISSN 0929-5593
    Kluwer Academic Publishers
    Journal Dept
    PO Box 358, Accord Station
    Hingham, MA 02018-0358
    tel: [phone]
    fax: [phone]
    subscription: $50/individual
    Vol 1, 1994 (2 issues)
    Editor-in-chief
    George Bekey <[e-mail]>

Industrial Robot
    ISSN 0143-991X
    Quarterly, $145/year
    MCB University Press Ltd.
    62 Toller Lane
    Bradford, West Yorkshire
    England, BD8 9BY
    tel: [phone],
    fax: [phone]
    --in the US
    MCB University Press Ltd.
    PO Box 10812
    Birmingham, AL 35201-0812
    tel: [phone] (1-205-995-1567),
    fax: [phone]

Institute of  Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)
    The IEEE has a formidable array of journals, transactions and
    magazines. Here are a few that are relevant to robotics work:
    IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation
    IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics
    IEEE Control Systems Magazine
    IEEE Computer Magazine
    IEEN Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence
    IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics
    Cost: Have to join IEEE and then subscribe. Student rates are
    much less expensive than non-student rates.

International Journal of Robotics and Automation
    Published 4 times annually. ISSN 0826-8185
    ACTA Press, PO Box 354, CH-8053, Zurich, Switzerland or ACTA
    Press, PO Box 2481, Anaheim, CA 92814.
    Subscriptions: $165 US or 313.50 SFr. ($12 US or 22.80 SFr postage and
    handling). A special rate is available to members of IASTED.

International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR)
    MIT Press
    28 Carleton Street
    Cambridge, MA 02142
    Cost: $50/year to individuals

Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems
    Three issues per volume, $58.50 per volume (individual)
    Kluwer Academic Publishers Group
    PO Box 322,
    3300 AH Dordrecht,
    The Netherlands
    --in the US:
    PO Box 358
    Accord Station,
    Hingham, MA 02018-0358

Journal of the Robotics Society of Japan
     The table of contents (TOC) are posted to comp.research.japan
    and comp.robotics as they are available, although there is
    some delay. All of the TOC that we've done for this and other
    Japanese CS journals are archived for anonymous FTP at
    ftp://cs.arizona.edu/japan/table.contents/robotics.TOC/jrsj.TOC

Journal of Robotic Systems
    G. Beni and S. Hackwood, editors
    College of Engineering
    University of California, Riverside
    Riverside, CA 92521-0425
    Publisher:
    Interscience Division
    Professional, Reference, and Trade Group
    John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
    605 Third Ave.
    New York, NY 10158

Mechatronics (Mechanics, Electronics, Control)
    Editors-in-Chief:
    Dr. R. W. Daniel
    Department of Engineering Science,
    University of Oxford,
    Parks Road,
    Oxford, OX1-3PJ
    United Kingdom:
    tel: [phone]
    fax: [phone]

    Professor J. R. Hewit
    Engineering Design Institute
    Department of Mechanical Engineering,
    University of Technology, Loughborough
    Leicestershire, LE11 3TU
    UNITED KINGDOM
    tel: [phone]
    fax: [phone])

    Published by Pergamon Press Ltd, Headington Hill Hall, Oxford
    OX3 0BW UK.  1993 subscription rates: 193 pounds Sterling (US
    $312) Personal subscription rates for those whose library
    subscribes at a regular rate are available on request.
    Subscription rates for Japan are available on request.

Robot (Japanese)
    Industrial Robots and Application Systems
    published bimonthly
    Japan Industrial Robot Association (JIRA)
    Kikai-Shinko Building
    3-5-8, Shiba-Kohen,
    Mina To-ku
    Tokyo, Japan
    tel: [phone]
    fax: [phone]

Robot Explorer
    'The newsletter of motile systems'
    ISSN: 1060-4375
    Appropriate Solutions
    145 Grove Street
    PO Box 458
    Peterborough, NH 03458-0458
    tel: [phone]
    fax: [phone]
    net: [e-mail]
    $14.95/year in the US, $29.95 to the rest of the world.

Robotica
    International Journal of Information, Education and Research
    in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence
    Quarterly publication, US $179 per year!
    Cambridge University Press
    The Edinburgh Building
    Shaftesbury Road,
    Cambridge CB2 2RU (UK)
    in the US:
    Cambridge University Press
    Journals Department
    40 West 20th Street
    New York, NY 10011-4211

Robotics and Autonomous Systems
    -- In Europe --
    Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.
    Journals Department
    PO Box 211, 100 AE Amsterdam
    The Netherlands
    Editors in Chief:
    Prof. F.C.A. Groen
    University of Amsterdam
    Faculty of Mathematics and CS
    Dept. of Computer Systems
    Kruislaan 403
    1098 SJ Amsterdam
    The Netherlands
    net: <[e-mail]>

    -- In the US and Canada --
    Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc.
    Journal Information Center
    655 Avenue of the Americas
    New York, NY 10010
    Editor in Chief
    Prof. T.C. Henderson
    University of Utah
    Dept. of Computer Science
    3160 Merrill Engineering Bldg.
    Salt Lake City, UT 84112 USA
    net: <[e-mail]>

Robotics and Computer Integrated Manufacturing
    Pergamon Press, ISSN 0736-5845
    Editorial Office: Dr. Andre Sharon, Associate Editor, [e-mail]
    Subscriptions and orders:
    Elsevier Science Inc, 660 White Plains Road, Tarrytown,
        NY 10591-5153, USA
        or Elsevier Science Ltd, The Boulevard, Langford Lane,
        Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1GB, UK.

Robotics Today
    Published by:
    Society of Manufacturing Engineers
    One SME Drive
    PO Box 930
    Dearborn, MI 48121
    tel: [phone]

Robotics World
    "The end-user's magazine of flexible automation"
    Published quarterly
    Communication Channels
    6255 Barfield Road
    Atlanta, GA 30328
    tel: [phone]
    They also publish the Robotics World Directory $49.95

Useful and relevant trade magazines:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Usually free, mostly ads or industry news. Many articles
written by advertisers. Great sources of product information. Our lab
at CMU receives 50-60 trade magazines and journals per month and while
no one reads all of the articles, pointers are passed on to people
around the lab. This keeps the group abreast of new products and
developments.

Advanced Imaging
    445 Broad Hollow Rd.
    Melville, NY 11747
    tel: [phone]
    fax: [phone]
    Subscription free to qualified professionals, $50/yr otherwise.

ComputerCraft
    CQ Communications
    76 N. Broadway
    Hicksville, NY 11801
    tel: [phone]
    fax: [phone]
    cost: $18.97/yr
    ISSN: 1055-5072

Computer Applications Journal
    Circuit Cellar Inc.
    4 Park St. Suite 20
    Vernon, CT 06066
    Subscriptions: P.O. Box 7694
    Riverton, NJ 08077
    tel: [phone]
    cost: $21.95/yr
    ISSN: 0896-8985
    Excellent for those building hardware, programming
    microcontrollers, etc. Also a very good source for companies
    who have products in these areas.

Design News
    Cahners Publishing Co.
    275 Washington Street
    Newton, MA. 02158
    News and Applications for design engineers.
    Cost: Free to qualified recipients; otherwise - ?

EE Times
    CMP Publications, Inc.
    600 Community Drive
    Manhasset, NY  11030
    Cost: Free to qualified recipients (in the U.S.); otherwise -
    $159/yr    (U.S. & Foreign)

Electronic Design
    Penton Publishing Inc
    1100 Superior Ave
    Cleveland, OH 44114-2543
    611 Route #46 West
    Hasbrouck Heights, NJ 07604
    tel: [phone]
    fax: [phone]
    cost: $95.00/yr (free if qualified)
    ISSN: 0013-4872

Electronics Now (formerly Radio Electronics)
    Gernsback Publications Inc
    Subscription Dept
    Box 55115
    Boulder, CO 80321-5115
    500-B Bi-County Boulevard
    Farmingdale, NY 11735
    tel: [phone]
    cost: $19.97/yr
    ISSN: 0033-7862

Embedded Systems Programming
    Miller Freeman
    600 Harrison St.
    San Francisco, CA 94107
    tel: [phone] (customer service)
    tel: [phone]
    bbs: 415.905.2689.
    $49.95 for 12 issues

Laser Focus World
        10 Tara Blvd., Fifth Floor (Editorial Office)
        Nashua, NH  03062
        tel: [phone]
        fax: [phone]
        internet: [e-mail]
        Subscription Inquiries: 918.831.9424

Machine Design
    Penton Publishing Inc.
    1100 Superior Ave.
    Cleveland, OH 44114-2543
    tel: [phone]
    fax: [phone]
    Cost: Free to qualified recipients in the U.S.; otherwise -
    $100.00/yr in U.S.; $140/yr in Canada; $160/yr - all other
    Foreign

Midnight Engineering 'Journal of Personal Product Development'
    Published by William E Gates, [No, not him...]
    111 E. Drake Road
    Suite 7041
    Fort Collins, CO 80525
    tel: [phone]
    fax: [phone]
    One-year (6 issues) $24, canada and mexico $29, other foreign
    $49 (airmail) Perhaps marginal for this list but focus is on
    "resources and insight for the entrepreneurial engineer"
    Issues and articles on developing hardware, software,
    micro-controllers, product development, marketing, patenting
    issues, startups, etc etc. Excellent if you need this info.

Modern Materials Handling
    44 Cook Street
    Denver, CO  80206-5800
    tel: [phone]
    Trade magazine covering productivity solutions for
    manufacturing, warehousing and distribution.  Typically
    includes articles on factory automation, etc.  Cost: Free to
    qualified recipients; otherwise - $75 for US subscribers.

Motion Control
    Tower Media Corp.
    800 Roosevelt Rd.
    Bldg. C, Suite 206
    Glen Ellyn, IL  60137
    Trade magazine for Motion Control applications and Technology.
    Cost: Free to qualified recipients in the U.S.; otherwise -
    $50/yr in U.S. $90/yr foreign subscriptions.

NASA Tech Briefs
    Associated Business Publications Co., Ltd.
    41 E. 42nd St.
    New York, NY  10017-5391
    Contains useful technology transfer information which very
    often includes robotics research performed at various NASA
    centers.  Cost: Free to qualified recipients; otherwise -
    $75.00/yr in the U.S., $150.00/yr for Foreign subscriptions

Nuts and Volts
    430 Princeland Court
    Corona, CA 91719
    tel: [phone]
    Electronics classifieds and ads. Lots of devices and products
    relevant for robot builders. Often features articles on robot
    building as well by Karl Lunt.

Sensors
    Helmers Publishing
    174 Concord Street
    PO Box 874
    Peterborough, NH 03458-0874
    tel: [phone]
    Trade magazine devoted to sensing devices. Publishes directory.
    Cost: Free to qualified subscribers, $55/yr otherwise

    [To add]
GPS World (Global Positioning System related)
RF Design
Sea Technology
Laser Focus
POB (surveying profession)
Broadcast Engineering (TV and radio engineering)

Other sources:
--------------
Thomas Register
    Thomas Publishing Company
    One Penn Plaza
    New York, NY 10117-0139
    tel: [phone]
    fax: [phone]
    About $250 for a 20-odd volume encyclopedia of US industry.
Concentration on heavier industries - but still an amazing source for
information. No company or lab building products should be without
one. Available on CD-ROM for a much higher price.

EEM - The 'Thomas Register' for Electrical engineers.
[Address to add]
_____________________________________________________________________________
+++Conferences and Competitions

There are a wide variety and number of conferences related to robotics
and automation. Some are focused on industrial applications, many are
researchy in nature and most are a mixture of both. Proceedings should
be available in most good libraries or by interlibrary loan. The
conference announcements are listed chronologically. Most conferences
now also have ftp: and web locations from more information.

Summary list of conferences:
----------------------------

AMS'94 Autonomous Mobile Systems
    University of Stuttgart, Germany
    Oct 13-14 1994
International Dedicated Conference on Robotics, Motion and Machine Vision
    Aachen, Germany
    October 31-November 4 1994
ICARCV'94 Third International Conference on Automation, Robotics and
    Computer Vision.
    Singapore
    November 8-11 1994
MVA'94: IAPR Workshop on Machine Vision Applications
    Kawasaki, Japan
    December 13-15, 1994
ANS 6th Topical Meeting on Robotics and Remote Systems
    Monterey, California
    February 5-10, 1995
AAAI Spring Symposium
    Stanford, Ca
    March 27-29, 1995
IASTED International Conferencem, MODELLING AND SIMULATION
    Pittsburgh, PA, USA
        April 27-29, 1995
ICRA 1995 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION
    Nagoya, Japan
    May 21-27, 1995
6th  International  Scientific  and  Technical  Conference
        ROBOTICS  FOR  EXTRAORDINARY  CONDITIONS
    St.Petersburg.
    June  6-8, 1995
ML95 Twelfth International Conference on Machine Learning
    Tahoe City, California
    July 9-12, 1995
IJCAI-95
    Palais de Congres, Montreal
    August 20-25 1995.
Practice and Future of Autonomous Agents
    ASI-AA-95, Centro Stefano Franscini Monte Verita, Ticino,
    Switzerland
    September 23 - October 1, 1995
CVRMed'95 First International Conference on
        Computer Vision, Virtual Reality and Robotics in Medicine,
    Nice, FRANCE
    April 3-5, 1995
Symposium on Autonomous Systems in Mine Countermeasures
        U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California
        April 4-7, 1995

Conference Descriptions
-----------------------

Announcement and Call for Papers
10th Workshop on Autonomous Mobile Systems
                AMS'94
On October 13th and 14th 1994 at the University Stuttgart, Germany

In its 10-year anniversary, the workshop on "Autonomous Mobile Systems"
will be organized by the Institute of Parallel and Distributed High
Performance Systems at the Univ. Stuttgart, Germany. Please send an
abstract of 1-2 pages of your paper proposal to the address below.
All papers accepted will be published in the "Informatik aktuell" series
of Springer-Verlag. The workshop languages will be German and English.

Topics:
  - Autonomous and Cooperative Systems
  - Cooperation and Coordination
  - Autonomous System in Road Traffic
  - Image Processing for Mobile Systems
  - Techniques for Modeling and Simulation
  - Programming Techniques and Tools
  - Planning for Autonomous Mobile Systems
  - Multiple Sensors, Data Fusion, and Data Interpretation
  - Applications of Autonomous Mobile Systems
  - Use in Manufacturing, Service, Cleaning, Construction Site
    Supporting Disabled Persons
  - Exploration, Learning, and Self Organization
  - Behaviour-based AI (Artificial Life)

Dates and Deadlines:
13.+14. Oct. 1994  Workshop AMS'94

Workshop Committee:
Prof. R. Dillmann (Univ. Karlsruhe)  Prof. G. Faerber (TU Muenchen)
Prof. P. Levi (Univ. Stuttgart)      Prof. U. Rembold (Univ. Karlsruhe)
Prof. G. Schmidt (TU Muenchen)

Contact:
Prof. Dr. P. Levi
Dr. Th. Braeunl
Applied Computer Science - Computer Vision
Universitaet Stuttgart, IPVR
Breitwiesenstr. 20-22, D-70565 Stuttgart, Germany
Tel.: [phone], Fax: [phone]
email: [e-mail]
www: http://www.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/ipvr/bv/roboter/ams.html

=----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                             CALL FOR PAPERS
INTERNATIONAL DEDICATED CONFERENCE ON ROBOTICS, MOTION AND MACHINE VISION
        Aachen, Germany, 31st October to 4th November 1994

  This conference is dedicated to practical industry applications and
existing products.  This meeting will also be concerned with the
economical viability of applications.  Therefore, we strong encourage
papers which deal with cost analysis and performance/cost optimization
considering speed.  accuracy, available features and tools, software
cost, hardware cost, engineering time, and maintenance time.

Papers are sought in these and related subjects:

- Calibration of motion devices, vision systems, and
  motion-vision systems,(methodology, error estimation,
  error minimization, accuracy).
- Accuracy and repeatability of motion devices, vision
  systems, and motion-vision systems.
- Criteria for accuracy, repeatability and calibration
  versus manufacturing requirements.
- Error compounding effect in motion-vision applications.
- Challenging applications (speed, accuracy, cost, methodology, etc.).
- Failed applications (speed, accuracy, cost, methodology, etc.).
- New methodologies in industrial applications.
- High Speed industrial applications.
- High accuracy industrial applications.
- Subpixel accuracy in industrial applications.
- Under 5 micron accuracy in industrial applications.
- Force and torque sensors integration.
- Application software for a workcell.
- Handling uncertainties in robot motion including
  uncertainty representation, propagation, reduction, and error
  recovery.

IMPORTANT DATES:
   ABSTRACTS DUE: 14TH MARCH, 1994
   DRAFT MANUSCRIPTS DUE: 16TH MAY 1994
   FINAL PAPERS DUE: 18TH JULY 1994

Please send abstracts to:
ISATA Secretariat
42 Lloyd Park Avenue
Croydon, CR0 5SB, England
Telephone: [phone]
Telefax: 081 686 1490

=----------------------------------------------------------------------------

                            ADVANCE PROGRAM
                                  AND
                         CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
                                ICARCV'94
                      THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
                   AUTOMATION, ROBOTICS AND COMPUTER VISION
                              8-11 NOVEMBER 1994

  The Third International Conference on Automation, Robotics  and  Computer
Vision,  ICARCV'94, will be held in Singapore on 8-11 November 1994 at the
Shangri-La Hotel,Singapore.The theme of ICARCV'94 is "Intelligent Automation"
The first day of the conference is reserved for tutorials; the next 3 days
are reserved for presentations of the papers.

Registration:
-------------
 The conference registration fee includes the proceedings, coffee and
 lunches. The registration fee for the conference is S$680 for IEEE or IEE
 or ICS or InstMC members and S$730 for non-members.
 Participants who register for the conference before the 30th of Sept. will
 get a S$30 discount. For any organization sending four or more delegates,
 a 15% discount or the registration fee will be given.

Payment for registration should be sent to:
ICARCV'94 Conference Secretariat
c/o The Institution of Enginers, Singapore (IES)
70 Bukit Tinggi road, Singapore 1128
Republic of Singapore

(Note: Please indicate your membership status and number while you
make the payment, also state your correspondece address and
affiliation)

Keynote Speakers:
-----------------
 The keynote speakers will be
 1) Dr J. Engelberger
 Chairman,  Transitions Research Corporation,  USA
 2) Dr O. Faugeras
 Research Director, INRIA,  France
 3) Dr R. Hara
 Vice Chairman, Seiko Instruments Inc,  Japan

The complete advance program is at
ftp://ntuix.ntu.ac.sg/outgoing/ICARCV94_advance_program
Internet address: 155.69.1.5

=----------------------------------------------------------------------------
         MVA'94: IAPR Workshop on Machine Vision Applications
                         December 13-15, 1994
                           Kawasaki, Japan

The International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR) announces
the 4th IAPR International Workshop on Machine Vision Applications to
be held in Kawasaki on December 13-15, 1994.

The workshop is sponsored by the IAPR Technical Committees 6, 8, and
10.  The purpose of the workshop is to bring together researchers and
practitioners from both academia and industry, and to exchange their
knowledge and stimulate each other through intensive discussions on
the following research topics:

Main Topic: Machine Vision and its Applications
     Machine Vision Algorithms
          Feature extraction,  Range data / 3D shapes,  Motion / Image
          sequence analysis, Neural  network applications, Color image
          analysis,  AI-based vision,   Human  interface,  and related
          technologies.

     Special Purpose Architectures
          Intelligent  sensors,  VLSI image processor chips, Massively
          parallel  processing,  Architectures  for  3D  and/or motion
          processing,  Image  processing systems, Software environment
          for image processor, and related technologies.

     Industrial Applications
          Factory automation, Disaster prevention and rescue, Security
          control,  Navigation,  Mobile robots, Civil and construction
          engineering,       Agriculture/Forestry/Fishery,       Other
          applications, and related technologies.

     Document, Map and Line Drawing Processing
          Document  image  processing, Drawing recognition, Multimedia
          database,   Map   and   engineering  drawing  database,  Map
          processing  and  map-based  systems,  3D reconstruction from
          maps or drawings, and related technologies.

    The workshop will include several invited talks and about 100
papers for oral and poster presentations on the above topics.  All
presentations will be in English.  Those who wish to present a paper
are requested to submit four copies of a 500-1000 word extended
abstract with at least one main figure by June 15, 1994 to:
           Prof. Mikio Takagi
           Institute of Industrial Science
           University of Tokyo
           7-22-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106, Japan
           FAX: [phone]

    The abstract should contain the following in its first page.
           1) Title of the paper
           2) Author name(s) and his/her(their) affiliation(s)
           3) A person's name and address to be contacted,
              also, phone and fax numbers, Email address if available
           4) Answers to the following questions:
              a) What is the original contribution of this work?
              b) Why should this contribution be considered important?

Authors of papers that are accepted will be notified by August 1,
1994. Final camera-ready papers are due by October 1, 1994.

Notice: International Technical Exhibition on Image Technology and
Equipment will be held in Tokyo, near the workshop site, on December
7-9, 1994. All participants for the workshop are encouraged to visit
the exhibition.

For further information, please contact:
    Prof. Mikio Takagi
    Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo
    7-22-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106, JAPAN
    PHONE: [phone]  FAX: [phone]
    EMAIL: [e-mail]

=----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Call for Abstracts & Call for Exhibitors
ANS 6th Topical Meeting on Robotics and
Remote Systems

February 5-10, 1995
Monterey, California USA

Sponsored by:
AMERICAN NUCLEAR SOCIETY
Robotics and Remote Systems Division
and the Northern California Section

Cosponsored by
o Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
o Electric Power Research Institute
o The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
o British Nuclear Energy Society

You are invited to submit extended abstracts for review and
consideration for the ANS Sixth Topical Meeting on Robots and Remote
Systems.  The theme of this Topical is "Robots in the Environment,"
and emphasis will be placed on robot technology and applications in a
variety of remote environments, including nuclear, environmental
remediation, underwater and space.  Sessions are arranged in four
primary interest areas or "tracks" so that no two papers in a track
are presented concurrently.  The tracks and topics of interest for
this abstract solicitation are listed below.

APPLICATIONS
    Nuclear power and fuel cycle
    Environmental Restoration
    Waste Management
    Remote Manufacturing and Processing
    Laboratory Automation
    Manipulator Applications
    Medical Application

HOSTILE ENVIRONMENTS
    Hardening and Survivability Technologies
    Undersea
    Space
    Law Enforcement
    Emergency Response and HazMat Handling
    Military

CONTROL SYSTEMS
    Control Systems and Architectures
    Virtual Reality Application to Remote Systems
    Sensors and Machine Vision
    Human Factors and the Human/Machine Interface
    Artificial Intelligence and Smart Systems
    Remote Viewing and Telepresence

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
    Autonomous Systems and Mobility
    Mechanical Design and Special Tooling
    Manipulator R&D
    Remote Engineering

The ANS 6th Topical Meeting on Robotics and Remote Systems Symposium,
sponsored by the American Nuclear Society, will be held at the Hyatt
Regency Monterey in Monterey, California, just minutes from the
beautiful California central coast.
 Updates in the various technology areas will be featured as well as
several new special interest sessions which have proven popular in
recent years.  Both oral and poster papers will be presented, and
submissions of your original work are requested.  We encourage
papers/presentations from European and Pacific Rim countries.

Technical Sessions
Both oral presentations and poster sessions will be featured for the four-day
conference

Send Abstracts on new and innovative work to:

Program Chairman
Scott A. Couture
ANS 6th Topical on Robotics and
Remote Systems
P.O. Box 10333
Pleasanton, CA  94588
Phone: [phone]/FAX [phone]

INSTRUCTIONS FOR ABSTRACT PREPARATION AND MAILING ____________________
Abstracts of new and innovative work are solicited.  Submission format is an
extended typed abstract of at least 500-900 words.  Please send the original
and three copies to the program chairman.

ABSTRACT DEADLINE - APRIL 1, 1993 - SEND TO:
6th Topical Meeting on Robotics and Remote Systems
Attn:  Scott Couture, Technical Program Chair
P.O. Box 10333     Pleasanton, CA  94588

Acceptance Categories:
Papers may be accepted for:
1.    Oral presentations for a specified time (20-35 minutes, nominal)
2.    Poster presentation with the author expected to be in attendance to explain
his or her paper and to answer questions.
All papers accepted for the ANS 6th Topical Meeting on Robotics and Remote
Systems are eligible for publication in the ANS Transactions issue for the
Symposium subject to formal review and acceptance procedures.


Return this information sheet

Sixth Topical Meeting on Robotics and Remote Systems
February 5-10, 1995, Monterey, California
___  I am interest edin attending this Topical Meeting.  Please send additional
information as it becomes available.
___  I am interested in presenting a paper at this Topical Meeting.

Tentative title of paper:
___  I am interested in presenting a poster session
___  I am interested in Exhibit Space for this Topical Meeting.

Name:
Affiliation:
Address:
City/State/Zip

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1995 AAAI Spring Symposium
Date: March 27-29, 1995
Place: Stanford, CA
Deadline for submission: October 28, 1994
URL: http://tommy.jsc.nasa.gov/er/er6/mrl/symposium.html

Lessons Learned from Implemented Software Architectures for Physical Agents
===========================================================================

We are interested in organizational concepts for artificial agents
that function in the everyday world of manufacturing floors, office
buildings, and houses or in the specialized worlds of space or nuclear
reactors.

In recent years, a sufficient number of researchers have put forth
software frameworks for organizing intelligence in agents beyond the
original first few who began such investigations [e.g., SOAR and
NASREM] that a symposium to discuss the issues outlined below is
warranted. We are seeing architectures with as few as three and as
many as five layers of cognition or control, for single agents or
multiple agents, designed to accommodate hard real-time constraints or
involved user interfaces, handling purely reactive or a combination of
deliberate and reactive control, which are subsumptive or
supervenient, and most of which are designed to function as part of a
physical agent.

The goal of this workshop is to shed light into reasons for
architectural decisions in building artificial agents. Many important
questions affect architectural decisions. For this workshop, we ask
the following questions only with respect to architectural decisions.

Coordination-- How should the agent arbitrate/coordinate/cooperate its
behaviors and actions?  Is there a need for central behavior
coordination?

Interfaces-- How can human expertise be easily brought into an agent's
decisions?  Will the agent need to translate natural language
internally before it can interact with the world?  How should an agent
capture mission intentions or integrate various levels of autonomy or
shared control?  Can restricted vocabularies be learned and shared by
agents operating in the same environment?

Representation-- How much internal representation of knowledge and
skills is needed?  How should the agent organize and represent its
internal knowledge and skills?  Is more than one representational
formalism needed?

Structural-- How should the computational capabilities of an agent be
divided, structured, and interconnected?  What is the best
decomposition/granularity of architectural components?  What is gained
by using a monolithic architecture versus a multi-level, distributed,
or massively parallel architecture?  Are embodied semantics important
and how should they be implemented?  How much does each level/component
of an agent architecture have to know about the other
levels/components?

Performance-- What types of performance goals and metrics can
realistically be used for agents operating in dynamic, uncertain, and
even actively hostile environments?  How can an architecture make
guarantees about its performance with respect to the time-critical
aspect of the agent's physical environment?  What are the performance
criteria for deciding what activities take place in each
level/component of the architecture?

Psychology-- Why should we build agents that mimic anthropomorphic
functionalities?  How far can/should we draw metaphoric similarities
to human/animal psychology?  How much should memory organization
depend on human/animal psychology?

Simulation-- What, if any, role can advanced simulation technology
play in developing and verifying modules and/or systems?  Can we have
standard virtual components/test environments that everybody trusts
and can play a role in comparing systems to each other?  How far can
development of modules profitably proceed before they should be
grounded in a working system?  How is the architecture affected by its
expected environment and its actual embodiment?

Learning-- How can a given architecture support learning?  How can
knowledge and skills be moved between different layers of an agent
architecture?

We invite researchers in intelligent mobile robots, robot
manipulators, autonomous creatures (animats), and neuroscience as
applied to autonomous agents to join us in discussing these questions.

To allow for a more practical discussion of the issues, all
submissions should focus on an agent or agents performing a specific
task, such as keeping a house clean, maintaining the space station, or
delivering parts on a factory floor. Be very specific about how your
agent(s) organize(s) its knowledge and skills in order to perform this
task and what mechanisms your agent(s) use(s) to invoke the correct
knowledge or skill at the appropriate time. Please include the design
decisions you made in organizing your agent's architecture for the
task.  Then, through this specific example, show how your agent's
architecture addresses some of the questions listed above.

The symposium will consist of presentations, invited talks, and task
groups. Based on submissions, we will divide the workshop into
specific task groups and, after discussions, come together for
synthesis.  We are tentatively proposing that the group produce as a
minimum a set of answers for a portion of the discussion areas listed
above.

SUBMISSION INFORMATION

Potential attendees should submit either an extended abstract or a
full paper, neither of which should exceed 20 pages.  If you are
submitting a paper, we prefer that it not have been published
elsewhere.  If you are sending a paper that has already been
published, tell us where it appeared.

We encourage everyone to submit their papers or abstracts
electronically, PostScript or ASCII only.  Submission can be made by
e-mailing the entire document, e-mailing an anonymous ftp address, or
placing the document in the ftp site we give below.

E-mail submissions should be sent to:
    [e-mail]
Anonymous FTP submission:
    ftp ftp.cs.buffalo.edu
        and put your submission in users/hexmoor directory

If e-mail submission is not possible, please send three copies of
the paper or abstract to:

    Henry Hexmoor
    Co-chair, AAAI Spring Symposium
    226 Bell Hall
    Dept of Computer Science
    SUNY at Buffalo
    Buffalo, NY 14260

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Ron Arkin
Peter Bonasso
Henry Hexmoor (co-chair)
David Kortenkamp (co-chair)
David Musliner

GUEST SPEAKERS
James Albus
George Bekey
Mike Brady

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                    IASTED International Conference
                       MODELLING AND SIMULATION
                          April 27-29, 1995

LOCATION: Sheraton Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

SPONSORS: The International Association of Science and Technology for
          Development (IASTED)
                - Technical Committee on Modelling and Simulation
          The International Society for Mini and Microcomputers (ISMM)

SCOPE:
* Modelling             * Animation             * Simulation
* Visualization         * Hardware              * Multimedia
* Languages             * Bond graphs           * Numerical methods
* Petri nets            * Analysis              * Stochastic processes
* Neural networks       * Parallel processing   * Design
* Distributed processing

APPLICATIONS:
* Aerospace             * Economics             * Biotechnology
* Control               * Reliability           * Nuclear reactors
* Computers             * Quality control       * VLSI
* Networks              * Robotics              * Heat transfer
* Biomedical systems    * Manufacturing         * Biomechanics
* Healthcare            * Circuits and systems  * Fluid flow
* Chemical engineering  * Signal processing     * Flight simulators
* Civil engineering     * Transportation        * Airports
* Energy systems        * Education             * Harbours
* Power systems         * Risk and decision     * Others
* Environmental systems * Operations research

INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE:
M. Alam                 USA             C. Doumanidis           USA
R.W. Eyerly             USA             M.H. Hamza              Canada
C. Hou                  USA             J. Ishii                Japan
D.O. Koval              Canada          M. Lotfalian            USA
M.H. Mickle             USA             L.C. Monticone          USA
N.M. Namazi             USA             S. Popovich             Canada
K.R. Sliwa              Mexico          A. Sloley               USA
S. Szpakowicz           Canada          S. Vemuru               USA
D. Wang                 USA             T. Wu                   P.R. China
D. Yoon                 USA

SUBMISSION OF PAPERS:
Three copies of the full manuscripts, having a maximum of 12 pages, are to be
received by the IASTED Secretary Anaheim not later than November 15, 1994.
The papers that may be submitted should not have been previously published,
nor should they be presently under review for publication in a journal or for
a conference. Papers accepted by the International Program Committee will be
categorized as regular or short papers.

Please supply four keywords to indicate the area of the paper and provide
the name, address, affiliation, telephone and fax numbers of the main author
and of the author expected to present the paper.

Persons wishing to organize a session or to present half-day tutorials should
submit a proposal to the Secretary by November 15, 1994.

The preregistration fee is expected to be approximately $US 400. This covers
the registration, dinner on April 28, 1995, refreshments and one volume of
the proceedings.

Authors will be requested to preregister.

                ****** IMPORTANT DEADLINES ******

November 15, 1994 - Submission of papers
February 1, 1995  - Notification of acceptance
March 15, 1995    - Camera ready manuscripts due

ADDRESS:
        IASTED Secretariat - MS'95
        1811 West Katella Avenue, Suite 101
        Anaheim, California 92804
        USA
        Tel: [phone]
        Fax: [phone]
        Email: [e-mail]

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1995 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION

Co-sponsored by
The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society
Science Council of Japan
The Robotics Society of Japan
The Society of Instrument and Control Engineers
The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers

May 21-27, 1995
Nagoya Congress Center
Nagoya, Japan


Advisory Chair: Fumio Harashima, University of Tokyo, Japan
Organizing Chair: Fumio Harashima, University of Tokyo, Japan
General Chair: Toshio Fukuda, Nagoya University, Japan
Program Chair: Suguru Arimoto, University of Tokyo, Japan
Program Vice Co-chairs: Shin'ichi Yuta, University of Tsukuba, Japan
                                       Gerhard Hirzinger, German Aerospace
                                      Research Establishment,  Germany
                                        Thomas C. Henderson, University of
                                                             Utah, U.S.A

Local Arrangements Chair: Yoshikazu Suematsu, Nagoya University, Japan
Treasurer  and Coordinator: Steve Hsia, University of California, Davis, U.S.A
                                             Koji Ito, Toyohashi University of
                                                       Technology, Japan

CALL FOR PAPERS

The theme of the 1995 Conference is "Robotics and Automation in Exploring
New Engineering Disciplines."  This year, the Conference celebrates its
12th anniversary and  for the first time takes place in  the Orient.
Therefore, it will be a good time to look into the future with a  renewed
sense of purpose, enterpreunership, and dedication to the advancement of
science and technology.  A paradigm shift is emerging  in factories, from
mass production to customized manufacturing which is based firmly on using
flexible automation to manufacture a high variety of items.  It inevitably
generates a wide range of  challenging research problems that impact
productivity and quality control in manufacturing sectors.  Robotics
research is needed to Jprovide greater intelligence and higher versatility f
or robotic tasks under the ever-changing constraints of the environment.
Applications of advanced robotics research and automation technology have
become a key competitive factor in the global economy.  The 1995 Conference
will bring together researchers and practitioners to present the latest
accomplishments, and explore future directions.  Special emphasis will be
placed on industrial case studies and their scientific background to help
identify new "driving forces" for research in the 21st century.  Technical
papers presented in oral and poster sessions will appear in the bound
proceedings.  Topics include but are not limited to:

      Robot sensing and sensor data fusion
       Reasoning and planning
      Multirobot coordination
      Dexterous and redundant manipulation
       Robot dynamics and control
       Telerobotics and shared control
       Autonomous systems
       Micro electromechanical and micro robotic systems
       Advanced actuators
       Mechatronic design issues
       Learning and adaptive systems
       Distributed intelligence and self-organizing systems
       Robot systems in unstructured and hazardous environments
       Dynamic vision
       Virtual reality and environments
       Industrial inspection
      Design automation and rapid prototyping
      Computer integrated and agile manufacturing
      Modeling and performance evaluation of discrete event systems
      Automated materials processing

For any general information about the conference, please contact to the
General Chair:

Prof. Toshio Fukuda
c/o Inter Group Corp.
4-2-7, Sakae, Naka-ku
Nagoya  460, Japan
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]

ORGANIZED SESSIONS
Organized sessions are intended to provide a cohesive focus for the
introduction of new research topics, or for the discussion of successful
applications and case studies.  Proposals for organized sessions should be
submitted by October 1, 1994 to the Program Chair.  Each organized session
consists of four papers, which will be reviewed through the normal process.
 The proposal should be submitted by the session organizer, and include a
brief statement of the purpose in addition to six copies of each paper. In
case  paper is not accepted, it will be replaced by a relevant contributed
paper.

POSTER SESSIONS
We are going to introduce poster sessions in this conference. The posters
of the selected papers should be prepared by their authors.  Papers will be
presented with posters prepared by their authors. In the poster sessions,
(1)  the authors will be notified about the type of their presentation by
the Program Committee,
(2)  the authors and attendees may actively  exchange their ideas at the
session.

PANEL DISCUSSIONS
Panel discussions are intended to promote an active and informal discussion
of current issues that are of interest to the Robotics and Automation
community. Proposals should include a brief statement of purpose, the
general topic of discussion, specific issues to be addressed, and a list of
participants.  They should be sent to the ICRA'95 Secretary Office no later
than September 15, 1994.

TUTORIALS AND WORKSHOPS
Half day and full day tutorials and workshops will be held on  Monday, May
22, 1995.  Proposals should include:  (1) statement of objectives and
background expected of intended audience, (2) a complete list of speakers
and their affiliations, (3) a detailed list of topics. Two copies of each
proposal should be submitted by September 15, 1994 to the ICRA'95 Secretary
Office.
Organizers are strongly encouraged to write or send e-mail to the Secretary
office to obtain the exact proposal format. Proposals not in the proper
format may not be evaluated.

INDUSTRY FORUM
Industry forum will be held on Tuesday, May 23, 1995. Speakers will include
representatives from industry, government, and academia.  The aim of the
forum is to allow attendees to understand more fully possible industrial
applications of robotics and automation, discuss problems that have arisen
in industrial applications, and to delineate new areas of research and
development of robotics and automation applications.

PUBLIC LECTURE
Public lectures will be held on Saturday, May 27, 1995.  The aim of the
lectures is to help the public to understand the latest technologies in
robotics and automation. The topics of the lectures include Robotics
General, Brains for Robotics and Automation, Real World Robotics and
Automation, Human Friendly Interface etc. Simultaneous translation both in
English and Japanese is available.

ANTON PHILIPS BEST STUDENT PAPER AWARD
A $1,000 Prize will be awarded for the best student paper. The student must
(1) be a member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, (2) be the
first author and primary developer of the ideas, and (3) have done the work
as part of an academic degree program. The paper must be submitted no later
than one year after the award of the degree for which the work was done.
Nine copies of the paper along with a nominating letter from the faculty
advisor should be sent by October 1, 1994 to the ICRA'95 Secretary Office.

DEVELOPING COUNTRIES FELLOWSHIPS
Travel assistance of up to $500 and a waiver of the registration fees will
be granted to a limited number of student applicants from developing
countries. Preference will be given to university students. Applications
should include:  (1) the name, postal address, telephone and fax numbers,
and e-mail address (if applicable), (2)professional affiliation, position
and nature of work, and (3)a brief statement about how attendance at the
conference will enhance the applicant's career. Applications should be
submitted by October 1, 1994 toJthe ICRA'95 Secretary Office.

BEST CONFERENCE PAPER AWARD
A $1,000 prize will be awarded to the best conference paper.

EXHIBITS
There will be exhibits of state-of-the-art hardware and software products
at the conference.  Reservations for the space and further information may
be obtained from the ICRA'95 Secretary Office.

LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS
The climate in Nagoya in late May is usually agreeable and stable, with
average temperature of 16-23C (60-74 F).
    With an abundance of urban sightseeing attractions such as
excellent urban planning and sightseeing routes, and industrial tours,
you can find many of the nation's outstanding sightseeing spots in the
city's environs. Nagoya castle, famed for its golden "dolphins", Ise
Shima, Mikawa Bay, the Hida region, the Kiso River, and the Chubu
mountain range are just a few examples.JAlso, Kyoto, the old capital
in Japan, is within one hour away by bullet train.  In addition, large
number of Karakuri dolls, created during the Edo period, can still be
found in Nagoya.  It was the technology of wooden automated puppets
which laid the foundation for the development of the clock industry,
the automated weaving machine, the automobile and robot industries in
Naogya.

Additional information may be obtained from the ICRA'95 Secretary Office.

GENERAL INFORMATION
For other general information about the conference, contact the ICRA'95
Secretary Office.

ICRA'95 Secretary Office
c/o Inter Group Corp.
4-2-7, Sakae, Naka-ku
Nagoya  460, Japan
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]

CALL FOR VIDEOS

As a  conference tradition , a video tape session on new and significant
experimental results and demonstrations including industrial case studies,
will be organized.  Accepted contributions will be included in the
conference video proceedings, which will be shown during the conference,
and also made available to the attendees. This program is intended to
enhance and complement the results presented in the regular proceedings. A
$1,000 prize will be awarded for the best video.

REQUIREMENTS FOR VIDEOS

 A good video should be dynamic and contain information that cannot be easi
ly conveyed in  a paper.

 Length should not exceed 2 to 3 minutes.  Showing flow charts, block diagr
ams, circuit boards, computers, or motors is discouraged.  Operators are
fine if they are central element to the concept being illustrated (e.g. in
teleoperated systems).

 Narration is important.  Ideas should be expressed without jargon.  Music
and background noise generally interfere with the presentation.  Music
should be avoided unless it is generated professionally.

 The purpose of the video proceedings is to disseminate technical informati
on, not for commercial promotion.  For example, the obvious display of
company logos must be avoided.

SUBMISSION
Submissions consist of a 2 to 3 minute video segment (preferred formats are
3/4", Betacam or super VHS) and an information sheet including: the title
of the presentation, the names, affiliations, and authors (please identify
the corresponding author), and a 200 word abstract.  They should be
submitted by October 1, 1994. Submit to Program Vice Co-chair:

Prof. Shin'ichi Yuta
Institute of Information Science and Electronics
University of Tsukuba
Tsukuba, Ibaraki  305, Japan
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     6th  International  Scientific  and  Technical  Conference

            "ROBOTICS  FOR  EXTRAORDINARY  CONDITIONS"

 Ministry  of  Science  and  Technical  Policy  of  Russian  Federation
   State  Committee  of  Russian  Federation  for  Higher  Education
 State  Scientific  Center  of  Russia -   Central  R&D  Institute  of
            Robotics  and  Technical   Cybernetics

                  Information  and  invitation

Dear  colleagues!

Herewith we  inform  you  about  the holding  of  the  International
Scientific  and  Technical  Conference "ROBOTICS  FOR  EXTRAORDINARY
CONDITIONS".

The Conference will take place during June 6-8 ,1995 in St.Petersburg.

The  Conference  subjects  are  as  follows:

  -conceptual   problems  of  robotics  development  for  extraordinary
   conditions;

  -robotic  system  applications  in extraordinary  conditions  in  the
   national  economy, armed  forces,  outer  space,  underwater  and
   emergency  situations;

  -theory,  calculation  and  design  methods  of  robotic systems  for
   extraordinary  conditions;

  -control  of  robotic  systems  for extraordinary  conditions, software;

  -components  of  robots  for   extraordinary  conditions  (sensors,
   drives ,  mechanical  systems  of  manipualtors  and  vehicles).

   Chairman  of  the  Program  Committee  - E. Yurevich,  Professor ,
Doctor  of  Technical  Scieces  .

   Round-table discussions will be held at the Conference, concerning
the questions of coordination of research -and- development activities
preparation of proposals on the formation of projects and
scientific-and-research programs, on the educational questions in this
field.
   Participation at the Conference means establishment and development
of scientific and business contacts, extension of knowledge about the
results of new theoretical achievements and their practical
applications in the advanced foreign and domestic enterprises. It also
means that you will visit St.Petersburg during the best season -
period of White Nights.
   The Conference organizers invite you to take part in the formation
of the Conference program. Please, inform us about your participation
in the Conference and about the title of your paper before January 1,
1995.  Abstrasts up to 3 pages in volume ( A4 format, 1.5 line space )
should be submitted to the Oganizing Committee before March 1 , 1995.

Organizating  Committee  address :
Russia,  194064 , St. Petersburg , Tikhoretsky  pr. ,  21
Central  R&D  Institute  of  Robotics  and  Technical   Cybernetics
A.Kochkarev ,  Deputy  Director
Fax :[phone]
E-mail : [e-mail]
Contact telephones : [phone]
                     [phone].

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------

             PRELIMINARY CALL FOR PAPERS
     Twelfth International Conference on Machine Learning

Tahoe City, California
July 9-12, 1995

    The Twelfth International Conference on Machine Learning (ML95)
will be held at the Granlibakken Resort in Tahoe City, California
during July 9-12, 1995, with informal workshops on July 9. We invite
paper submissions from researchers in all areas of machine learning.
The conference will include presentations of refereed papers and
invited talks.


REVIEW CRITERIA

    Each submitted paper will be reviewed by at least two members of
the program committee and will be judged on significance, originality,
and clarity. Papers submitted simultaneously to other conferences must
clearly state so on the title page.


PAPER FORMAT

    Submissions must be clearly legible, with good quality print.
Papers are limited to a total of twelve (12) pages, EXCLUDING title
page and bibliography, but INCLUDING all tables and figures.  Papers
must be printed on 8-1/2 x 11 inch paper or A4 paper using 12 point
type (10 characters per inch) with no more than 38 lines per page and
75 characters per line (e.g., LaTeX 12 point article style).  The
title page must include an abstract and email and postal addresses of
all authors.  Papers without this format will not be reviewed. To save
paper and postage costs please use DOUBLE-SIDED printing.


REQUIREMENTS FOR SUBMISSION

    Send four (4) copies of each submitted paper to one of the
conference co-chairs. Papers must be received by
              FEBRUARY 7, 1995 .
Electronic or FAX submissions are not acceptable.  Notification of
acceptance or rejection will be mailed to the first (or designated)
author by March 22, 1995. Camera-ready accepted papers are due on
April 25, 1995.

INFORMAL WORKSHOPS
    Proposals for informal workshops are invited in all areas of
machine learning. Send a two (2) page description of the proposed
workshop, its objectives, organizer(s), and expected number of
attendees to the workshop chair. Proposals must be received by
DECEMBER 1, 1994.

Conference Co-Chairs
    Armand Prieditis
    Department of Computer Science
    University of California
    Davis, CA 95616
    [e-mail]

    Stuart Russell
    Computer Science Division
    University of California
    Berkeley, CA 94720
    [e-mail]

Program Committee
    (To Be Announced).

Workshop Chair
    Sridhar Mahadevan
    Department of Computer Science and Engineering
    University of Southern Florida
    4202 East Fowler Avenue, EBG 118
    Tampa, Florida 33620
    [e-mail]

Publicity Chair
    Jeff Schlimmer
    School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
    Washington State University
    Pullman, WA 99164-2752
    [e-mail]
    http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/~schlimme

Local Arrangements
    Debbie Chadwick
    Department of Computer Science
    University of California
    Davis, CA 95616
    [e-mail]


GENERAL INQUIRIES

    Please send general inquiries to [e-mail] .

    To receive future conference announcements please send a note to
the publicity chair. Current conference information available online
on the World-Wide Web as http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/~schlimme/ml95.html .

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                     CALL FOR PARTICIPATION: IJCAI-95

IJCAI-95 will take  place at the  Palais de Congres,  Montreal, August  20-25
1995.

The biennial IJCAI  conferences are  the major forums  for the  international
scientific exchange and presentation of AI research. The Conference Technical
Program will include workshops, tutorials, panels and invited talks, as  well
as tracks for paper and videotape presentations.

PAPER TRACK: SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS AND GUIDELINES

Topics of Interest

Submissions are invited on substantial, original, and previously unpublished
research in all aspects of AI, including, but not limited to:

* Architectures and languages for AI (e.g. parallel hardware and software for
  building AI systems)
* Artistic, entertainment and multimedia applications.
* Automated   reasoning   (e.g.  theorem   proving,   abduction,   automatic
  programming, search,  context  management  and  truth  maintenance systems,
  constraint satisfaction, satisfiability checking)
* Cognitive modeling (e.g. user models, memory models)
* Connectionist and PDP models
* Distributed AI, autonomous agents, multi-agent systems and real-time
  issues.
* Intelligent teaching systems
* Knowledge Engineering and Principles of AI applications (e.g. for design,
  manufacturing control, grand challenge applications)
* Knowledge representation  (e.g. logics  for knowledge,  action, belief  and
  intention, nonmonotonic  formalisms,  complexity  analysis,  languages
  and systems for representing knowledge)
* Learning, knowledge acquisition and case-based reasoning
* Logic programming (e.g. semantics, deductive databases, relationships to
  AI knowledge representation)
* Natural language (e.g. syntax, semantics, discourse, speech recognition
  and understanding, natural language front ends, generation systems,
  information extraction and retrieval)
* Philosophical foundations
* Planning and reasoning about action (including the relation between
  planning and control)
* Qualitative reasoning and naive physics (e.g. temporal and spatial
  reasoning, model-based reasoning, diagnosis)
* Reasoning under uncertainty (including fuzzy logic and fuzzy control)
* Robotic and artificial life systems (e.g. unmanned vehicles,
  vision/manipulation systems)
* Social, economic and legal implications
* Vision (e.g. color, shape, stereo, motion, object recognition, active
  vision, model-based vision, vision architectures and hardware, biological
  modeling).

Timetable

Submissions must be received by 6th January 1995. Submissions received  after
that date will be returned unopened.  Authors should note that ordinary  mail
can sometimes be considerably delayed,  especially over the new year  period,
and should take this into account when timing their submissions. Notification
of receipt will  be mailed to  the first author  (or designated author)  soon
after receipt.

Notification of acceptance or rejection: successful authors will be  notified
on or before 20th March 1995.  Unsuccessful authors will be notified by  27th
March 1995. Notification  will be  sent to  the first  author (or  designated
author).

Camera ready copies of the final versions of accepted papers must be received
by the publisher in the USA by 24th April 1995.

Note that at least one  author of each accepted  paper is required to  attend
the conference to present the work.

General

Authors should submit six (6) copies of  their papers in hard copy form.  All
paper submissions  should be  to  the following  address. Electronic  or  fax
submissions cannot be accepted.

IJCAI-95 Paper Submissions,
American Association for Artificial Intelligence,
445, Burgess Drive,
Menlo Park, CA. 94025, USA.
(telephone [phone], email [e-mail]).

Appearance and Length

Papers should be printed on  8.5'' x 11'' or A4  sized paper. They must  be a
maximum of 15 pages long, each page having no more than 43 lines, lines being
at most  140mm long  and with  12 point  type. Title,  abstract, figures  and
references must be included within  this length limit. Papers breaking  these
rules will not be considered for presentation at the conference.

Letter quality  print is  required. (Normally,  dot-matrix printout  will  be
unacceptable unless  truly of  letter quality.  Exceptions will  be made  for
submissions from  countries  where  high  quality  printers  are  not  widely
available.)

Title Page

Each copy of the paper must include  a title page, separate from the body  of
the paper. This should contain:

* Title of the paper
* Full names, postal addresses, phone numbers, fax numbers and email
  addresses (where these exist) of all authors. The first postal address
  should be one that is suitable for delivery of items by courier service
* An abstract of 100-200 words
* A set of keywords giving the area/subarea of the paper and describing the
  topic of the paper. This information, together with the title of the paper,
  will be the main information used in allocating reviewers.
* The following declaration:
   ``This paper has not already been accepted by and is not currently under
     review for a journal or another conference. Nor will it be submitted
     for such during IJCAI's review period.''

Policy on Multiple Submissions

IJCAI will not accept any paper which, at the time of submission, is
under review for a journal or another conference. Authors are also
expected not to submit their papers elsewhere during IJCAI's review
period.  These restrictions apply only to journals and conferences,
not to workshops and similar specialized presentations with a limited
audience.

Review Criteria

Papers will be subject to peer review, but this review will not be
``blind'' (that is, the reviewers will be aware of the names of the
authors). Selection criteria include accuracy and originality of
ideas, clarity and significance of results and the quality of the
presentation. The decision of the Program Committee, taking into
consideration the individual reviews, will be final and cannot be
appealed.  Papers selected will be scheduled for presentation and will
be printed in the proceedings. Authors of accepted papers, or their
representatives, are expected to present their papers at the
conference.

Distinguished Paper Awards

The Program  Committee will  distinguish one  or more  papers of  exceptional
quality for special awards.  This decision will in  no way depend on  whether
the authors choose to enhance their paper with a video presentation.

Other Calls

Calls for  tutorial  and  workshop  proposals  and  video  presentations  for
IJCAI-95 will be issued shortly.


=------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Practice  and  Future  of  Autonomous  Agents:
                   ASI-AA-95

         23  September  -  1st  October  1995
              Centro  Stefano  Franscini
         Monte  Verita,  Ticino,  Switzerland

  (Follow-up meeting of the NATO Advanced Study Institute "The Biology and
Technology of Intelligent Autonomous Agents", which took place Spring 1993
in Trento, Italy).

  In Spring 1993 a NATO Advanced Study Institute was organized in Trento,
Italy.  At the time know-how in building autonomous agents and pertinent
hardware were not widely available.  This situation has changed
significantly since.  There are currently many groups involved in active
research in the field working on autonomous agents theoretically and with
actual robot hardware.  In the Trento meeting the focus was on spreading
expertise in actual robot building and programming.  In the meantime the
field has progressed significantly.  In this process a number of important
issues have emerged.  They will form the focus of the 1995 meeting:

  (a)  Design:  How can autonomous agents be designed which show
       sophisticated kinds of behavior?

  (b)  Theory:  What are the recent developments in the theory of
       autonomous agents?

  (c)  Performance measures:  How can the performance of the agents
       be quantified?

  Among others, the theory of dynamical systems, evolutionary approaches,
and functional analysis will be discussed with respect to the previous
issues.  In addition to the state-of-the-art (the "practice"), the idea is
to generate visions for the field (the "future").  Leading researchers
representing the various theoretical orientations will present their
results and lead respective working groups.

Organization
   1.  Lectures/discussions
   2.  Working groups/workshops (including project presentations and
       demonstrations by participants)
   3.  In-depth background lectures (philosophy, cognitive science,
       evolution)

Target Audience
Advanced graduate students and post-docs/young faculty.  Participants will
be expected to contribute actively to the study institute and will be
asked to submit a pertinent proposal with their applications.  A maximum
number of 45 participants can be accepted.

Venue
Monte Verita is a conference center (including hotel) near Ascona, a
beautiful sunny town in Ticino, in the southern part of Switzerland.  It
is owned by the Swiss government and run by the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology.  It is easily reachable either by train from the international
airports of Zurich and Milan.

Director
Rolf Pfeifer, University of Zurich, Switzerland

Program Committee

  - Rodney Brooks, MIT, Cambridge, Mass., USA
  - Jean-Daniel Nicoud, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
  - Tim Smithers, University of the Basque Country, San Sebastian, Spain
  - Luc Steels, Free University of Brussels, Belgium
  - Takashi Gomi, Applied AI Systems, Ottawa, Canada
(Luc Steels was the organizer of the previous NATO ASI in Trento).

Local organization
Autonomous Agents Research Group, AI Lab, Department of Computer Science,
University of Zurich, Switzerland

Footnote
Since Switzerland is not a NATO member it is not possible to get funding
for a meeting in Switzerland.  Funding is available through the Swiss
government which enables us to work on the basis of low rates.

Further information
Please contact:  Rolf Pfeifer
AI Lab, Computer Science Department
University of Zurich, Switzerland
E-mail:  [e-mail]
Fax:  [phone]
Phone:  [phone]

Updates of this announcement
can be retrieved by
ftp://claude.ifi.unizh.ch/pub/monteverita/ASI-AA-95.txt or by sending an
empty E-mail to <[e-mail]> with "monte verita" in the subject
line.  It can also be accessed by World Wide Web the the URL:
http://josef.ifi.unizh.ch/asi-aa.html

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                 First International Conference on
       Computer Vision, Virtual Reality and Robotics in Medicine
                         CVRMed'95
                      April 3-5, 1995
                        Nice, FRANCE

                    OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this first international conference is to present and
publish the most innovative and promising research work in computer
vision, virtual reality and robotics applied to medical problems:
   1) to help diagnosis from multidimensional and multimodal images and
   2) to assist therapy, especially in video surgery, interventional
      radiology, and radiotherapy.

This domain has undergone a tremendous increase over the past few
years and will be a revolution for medicine in the coming decade.

This event follows a successful preliminary AAAI symposium
organized in March 1994 at Stanford by N. Ayache (INRIA),
E. Grimson (MIT), T. Kanade (CMU), R. Kikinis and S. Wells (chair)
(both at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital).

The topics addressed by this conference will include:

Therapy planning, simulation and control:
-----------------------------------------
.virtual and augmented reality applied to therapy control
.virtual patients for surgical training
.telepresence in medicine, telesurgery
.image guided medical robotics
.image guided therapy
.using electronic anatomical atlases
.virtual reality for rehabilitation

Registration problems in medicine:
----------------------------------
.3D localization of patients or surgical tools
.on line tracking of patient or organ motion
.nonrigid matching in medical images
.registration of mono or multimodal medical images
.registration with electronic anatomical atlases

Medical image understanding:
-----------------------------
.differential geometry and multidimensional images
.motion, shape and texture analysis in medical images
.building and using physical deformable models
.segmentation of multidimensional medical images
.spectral analysis in medical images
.detecting measuring pathological evolution
.building electronic anatomical atlases
.statistical analysis of anatomical features
.representation of pictorial anatomical knowledge

                    PAPER SUBMISSION
                   ------------------
Four copies of complete manuscript should be received by
Friday September 23, 1994, at the address:

                  Dr. Nicholas AYACHE
                   CVRMed'95 - INRIA
            2004 Route des Lucioles - B.P.93
          06902 Sophia-Antipolis Cedex - France

Papers should include:
----------------------
a) A title page including the names and addresses of the authors
   (with e-mail), an abstract  of up to 200 words, and one or
   more categories as listed above or other keywords.

b) A single page clearly answering the following questions:
   1. What is the original contribution of this work?
   2. Why should this contribution be considered important?
   3. What is the most closely related work by others and how
      does this work differ?
   4. How can other researchers make use of the results of this work?
   5. If this work extends or relates closely to some other work you
      have published, please state precisely how it differs from
      that work?
   6. If any part of this work has been submitted to other conferences
      or workshops, please state where and how it is different?

c) a paper, limited to 18 double space pages (12 points) including
   figures and references, with a maximum of 7000 words.

Language policy:
----------------
Papers will be written in English. The organization will provide a
French translation of the abstracts. Oral communications will be done
in English. However, follow-up questions and discussions may be held
in both languages.

                         CALENDAR
                        ----------

September 23, 1994:  Submission deadline for receiving papers at INRIA
November 1994:       Notification to authors
January  2, 1995:    Camera ready received at INRIA
April 2, 1995:       Pre-registration in Nice
April 3-5, 1995:     Conference in Nice
April 6, 1995:       Technical tour in Sophia Antipolis

                    PROGRAM COMMITTEE
                   -------------------

Full length papers will be reviewed and selected by the program
committee of the conference:

Chairman:
---------
Nicholas AYACHE (INRIA, France)

Members:
--------
Fred BOOKSTEIN (University of Michigan, USA)
Mike BRADY (Oxford University, UK)
Grigore BURDEA (Rutgers University, USA)
Philippe CINQUIN (Grenoble Hospital, France)
Jean-Louis COATRIEUX (INSERM, Rennes, France)
Alan COLCHESTER (Guy's Hospital, London, UK)
James DUNCAN (Yale University, USA)
Henry FUCHS (University of North Carolina, USA)
Guido GERIG (ETH-Z, Zurich, Switzerland)
Erik GRANUM (Aalborg University, Denmark)
Eric GRIMSON (MIT, USA)
Karl-Heinz HOEHNE (University Hospital Eppendorf, Germany)
Thomas HUANG (University of Illinois, USA)
Takeo KANADE (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)
Ron KIKINIS (Harvard Medical School, USA)
Jean-Claude LATOMBE (Stanford University, USA)
Tomas LOZANO-PEREZ (MIT, USA)
Charles PELIZZARI (University of Chicago, USA)
Richard ROBB (Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA)
Paul SUETENS (KULeuven, Belgium)
Richard SZELISKI (DEC, Cambridge, USA)
Russ TAYLOR (IBM, Yorktown Heights, USA)
Demetri TERZOPOULOS (University of Toronto, Canada)
Jean-Philippe THIRION (INRIA, France)
Jun-ichiro TORIWAKI (Nagoya University, Japan)
Alessandro VERRI (University of Genoa, Italy)
Max VIERGEVER (University Hospital Utrecht, The Netherlands)
William WELLS (Harvard Medical School, USA)

                    SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZATION
                   -------------------------
G. MALANDAIN and Epidaure Group (INRIA, France)

                    PRACTICAL ORGANIZATION
                   ------------------------
The conference will take place at Hotel Meridien in Nice, France, at
a prestigious address: 1, Promenade des Anglais (the heart of the
French Riviera, right in front of the mediterranean sea!) from April
3 to 5, 1995.

The conference will be followed, on April 6, by a technical tour in
Sophia-Antipolis, to visit the computer vision, graphics and robotics
laboratories of INRIA (120 scientists).

The meeting will be composed of a single track of oral presentations
(long and short) with a number of poster sessions.

The proceedings of the conference will be published by Springer-
Verlag in the series "Lecture Notes in Computer Science".

We plan to have a selection of the best papers to appear in a dedicated
book or a special issue of a journal.

                    LOCAL ORGANIZATION
                   --------------------
The organizing body for the conference will be INRIA (National
Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control) in Sophia
Antipolis, France.

                      INFORMATION
                     -------------

                         INRIA
          Unite de Recherche de Sophia Antipolis
                  Relations Exterieures
                   Bureau des colloques
            2004, route des lucioles - BP 93
              06902 SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS CEDEX
                         FRANCE
                Tel: + 33 - 93 65 78 64
                Fax: + 33 - 93 65 79 55

         E-mail: [e-mail]

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS (ABSTRACTS)

          SYMPOSIUM ON AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS IN MINE COUNTERMEASURES

                          April 4-7, 1995

          U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California

With sponsorship from the Office of Naval Research, and with cooperation from
agencies including ARPA, the U.S. Army Counter-Mine Program, the U.S. Marine
Corps Amphibious Warfare Technical Center, and the U.S. Navy Explosive
Ordnance Disposal Technical Center, the Naval Postgraduate School announces a
Technical Symposium to define and explore the present and potential future
prospects for autonomous systems in mine countermeasures applications. Both
military and environmental applications are considered.

This is  a major technical symposium on the state-of-the-art and potential for
the use of robotics approaches to deal with the problem of mines, booby traps,
and other obstacles, toxic waste disposal, environmental monitoring and
remediation.

Intended Audience. This symposium is for mine warfare and hazardous materials
disposal specialists in each of the Armed Forces (Army, Navy, Air Force, and
Marine Corps plus the Coast Guard); the Service and DoD Acquisition Community;
personnel from mission-oriented laboratories of each of the Services;
technical specialists from the Department of Energy National Laboratories; the
Environmental Protection Agency; the Federal Emergency Management Agency; the
Intelligence, and the Academic Communities. The symposium draws upon the
research and development activities of the government laboratories, academe,
and industrial laboratories. The symposium should prove beneficial to
industrial suppliers and manufacturers who seek application of dual-use
technology and processes.

General Plan and Format of Symposium. The symposium will be held at the Naval
Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, over a 4-day period. The format
includes a series plenary sessions on systems requirements and concepts
presentations from distinguished speakers and technical sessions that address
the technologies of the major systems elements. The symposium will be
UNCLASSIFIED. A ÒProceedings of the SymposiumÓ will be prepared and furnished
to attendees. A modest registration fee will cover the overhead costs of the
symposium plus session meals and refreshments. The plan is to have a mix of
invited and submitted papers,  and panel discussion sessions.

Contributions are requested and will be selected on the basis of a review of
an abstract. ABSTRACTS SHOULD BE 500 WORDS IN LENGTH and should be mailed or
faxed on or before November 1, 1994 to:

     Albert M. Bottoms
     Visiting Professor of Undersea Warfare (Mine Warfare)
     U.S. Naval Postgraduate School (Code UW)
     Monterey CA 93943.
     Tel: [phone]
     Fax: [phone]
     E-mail: [e-mail]

Prospective authors will be notified of acceptance by January 15,1994, and
full papers will be due by March 15, 1995.

Point papers or original contributions of technical subject material will be
accepted on the following topics:

      A-VEHICLE SYSTEMS: Existing (tethered or semi-autonomous), Bottom
crawlers, Swimming, Amphibious/Land, Air, Space;

      B-POWER PLANTS:  Off-board, Air Breathing, Electrical, Chemical,
Computation of Energy Budgets;

      C-SENSORS: Acoustic, Magnetic, UEP, Optical, Tactile, Nuclear,
Biological, Sensor Fusion and Image Enhancement;

      D-MISSION PACKAGES: Destructive, Marking, Classification, Removal,
Systems Integration ;

      E-CONTROL: Off- Board Group Navigation, Obstacle Avoidance and
Reporting, Operator Interfaces;

      F-OPERATIONS RESEARCH  / TACTICS:  Campaign Analyses, Tactical Analysis,
Simulation and Trade-Off Methodologyies, Operational Test and Evaluation;

      G-ENVIRONMENTS: Surf Zone, Estuarine and Riverine, Physical
Characterization, Chemical Characterization, Biological, Geological;

      H-MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY AND DUAL-USE POSSIBILITIES : Dual-Use and
Production Economics, Sources of Manufacturing Technology, Evolutionary
Acquisition.

      Product and Technology Displays. Display areas will be provided for
organizations and industrial groups to show video or put up small static
displays and provide literature, reprints of papers, etc.

Planning Horizons:  Research Abstracts due in Monterey: November 1, 1994
                    Prospective Authors Notified: January 15, 1995
                    Camera Ready Copy due in Monterey: March 15, 1995

Symposium sponsors emphasize that we are deliberately looking beyond the
individuals and organizations that are usually involved on military and Navy
R&D.  We are convinced that there are many investigators who are following
paths very relevant to Navy needs who do not know of those needs; nor do
government project people know of all investigators.

Users of Internet will find updated Symposium information in the comp.robotics
newsgroup and on the World Wide Web NPS Symposium Homepage at the following
URL:
                 ftp://ftp.nps.navy.mil/pub/usw/av_mcm.html

=------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In addition to those listed above many other annual conferences are
held. Here are a few of them:

Annual International Conference of IEEE on Robotics and Automation
(ICARA)

Annual Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems

Annual Symposium on Industrial Robots

International Symposium of Robotics Research

Autonomous Intelligent Systems

International Conference on Computer Vision

British Machine Vision Conference

IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Conference

IMAC/SICE International Symposium on Robotics, Mechatronics and
    Manufacturing Systems.

American Association for Artificial Intellignece (AAAI)
    Probably the largest and most prestigious conference
  on AI. Now sponsoring a robot competition at the annual AAAI
  conference.

Competitions:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are a number of robot gatherings where robot builders can bring
their creations to show and compete with others.

AAAI Robot Competitions:
    Each year, starting in 1990, at the annual meeting of the
    American Association of Artificial Intelligence. A robotics
    competition is sponsored. Rules and locations vary from year
    to year.  See conference announcements for details.

International Aerial Robotics Competition:

 The AUVS International Aerial Robotics Competitiont is a competition
sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems (See above)
to encourage aspiring engineers and scientists to pursue careers in
fields allied to unmanned system technology, particularily in the more
difficult realm of unmanned aerial vehicles.  It is a yearly
competition held on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology
in Atlanta, GA.

The general goal of the competition is to create autonomous flying
vehicles capable of carrying out a set of predefined tasks. The
vehicles must compete based on their ability to sense the structured
enviroment of the Competition Arena. They may be intelligent or
preprogrammed, but they must not be flown by a remote human operator.

The vehicles must start from a designated starting area within the
arena, locate a pick-up ring containing six randomly placed disks, and
transfer each disk one at a time to a drop-off ring. A three-foot high
central barrier separates the rings that are six feet in diameter and
80 feet apart. The entire arena is 60' x 120'.

    The FAQ is available at:
    ftp://usc.edu/pub/nn_robotics/other/auvsarc/auvsarc.FAQ.Z
    or at:
    http://www.usc.edu/dept/robotics/other/auvsarc/auvsarc.html
    or email to [e-mail]

Hong-Kong ping pong competitions:
    Contact:    Robin Bradbeer <[e-mail]>

IEEE Micromouse Competitions:
    In 1979 the IEEE Spectrum ran the first micromouse competition
and many thousands of these contests are run every year. Some are
still under the auspices of the IEEE but many more are not.

    For more information on Micromousing (rules, past mazes and
    times, etc.), contact the North American Micromouse
    Association (NAMA) at:

        MicroMom
        aka. Sue Rosenbaum
        1086 Central Ave.
        Plainfield, NJ 07061
    tel: [phone]
    also on Compuse
    $25 will get you details plus the semi-occasional newsletter.

    A good net source is:
    http://www.ceas.rochester.edu:8080/ee/users/weisberg/mouse.html
    or in postscript:
        ftp://ftp.ee.rochester.edu/pub/weisberg/Micro-Mouse/Micro-Mouse_94.ps.gz

    IEEE Robot Olympics and MicroMouse Competition Committee
    BEAM/IEEE Robot Olympics and MicroMouse Competition Committee
    BEAM/IEEE Robot Games
           [e-mail]   or   [e-mail]
    c/o EDward Spike
    E & CE Dept. University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario,
    Canada, N2L3G1.   [phone], X-3716, fax:[phone]
    [e-mail]

    This year's Australian Micromouse Championship, OZ Mouse '94,
    is to be held in Sydney on Sunday 27 November, hosted by the
    Universities of Queensland and Wollongong in conjunction with
    the IEE and IEEE. For more details contact:
    Gordon Wyeth < [e-mail]>

BEAM robot olympics:
    Contact:    Mark Tilden <[e-mail]>
    Articles on the BEAM Olympics:

    Dewdney, A.K. Photovores: intelligent robots are constructed
    from castoffs. Scientific American Sept 1992, v267, n3, p42(1)

    Maylon, John.  At the Robot Olympics.  Whole Earth Review.
    Spring 1992, pp 80-84.

    Smit, Michael C., and Mark Tilden, Beam Robotics. Algorithm,
    Vol. 2, No. 2, March 1991, Pg 15-19

Sumo Robot Competition:
    Sumo is a traditional Japanese sport in which two very large
half-naked men try to push each other out of a circle called the
Dohyou. The winner of the game is the guy who has not touched the
ground with his hand or hasn't stepped out of the circle before the
other guy did.

There is a Robot Sumo Tournament in Japan, that is held in December
every year in Tokyo. The rule of the Tournament is same as the real
Sumo except two robots fight rather than naked guys. The task of the
game is quite simple: push the opponent out of the circle.

The regulations are as follows:
1. The area of the base cannot exceed 20cmX20cm before game starts,
   It is unlimited in height and can expand after the game starts.
2. The weight cannot exceed 3kg.
3. Use of internal/external combustion engine is prohibited.
4. Intention to harm the opponent or the Dohyou (playground which
   includes the circle) is not allowed.
5. Contestants are free to choose control techniques, but they are
   divided into 2 categories:

    Radio Controlled: Contestants can use ordinary commercial R/C
    equipment and remotely guide their robots.

    Stand-alone: Robots cannot be controlled externally by
    contestants with the exception of pushing a start button when
    the contest begins.

To avoid interference with the humans who set the robots on the
Dohyou, the Stand Alone category has a special rule which says that
the game will starts exactly 5 seconds after the official signals the
start.  It means that the contestant will push a start button (or
some- thing else) for the robot the same time as the offical's
signal. The robot must keep the start position for 5 seconds, and the
person who pushed the button must leave the Dohyou in that time.
Therefore, the robots in the Stand Alone category must have at a start
button and a means of timing the five seconds.

Progression in the competition consists of three game matches between
randomly selected robots. Last year [1992] 150 robots were in the
Radio Controlled category and 190 were in the Stand Alone category. If
you beat six or seven opponents, you can win the first prize of
1,000,000Yen or US$7,700. The second prize is 500,000Yen or
US$3,850. [edited from a message by Mato Hattori]

---------------------------------------
The Ninth Annual SAE National Robotic Walking Machine Decathlon
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado April 6-9, 1995

Colorado State University
Department of Mechanical Engineering
National Walking Machine Decathlon
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO  80523
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]
net: [e-mail]

Web Page - http://www.lance.colostate.edu/~chriso/walking.html

If you do not have access to the WWW and you would like a text copy of
the brochure, send email and I'll mail you a copy. Chris Olson
<[e-mail]>

Registration deadline:  December 31, 1994

Decathalon: The decathlon is a national competition sponsored by SAE to involve
undergraduate engineers in the creative design of machines that walk.
The competition includes preparation and presentation of a paper,
judging of over-all design merits, and the ten walking events.  Judges
are representatives >from the robotics industry.  Social events, a
keynote speaker, and tours are also provided.  A detailed rules and
registration packet is available.

Team Spirit: This competition emphasizes collaboration of engineering
disciplines in a teamwork environment.  It encourages students to be
organized, to cooperate, and to share knowledge from their respective
fields, resulting in an experience that closely models the real-world
workplace.

What is a walking machine?  A walking machine is a mobile machine
propelled by articulated mechanisms, or "legs."  Each leg must have
one or more joints or hinges by which it moves relative to all other
legs or the frame, supporting the machine discontinuously.  A leg may
pivot, slip, or slide on the supporting surface during walking motion,
but it cannot roll.  Wheeled or tracked vehicles are excluded.
Walking machines have potential applications in space exploration,
undersea missions, mining, radioactive and other dangerous
environments, the military, and mobility for the handicapped.

Judging and Awards Cash prizes will be awarded to the top three teams
based on total points accumulated.  All teams will receive recognition
awards.

History: The National Robotic Walking Machine Decathlon was initiated
in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Colorado State University
in 1986.  The idea was to create a student design competition at the
cutting edge of technology with an emphasis on design.  In eight years
it has gone from a competition in which none of the four machines
present were able to complete the first event, to one where there are
some very capable machines completing all ten events, and in which
there is close competition.  The events themselves continue to evolve
to reflect relevant applications of robotics technology.  The events
traditionally have included such tasks as stair climbing, maneuvering
through obstacles, and autonomous sensor guidance.

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[Please send updated information and I will update these competitions.
Thanks, nivek]

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End of part 1


--

aka: Kevin Dowling            Carnegie Mellon University
tel: [phone]            The Robotics Institute
adr: [e-mail]            Pittsburgh, PA 15213
--

aka: Kevin Dowling            Carnegie Mellon University
tel: [phone]            The Robotics Institute
adr: [e-mail]            Pittsburgh, PA 15213