Texas A&M University Computer Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Dr. Dylan Shell and Unocal Professor Dr. Nancy M. Amato co-organized the Workshop on Research Issues at the Boundary of AI and Robotics alongside Dr. Sven Koenig of the University of Southern California. The workshop was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and was held on Jan. 25, 2015, in Austin, Texas. It was co-located with the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) conference, of which Koenig was program chair. Many of the AAAI attendees also participated in the workshop.
This event was put on with the intent of bringing together experts in artificial intelligence and robotics, including senior researchers, to assemble a list of recommendations to funding agencies, professional organizations and individual researchers on how to push the boundary of AI and robotics. This included research areas that would benefit the most from the collaboration of these researchers, such as possible challenge problems. Another goal of the workshop was to produce a roadmap for future work at the boundary of these disciplines.
Members of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation Senior Program Committee met in College Station, Texas just before the workshop and many also spoke recently at the Texas A&M Robotics Symposium.
At the workshop, speakers from universities around the world gave short invited talks as well as participated on panels and in discussion sessions to establish a common ground among the participants. Raytheon Professor Dr. Robin Murphy, Texas A&M University; Dr. Ruzena Bajcsy, University of California, Berkeley; Dr. George Konidaris, Duke University; Carme Torras, Polytechnic University of Catalonia; and Katia Sycara from Carnegie Mellon University were among the many invited speakers. Topics included “Semi-automated Coaching for Elderly,” “AI Robotics: Finding Common Ground,” and “AI and Robotics Interface: Why HRI needs AI.”
"It was a unique opportunity to draw on the experience of luminaries in both areas; the workshop was successful in emphasizing common interests and helping chart a direction for the future that could help unify efforts that are more disparate than they ought to be,” Shell said.
Shell, Amato, and Koenig are currently working on preparing a report to share with NSF and the research community.