AAAI 2023
AI and Robotics Bridge Session
7th February 2023
Part of the
Thirty-Seventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence
February 7 - 14 2023 Washington, DC, USA.
CONTEXT
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics are strongly connected areas since the early days of AI. On the one hand, AI principles and methods play a crucial role in several areas of Robotics research and are pervasively exploited at various levels of robot architectures. On the other hand, Robotics provides several relevant challenges for the AI community where different AI methods and tools requires to be deeply integrated to obtain an embodied agent capable of an autonomous, adaptive and interactive behavior. In this direction, the scientific relevance of this proposal is related to how diverse areas of AI and Robotics research can be integrated to enable robots to face complex challenges in real-world tasks.
Notwithstanding the shared challenges and the widespread of learning and statistical methods in robotics, the AI and Robotics communities still need to further interact to integrate methods that are still not fully exploited. In particular, the integration of symbolic and sub-symbolic models and methods with different levels of abstraction are needed to face many relevant issues (e.g., combined task and motion planning, neuro-symbolic learning, task teaching, collaborative task execution, etc.) that require a strict collaboration between the two communities.
Some initiatives have already been started to create a stable, long-term forum where researchers from both AI and Robotics communities can openly discuss relevant issues such as research and development progress, future directions and open challenges related to AI methods in Robotics. A notable venue is the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS) workshop series on Planning and Robotics (PlanRob [1]). Started during ICAPS 2013, in Rome (Italy), and followed by editions at every ICAPS from 2014 to 2021, the PlanRob Workshop series has gathered excellent feedback from the P&S community, as also confirmed by the organisation of a Special Track on Robotics starting with ICAPS 2014. On the Robotics side, a version of the PlanRob series was held at ICRA 2017 in Singapore (top conference for the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society). Some related events were also organized at the European Robotic Forum [2] (promoted by the European Commission) to present results and challenges in EU-funded projects.
After such time, technological developments allow embedded devices to run complex algorithms and be more effective, a wide diffusion of data is enabling opportunities for ground-breaking impact from learning techniques when applied to robots and an increasing number of AI & Robotics results are being collected facilitating the deployment of intelligent robots in many applicative fields.
AIM OF THE BRIDGE SESSION
The goal of this Bridge Session is to keep fostering the interactions already ongoing within PlanRob and further stabilize such common ground where researchers can confront and broaden research frontiers, identify most crucial challenges and pave the way towards a shared research agenda. Gathering notable representatives from both communities in a unique venue contributes in achieving such objective and allow them to share their knowledge and expertise as well as take advantage of different perspectives.
PROGRAM (EST timezone) ROOM 207A
08:55 09:10 Introduction
09:10 09:40 Kostas Bekris Integrating Perception, Planning and Learning for Robot AI
09:40 10:10 Giuseppe Loianno Learning Robot Super Autonomy
10:10 10:30 Connor Basich, Shlomo Zilberstein and Joydeep Biswas Competence-Aware Autonomy: An Essential Skill for Robots in the Real World
10:30 11:00 Coffee break
11:00 11:30 Henrik Christensen, Holly Yanco and Maria Gini Including AI in the Robotics Roadmap
11:30 12:00 Tom Silver Learning Neuro-Symbolic Relational Transition Models for Bilevel Planning
12:00 12:20 Alper Ahmetoglu, Erhan Oztop and Emre Ugur Neurosymbolic Mechanisms for Lifelong Robot Learning
12:20 12:40 Bruno Lacerda and Nick Hawes Data-Driven Model-Based Reasoning for Long-Term Robot Deployments
12:40 14:00 Lunch
14:00 14:20 Bryan McKenney and Wheeler Ruml Goal-driven Autonomy Without GDA
14:20 14:40 Agnese Chiatti, Gianluca Bardaro, Matteo Matteucci and Enrico Motta Visual Model Building for Robot Sensemaking: Perspectives, Challenges, and Opportunities
14:40 15:00 Or Wertheim, Dan R. Suissa, Orel Hamamy, and, Ronen Brafman The AOS System: Plug’n Play Task-Level Autonomy for Robotics Using POMDPs and Probabilistic Programs
15:00 15:15 Zhi Yan, Li Sun, Tomáš Krajník, Tom Duckett and Nicola Bellotto Towards Long-term Autonomy: A Perspective from Robot Learning
15:15 15:30 Mohan Sridharan Integrated Knowledge-based and Data-driven Reasoning, Learning, and Collaboration in Robotics
15:30 16:00 Coffee break
16:00 16:15 Shahaf Shperberg, Andrew Coles, Solomon Eyal Shimony, Erez Karpas, Wheeler Ruml and Devin Thomas Situated Planning Enables Timely Autonomy
16:15 16:30 Qin Yang Hierarchical Needs-driven Agent Learning Systems: From Deep Reinforcement Learning To Diverse Strategies
16:30 16:45 Maxwell Jacobson, Masudur Rahman and Yexiang Xue Deep Reasoning is a Panacea for Robotics AI
16:45 17:30 Final Panel
EXPECTED CONTRIBUTIONS AND SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
We look for position papers to discuss ideas and concepts, e.g., via critiques or new perspectives in AI and Robotics, historical perspectives and analysis. Some relevant areas are, e.g., long-term autonomy and robot learning, neural symbolic approach, task teaching, cognitive robotics, human-robot interaction, open world planning and acting, explainable AI in robotics, reliable and safe AI methods for robotics, technological and integration challenges. The list is no limited to the above areas and additional topics may be proposed by contributors.
We are also looking for tutorial, a survey presentation or an integrated application showcase proposals on (new) cross-disciplinary AI & Robotics topics, with a shared focus, and to engage and educate new researchers, as well as established researchers. The goal is also to set common grand challenges while discussing fundamental problems and educating each other about respective tools.
Both position papers and proposals for tutorial, survey presentation or application showcase can be (max) 4 pages in AAAI style (plus up to one page of references).
ENVISAGED STRUCTURE
This session will be a one-day long event and it will be structured as a sequence discussion sessions, tutorials and interactive discussions to confront ideas and synthesize common views. A poster session will be organized to allow the presentation of open contributions and further stimulate the general discussion. A final panel session will aim to select the most crucial elements and identify a possible common research agenda for future steps.
Link to submission: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=aaaiairob23
Link to style files: https://www.aaai.org/Publications/Templates/AnonymousSubmission23.zip
IMPORTANT DATES
Contribution submission due: November 25, 2022 (was November 18, 2022)
AAAI early registration deadline: December 12, 2022
Bridge Sessions at AAAI-23: 7 February, 2023