10th Conference on

Field and Service Robotics (FSR)
June 24-26, 2015
Toronto, Canada

Welcome to the home page for FSR 2015, the Tenth Conference on Field and Service Robotics. FSR is a single track conference with a specific focus on field and service applications of robotics technology.


The goal of FSR is to report and encourage the development of field and service robotics. These are non-factory robots, typically mobile, that must operate in complex and dynamic environments. Typical field robotics applications include mining, agriculture, building and construction, forestry, cargo handling and so on. Field robots may operate on the ground (of Earth or planets), under the ground, underwater, in the air, or in space. Service robots are those that work closely with humans, importantly the elderly and sick, to help them with their lives.


A book version of the Conference Proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag in their STAR series and selected field robotics papers will be considered for publication in a Special Issue of the Journal of Field Robotics.

FSR2015 group FSR 2015 is now over.
See you in Switzerland in 2017!

Recent News:

June 27, 2015 FSR is now over and was a great success with roughly 100 participants from around the world! All papers can be downloaded under the Program tab.
April 9, 2015 The detailed schedule is now available. See the Program tab for more details.
March 25, 2015 Acceptance results are now available! See the Program tab for more details.
March 17, 2015 Registration is now opened. See the Registration tab for more details.
February 15, 2015 Preferential prices were negociated for the conference attendees. See the Location tab for more details.
January 30, 2015 Registration prices are now available. See the Registration tab for more details.
December 19, 2014 We are now accepting your contributions. See the Authors tab for more details.
November 10, 2014: The paper templates are now available. See the Authors tab for more details.
October 22, 2014: Prof. Sanjiv Singh (Carnegie Mellon) confirmed his presence as keynote speaker.
October 16, 2014: Prof. Paul Newman (Oxford) and Dr. Chris Urmson (Google) confirmed their presence as keynote speakers.
May 5, 2014: First Call for Papers PDF posted.
April 15, 2014: The FSR 2015 website is live!

Important Dates

Paper submission February 13, 2015
Acceptance/rejection notification March 20, 2015
Early registration end April 10, 2015
Revised camera-ready papers April 17, 2015
Conference June 24-26, 2015

Sponsors

Clearpath
IRM UTIAS
NCFRN

What will happen at FSR 2015?


We have 42 papers lined up from a broad range of field robotics applications including unmanned aerial vehicles, space exploration, self-driving cars, and many aquatic applications. Our 4 excellent keynote speakers are:

  • “Realizing Self-Driving Vehicles” — Chris Urmson, Google[x]
  • “Fielding Robots with Learnt Place-Specific Excellence” — Paul Newman, Oxford
  • “As the Drone Flies: The shortest path from ground to aerial autonomy” — Sanjiv Singh, CMU
  • “The Evolution of a Robotics Company” — Ryan Gariepy, Clearpath Robotics



There will be a number of social events during the conference. A first dinner will be held on a 144-feet long ship reserved exclusively for the occasion. Through the cruise, participants will be able to enjoy few drinks on the upper deck, while appreciating a scenic view of Toronto Harbour from a unique perspective. The next day, the conference banquet dinner will be hosted in the Trinity College's Strachan Hall. With its oak-panelled walls, cathedral ceiling, chandeliers, and long wooden tables, the Strachan Hall will, for sure, be a perfect location to start a good discussion, while savoring a fine meal. The last day will include a technical tour and demos at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies. Ground and aerial vehicles will be presented in action giving the participants the opportunity to ask questions and interact with the systems.

Register now!

Top 5 reasons to submit your work at FSR

There are many calls for participation out there, and your original work is solicitated by many conferences. For our call for papers, we used a different approach by answering directly to the question: Why should I participate to the 10th International conference on Field and Service Robotics? Most of the good reasons are well known by senior scientists who are familiar with the conference, but we took the opportunity to list them here for a broader community.



Here are our top five reasons to submit your work to FSR:

  1. Real-world robotic applications.
    Deploying robots in the field takes time, which is why the FRS conference occurs only every second year. The conference is definitively the best place to see robots having a hard time in the field, and to discuss with experts providing unusual lessons learned. Your real-world experience is welcome, and scratches are expected!

  2. A fully attentive audience.
    The conference is single track, so no side distraction is going on during your presentation. Also, many senior professors are regular attendees, meaning that leading scientists will be there to listen to your talk.

  3. Fair reviews from experts.
    We make sure that a minimum of two reviews per submission are provided to the authors. The reviewers are mainly selected from our International Program Commitee, which is composed of regular FSR attendees.

  4. An access to the most cited field robotics journal.
    Selected field robotics papers will be considered for publication in a Special Issue of the Journal of Field Robotics. Moreover, the Conference Proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag in their STAR series.

  5. Visiting Canada!
    Toronto is the most populous city of Canada and offers tons of social and cultural activities, especially during summer. A good public transit system composed of metro, streetcars (trams), and buses will ease your discovery of the city. The city also has an enormous diversity (47% of its population being from a visible minority), which brings a beautiful palette of food, music and festivals. Furthermore, the Canadian wilderness is accessible within only two hours of driving!

Get out with your robots and start planning your next scientific contribution, so you will have it ready for February 13, 2015. We hope to see you around in June 2015!

Official Announcement

To print and advertise in your lab, download this announcement as as PDF:

Poster

We invite papers describing original work in a number of technical areas related to field and service robotics, including:

  • Mining, Agriculture and Forestry Robotics
  • Construction Robots
  • Search and Rescue Robotics
  • Autonomous Vehicles for Land, Air and Sea
  • Planetary Exploration Robots
  • Environmental Robotics
  • Intelligent Cars
  • Cleaning, Floor and Lawn Care Robotics
  • Security Robotics
  • Medical and Healthcare Robotics
  • Entertainment Robotics
  • Robots for Cultural Heritage (Museums and Galleries, etc)

as well as related technologies.

Guideline for Paper Submission

For the publication by Springer-Verlag in their STAR series, we strongly encouraged you to use LaTex. You can find the templates below:

  • LaTex template
  • MS Word template (updated) - Please read the instructions guide readme-T1-book.pdf before starting. You will need to activate macros and use the appropriate styles defined in the Add-Ins tab.
Your paper must not exceed 14 pages, and the text has to enter in a 11.7 x 18.8 cm area. For more information about your manuscript preparation, please visit the section Chapters on the Springer's Author Guidelines.

Initial Submission

We are using EasyChair as conference management system. Follow this this link to submit your paper and click on New Submission in the menu bar.

Submission portal:

EasyChair - FSR2015

Camera-Ready Submission

On top of resolving reviewers conserns, please carefully proofread your document and ensure that all your figures are readable (e.g., graph font size not smaller than the caption). When your final version is ready, follow those instructions on EasyChair.

  • Login as an Author on EasyChair
  • In My Submissions tab, select your submission ID that was accepted.
  • In the in the upper right corner, select Update file.
  • Choose your new file to upload and click Submit.

Presentations

Oral Presentations

There is a total of 20 minutes available per talk. You should aim for a 15-min long presentation to allow a question period of 5 min. The next speaker will be asked to come on stage to prepare his laptop during the last 2 min of questions. Any presentations exceeding the available time will be cut to stay on schedule.

Poster Session

The poster sension will be on Thursday, June 25, at 10:30. Posters will be installed in the same room as the coffee breaks and the lunches take place. You will have access to a poster board, which is 6 feet wide x 3 feet tall (182 cm x 91 cm), a high table and a power outlet. Your poster should not be larger than the poster board and be large enough to allow multiple people to read it at the same time. The total time for the poster session will be 1:30, which can be extended during lunch time. There won't be any screens installed by the conference staff, so you need to print and bring your own poster.

Keynote Speakers

Chris Urmson
Director, Self-Driving Cars, Google[x]

Chris Urmson leads Google’s self-driving car program where the team’s vehicles have driven over a half million miles. Prior to joining Google, Chris was on the faculty of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University where his research focused on motion planning and perception for robotic vehicles. During his time at Carnegie Mellon, he worked with house size trucks, drove robots around in deserts, and served as the Director of Technology for the team that won the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. He earned his PhD in 2005 from Carnegie Mellon and his B.Sc. in Computer Engineering from the University of Manitoba in 1998.

Realizing Self-Driving Vehicles
Self-driving will save lives, save time, and offer mobility to those who otherwise don’t have it. Eventually they will reshape the way we live in, and move through, our communities and cities. A dedicated team at Google has spent the last five years moving self-driving vehicles closer to a reality. New algorithms, increased processing power, innovative sensors and massive amounts of data enable our vehicles to see further, understand more and handle a wide variety of challenging driving scenarios. Our vehicles have driven over a half million miles on highways, suburban and urban streets. Through this journey, we’ve learned a lot; not just about how to drive, but about interacting with drivers, users and others on the road, and about what it takes to bring in incredibly complex system to fruition. I’ll share some fun stories and lessons along with our vision for how these vehicles will become a reality.

Paul Newman
Professor, University of Oxford

He obtained an M.Eng. in Engineering Science from Oxford University, Balliol College in 1995. He then undertook a Ph.D. in autonomous navigation at the Australian Center for Field Robotics, University of Sydney, Australia. In 1999 he returned to the United Kingdom to work in the commercial sub-sea navigation industry. The navigation software he wrote then was used to repair the Deep Sea Horizon leak in 2010. In late 2000 he joined the Dept of Ocean Engineering at M.I.T. where as a post-doc and later a research scientist, he worked on algorithms and software for robust autonomous navigation for both land and sub-sea agents. In early 2003 he returned to Oxford as a Departmental Lecturer in Engineering Science before being appointed to a University Lectureship in Information Engineering and becoming a Fellow of New College in 2005, Professor of Engineering Science in 2010 and BP Professor of Information Engineering and Fellow of Keble College in 2012. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2014.

Fielding Robots with Learnt Place-Specific Excellence
Is it worth considering trading everywhere generality (mediocrity) for local, place-specific excellence? Part of our Field Robotics community is arguing that in some cases, the answer is yes. If your robot is mobile but only in a local area then we might think of imbuing that machine with competencies that over-fit to its own personal workspace. This policy of course extends beyond simply building a local geometric map. It forces us to think about learning spatially and temporally varying feature detectors, over-fitting classifiers, rich temporally indexed visual models and even place-dependent controllers. This talk will discuss how such competencies, wrapped up in a life-long learning framework, contribute to bespoke but increased performance in the place of work. And that, sometimes, is exactly what we are hoping for.

Sanjiv Singh
Professor, Carnegie Mellon University

Dr. Singh is a Research Professor at the Robotics Institute with a courtesy appointment in Mechanical Engineering. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Field Robotics. His research relates to the operation of robots in natural and in some cases, extreme environments. His recent work has two main themes: perception in natural and dynamic environments and multi-agent coordination. Currently, he leads efforts in collision avoidance for air vehicles (near earth and between aircraft) and ground vehicles using novel sensors that can look through obscurants. Another research area seeks to provide accurate tracking and situational awareness in dynamic environments, such as those encountered in search and rescue, using radio signals to compute location. This research seeks to assist emergency response personnel in their operations.

As the Drone Flies: The shortest path from ground to aerial autonomy
There is great excitement around flying machines these days. New innovations in sensing, computing, airframe design and batteries have catalyzed unprecedented progress in getting contraptions with or without people onboard, up in the air. Remote controlled air vehicles today allow us to look at the world (and ourselves!) from points of view never before possible. Tomorrow they have the potential to dramatically increase efficiency of vast industries involving transportation and emergency response. However, state of the art “drones” are constrained to fly high where they are very unlikely to encounter obstacles, or to fly under careful manual supervision when close to the ground. Much remains to be done to convert them into safe, efficient and viable solutions. In this talk I will discuss how autonomy for air vehicles relates to that required of ground vehicles. While the logistics and safety issues of autonomous flight are complicated, in many cases, flying greatly simplifies the problem of intelligent navigation. I will use examples from recent experiments to motivate an agenda of research and development necessary for air vehicles ranging from sub-meter scale to full scale.

Ryan Gariepy
Chief Technology Officer, Clearpath Robotics

Ryan Gariepy is the CTO and co-founder of Clearpath Robotics. He drives the development of Clearpath's autonomous perception and control software, all while guiding the continued expansion of Clearpath's research platform lines and industrial automation solutions. He currently has 7 patents pending, all in the field of autonomous robotics. Along with his partners, he has been named one of the “Top 40 Under 40 to Watch in 2015" by Business Insider. He has presented on multiple occasions at the RoboBusiness Leadership Summit and the Unmanned Systems Canada conference, and in 2013 spoke on behalf of the Canadian High Commission in London, England. He is also a co-founder of the Robot Operating System developers' conference and is on the Board of Directors for the Open Source Robotics Foundation. He has been an invited speaker to organizations such as the United Nations and the Red Cross, where he speaks regularly on the potential global impact of intelligent systems.

The Evolution of a Robotics Company
The CTO of Clearpath Robotics will share the four major stages of Clearpath's evolution from a small group of classmates who recognized the potential in autonomous systems to the major force in the robotics industry they have become. He will speak on the original insights which got the company started from an empty bank account, their philosophy on open-source robotics and how it motivated their initial team, the difficulties of scaling a manufacturing business, and the challenges inherent in keeping the entire company moving along a consistent trajectory. He will also share some of Clearpath's unique observations regarding the readiness of the world for the large-scale deployment of intelligent systems.

Quick link to:
VenueHotelsSightseeing

Conference Venue

- Wednesday to Friday -

The conference will take place on the main campus (St-George) of the University of Toronto, right in the middle of the downtown area. The presentations will be held in the JJR Macleod Auditorium, while the food and posters will be in another room named the Stone Lobby. Here is the link to Google Map and a detailed map of the rooms:


Hotels

We could negociate preferential prices for conference attendees. If you have any problems with the instructions or the booking, please contact directly Jonathan Kelly (jkelly@utias.utoronto.ca).



Name and Contact RoomPrice

New College Residences
newcollege.groups@utoronto.ca Student (single occupancy) $43.00 CAD a night
416-946-5317 (phone) Non-student (single occupancy) $45.00 CAD a night
416-946-3801 (fax) Student (double occupancy) $60.00 CAD a night
Non-student (double occupancy) $70.00 CAD a night
Plus 13% tax.

To make a booking: conference attendees can go to the website above, click the link on the main page to Book a Room, and then fill out the reservation form, scan it, and email or fax it back. In the “Where did you hear about us?” box on the form, the attendee should indicate “2015 Conference Field & Service Robotics”. Any questions can be directed to Aldo Sdao (information above). New College has both wired (Ethernet cable required) and wireless Internet access available for guests. Booking by April 23 is best.

Knox College
knox.residence@utoronto.ca Student $45.00 CAD a night
416-978-0168 (phone) Non-student $55.00 CAD a night
Plus 13% tax.

To make a booking: conference attendees can go to the website above, click the link on the main page to Book a Room, and then fill out the reservation form, scan it, and email or fax it back. In the “Where did you hear about us?” box on the form, the attendee should indicate “2015 Conference Field & Service Robotics”. Any questions can be directed to Aldo Sdao (information above). New College has both wired (Ethernet cable required) and wireless Internet access available for guests. Booking by April 23 is best.

Park Hyatt
biljana.brunning@hyatt.com Park Room $199.00 CAD a night
416-324-1468 (phone) Park deluxe Room $249.00 CAD a night
416-324-1468 (phone) Park Suite $319.00 CAD a night
Plus 16% tax.

To make a booking: conference attendees should contact Biljana Brunning directly (email or phone above). Mention the “2015 Conference on Field and Service Robotics” and the association with the University of Toronto to get the preferred room rate. The UofT preferred room rates cannot be guaranteed - it depends on what is available at the time of booking.

Holiday Inn Toronto Bloor Yorkville
sonia.waite@whg.com One Queen bed (1-2 persons) $129.99 CAD a night
416-968-3300 ext.: 1520 (phone) One Queen bed (3 persons) $134.99 CAD a night
416-968-0010 (front desk) One Queen bed (4 persons) $139.99 CAD a night
Two Double beds (1-2 persons) $134.99 CAD a night
Two Double beds (3 persons) $139.99 CAD a night
Two Double beds (4 persons) $144.99 CAD a night
Plus 16% tax.

To make a booking: conference attendees should contact the hotel directly (front desk) and fill out and submit the attached booking form. Note the room rate are not guaranteed, and only apply to bookings made on or before May 23, 2015.

Download form


InterContinental Toronto Yorkville
416-960-5200 (front desk)

To make a booking: this hotel is another option for conference attendees. There is no specific discount rate (beyond what’s available online), and it tends to be more pricey than the Park Hyatt (with the UofT preferred rate).


Visiting Toronto

Here are some links to help you plan your visit:

And also few suggestions of places to see around the conference venue:
Academia - Main campus of University of Toronto (map).
Relaxing time - Sunset from the Center Island (map).
Night life - Dundas Square (map) is a good place to see free street performance, public events and art displays.
Downtown museums - The Art Gallery of Ontario (map) and the Royal Ontario Museum (map).
Urban nature - Monarch butterfly in Central Island gardens (map) and a polar bear in Toronto Zoo (map).
Architecture - The CN Tower (map), the Brookfield Place (map) and the Ontario College of Art and Design (map).

Photographs from F. Pomerleau

Registration

Prices:

FSR registrations are all-inclusive. This means you have access to: the conference, the electronic proceedings, the welcome reception (drinks and canapés), one (1) entrance to the banquet (drinks and dinner), one (1) entrance to the boat cruise (drinks and dinner), three (3) lunches, three (3) breakfasts and five (5) coffee breaks.

Regular (Early) $850.00 CAD
Student (Early) $600.00 CAD
Regular $950.00 CAD
Student $700.00 CAD

Early: Special registration prices end April 10, 2015.
Student: Undergraduate, Master's or PhD students registered in an official institution.

Extras:

+1 boat cruise ticket $80.00 CAD
+1 banquet ticket $100.00 CAD
Hard cover proceeding (Springer-Verlag) $80.00 CAD

Notes

  • A minimum of one (1) registration per paper is required.
  • Registration is required before submitting your revised camera-ready papers.
  • The conference version of the papers will be posted online for fast access.
  • All prices are in Canadian (CAD) dollars and include taxes.



The payment portal is closed.

Quick link to:
TuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday


Downloadable Materials

All papers A zip file containing all papers in PDF format. (218 MB)
Digest A PDF file containing maps, Wifi information, abstracts, etc. The dimension of the document is well-suited for mobile phones.

Tuesday, June 23

Time

Activity

Note

18:00-20:00

Registration and opening reception (snacks and drinks)

Faculty Club

Wednesday, June 24

Time

Activity

Note

8:00-8:30

Registration and breakfast

Hall - JJR Macleod Auditorium

8:30-8:50

Conference Opening

JJR Macleod Auditorium

Keynote 1

JJR Macleod Auditorium

8:50-9:50

Realizing Self-Driving Vehicles

Chris Urmson

Director, Self-Driving Cars, Google[x]

10:00-10:30

Coffee break

Hall - JJR Macleod Auditorium

Session 1: Aquatic 1

Chair: Joshua Marshall

10:30-10:50

Paper #20: A Spatially and Temporally Scalable Approach for Long-Term Lakeshore Monitoring

Shane Griffith and Cedric Pradalier

10:50-11:10

Paper #63: Autonomous Greenhouse Gas Sampling using Multiple Robotic Boats

Matthew Dunbabin

11:10-11:30

Paper #39: Experimental Analysis of Receding Horizon Planning Algorithms for Marine Monitoring

Soo-Hyun Yoo, Andrew Stuntz, Yawei Zhang, Robert Rothschild, Geoffrey Hollinger, and Ryan Smith

11:30-11:50

Paper #59: Return to Antikythera: Multi-Session SLAM Based AUV Mapping of a First Century B.C. Wreck Site

Honorable Mention!

Stefan Williams, Oscar Pizarro, and Brendan Foley

12:00-13:30

Lunch

Stone Lobby

Session 2: Vision 1

Chair: Gabe Sibley

13:30-13:50

Paper #62: BORG: Building Optimal Regularised Reconstructions with GPUs (in cubes)

Michael Tanner, Pedro Pinies, Lina Maria Paz, and Paul Newman

13:50-14:10

Paper #32: Online Loop-Closure Detection via Dynamic Sparse Representation

Moein Shakeri and Hong Zhang

14:10-14:30

Paper #61: Large Scale Dense Visual Inertial Dense SLAM

Lu Ma, Juan Falquez, Steve McGuire, and Gabe Sibley

14:30-14:50

Paper #53: Dense and Swift Mapping with Monocular Vision

Pedro Pinies, Lina Maria Paz Perez, and Paul Newman

15:00-15:30

Coffee break

Hall - JJR Macleod Auditorium

Session 3: Planetary

Chair: Steven Waslander

15:30-15:50

Paper #46: System Design of a Tethered Robotic Explorer (TReX) for 3D Mapping of Steep Terrain and Harsh Environments

Patrick McGarey, Francois Pomerleau, and Timothy D. Barfoot

15:50-16:10

Paper #42: Design, Control, and Experimentation of Internally-Actuated Rovers for the Exploration of Low-Gravity Planetary Bodies

Best Student Paper!

Benjamin Hockman, Andreas Frick, Issa Nesnas, and Marco Pavone

16:10-16:30

Paper #55: Considering the Effects of Gravity when Developing and Field Testing Planetary Excavator Robots

Krzysztof Skonieczny, Thomas Carlone, William Whittaker, and David Wettergreen

16:30-16:50

Paper #41: Update on the Qualification of the Hakuto Micro-Rover for the Google Lunar X-Prize

John Walker, Nathan Britton, Kazuya Yoshida, Toshiro Shimizu, Louis Burtz, and Alperen Pala

17:00-18:00

Personal time

-

18:00-evening

Dinner

Boat cruise on Lake Ontario

Thursday, June 25

Time

Activity

Note

8:00-8:30

Breakfast

Hall - JJR Macleod Auditorium

Keynote 2

JJR Macleod Auditorium

8:30-9:30

Fielding Robots with Learnt Place-Specific Excellence

Paul Newman

Professor, University of Oxford

Session 4: Vision 2

Chair: David Silver

9:30-9:50

Paper #22: Wrong Today, Right Tomorrow: Experience-Based Classification for Robot Perception

Jeffrey Hawke, Corina Gurau, Chi Hay Tong, and Ingmar Posner

9:50-10:10

Paper #11: Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt: Place Recognition with Colour-Constant Images

Kirk Mactavish, Michael Paton, and Timothy D. Barfoot

10:10-10:30

Coffee break

Hall - JJR Macleod Auditorium

Poster Session

Stone Lobby

10:30-12:00

Paper #9: Segmentation and Classification of 3D Urban Point Clouds: Comparison and Combination of Two Approaches

Ahmad Kamal Aijazi, Andrés Serna, Beatriz Marcotegui, Paul Checchin, and Laurent Trassoudaine

Paper #12: Non-Field-of-View Acoustic Target Estimation in Complex Indoor Environment

Kuya Takami, Tomonari Furukawa, Makoto Kumon, and Gamini Dissanayake

Paper #13: Mobility Assessment of Wheeled Robots Operating on Soft Terrain

Bahareh Ghotbi, Francisco Gonzalez, Jozsef Kovecses, and Jorge Angeles

Paper #17: A Stereo Vision Based Obstacle Detection System for Agricultural Applications

Patrick Fleischmann and Karsten Berns

Paper #21: SPENCER: A Socially Aware Service Robot for Passenger Guidance and Help in Busy Airports

Rudolph Triebel, Kai Arras, Rachid Alami, Lucas Beyer, Stefan Breuers, Raja Chatila, Mohamed Chetouani, Daniel Cremers, Vanessa Evers, Michelangelo Fiore, Hayley Hung, Omar A. Islas Ramirez, Michiel Joosse, Harmish Khambhaita, Tomasz Kucner, Bastian Leibe, Achim J. Lilienthal, Timm Linder, Manja Lohse, Martin Magnusson, Billy Okal, Luigi Palmieri, Umer Rafi, Marieke van Rooij and Lu Zhang

Paper #25: Application of Multi-Robot Systems to Disaster-Relief Scenarios with Limited Communication

Jason Gregory, Jonathan Fink, Ethan Stump, Jeffrey Twigg, John Rogers, David Baran, Nick Fung, and Stuart Young

Paper #29: CoPilot: Autonomous Doorway Detection and Traversal for Electric Powered Wheelchairs

Tom Panzarella, Dylan Schwesinger, and John Spletzer

Paper #38: Aerial Vehicle Path Planning for Monitoring Wildfire Frontiers

Ryan Skeele and Geoffrey Hollinger

Paper #40: Taming the North: Multi-Camera Parallel Tracking and Mapping in Snow-Laden Environments

Arun Das, Devinder Kumar, Abdelhamid El Bably, and Steven Waslander

Paper #43: Energy-aware Terrain Analysis for Mobile Robot Exploration

Kyohei Otsu and Takashi Kubota

Paper #50: Learning a Context-Dependent Switching Strategy for Robust Visual Odometry

Kristen Holtz and Sebastian Scherer

Paper #52: Four-Wheel Rover Performance Analysis at Lunar Analog Test

Nathan Britton, John Walker, Kazuya Yoshida, Toshiro Shimizu, Tommaso Paniccia, and Kei Nakata

Paper #57: From ImageNet to Mining: Adapting Visual Object Detection with Minimal Supervision

Alex Bewley and Ben Upcroft

Paper #58: Novel Assistive Device for Teaching Crawling Skills to Infants

Mustafa Ghazi, Michael Nash, Andrew Fagg, Lei Ding, Thubi Kolobe, and David Miller

Paper #60: Easy Estimation of Wheel Lift and Suspension Force for Novel High-Speed Robot on Rough Terrain

Jayoung Kim and Jihong Lee

12:00-13:30

Lunch

Stone Lobby

Session 5: Aerial

Chair: Steve Nuske

13:30-13:50

Paper #4: Vision and Learning for Deliberative Monocular Cluttered Flight

Debadeepta Dey, Kumar Shaurya Shankar, Sam Zeng, Rupesh Mehta, M. Talha Agcayazi, Christopher Eriksen, Shreyansh Daftry, Martial Hebert, and Drew Bagnell

13:50-14:10

Paper #34: Robust Autonomous Flight in Constrained and Visually Degraded Environments

Zheng Fang, Shichao Yang, Sezal Jain, Geetesh Dubey, Silvio Maeta, Stephan Roth, Sebastian Scherer, Yu Zhang, and Stephen Nuske

14:10-14:30

Paper #47: Autonomous Exploration for Infrastructure Modeling with a Micro Aerial Vehicle

Luke Yoder and Sebastian Scherer

14:30-14:50

Paper #49: Long-Endurance Sensing and Mapping using a Hand-Launchable Solar-Powered UAV

Philipp Oettershagen, Thomas Stastny, Thomas Mantel, Amir Melzer, Konrad Rudin, Gabriel Agamennoni, Kostas Alexis, and Roland Siegwart

15:00-15:30

Coffee break

Hall - JJR Macleod Auditorium

Keynote 3

JJR Macleod Auditorium

15:30-16:10

The Evolution of a Robotics Company

Ryan Gariepy

Chief Technology Officer at Clearpath Robotics

Session 6: Aquatic 2

Chair: Stefan Williams

16:10-16:30

Paper #33: An Overview of MIT-Olin's Approach in the AUVSI RobotX Competition

Arthur Anderson, Erin Fischell, Thom Howe, Tom Miller, Arturo Parrales-Salinas, Nick Rypkema, David Barrett, Michael Benjamin, Alex Brennen, Michael Defillipo, John Leonard, Liam Paull, Henrik Schmidt, Nick Wang, and Alon Yaari

16:30-16:50

Paper #28: A Parameterized Geometric Magnetic Field Calibration Method for Vehicles with Moving Masses with Applications to Underwater Gliders

Brian Claus and Ralf Bachmayer

16:50-17:10

Paper #45: Towards Autonomous Robotic Coral Reef Health Assessment

Travis Manderson, David Meger, Jimmy Li, David Cortés Poza, Natasha Dudek, and Gregory Dudek

17:10-18:00

Personal time

-

18:00-evening

Banquet

Trinity College’s Strachan Hall

Friday, June 26

Time

Activity

Note

8:00-8:30

Breakfast

Hall - JJR Macleod Auditorium

Keynote 4

JJR Macleod Auditorium

8:30-9:30

As the Drone Flies: The shortest path from ground to aerial autonomy

Sanjiv Singh

Professor, Carnegie Mellon University

Session 7: Underground

Chair: Chris Skonieczny

9:30-9:50

Paper #51: Multi-robot Mapping of Lava Tubes

Xin Huang, Jingbin Yang, Michael Storrie-Lombardi, Lyzenga Gregory, and Christopher Clark

9:50-10:10

Paper #7: Admittance Control for Robotic Loading: Underground Field Trials with an LHD

Best Paper!

Andrew Dobson, Joshua A. Marshall, and Johan Larsson

10:10-10:40

Coffee break

Hall - JJR Macleod Auditorium

Session 8: Systems

Chair: Cédric Pradalier

10:40-11:00

Paper #23: Building, Curating, and Querying Large-scale Data Repositories for Field Robotics Applications

Peter Nelson, Chris Linegar, and Paul Newman

11:00-11:20

Paper #6: Search and Retrieval of Human Casualties in Outdoor Environments with Unmanned Ground Systems - System Overview and Lessons Learned from ELROB 2014

Bernd Brüggemann, Dennis Wildermuth, and Frank E. Schneider

11:20-11:40

Paper #14: Monocular Visual Teach and Repeat Aided by Local Ground Planarity

Lee Clement, Jonathan Kelly, and Timothy D. Barfoot

11:40-12:00

Paper #48: In the Dead of Winter: Challenging Vision-based Path Following in Extreme Conditions

Michael Paton, Francois Pomerleau, and Timothy D. Barfoot

12:10-12:30

Wrap-up

JJR Macleod Auditorium

12:30-14:00

Lunch

On the bus

14:00-17:00

Local visits and demos

UTIAS

Evening

Personal time

-

Organizers

  • General Chair: Tim Barfoot, University of Toronto
  • Program Chair: David Wettergreen, Carnegie Mellon University
  • Local Arrangements Chair: Jonathan Kelly, University of Toronto
  • Publicity Chair: François Pomerleau, University of Toronto
  • Technical Visit Chair: Angela Schoellig, University of Toronto

2015 International Program Committee

  • Peter Corke: Queensland University of Technology, Australia
  • Jonathan Roberts: CSIRO, Australia
  • Alex Zelinsky: DSTO, Australia
  • Uwe Zimmer: Australian National University, Australia
  • Salah Sukkarieh: University of Sydney, Australia
  • Ben Upcroft: Queensland University of Technology, Australia
  • Tim Barfoot: University of Toronto, Canada
  • Philippe Giguere: University of Laval, Canada
  • Steve Waslander: University of Waterloo, Canada
  • Josh Marshall: Queens University, Canada
  • François Pomerleau: University of Toronto, Canada
  • Chris Skonieczny: Concordia University, Canada
  • Arto Visala: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
  • Simon Lacroix: LAAS, France
  • Christian Laugier: INRIA, France
  • Cédric Pradalier: GT-Lorraine, France
  • Andreas Birk: Jacobs University, Germany
  • Keiji Nagatani: Tohoku University, Japan
  • Kazuya Yoshida: Tohoku University, Japan
  • Takashi Tsubouchi: University of Tsukuba, Japan
  • Genya Ishigami: Keio University, Japan
  • Miguel Angel Salichs: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
  • Roland Siegwart: ETH Zurich, Switzerland
  • David P Miller: University Oklahoma, USA
  • Sanjiv Singh: Carnegie Mellon University, USA
  • Gaurav Sukhatme: University of Southern California, USA
  • Alonzo Kelly: Carnegie Mellon University, USA
  • Chuck Thorpe: Clarkson University, USA
  • David Silver: Google[X], USA
  • Carrick Dettweiler: University of Nebraska, USA
  • Stewart Moorehead: John Deere Corp., USA
  • Steve Nuske: Carnegie Mellon University, USA
  • Gabriel Sibley: University of Colorado, USA
  • Ross Knepper: Cornell University, USA
  • Michael Jakuba: Woods Hole, USA

History of FSR

The first FSR conference was held in Canberra, Australia, in 1997. Since then the meeting has been held every 2 years in Asia, America, Europe and Australia. This will be the first time it is held in Canada.