The Role of Robotics Simulators for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Half-Day Workshop at ICRA 2023

Objective

The workshop aims to provide the participants with the knowledge and experience of researchers who have struggled to find, customize, or design a robotic simulator for their own purposes or specific application. The focus is on aerial vehicles, especially multi-rotor aircraft, where we expect simulation solutions to be of continued importance for both research and industrial applications. Simulating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is a specialized task, because of aerodynamic interactions (with the environment or other robots), the fast operating speed compared to other robots (e.g., mobile, legged), and the potentially large number of interacting robots in three dimensions (e.g., swarms of delivery drones).

Important Dates

  • Extended abstract submission deadline: March 20, 2023

    April 3, 2023 23:59 (Pacific Time).

  • Notification to authors: April 10, 2023 (Pacific Time)
  • Camera-ready paper: April 17, 2023 (Pacific Time)
  • Workshop day: June 2, 2023. Last day of ICRA'23. Half-day workshop.

E-Mail

Submission

Call for Papers

  • We invite the submission of extended abstracts in line with the workshop's objectives with a maximum of 4 pages in the ICRA format, encouraging and prioritizing submissions of new ideas. Authors of the accepted papers will be invited to present their work during the poster session.
  • Every paper will be reviewed by at least two peers. The selection of accepted papers will be done by the organizing committee, based on the reviews.
  • The deadline for submission has been extended by two weeks to April 3rd. Check out the important deadlines

Submission website (EasyChair)

Topics Covered

    Participants are encouraged to submit their recent work on simulations of aerial robots involving, but not limited to, the following aspects.

  • Application-specific challenges for UAV simulation: mapping, below-canopy navigation, smart agriculture, racing, etc.
  • Aerial physical interaction simulation: actuated, under-actuated and passive mechanisms, aerial grasping, human-robot interaction, etc.
  • Simulation/Modeling of Aerodynamic effects
  • Case study of a researcher or group’s technical work in the context of Robotic Simulators for Aerial Robots and how their work fits into the broader discussion provided by the Workshop topics
  • Control methods and benchmarks (simulation vs reality), parameters and model tuning,, robustness in edge conditions
  • Digital twins, operator instruction, training and operation support, transfer from simulation to reality (Sim-to-Real)
  • Data-driven methods
  • Drone technology, with particular emphasis on the importance of simulation before deployment
  • Hybrid simulation and hardware-in-the-loop simulation techniques
  • Mission and motion planning
  • Manipulation, path planning, navigation in dynamic and cluttered environments
  • Methods supporting fast simulation and real-time simulation solutions
  • Simulation of Multi-agent systems: cooperative manipulation, formation, communication handling, swarms, etc.,
  • Multi-domain simulations
  • Robotic toolboxes
  • Verification and validation
  • Robot behavior adaptation and personalization
  • State estimation, localization, mapping, perception

Schedule

  • 08:25 Introduction and overview workshop

  • Session 1: Multi-robot simulation for learning and Interacting
  • 08:30 Tomáš Báča - Abstractions and Simulations as the Backbone of Reproducible Research
  • 09:00 Angela Schoellig - TBD

  • 09:30 Coffee break
    Session 2: Software-in-the-loop and Realistic vision-based simulation
  • 09:45 Jaeyoung Lim - Simulating end-to-end workflows for Aerial vehicles with PX4 Software-In-The-Loop simulations (tentative)
  • 10:15 Davide Scaramuzza - Vision based Agile Flight, from simulation to reality

  • 10:45 Coffee break
    Session 3: Poster session & Round table
  • 11:00 Posters contributed abstracts
  • 11:30 Breakout sessions
  • 12:00 Presentation session + Open discussion
  • 12:20 Final remark

Invited Speakers

Davide Scaramuzza

Davide Scaramuzza

University of Zurich

Talk: "Vision based Agile Flight, from simulation to reality"

Angela Schoellig

Angela Schoellig

Technical University of Munich

Talk: "TBD"

Tomáš Báča

Tomáš Báča

Czech Technical University in Prague

Talk: "Abstractions and Simulations as the Backbone of Reproducible Research"

Jaeyoung Lim

Jaeyoung Lim

PX4 Core Developer & Ph.D. Student, ETH Zurich

Talk: "Simulating end-to-end workflows for Aerial vehicles with PX4 Software-In-The-Loop simulations (tentative)"

Plans to encourage interaction among participants

A set of actions are planned to solicit broad and active participation in the workshop, including:
  • Discussion poster of contributed abstracts
  • Creation of online pools among both in person and remote participants to identify top discussions themes during round tables and breaks
  • Breakout sessions and a round table (i.e., presentation session followed by an open discussion) with the speakers and the participants

Team

Organizing Committee

Kimberly McGuire

Kimberly McGuire

Bitcraze A.B.

Giuseppe Silano

Giuseppe Silano

RSE S.p.A. and CTU Prague

Chiara Gabellieri

Chiara Gabellieri

TU Twente

Wolfgang Hönig

Wolfgang Hönig

TU Berlin

Steering Committee

Antonio Franchi

Antonio Franchi

TU Twente, LAAS-CNRS, University of Sapienza in Rome

Martin Saska

Martin Saska

Czech Technical University in Prague

Gianluca Antonelli

Gianluca Antonelli

University of Cassino and Southern Lazio

Vincenzo Lippiello

Vincenzo Lippiello

University of Naples Federico II

Gaurav Sukhatme

Gaurav Sukhatme

University of Southern California

Stefano Stramigioli

Stefano Stramigioli

TU Twente

Support

Endorsement