Planning and Robotics (PlanRob 2024)

ICAPS'24 Workshop
Banff, Alberta, Canada
June 3, 2024 in Room KC 105

Aim and Scope of the Workshop

AI Planning & Scheduling (P&S) methods are key to enabling intelligent robots to perform autonomous, flexible, and interactive behaviours. Researchers in the P&S community have continued to develop approaches and produce planners, representations, as well as heuristics that robotics researchers can make use of. However, there remain numerous challenges complicating the uptake, use and successful integration of P&S technology in robotics, many of which have been addressed by robotics researchers with novel solutions. Strong collaboration and synergy between researchers in both communities is vital to the continued growth of the fields in a way that provide mutual benefits to the two communities. To foster this, the PlanRob workshop aims to provide a stable, long-term forum (having been held annually at ICAPS since 2013) where researchers from both the P&S and Robotics communities can openly discuss relevant issues, research and development progress, future directions and open challenges related to P&S when applied to Robotics. In addition to the usual paper submissions, the workshop’s format naturally lends itself to preliminary results, position papers as well as to work focused on challenges in using and integrating planners in robotics systems.

Topics of Interest

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

  • human-aware planning and execution in human-robot interaction,
  • real-world planning applications for autonomous and intelligent robots,
  • planning domain representations for robotics applications,
  • optimising behaviour in large scale automated or semi-automated systems,
  • integrated planning and execution in robot architectures,
  • learning methods for robot planning and scheduling,
  • P&S methods for optimisation and adaptation in robotics,
  • mission, path, and motion planning for robots,
  • formal methods for robot planning and control,
  • challenges and solutions in using P&S technology in robotics,
  • open problems for P&S in robotics,
  • coordination of multi-robot teams,
  • benchmark planning domains for robots,
  • adversarial action planning in competitive robot domains,
  • mixed-initiative planning and sliding autonomy for robotic systems.

Invited Talk

Tiago Stegun Vaquero

Tiago Stegun Vaquero

Bio: Tiago is a Technical Group Supervisor of the Artificial Intelligence Group, Planning and Execution Section, of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. He holds a B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. in Mechatronics Engineering from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Tiago previously held a MIT research scientist position and a joint Caltech/MIT research position where he worked on Resilient Spacecraft Systems and Risk Sensitive Planning/Scheduling algorithms. At MIT, Tiago also worked on Risk-aware Planners and Executives for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles and Autonomous Cars. Tiago also previously held a research position at the University of Toronto where he worked on Multi-Robot Planning and Coordination. His research interest includes knowledge engineering for autonomous vehicles, and automated planning and scheduling for single and multi-robot missions.

Title: Autonomous Task and Motion Planning for Ice Worlds Exploration

Abstract: Icy moons of the gas giant planets, such as Europa, Titan, and Enceladus, are at the forefront of astrobiological interest due to the evidence of subsurface oceans. Enceladus is unique among the icy moons because there are known vent systems that are likely connected to a subsurface ocean, through which the ocean water is ejected to space. An existing study has shown that sending small robots into the vents and directly sampling the ocean water is likely possible. To enable such a mission, JPL is developing a novel, snake-like robot called Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor (EELS) that can navigate Enceladus’ extreme surface and descend an erupting vent to capture unaltered liquid samples and potentially reach the ocean. However, navigating to and through Enceladus’ environment is challenging: there is substantial uncertainty with respect to its geometry and physical properties of the surface/vents due to the limitations of existing orbital reconnaissance; and communication is limited which requires highly autonomous robots to execute the mission with limited human supervision. In this talk we provide an overview of the EELS project and its development effort to create a risk-aware autonomous robot to navigate these extreme ice terrains/environments. We describe the robot’s architecture and the technical challenges to navigate and sense the icy environment safely and effectively. We focus on the challenges related to surface mobility, and task and motion planning under uncertainty. We provide initial results on mobility and risk-aware task and motion planning from field tests and simulated scenarios.

List of Accepted Papers

Colton Barr, Mateus Karvat and Sidney Givigi. Six Degrees of Planning: Automated Planning for Surgical Navigation Under MyCobot’s Six Degrees of Freedom (PDF)

Amnon Attali, Stav Ashur and Nancy Amato. Measuring Guidance for the Motion Planning Decision Problem (PDF)

Georgios Sotirchos and Zlatan Ajanovic. Search-based versus Sampling-based Robot Motion Planning: A Comparative Study (PDF)

Yilin Cai and Zhongqiang Ren. PWTO: A Heuristic Approach for Trajectory Optimization in Complex Terrains (PDF)

Akseli Kangaslahti, Itai Zilberstein, Alberto Candela and Steve Chien. Search Applications for Integrated Planning and Execution of Satellite Observations using Dynamic Targeting (PDF)

András Kovács and Bence Tipary. Sequencing Robotic Diagnostic Tasks via Optimized Stochastic Policy Trees (PDF)

Mohammad Masarwy, Yuval Goshen, David Dovrat and Sarah Keren. Value of Assistance for Grasping (PDF)

David DeFazio, Yohei Hayamizu and Shiqi Zhang. Learning Quadruped Locomotion Policies using Logical Rules (PDF)

Emile Siboulet, Arthur Bit-Monnot, Marc-Emmanuel Coupvent-des-Graviers, Jacques Yelloz, Christophe Guettier and Simon Lacroix. Plan Generation for Multi-Robot Missions Requiring Active Operator Involvement (PDF)

Evgeny Mishlyakov, Mikhail Gruntov, Alexander Shleyfman and Erez Karpas. A Deterministic Search Approach for Solving Stochastic Drone Search and Rescue Planning Without Communications (PDF)

Ronen Brafman, Or Wertheim and Dan Suissa. Plug’n Play Task-Level Autonomy for Robotics Using POMDPs and Probabilistic Programs (Previously published in RAL)

Workshop Schedule

Our workshop is scheduled for Monday, June 3, 2024. It takes place in room KC 105. We look forward to seeing you there!

The preliminary schedule is as follows:

  • 08:30 - 08:40 Welcome
  • 08:40 - 09:40 Invited talk: Autonomous Task and Motion Planning for Ice Worlds Exploration
  • 09:40 - 10:00 Search Applications for Integrated Planning and Execution of Satellite Observations using Dynamic Targeting
  • 10:00 - 10:30 Coffee Break
  • 10:30 - 10:50 Value of Assistance for Grasping
  • 10:50 - 11:00 Sequencing Robotic Diagnostic Tasks via Optimized Stochastic Policy Trees (short paper)
  • 11:00 - 11:20 PWTO: A Heuristic Approach for Trajectory Optimization in Complex Terrains
  • 11:20 - 11:40 Learning Quadruped Locomotion Policies using Logical Rules
  • 11:40 - 12:00 Plan Generation for Multi-Robot Missions Requiring Active Operator Involvement
  • 12:00 - 13:30 Lunch Break
  • 13:30 - 13:50 Six Degrees of Planning: Automated Planning for Surgical Navigation Under MyCobot’s Six Degrees of Freedom
  • 13:50 - 14:10 Measuring Guidance for the Motion Planning Decision Problem
  • 14:10 - 14:30 Search-based versus Sampling-based Robot Motion Planning: A Comparative Study
  • 14:30 - 14:50 A Deterministic Search Approach for Solving Stochastic Drone Search and Rescue Planning Without Communications
  • 14:50 - 15:10 Plug’n Play Task-Level Autonomy for Robotics Using POMDPs and Probabilistic Programs
  • 15:10 - 15:15 Discussion
  • 15:00 - 15:30 Coffee Break
  • 15:30 - 17:00 Joint Workshops’ Panel Session (Location tbd)

Important Dates

  • Paper submission: March 25, 2024 UTC-12 April 3rd, 2024 UTC-12
  • Notification of acceptance: Friday, 26 April 2024
  • Camera-ready version due: Friday 24 May 2024 (AoE)
  • Workshop Date: June 3, 2024

The reference time-zone for all deadlines is UTC-12: Your submissions will be on time so long as there is still any place on Earth where the deadline has not yet passed.

Submission Details

There are two types of submissions:

  • short position papers (four pages)
  • regular papers (up to 10 pages)

Papers may have an additional page containing references. Regular papers may be scheduled with more time in the final program. A poster session may be considered to provide a further presentation opportunity.

The guidelines for formatting are the same as is used for ICAPS 2024 papers (typeset in the AAAI style as described at: http://www.aaai.org/Publications/Author/author.php), but with the AAAI copyright removed. The papers must be submitted in PDF format via the EasyChair system (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icapswsplanrob24).

Please note that papers under review (e.g. which have been submitted to IJCAI-2024) are also welcome, however, in order to avoid potential conflicts, these manuscripts should be prepared as anonymous submissions for a double blind reviewing process.

Accepted papers will be published on the workshop’s website.

The organisers are investigating the availability of journal editors in order to invite a selection of accepted papers from the workshop to a special issue or post-proceedings volume.

Organizing Committee

Iman Awaad,
Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences, Germany
iman.awaad@h-brs.de

Alberto Finzi,
Università di Napoli “Federico II”, Italy
alberto.finzi@unina.it

AndreA Orlandini,
Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC-CNR), Italy
andrea.orlandini@istc.cnr.it

Program Committee

Alessandro Umbrico, National Research Council of Italy CNR-ISTC, Italy

Arthur Bit-Monnot, LAAS/CNRS, France

Elisa Tosello, Fondazione Bruno Kessler - FBK, Italy

Erez Karpas, Technion, Israel

Felix Ingrand, LAAS/CNRS, France

Jared Swift, King’s College London, UK

Marco Roveri, University of Trento, Italy

Masoumeh Mansouri, University of Birmingham, UK

Oscar Lima, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence - DFKI, Germany

Riccardo Caccavale, Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II, Italy

Riccardo Rasconi, National Research Council of Italy CNR-ISTC, Italy

Roman Barták, Charles University, Czech Republic

Ron Petrick, Heriot-Watt University, UK

Ronen Brafman, Ben Gurion University, Israel

Tim Niemueller, Intrinsic Innovation GmbH, Germany