The IEEE International Conference on Automation and Robotics, ICRA, is the itinerant flagship conference of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, RAS. In its 39th edition, ICRA is being held in the Pennsylvania Convention Center, in Philadelphia, PA, USA, between May 23 and 27, 2022.
ICRA started just after the birth of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (formerly IEEE Robotics and Automation Council) in 1983. The first edition was held in Atlanta, GA, USA, in 1984. During its first years, the conference showed the growing interest of researchers and industry leaders in the emergent field of robotics. The 1986 edition, San Francisco, CA, USA, gathered 800 attendees from 20 countries. In 2022, and the conference has grown to be one of the biggest robotics events.
The numbers of ICRA 2022 speak for themselves: over 7.000 participants (4.460 in-person); 95 countries; 3.344 paper submissions and 1.498 paper presentations; 12 keynote speakers; 96 partners, sponsors and exhibitors; 10 major competitions; 6 forums; 56 workshops; 10 networking events; and a group of 101 amazing student volunteers that help to coordinate this reunion.
The talented people that share robotics advances in ICRA make this conference one of the greatest Robotics & Science Communication events. In its extension, the conference allows the attendees to get a taste of a large and diverse range of robotics fields: localization and navigation; assistive robotics; robotics learning; collective construction; you name it, ICRA has it! Unfortunately, it can only be a taste—it is practically impossible to follow all the events.
For the academics, Monday 23rd and Friday 27th have dedicated and specialized satellite workshops organized within the framework of the conference. Besides the Keynotes, the main track of the conference, between May 24th and May 26th, is divided into topic sessions that are followed by poster presentations in which speakers can address possible questions. On the same days, the exhibitors are showcasing their new technologies and the trends in the robotics market.
For the most enthusiastic like me, and because we want to see robots in action, there are robotics competitions during the entire week. Also, the technical tours to the Signh Center for Nanotechnology, Penn Medicine, and the Penn GRASP Lab are a great opportunity to see robotics demos and presentations from local researchers. The art and robotics exhibitions scheduled between Monday 23rd and Wednesday 25th might give you a different perspective on how we can interact with a robot.
Quite important!: the virtual access to the conference is open to everyone at no cost! And also, if you want to explore a little and interact with researchers in Philly, a group of telepresence robots are available for curious virtual attendees.
If you have little time in your agenda but you still wish to follow the highlights of the conference, follow the official social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn), or join the Twitter List of the Sci Communicators that will cover this amazing robotics festival.
tags: c-Events
David Garzón Ramos is a researcher at IRIDIA, the Artificial Intelligence research laboratory of the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
