9:00 Start Opening Sesion - Technical University Iasi – T1 Theatre (close to “Rectorat” in Romanian)
8:00 Registration - Technical University Iasi – T1 Theatre
Departure to this location will be by bus, on 22 July, 7:45 AM, in front of “Unirea” Hotel

Aim and scope

    Learning and adaptive behaviors are key to robotics system operation in real world environments. While there have been important developments at the theoretical level and in simulations or laboratory environments, the transfer of these methods onto real-world platforms has been limited.        This symposium aims to provide a forum for advancement of learning and adaptation in robotics systems to high capability levels comparable to those of biological systems. It seeks reports on new concepts, laboratory demonstrations, and fielded robotic systems that exhibit learning and adaptive behaviors. The focus of the 2009 symposium is learning and adaptive behavior in robots working within environments in close proximity to other robots and humans .

LAB-RS  2009 will take place in Iasi , Romania . The capital of the medieval principality of Moldavia , Iasi is a city immersed in history and culture, yet trendy and vibrant due to the tens of thousands of university students that live in Romania's oldest - and second largest  -university city.  The social program will include a tour to the famous painted monasteries of Northern Moldavia and Iasi sightseeing.

LAB-RS 2008 took place in Edinburgh, Scotland and included keynotes, presentations, demonstrations and a video competition. The proceedings were published by IEEE.  The awards (each accompanied by a $1000 cash prize) included the Homayoun Seraji Award,for best paper, won by R. Felix Reinhart and Jochen J. Steil, from Bielefeld University, Germany, for the paper "Recurrent neural autoassociative learning of forward and inverse kinematics for movement generation of the redundant PA-10 robot" and Best Video Award, to T. Noda, S. Ikemoto, D. Quevedo, T. Shimizu, H. Sumioka, H. Ishihara, Y. Sasamoto, Y. Yoshikawa, T. Minato, Hiroshi Ishiguro and Minoru Asada from JST ERATO Project, Osaka University, Japan for the video titled "CB2: Child Robot with Biomimetic Body ".

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LAB-RS 2009 is part of AT-EQUAL 2009 which also includes:

 

ARTIPED July 23-25, 2009
The E xploratory Workshop on Assistive and Recuperative Technologies for Injured, ill, Pregnant, Elderly and people with Disabilities

 

ISRIS July 22-26, 2009 The International School on Robotics and Intelligent Systems , with the theme: Assistive robots and systems for healthcare and rehabilitation

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Important Dates (modified to be aligned with IEEE deadlines)

Proposals for special sessions	March 20, 2009
Deadline for papers:	April 29, 2009
Author notification:	May 3, 2009
Camera ready:	May 15, 2009
Author/Early registration:	May 30, 2009

Organisation

Symposium Chair

Terry Huntsberger, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, USA

Symposium Co-Chairs

Eddie Tunstel, Applied Physics Laboratory, John Hopkins University, USA
Tughrul Arslan, University of Edinburgh, UK

Program Chair

Adrian Stoica, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, USA

Program Committee

	Chris Assad	NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, USA
	Paul Benjamin	Pace University, USA
	David Bruemmer	Idaho National Laboratory, USA
	Frederic Colledani	CEA, France
	Kerstin Dautenhahn	University of Hertfordshire, UK
	John Dolan	Carnegie Mellon University, USA
	Dean Edwards	University of Idaho, USA
	Dario Floreano	EPFL, Switzerland
	Paolo Fiorini	Universita' di Verona, Italy
	Robert Kozma	University of Memphis, USA
	Yumi Iwashita	Kyushu University, Japan
	Christian Goerick	Honda Research Institute Europe
	Saman Kumara Halgamuge	University of Melbourne, Australia
	Ayanna Howard	Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
	Didier Keymeulen	NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, USA
	Klaus D McDonald-Maier	University of Essex, UK
	Christopher Nehaniv	University of Hertfordshire, UK
	Ionut Olaru	CNRS -LIRMM, France
	Vasile Palade	Oxford University, UK
	Lynne Parker	University of Tennessee, USA
	Jan Peters	MPI for Biological Cybernetics, Germany
	Paul S. Schenker	NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech USA
	Jochen Steil	University of Bielefeld, Germany
	Jim Torresen	University of Oslo, Norway
	Hendrik Van Brussel	Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
	Mary-Anne Williams	University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

Video Competition Track Chair

Didier Keymeulen, NASA/JPL, USA

Finance Chair

Mircea Slanina, ECSIS, Romania

Local Organizing Committee

Ahmed El-Rayis, University of Edinburgh, UK
Doru Panescu, TUI, Romania
Ioan Doroftei, TUI, Romania
Ionut Olaru, CNRS -LIRMM, France and ECSIS
Mircea Slanina, ECSIS, Romania