[CfP] [meetings] [RO-MAN 2025] Special session on Awareness and Ethics in Human-Robot Interaction at RO-MAN 2025

[Ana Tanevska]

[apologies for cross-posting]

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CALL FOR PAPERS - IEEE RO-MAN 2025 Special Session on “Sustainable Autonomy: Connecting Awareness and Ethics in Human-Robot Interaction”

Important Information:

Paper submission deadline: March 20th, 2025

Paper submission instructions: https://www.ro-man2025.org/contributing/specialsessionpaper

Special session code: w98u9

Submissions go through the IEEE RO-MAN conference site on PaperCept: https://ras.papercept.net/

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Special session aims and scope:

Human cognition handles uncertainty with appropriate situational awareness (SA), risk awareness, coordination, and decision making. However, current robotic agents need to make decisions using information beyond what is incorporated in human-based SA models. These agents have to fulfill increasingly complex autonomous operations via multi-layer computational reasoning and learning-enabled components for decision-making and perception of the environment, agents, and dynamics. 

The EIC Pathfinder project SymAware aims to address this problem by designing a novel architecture for SA in multi-agent systems, enabling safe collaboration of autonomous vehicles and drones. However, as these agents will function in practical real-life applications, in addition to communicating between each other, they will also need to interact with human users - drivers, pedestrians, drone operators, etc.  

Thus, modeling and implementing a SA architecture also requires an understanding of how to build an ethical and trustworthy human-agent interaction. How can the agents balance their autonomy and the human interests in high-risk scenarios to build trust? How can the agents take full advantage of their knowledge awareness while also safeguarding the users' privacy and data? How can we have agents with spatial-temporal awareness which also respect the social norms and personal boundaries of the humans? 

In this RO-MAN 2025 special session, we welcome all submissions that seek to investigate the various facets of artificial awareness and its implementation in single and multi-agent systems, as well as submissions that are more centered around the ethical dimension and implications of artificial awareness in agents that interact with humans.

The topics covered in this special session are following the main theme of the conference - “Shaping our hybrid future with robots together.” Accepted topics include, but are not limited to:

• Applications of Social Robots
• Computational Architectures
• Cooperation and Collaboration in Human-Robot Teams
• Ethical Issues in Human-robot Interaction Research
• Multi-modal Situation Awareness and Spatial Cognition
• Social Presence for Robots and Virtual Humans
• Trust, Transparency, and Explainability in HRI
• User-centered Design of Robots
• Various dimensions of awareness in mixed autonomy
• Architectures for implementing awareness.

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Submission instructions:

Papers submitted to the special sessions will undergo the same review process as the regular papers and will appear in the main conference proceedings if accepted.

Submissions should be made through the IEEE RO-MAN conference website on PaperCept: https://ras.papercept.net/.

Authors should specify the code of the special session when submitting their contributions (w98u9).

Manuscripts will be reviewed through a rigorous single-blind peer-review process. The maximum length of the final submission is 6 pages, with 2 additional pages allowed at an extra charge. Papers presented in regular sessions will be included in the official conference proceedings.

Please refer to the call for papers of the conference for additional instructions about the length and the formatting style: https://www.ro-man2025.org/

Special Session code: w98u9

Paper Submission: March 20, 2025

Conference time & place: August 25-29, 2025, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Do not forget the code and to select the special session paper.

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Special Session organizers:

Ana Tanevska (Uppsala University), ana.ta...@it.uu.se

Arabinda Ghosh (MPI-SWS), arab...@mpi-sws.org

Ginevra Castellano (Uppsala University), ginevra.c...@it.uu.se

Sadegh Soudjani (MPI-SWS), sad...@mpi-sws.org