WAFR 2022

The 15th International Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics will be held on June 22-24, 2022 at the University of Maryland, College Park

Registration Live Streaming

News & Updates

  • Springer Book Copyright Form is available online here for authors.
  • To attend the talks virtually, you can either register for the Zoom meeting using this link or follow along on the WAFR YouTube channel.
  • The conference banquet will take place at the Smithsonian Castle in Washington DC! Details are posted on the program page.
  • The program and the list of accepted papers has been posted!
  • We are pleased to offer, via generous support from NSF, a limited number of travel grants for students at US institutions. More information on this page.
  • Registration page is now active. Early registration ends on May 15.
  • Paper decisions are out!
  • Due to multiple requests, the organizing committee has decided to make an extension of the final submission deadline to Monday, February 14, at the end of day (AOE time). This is intended to allow authors who have submitted abstracts more time to improve the quality of their manuscripts. Nevertheless, new abstract submissions will also be allowed through EasyChair until Friday, February 4, at the end of day (AOE time).
  • The submission site is now active.
  • Because of the continuing uncertainty about the feasibility of international travel in the future, the location for WAFR 2022 has been changed to the University of Maryland, College Park. This change of venue is intended to maximize the probability of a successful in-person meeting in Summer 2022. Remote participation options will be made available for authors of accepted papers that cannot participate in person. The submission timeline remains unchanged.
  • The call for papers is out!

Contribute

The Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR) is a biannual multi-disciplinary single-track meeting of international researchers presenting the latest advances on algorithmic problems in robotics. Since its inception in 1994, WAFR has established a reputation as a premier venue for presenting algorithmic work related to robotics.

The focus of WAFR is on the design and analysis of robot algorithms from both theoretical and practical angles. The design and analysis of algorithms and foundations of robotics raise unique questions in a variety of traditional and new fields including but not limited to:

  • Control theory and optimization,
  • Computational geometry and topology,
  • Motion planning,
  • Planning and reasoning under uncertainty,
  • Randomized and sampling-based algorithms,
  • Decision theory and game theory,
  • Sensing and perception,

  • Machine learning, including supervised and unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning, representation learning, imitation learning,
  • Algorithmic approaches to human-robot interaction, and
  • Theoretical computer science.

In addition to these topics, we also encourage papers on applications of robot algorithms to important or new domains, such as:

  • Manufacturing,
  • Assistive and service robots,
  • Legged locomotion,
  • Surgical robots,
  • Intelligent prosthetics,
  • Multi-agent and transportation networks,
  • Computational biology,
  • Graphics and animation,
  • Sensor networks,
  • Brain-controlled robots, and
  • others.

The workshop proceedings will be published in the Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics (SPAR) series.

Manuscript preparation

Manuscripts should be prepared using the Springer conference proceedings format. You can download the LaTeX and MS Word style/template files here.

Submissions should not exceed 16 pages (including references) in this format.

Supplementary material

In the submissions before the conference, supplementary material (appendices with supportive proofs or multimedia files) can be submitted together with the main manuscript. While encouraged, the program committee members are not required to check the supplementary material in order to prepare their comments. No supplementary material will be included in the book.

Important Dates

Abstract submission deadline February 1 February 4, 2022 (AoE)
Paper submission deadline February 7 February 14, 2022 (AoE)
Notification of acceptance March 31, 2022
Conference June 22-24, 2022

Venue

The D.C.-Maryland-Virginia (DMV) metropolitan area is without question one of the must-see visitor destinations in the United States. The University of Maryland -- only nine miles from the U.S. Capitol in D.C. -- is centrally located to all the region has to offer. The town of College Park has interesting historical sights, restaurants, businesses, and recreation areas. It is home to a wide variety of businesses from major retail outlets to locally owned unique businesses, recreation options, swimming pools, bowling alley, tennis complex, golf courses, nature trails, lake Artemisia, and a Smithsonian-affiliated aviation museum with the oldest continuously operated airport where the Wright brothers established their first commercial flight training operations. College Park also has many options for enjoying the arts with the UMD Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center with a variety of world-class performances on campus.

Washington, D.C., with its many monuments, museums, famous federal buildings, cultural attractions and world-class dining, is nearly inexhaustible. Everything is easily accessible from the University of Maryland’s Green Line station on the regional Metro subway system. Possibilities include the Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Washington Monument, the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the Supreme Court and more. Here too are the many free museums associated with the Smithsonian Institution, including the National Gallery of Art, the Air and Space Museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Zoo and its pandas.

Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering

Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering

McKeldin Mall

McKeldin Mall on campus

DMV Region

DMV metropolitan area

Keynote Speakers

Co-Chairs

Program Committee

  • Ian Abraham, Yale University
  • Pulkit Agrawal, MIT
  • Nancy M. Amato, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • Israel Becerra, Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas (CIMAT)
  • Kostas Bekris, Rutgers University
  • Dmitry Berenson, University of Michigan
  • Leonardo Bobadilla, Florida International University
  • Stefano Carpin, University of California
  • Nilanjan Chakraborty, Stony Brook University
  • Suman Chakravorty, Texas A&M University
  • Sonia Chernova, Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Greg Chirikjian, National University of Singapore
  • Howie Choset, Carnegie Mellon University
  • Philip Dames, Temple University
  • Neil Dantam, Colorado School of Mines
  • Jory Denny, University of Richmond
  • Mehmet R Dogar, University of Leeds
  • Katherine Driggs-Campbell, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • Chinwe Ekenna, University at Albany
  • Brendan Englot, Stevens Institute of Technology
  • Esra Erdem, Sabanci University
  • Claudia Esteves, Departamento de Matemáticas. Universidad de Guanajuato
  • Jie Gao, Rutgers University
  • Abhishek Gupta, University of Washington
  • Dylan Hadfield-Menell, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Dan Halperin, Tel Aviv University
  • David Held, Carnegie Mellon University
  • Seth Hutchinson, Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Volkan Isler, University of Minnesota
  • Marcelo Kallmann, University of California, Merced
  • Lydia Kavraki, Rice University
  • Sven Koenig, University of Southern California
  • Hadas Kress-Gazit, Cornell University
  • Alan Kuntz, University of Utah
  • Hanna Kurniawati, The Australian National University
  • John Leonard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Maxim Likhachev, Carnegie Mellon University
  • Dylan Losey, Virginia Tech
  • Tomas Lozano-Perez, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Zach Manchester, Carnegie Mellon University
  • Negar Mehr, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
  • Bhubaneswar Mishra, New York University
  • Marco Morales, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México
  • Todd Murphey, Northwestern University
  • Rafael Murrieta, Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas (CIMAT)
  • Songhwai Oh, Seoul National University
  • Jia Pan, The University of Hong Kong
  • Marco Pavone, Stanford University and NVIDIA
  • Alyssa Pierson, Boston University
  • Valentin Polishchuk, Linkoping University
  • Elon Rimon, Technion
  • Nicholas Roy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Basak Sakcak, University of Oulu
  • Oren Salzman, Technion
  • Dylan Shell, Texas A&M University
  • Thierry Simeon, LAAS
  • Stephen L. Smith, University of Waterloo
  • Kiril Solovey, Technion--Israel Institute of Technology
  • Dezhen Song, Texas A&M University
  • Nicholas Stiffler, University of Dayton
  • Cynthia Sung, University of Pennsylvania
  • Subhash Suri, University of California, Santa Barbara
  • Frank van der Stappen, Utrecht University
  • Chee Yap, New York University
  • Sung-Eui Yoon, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
  • Jingjin Yu, Rutgers University at New Brunswick
  • Liangjun Zhang, Baidu Research