Call for Papers


As R:SS 2020 will be held as a virtual conference, some of the information below is obsolete. This is the original Call for Papers. (See the original 1st CFP and 2nd CFP emails.)

We cordially invite you to submit your work to the 2020 Robotics: Science and Systems Conference, which will bring together researchers working on all aspects of robotics including scientific foundations, applications, and analysis of robotic systems. The paper submission deadline is on January 31st, 2020. The workshop submission deadline is on February 6th, 2020.

The conference will be single-track, and the final program will be the result of a thorough review process to give attendees an opportunity to see the most exciting research in all areas of robotics. Submissions will be evaluated in terms of their novelty, technical quality, significance, potential impact, and clarity. The program will include invited talks as well as oral and poster presentations of accepted papers. The three-day main session will be preceded by two days of workshops.

Highlights of R:SS 2020:

  • We put together a great set of Area Chairs that cover all areas of robotics. With this we are actively seeking papers broadly in all areas, including method oriented as well as application oriented research, mechatronics and system design, field robotics, HRI, etc. At submission, authors will be able to vote for ACs that they believe can best handle their paper during submission. See here for the list of ACs.
  • The review process will explore a new rebuttal format, with author rebuttals being directed to the ACs directly. Anonymous reviews will be made public together with accepted papers.
  • We will have a Best Paper Award, Best Systems Paper Award, Best Student Paper Award, and for the first time a Test of Time Award. The Best Systems Paper Award is dedicated to papers that pioneer novel robotic systems (e.g. hardware or mechatronics) or novel behaviors on a robotic system that are beyond what has been seen before.
  • The program will include single track oral and poster presentations of all accepted papers, as well as invited talks. The three‐day main conference will be preceded by two days of workshops.
  • Selected papers will be invited for submission to special issues of the International Journal of Robotics Research and Autonomous Robots, and for expedited review as regular submissions to the IEEE Transactions on Robotics.

Important Dates

  • Paper Submission Deadline: January 31st, 2020
  • Workshop Submission Deadline: February 6th, 2020
  • Workshop Acceptance Notification: March 6th, 2020
  • Paper Acceptance Notification: April 16th, 2020 beginning of May
  • Workshops: July 12th - 13th, 2020
  • Main Conference: July 14th - 16th, 2020

Submission information is available here.

Finally, we want to also mention the opportunity to submit contributions to RSS workshops. Please stay alert to the list of accepted workshops, which will be published at around March 6.

Subject Areas

We invite submissions in all areas of robotics, including the following. During submission, please mark 1 primary and up to 2 secondary subject areas to help us assigning the paper to reviewers.

  • Mechanisms and Design: Mechatronics, Humanoids, Hands, Novel Materials, Legged Systems, Snake Robots, Novel Actuators, Reconfigurable Robots, MEMS/NEMS, Micro/Nanobots, Novel Sensors, Haptics, Tactile Interfaces, Soft Robots, Wearable Robots, Design Optimization of Robotic Systems, Minimality in design
  • Learning: Machine Learning and Control, Deep Learning, Safe Learning, Model-Constrained Learning, Reinforcement Learning, Inverse RL, Model-Based & Model-Free RL, Imitation Learning, Learning from Demonstration, Sim2Real and Real2Sim Learning
  • Control and Dynamics: Control Theory, Nonlinear Control, Learning-based Control, System Identification, Adaptive Control, Optimization for Control
  • Planning: Motion Planning, Manipulation Planning, Task Planning, Logical Reasoning, Optimization-based Planning, Learning for Planning, Planning to Learn, Complexity and Completeness, Computational Geometry, Planning under Uncertainty
  • Manipulation: Manipulation Planning, Contact Modeling, Sequential Manipulation, Grasp Synthesis, Dexterous Manipulation, Force Control, Visual Servoing, Assembly
  • Field Robotics: Underwater Robotics, Aerial/Space Robotics, Agricultural and Mining Robotics, Building and Construction, Environmental Monitoring, Autonomous Vehicles
  • Human-Robot Interaction and Human Centered Systems: Human Augmentation, Assistive Robots, Rehabilitation Robots, Social Robots, Safe Interaction, Robots and Art, Grounded Language Understanding, Natural Language Generation, Human-Robot Dialogue, Novel Interfaces, Proximate or Remote Human-Robot Teaming, Co-Robots, Intention Detection
  • Robot Perception: Scene Understanding, Segmentation, Object Tracking, Pose Estimation, 3D Modeling, Visual Predictive Modeling, Interactive Perception, Proprioceptive Sensing, Tactile and Haptic Perception, Calibration
  • Formal Methods: Safety, Verification, Validation, Correct-by-construction Systems, Controller Synthesis, Certification
  • Distributed Systems: Multi-Robot Systems, Networked Robots, Robot Soccer, Swarms, Coordination, Task and Resource Allocation
  • Healthcare and Medical Robotics: Rehabilitation Robotics, Mobility Aids, Navigation Aids, Robotic Prostheses, Exoskeletons, Robot-assisted Procedures, Smart Surgical Tools, Clinical Support Robots, Robots for Behavioral and Mental Health, Telehealth Robots, Ambulatory Care Robots
  • Biological Robotics: Biomimetic Robotics, Robotic Investigation of Biological Science and Systems, Neurobotics, Prosthetics, Robotics and Molecular Biology
  • Mobile Robotics: Mapping, Localization, Locomotion, Navigation, SLAM, Collision Avoidance, Exploration

Special Journal Issues

About half of the selected papers will be invited for submission to a special issue of International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR) and a special issue of Autonomous Robots (AuRo).