Forwarded message from [burt@dfki.de (Alastair Burt)] sent originally on Tue, 21 Dec 1999 17:47:54 +0100 (MET): : Call for Contributions : RoboCup Rescue: Multi-Agent Approaches to the Simulation and Management of : Major Urban Disasters : Pre-Conference Workshop of ICMAS 2000, Boston -- July 8, 2000 : : : http://www.dfki.de/~burt/rcrescue : : RoboCup Rescue builds on the success of RoboCup Soccer, which : furthered multi-agent research by allowing teams of real and simulated : robots to compete within a fixed set of rules. The important : differences between the soccer and rescue domain are that the rescue : domain addresses a problem of major concern for society, namely the : simulation of a large-scale urban disaster and the rescue operation : that ensues. The real-world nature makes it far more open, distributed : and complex than the soccer domain and the research issues are : correspondingly broader. Whilst the initial stages of the RoboCup : Rescue initiative are concerned with building a simulation environment : chiefly for research and competition, the eventual goal is to support : disaster management before and after a major catastrophe. : : The characteristics of the RoboCup disaster simulation are the : following: : * International Cooperative Research and Contest: in the spirit of : RoboCup Soccer and the current trend towards cooperative, open : source software development, the research will be carried out : around the world with the possibility to plug in different agent : and physical modelling algorithms into the simulator. : * Large-Scale Heterogeneous Agent System: the agents being modelled : represent a wide variety of rescue personnel, robots and software : agents. For a major city, their number should run into thousands. : This means a major shift in research to model problems of such : real-world scale. : * Comprehensive Disaster Simulator by Distributed Computation: the : prediction of damage, such as the spread of fire and the collapse : of buildings and highways, will need the integration of several : physical models and the computational power that can only be : achieved by a network of computers in an open, fault-tolerant : architecture. : * Complex Mission Planning: the planning problem here is far more : difficult than that of RoboCup Soccer, or indeed most AI : application domains. Time for decision-making is limited, : conditions change rapidly, and there is much uncertainty about the : state of the world and the effect of actions. Moreover, the agents : are heterogeneous in nature and there are many decision-making : agents whose planning has to be integrated and coordinated. : * Integration with the Real-World Disaster: as well as a vehicle for : training and planning for future emergencies, it is also envisaged : that the RoboCup Rescue technology will play a key role in helping : the rescue services cope with an actual disaster. This will need : the development of technology to interface the simulator to : sensors, human rescuers and teams of robots on the ground. : Providing the most appropriate augmented reality infrastructure : will be a major research challenge. : : The major multi-agent research areas that are relevant to this agenda : include the following: : * Scalable Agent Systems : * Agents in Distributed Virtual Reality : * Distributed Decision-Support : * Augmented Reality : * Real-Time Multi-Agent Decision Making : * Planning under Uncertainty : * Planning under Resource Constraints : * Behaviour Monitoring : * Agents and Simulation Platforms : * Information Acquisition Strategies : * Integration of Reactive and Deliberative Planning : * Dynamic Coalition and Cooperation Strategies : * Modelling Uncertain Dynamic Multi-agent Domains : : Submissions are welcomed that address the above and related areas : which could contribute to the development of the RoboCup Rescue : initiative. Particularly welcome are papers of an interdisciplinary : flavour which could help to establish a new field of intelligent : rescue science. : : There will be three components to the workshop: : 1. : The presentation of papers, either from invited speakers or : from those who have submitted technical papers for review. : 2. : Panel discussions. : 3. : Demonstrations of multi-agent systems and simulation toolkits : that have a clear relevance to the RoboCup Rescue vision. : : Submission format : : Those interested in attending the workshop should submit an abstract : of the work they would like to present. There will be three ways for : people to make a contribution: : 1. : Technical papers - abstract of not more than 1500 words, then a : full paper of not more then 5000 words. : 2. : Position papers - not more than 1500 words. : 3. : Demos - a description in not more than 1500 words, including a : list of hardware requirements. : : We will review the abstracts before asking the authors of technical : papers to produce the full version. Depending on the quality and : nature of the contributions, we intend to publish the full technical : papers in a series such as Springer LNAI (or similar) in a form that : will serve an introduction to RoboCup Rescue and the nascent field of : intelligent disaster mitigation. : : Electronic mail is the preferred means of submission. The abstracts : may be in ASCII, HTML, Postscript or Portable Document Format. The : full technical papers should be in Postscript or Portable Document : Format using a style suitable for book publication. : : Electronic Address : : rcrescue@dfki.de : : Postal Address : : Alastair Burt : DFKI GmbH : Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3 : 66123 Saarbrücken : Germany : : Important Dates : : Deadline for Submission of Abstracts: March 10, 2000 : Notification of Acceptance: March 27, 2000 : Submission of Full Paper: May 12, 2000 : Workshop Date: July 8, 2000 : : Workshop Co-chairs : : Hiroaki Kitano Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Japan : Satoshi Tadokoro Kobe University, Japan : Klaus Fischer DFKI GmbH, Germany : Alastair Burt DFKI GmbH, Germany : : Program Committee : : Michael Beetz University of Bonn, Germany : Hans-Dieter Burkhard Humboldt University, Germany : Silvia Coradeschi Linköping University, Sweden : Eugenio Costa Oliveira Porto University, Portugal : Thomas Christaller GMD, Germany : Gerhard Kraetzschmar Ulm University, Germany : Bernhard Nebel Freiburg University, Germany : Michael Luck Warwick University, UK : Luc Steels Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium : Tomoichi Takahashi Chubu University, Japan : Manuela Veloso Carnegie Mellon University, USA

-- Wirtschaftsinformatik, FB5, Universitaet GH Essen Gustaf.Neumann@uni-essen.de, neumann@computer.org http://nestroy.wi-inf.uni-essen.de/Neumann.html