IROS (International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems)

IROS (International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems)
Name	IROS
Status	Active
Discipline	Robotics
Frequency	Annual
First	1988
Organizer	IEEE Robotics and Automation Society; Robotics Society of Japan; European Robotics Association; other partners

IROS (International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems) IROS is an annual scientific conference that gathers researchers, engineers, and practitioners in robotics and related fields for presentation, discussion, and collaboration. Founded in 1988, the conference attracts participants from institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of Cambridge, ETH Zurich, and industrial entities like Toyota, Honda, Boston Dynamics, ABB, and Siemens. IROS proceedings are frequently cited alongside outputs from ICRA (International Conference on Robotics and Automation), RSS (Robotics: Science and Systems), CVPR (IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition), and NeurIPS (Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems).

History

IROS began in 1988 as a collaborative initiative influenced by milestones such as developments at NASA, advances at Bell Labs, and projects from Carnegie Mellon University and TOSHIBA. Early editions featured contributions from groups at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Osaka University, University of Tokyo, University of California, Berkeley, and Seiko Epson. Over decades, IROS expanded through partnerships with societies like the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, the Robotics Society of Japan, and the European Robotic Association, paralleling growth seen at IJCAI (International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence) and AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Notable milestones include thematic symposia tied to programs at DARPA and collaborative workshops with EU Horizon initiatives and firms including KUKA and Fanuc.

Scope and Topics

IROS covers a broad array of subject areas spanning contributions from laboratories at Caltech, Imperial College London, Tsinghua University, Peking University, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and National University of Singapore. Typical topics include autonomous systems explored by teams from MIT CSAIL, perception work akin to publications at ICLR (International Conference on Learning Representations), manipulation research reminiscent of Amazon Robotics Challenge participants, human-robot interaction aligned with efforts at Stanford HCI Group, and field robotics similar to projects at JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory). Other themes incorporate motion planning linked to research at Georgia Tech, SLAM studies comparable to outputs from Oxford University Robotics Group, multi-robot coordination in the spirit of Swarm Robotics projects at EPFL, and medical robotics following innovations from Johns Hopkins University and Mayo Clinic teams.

Organization and Sponsorship

The conference is organized by professional bodies including the IEEE, the Robotics Society of Japan, and regional partners such as the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence and the Korean Institute of Robot and Information. Host committees frequently include universities like University of Southern California, University of Tokyo, University of Toronto, and corporate sponsors such as Google DeepMind, Intel, NVIDIA, Microsoft Research, ABB Robotics, Sony, and Bosch. Program committees mirror structures used at SIGGRAPH and CHI with area chairs from institutions like Harvard University, Princeton University, ETH Zurich, and University of California, San Diego.

Conferences and Venues

IROS is held worldwide with past locations including cities and institutions such as Tsukuba, Kyoto, Beijing, San Francisco, Vancouver, Lisbon, Hamburg, Tokyo Big Sight, Kyoto International Conference Center, Palais des Congrès de Montréal, and convention centers frequented by meetings like TED Conference and W3C assemblies. Notable regional editions coordinated with local bodies involved collaborations with National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and consortia including European Space Agency research groups.

Proceedings and Publications

Proceedings are published in IEEE Xplore collections and cited alongside volumes from Springer, Elsevier, and conference series such as Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Accepted papers typically appear in proceedings used by researchers at Cornell University, University of Michigan, Australian Centre for Robotic Vision, and corporate labs such as Apple Machine Learning Research and Facebook AI Research. Selected papers are often extended into journal versions in outlets like The International Journal of Robotics Research, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, and Robotics and Autonomous Systems.

Notable Papers and Contributions

IROS has hosted influential work on simultaneous localization and mapping inspired by groups including Seth Teller’s lab and Hugh Durrant-Whyte, seminal motion-planning contributions following the trajectories of John J. Leonard and Dieter Fox, manipulation breakthroughs linked to researchers like Pieter Abbeel and Matt Mason, and perception advances paralleling efforts by Fei-Fei Li and Yann LeCun. Contributions have influenced programs at DARPA Robotics Challenge, robotics competitions such as RoboCup, and standards efforts from ISO. Industry-affiliated demos from Honda Research Institute and Toyota Research Institute have also debuted at IROS venues.

Awards and Recognition

IROS presents best paper awards and recognitions analogous to honors at ICRA and RSS, with recipients drawn from institutions such as MIT, Caltech, University of Pennsylvania, ETH Zurich, and University of Oxford. The conference has been cited in award-winning projects funded by NSF (National Science Foundation), winners of challenges including DARPA Grand Challenge, and grant-supported programs from European Research Council and national agencies like Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

Category:Robotics conferences