The International Journal of Robotics Research

The International Journal of Robotics Research
source
Title	The International Journal of Robotics Research
Abbreviation	IJRR
Discipline	Robotics
Publisher	SAGE Publications
Country	United Kingdom
History	1982–present
Frequency	Monthly

The International Journal of Robotics Research is a peer-reviewed scientific journal publishing original research on robotics, automation, and related technologies. Founded in the early 1980s, it has served as a venue for foundational work by researchers associated with institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University, California Institute of Technology, and University of Oxford. The journal has disseminated contributions from authors linked to laboratories and organizations including NASA, European Space Agency, Toyota Research Institute, Google DeepMind, and Fraunhofer Society.

History

The journal was established against the backdrop of advances occurring at centers like MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, CMU Robotics Institute, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Bell Labs. Early volumes featured work from researchers affiliated with University of Pennsylvania, ETH Zurich, University of Tokyo, Imperial College London, and University of Michigan. Over time editorial leadership has included scholars with ties to Royal Society, National Academy of Engineering, IEEE, ACM, and Royal Academy of Engineering. The journal’s formative decades intersected with milestones such as the development of the Stanford Cart, the Shakey (robot), the rise of industrial robotics companies like Fanuc, ABB, and KUKA, and government-funded programs at agencies such as DARPA and NSF.

Scope and topics

The scope encompasses kinematics and dynamics research from groups at ETH Zurich, Nanyang Technological University, and Tsinghua University; perception and computer vision studies connected to teams at University of California, Berkeley, University of Washington, and University of Toronto; manipulation and grasping work influenced by labs at University of Cambridge, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Peking University; control theory with contributors from Princeton University, Columbia University, and Delft University of Technology; and human-robot interaction investigations involving MIT Media Lab, Stanford HRI Lab, and University of Southern California. The journal also publishes on field robotics used in projects at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory; space robotics linked to European Space Agency, Roscosmos, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; medical robotics from groups at Johns Hopkins University, Cleveland Clinic, and Mayo Clinic; and swarm robotics related to programs at NASA Ames Research Center, Blue Origin, and Alibaba DAMO Academy.

Publication and editorial policies

Published by SAGE Publications, the journal uses peer review processes similar to those in venues like IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Robotics and Automation Letters, and Autonomous Robots. Editorial boards have been drawn from researchers at Harvard University, Yale University, University of California, San Diego, University of British Columbia, and University of Sydney. Submission guidelines reference ethical standards endorsed by organizations such as Committee on Publication Ethics and citation practices common to journals indexed alongside Nature Robotics, Science Robotics, Proceedings of the IEEE, and ACM Transactions on Graphics. Special issue proposals have been coordinated with conferences and societies like ICRA, IROS, RSS (conference), IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, and European Robotics Forum.

Abstracting and indexing

The journal is abstracted and indexed by major services comparable to Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, Inspec, and Compendex. Its articles appear in aggregators used by libraries at institutions such as British Library, Library of Congress, National Diet Library (Japan), CERN Library, and MIT Libraries. Metadata practices align with standards promoted by CrossRef, ORCID, DOAJ, and COUNTER to facilitate discovery in platforms maintained by ProQuest, EBSCO, JSTOR, and WorldCat.

Impact and reception

The journal has been cited alongside influential venues such as IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, Journal of Field Robotics, Biological Cybernetics, and International Journal of Computer Vision. Work published in the journal has informed policy discussions at bodies like European Commission research initiatives, funding programs at National Science Foundation, and roadmaps published by Industrial Internet Consortium and World Economic Forum panels. Laureates and awardees connected to its publications include Fellows of IEEE, recipients of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Award, and investigators recognized by Royal Society medals. Its impact is measured in citations tracked by services managed by Clarivate Analytics and metrics reported to institutions including Times Higher Education and QS World University Rankings.

Notable articles and special issues

Notable contributions have included seminal papers by authors from MIT CSAIL, CMU Robotics, Stanford AI Lab, Oxford Robotics Institute, EPFL, and Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia. Special issues have focused on themes aligned with conferences such as ICRA 2010, IROS 2014, RSS 2017, and programmatic efforts at DARPA Robotics Challenge. Topics of special collections have included surgical robotics with contributors from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute; autonomous vehicles tied to research at Waymo, Cruise (company), and Tesla, Inc.; legged locomotion research associated with teams at Boston Dynamics, EPFL Biorobotics Laboratory, and University of Zürich; and learning for control featuring authors from DeepMind, OpenAI, and Microsoft Research.

Category:Robotics journals Category:Academic journals established in 1982 Category:SAGE Publishing journals