[CFP] IROS 2010 Workshop on Robots and Musical Expressions

[fabien gouyon <fgouyon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

            [ apologies for multiple postings ]

            [ please distribute ]



=======================================================================
                        Call For Papers
 The First IROS 2010 Workshop on Robots and Musical Expressions
                (18 Oct, 2010, Taipei, Taiwan)

             http://winnie.kuis.kyoto-u.ac.jp/RMEWS/

              Submission Deadline: July 1, 2010
=======================================================================

Overview
---------
Music is arguably the most popular form of sounds for humans, and a
core occupation of our technological society. It is only natural to
expect that robots should be our partners and interact with us in
daily environments where musical sounds are present.
Despite great improvements made in recent years in the
field of Robot Audition, especially in speech and dialogue, much less
attention has been devoted to robots dealing with non-speech sounds,
especially music. Much work is still needed for robots to be able to
analyze and synthesize musical sounds as we do, to understand and
reason about music, and to adapt behaviors accordingly. For instance,
most robots can't recognize/categorize musical sounds nor associate
expression/emotion, and fall short in delivering real-time
interactions according to this high-level of understanding
(synchronizing movements, displaying emotions, adapting behavior,
etc.).  The processing of high-level descriptions of music from audio
signals is a focus of the MIR community. This field is seeing recent
progresses, however, they mostly focus on desktop software-based
applications. So far in that field, the potential to use robots as a
development platform has not been fully recognized.  On the other
hand, developments in entertainment robotics have been increasing for
the past few years, and fundamental issues for musical human-robot
interactions are starting to be addressed.

Producing computational models of such high-level behaviors, embedded
in robotic platforms, calls for novel research at the frontier between
Robotics and Music Information Retrieval (MIR).  This full-day workshop
precisely aims at bringing "the best of two worlds" in fostering
scientific exchanges of the highest scientific standard between
researchers in Robotics, MIR and Cognitive Science.

The objectives of this workshop are to:
 * Provide a communication platform between researchers in Robotics and in MIR.
 * Set a roadmap of issues for musical robots, from general to specific.
 * Drawing IROS participants' attention to the relevance of this topic.
 * Discuss state-of-the art techniques for musical robots.
 * Pioneer new robotics applications.
 * Stimulate international collaboration to boost Robot Audition research.
 * Foster the development/exchange of free robot/software platforms and tools.

Topics:
-------
This workshop includes the following topics related to musical robots:
 * Embedded music listening functions
 * Noise reduction (singing voice cancellation/motion-noise suppression)
 * Tempo estimation, beat tracking
 * Emotion/expression recognition/generation
 * Pitch extraction, score following
 * Sound/music/genre/instrument classification \& identification
 * Multimodal recognition
 * Music recognition, computational auditory/musical scene analysis
 * Audio-motion synchronization
 * Behavior generation \& planning (dancing, playing \& singing)
 * Instrument playing, learning and high level control
 * Musician-robot interaction, music session (human-robot, robot-robot)
 * Machine muscianship (mechanics, software, etc)
 * Bio-inspired mechanism, embedded hardware system
 * Software environment for musical robots (visualization, development)
 * Any other musical robot related topics

Submission Guidelines:
----------------------
 Format     : PDF in IEEE/IROS format
(http://www.iros2010.org.tw/constructing.php?ns=19)
 Pages      : 6-8 pages
 Language   : English
 Submission : http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=iwrme10


Important Dates:
----------------
   Jul.  1, 2010   Paper submission deadline
   Jul. 20, 2010   Workshop paper notification
   Jul. 27, 2010   Final camera ready submission due
   Oct. 18, 2010   Full day workshop

Organizers:
-------------
 Kazuhiro Nakadai
 (Honda Research Institute Japan Co., Ltd.)
 Fabien Gouyon
 (Telecommunications and Multimedia Unit, INESC Porto)
 Hiroshi G. Okuno
 (Department of Intelligence Science and Technology,
  Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University)
 Jorge Solis
 (Faculty of Sci. and Eng., Waseda University/
  Humanoid Robotics Institute, Waseda University)
 Atsuo Takanishi
 (Faculty of Sci. and Eng., Waseda University/
  Humanoid Robotics Institute, Waseda University)

Contact Information:
---------------------
For any question on this workshop, please send an email to
rmews-info_at_zeus.kuis.kyoto-u.ac.jp ("_at_" should be replaced with @)