Special issue on Robotics: Science and Systems

Abstract

Welcome to this special issue of Autonomous Robots. This volume is the second of two special journal issues compiled from the best papers presented at the eighth Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) conference, held at the University of Sydney in July 2012. The other special issue was published by the International Journal of Robotics Research. Since its inception in 2005, the conference has continued to attract scientists working on the algorithmic and mathematical foundations of robotics, robotics applications, and analysis of robotic systems. We are excited to showcase five papers selected from RSS 2012. Although they are on diverse topics–assisted teleoperation, underwater terrain segmentation, multi-robot allocation, micro aerial vehicles, humanoid walking–they share a common theme of developing new theories and algorithms coupled with the commitment to demonstrate these insights on real robotic platforms, marrying the science and systems of robotics.