IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2018 - 129

and Automation Letters. The accep-
tance rate was approximately 61%.
CASE 2018 also demonstrated the
traditionally close research coopera-
tion between industry and academia in
Germany. The high percentage of par-
ticipants from industry (21%) as well
as 13 industrial papers and six indus-
trial work-in-progress papers allowed
for a discussion of the latest findings.
In addition to the regular sessions,
CASE 2018 was especially successful in
attracting special sessions, most of
which focused on knowledge-based
systems (four special sessions) and
model-driven development for CPPS
(eight special sessions).
Program highlights included four
excellent plenary talks by world-lead-
ing scientists from different domains
and a panel discussion. We were very
glad to welcome Prof. Fei-Yue Wang
from the Chinese Academy of Sci-
ences, Beijing, who presented the talk
"Artificial Intelligence for Automation";
Prof. Maria Pia Fanti from the Univer-
sity of Bari, Italy, who offered the
presentation "New Approaches for
Managing Logistics Systems"; Prof. Ina
Schaefer from the Technical University
of Braunschweig, Germany, with the
presentation "Efficiently Managing
Variant-Rich Systems"; and Dr. Kurt
Bettenhausen from Siemens, Crom-
well, Connecticut, with his presenta-
tion "System Autonomy: The Next
Level of Automation Everywhere."
Nine highly graded professors
came together for a panel discussion,
"The Future of Human Workers in an
Age of Automation," led by Ken Gold-
berg from the University of California
Berkeley (UC Berkeley), and Michael
Wang from Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology (Figure 2). As
machines and robots become more
intelligent, there is growing anxiety that
machines may control humans and
occupy our work places. After replac-
ing many shop floor jobs, automation
may also take over jobs in engineer-
ing, which would have dramatic
effects on our society and wealth.
All panelists agreed on the changes
to come, but they disagreed on the
speed of progress and the extent of the

Figure 2. The members of the CASE 2018 panel discussion: (from left) Detlef Zuehlke,
Klaus Bengler, Mengchu Zhou, Birgit Vogel-Heuser, Wolfram Burgard, Bengt Lennartson,
Peter B. Luh, Dawn Tilbury, and Ken Goldberg. (Photo courtesy of Birgit Vogel-Heuser.)

Figure 3. Two of the four recipients of the Best Conference Paper Award for "MultiRobot Routing Algorithms for Robots Operating in Vineyards": (from left) CASE
2018 Awards Chair Spyros Reveliotis (Georgia Institute of Technology), Stefano
Carpin (UC Merced), and Thomas C. Thayer (UC Merced). (Photo courtesy of Birgit
Vogel-Heuser.)

Figure 4. The Best Application Paper Award for "Grasp Planning for Customizes Grippers
by Iterative Surface Fitting" awarded by Spyros Reveliotis to the author team Yongxing
Fan, Hsien-Chung Lin, Te Tang, and Masayoshi Tomizuka from UC Berkeley. Spyros
Reveliotis (left) is pictured with Yongxing Fan. (Photo courtesy of Birgit Vogel-Heuser.)

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IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2018

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