IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2015 - 103

A record number of 173 scientific
papers from 30 countries were presented
at Humanoids 2014. The single-track
scheme organization of the conference
selected six main oral sessions (Figure 2):
● novel mechanism design
● locomotion planning
● learning
● grasping and manipulation
● modeling and simulation
● social interaction.
The highest number of workshops
to date (17) was organized, both in fulland half-day formats. In addition, eight
interactive sessions complemented
these activities and permitted participants to establish direct communication within the humanoids community
(Figure 3). These data represent a
growth of about 60% with respect to
the previous conferences and demonstrate the importance of humanoids in
technology. Three plenary sessions
were also given by top researchers in
the field:
● Dr. Alin Albu-Schäffer from the
Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the German Aerospace Center,
Germany, gave the lecture "Humanoid Assistance Robots: Designing
and Controlling Robots for Direct
Interaction with Human."
● Prof. Masayuki Inaba from the
Department of Creative Informatics, University of Tokyo, Japan, gave
the lecture "Inheriting and Evolving
the Infrastructure of Systems and
Devices for Humanoid Robotics."
● Dr. Jerry Pratt from the Institute for
Human and Machine Cognition,
Pensacola Florida, gave the lecture
"Towards Humanoid Avatar Robots
for Co-Exploration of Hazardous
Environments."
The conference also included a
mini-humanoid robot competition,
Humabot, and an exhibition of the
most advanced humanoid robots and
related technologies (Figure 4), with robots such as Task Environment Operator (University Carlos III of Madrid),
REEM-C (PAL Robotics), iCub (Italian
Institute of Technology), Darwin (Robotis), and RoboThespian (The Engineered Arts) and products from

Figure 1. The Humanoids 2014 conference poster.

Figure 2. An oral session during Humanoids 2014.

Figure 3. An interactive session during Humanoids 2014.

Figure 4. The Humanoids 2014 exhibition.

Shadow, Schunk, Robotnik, Optoforce,
IniLabs, Technaid, and Mathworks,
among others. The RoboCity2030 research and development program of
the community of Madrid also participated very actively in the conference
activities by organizing a presentation
of undergraduate students' robots.
In addition to the technical program,
a wide variety of social activities and
tours were also organized throughout

Madrid and the surrounding area,
including the welcome reception held in
the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, the
official headquarters of the Real Madrid
football team.
With over 460 attendees from over
30 countries, Humanoids 2014 had the
largest international participation of
any conference, confirming the success
of the event and the increasing focus on
humanoid robotics around the world.

JUNE 2015

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

103

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2015