ICRA 2024 workshop

On May 13th, we organized a workshop within ICRA 2024, ProxyTouch: Whole-body Proxy-Tactile Architectures for Industrial and Service Applications, focused on the fusion of tactile and proximity sensing from the hardware level up to robotic perception and control algorithms to enhance safety and enable proficient manipulation tasks in unstructured environments.

In this workshop we investigated some of the latest advancements in large-area multimodal sensing, supporting the discussion on their involvement in complex manipulation tasks and hosting talks by industry and research representatives.

During the workshop invited speakers illustrated research advancements spacing from sensor design and manufacturing to cognitive algorithms for peri-personal space representation. Interactive panel discussions further supported the debate on the topics, giving the audience the opportunity to actively interact with the speakers. We also organized a poster session, including short presentations, for which we accepted eight submissions.

A detailed list of topics can be found on the workshop website.

Speakers

• Jelizaveta Konstantinova, OCADO Technologies
• Peter Andersson-Ersman, RISE (Research Institutes of Sweden)
• Lorenzo Natale, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
• Mohsen Kaboli, BMW Research
• Marco Camurri, Università di Bolzano
• Sylvain Calinon, IDIAP Research Institute
• Martin Laurenzis, ISL (French-German Research Institute of Saint-Louis)

Organizers

• Francesco Grella (University of Genoa, Italy)
• Alessandro Albini (Oxford Robotics Institute, UK)
• Perla Maiolino (Oxford Robotics Institute, UK)
• Giorgio Cannata (University of Genoa, Italy)

This workshop is endorsed by:

• IEEE Collaborative Automation and Flexible Manufacturing,
• IEEE RAS Technical Committee for Human-Robot Interaction and Coordination
• IEEE RAS Technical Committee for Energy, Environment and Safety Issues in Robotics and Automation