The 14th International Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR'20) Student Travel Awards

该奖项将支持学生参加为期三天的第14届机器人算法基础国际研讨会（WAFR），以及与该活动相关的指导活动。会议将于2020年6月15日至6月17日在芬兰奥卢的Sokos Eden酒店举行，该酒店距离奥卢市中心和奥卢大学（University of Oulu）两英里。这笔资金将用于提供财政支持，帮助大约15名美国学生参加2020年WAFR，帮助确保来自美国机构的学生在这个领先的研究场所有良好的代表性。参加会议将为研究生和高级本科生提供动力和兴奋，因为他们将继续研究机器人的基础方面。这笔学生旅行补助金的目的是使那些可能无法参加WAFR会议的美国学生能够展示他们的工作并与来自世界各地的同事建立联系。除了论文演讲外，本次活动还将有3-5位具有影响力和国际知名机器人专家的主题演讲。这些演讲将提供关于机器人规划、优化和控制、计算几何和算法的历史观点、当前技术和未来趋势的简洁的第一手信息。凭借悠久的历史，过去的WAFR一直是专注于基础计算机科学主题和支撑机器人技术问题的最佳场所之一，被称为过去提出几个基础突破的地方。特别是，WAFR提交和演示所涵盖的主题先前已经解决了基本的算法问题，例如复杂性，完整性，机器学习和概率推理。研究成果也被认为适用于制造、腿部运动、分布式机器人、人机交互、手术机器人和智能假肢，甚至超越传统机器人领域的领域，例如计算生物学、计算机动画、传感器网络。这些与NSF的机器人优先级非常接近。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The award will support student attendance of the three-day single-track Fourteenth International Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR), along with mentoring activities associated with the event. The conference will be held in Oulu, Finland, between June 15th and June 17th in 2020 at the Sokos Hotel Eden, two miles from the city center of Oulu and the supporting local institution the University of Oulu. The funds will be used to provide financial support to help approximately 15 U.S. students to attend the WAFR 2020, helping to ensure good representation of students from U.S. institutions at this leading research venue. Participation in the conference will boost motivation and excitement for graduate students and advanced undergraduate students as they continue their research journey into the foundational aspects of robotics.The purpose of this grant for student travel to enable U.S. students, who otherwise might be unable to attend the WAFR conference, to present their work and forge connections with colleagues from around the world. In addition to paper presentations, the event will feature 3–5 keynote presentations by influential and internationally renowned roboticists. These presentations will provide succinct, first-hand information on historical perspectives, current state-of-the-art, and future trends of robotic planning, optimization and control, computational geometry and algorithms. With a long-established history, in the past WAFR has been among the best venues to focus on fundamental computer science topics and technical questions which underpin robotics, being known as the place where several foundational breakthroughs were presented in the past. In particular, themes covered by WAFR submissions and presentations previously have addressed fundamental algorithmic issues, such as complexity, completeness, machine learning, and probabilistic reasoning. Work has also been presented with applicability to manufacturing, legged locomotion, distributed robotics, human-robot interaction, surgical robots, and intelligent prosthetics, and even domains beyond the traditional scope of robotics, e.g., computational biology, computer animation, sensor networks. These match NSF's robotics priorities very closely.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.