field robot image

Important dates

Paper submission deadline: TBD, 2025, 11:59 p.m. (Anywhere on Earth)
Notification of acceptance: TBD
Camera-ready submission: TBD, 11:59 p.m. (Anywhere on Earth)
Workshop date: TBD

Context

Field robotics tackles the problem of developing, deploying, and evaluating autonomous mobile systems in unstructured and often dynamic environments. Typical commercial applications are in agriculture, construction, mining, and forestry. The range of physical mediums is also very diversified: in the air, on the ground, underground, on the water, and underwater. These can be located on Earth, or on other celestial bodies (e.g., planets, moons, or asteroids). As such, field robotics works under wildly diverse and radically different assumptions than other areas of robotics, which tend to have well-defined working hypotheses. Therefore, this creates its own set of challenges. This workshop will thus offer the opportunity to present work and discuss how these unique challenges can be solved. This workshop will bring together experts, researchers, and practitioners to discuss the latest advancements in field robotics. Participants will gain valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities that arise in deploying robots in diverse field scenarios, such as rugged terrains, remote locations, and hazardous environments. Practical case studies and real-world applications will be presented to showcase the successful, and not-so-successful cases of field robotics. The workshop will encourage fruitful dialogues and collaborative discussions, culminating by a panel at the end of the workshop. Attendees will leave with a comprehensive understanding of the state-of-the-art technologies, the main actors, and upcoming challenges. As major outcomes, we aim to consolidate the community around field robotics and prepare an editorial article on the current status of robotics deployed in real environments.

Program

All invited speakers are confirmed.

Time	Speaker	Topic/title
8:45- 9:00	Organizers	Welcome and opening remarks
9:00- 9:40	Robin Murphy (Texas A&M University)	Invited talk #1 - Tentative title: Robots come to the rescue after a disaster
9:40- 10:20	Ten emerging researchers	Spotlight talks #1 (3 min/pers)
10:20- 10:50	-	Coffee break and poster session
10:50- 11:10	Organizers	Result announcement for the dataset competition
11:10- 11:50	Marco Hutter (ETH Zurich)	Invited talk #2 - Tentative title: 27 Years of Climbing and Walking Robots – Are We There?
11:50- 12:30	Panel	Questions: What is the role of simulation, and data sets in field robotics? Should we keep an annual workshop or create a separate conference? Why do old laboratories stop doing field deployments?
12:30- 13:30	-	Lunch
13:30- 14:30	Vijay Kumar (University of Pennsylvania)	Keynote - Tentative title: The Future of Flying Robots
14:30- 15:10	Frank Dellaert (Georgia Institute of Technology)	Invited talk #3 - Tentative title: Can these farming robots save agriculture?
15:10- 15:55	-	Coffee break and poster session
15:55- 16:35	Stephan Williams (The University of Sydney)	Invited talk #4 - Tentative title: Navigation, mapping, planning, and control applied to autonomous marine systems
16:35- 17:15	Kazuya Yoshida (Tohoku University)	Invited talk #5 - Tentative title: Modular and heterogeneous multi-agent AI robot system for lunar exploration
17:15- 17:45	Josh Marshall (Queen’s University)	Invited talk #6 - Tentative title: Robotics, Automation, and the 21st Century Miner
17:45- 18:00	Organizers	Conclusion

*Note: All times are in the local time zone of ICRA 2025 (Atlanta).

Speakers

Tentative title: The Future of Flying Robots

Vijay Kumar
University of Pennsylvania
Personal website

Tentative title: Robots come to the rescue after a disaster

Robin Murphy
Texas A&M University
Personal website

Tentative title: 27 Years of Climbing and Walking Robots – Are We There?

Marco Hutter
ETH Zurich
Personal website

Tentative title: Can these farming robots save agriculture?

Frank Dellaert
Georgia Institute of Technology
Personal website

Tentative title: Navigation, mapping, planning, and control applied to autonomous marine systems

Stephan Williams
The University of Sydney
Personal website

Tentative title: Modular and heterogeneous multi-agent AI robot system for lunar exploration

Kazuya Yoshida
Tohoku University
Personal website

Tentative title: Robotics, Automation, and the 21st Century Miner

Josh Marshall
Queen’s University
Personal website

Call for papers

The workshop topics include, but are not limited to:

Agriculture
Construction
Forestry
Healthcare
Intelligent Transportation Systems
Marine Robotics
Mining
Search and rescue
Space exploration

Submission guidelines

FR workshop accepts contributions based on the following criteria:

The submission should be from 2 to 8 pages long. The paper should follow the IEEE RAS template.
The review process is single-blind.
Submissions should contain a clear focus on field robotics and feature lessons learned and/or field experience reports.
We welcome prospective and conceptual papers as well.
The papers should be submitted on Microsoft CMT: TBD
Accepted papers will be available on the workshop website. The authors of accepted papers will be invited to present their results in a poster session during the workshop.

Competition

The workshop will also feature a competition designed to address key challenges in field robot deployment, driving advancements toward real-world applications and expanding the scope of robotic capabilities. The competition will focus on vision-based tasks such as segmentation and semantic scene understanding, particularly in complex, off-road, and densely vegetated environments. Additionally, traditional SLAM techniques will be adapted for use with emerging RADAR sensors, which are ideal for navigating dense vegetation, as well as multispectral sensors, offering promising solutions for localization and situational awareness in GNSS-denied or low-light conditions.

Participants will have access to extensive datasets, including recordings from wheeled, tracked, and multi-legged robots navigating challenging off-road terrains. Besides vision data, these datasets will feature RADAR-based perception data for off-road environments and multispectral data for scenarios where passive sensors are crucial. Competitors will submit solutions for tasks like semantic segmentation and localization. Top-performing participants will present their results at the ICRA 2025 workshop, with prizes of 500 EUR, 300 EUR, and 200 EUR awarded to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners, respectively. The competition’s aim is to tackle the unique challenges of perception and localization for field robots, fostering innovations in sensor technologies that enable autonomous operation in unstructured and demanding environments.