Scope

T-FR is a new scholarly journal dealing with the fundamentals of robotics in unstructured and dynamic environments.  The journal focuses on methods and systems designed to operate outside the built environment, where the ambient conditions can’t be controlled and the scale is much larger than found indoors.  Articles describing research with applications in construction, forestry, agriculture, mining, subsea, intelligent highways, search and rescue, military, and space are encouraged. Papers in sensing, sensors, mechanical design, computing architectures, communication, planning, learning, and control, applied to field applications are encouraged.

We encourage publication of work that has both theoretical and practical significance. Authors are encouraged to implement their work and demonstrate its utility on significant problems with emphasis on the underlying principles. That is, the journal encourages reporting on what was learned in doing the work, rather than merely on what was done. Also encouraged are comparative or meta-studies and verification of previously published results as well as reports of extended field experiments that seek to validate autonomous systems in representative environments.  Systems papers are welcome but they must include analysis and insight into why approaches work and the challenges still to be addressed. Studies of systems that have been fielded over extended durations are encouraged. 

Goals

Field Robotics is dedicated to the rapid dissemination of important research results in Field Robotics. Articles published in Field Robotics must meet the highest quality standards, as measured by originality and significance of the contribution to our understanding of how to devise, create, analyze and operate robots in their intended application domain. The journal will publish only articles of high quality rather than seeking a particular number of papers or a ratio of accepted papers to those submitted.  Field Robotics will not publish articles in which the experimental validation is restricted to simulation or controlled laboratory experiments.

Special Issue on Space Robotics
Submission Date: 2024-12-20

Special Issue Editors: David Wettergreen (Carnegie Mellon), Teresa Vidal Calleja (UTS) and Rudolph Triebel (DLR)

Space applications present many challenges to robotic systems: from extremes of temperature, vacuum, shock and gravity, to limitations on power and communication, from the intricate complexity of systems engineering, to requirements for reliability, robustness and autonomy.

The new IEEE Transactions on Field Robotics (T-FR) announces a special issue on Space Robotics to examine topics related to robotics intended or applied beyond the Earth.

We invite papers that exhibit theory, methods, and application of robotic systems in space including:

    specification and evaluation of mission concepts and designs;
    effects of the space environment on robotic sensors, actuators and devices;
    perception on planetary surfaces including consideration of light and natural terrain;
    studies and evaluation of planetary mobility including extreme terrain access;
    manipulation including sample acquisition, drilling, and sample transfer;
    applications in assembly, construction, and excavation;
    algorithms for localization and navigation, and task or mission planning;
    techniques for safe and precise orbital maneuvering, landing and other on-orbit operations;
    approaches to multi-robot cooperation and collaboration in space missions;
    experiments conducted in space or planetary analogue settings; and
    analysis of human robot interaction and robot autonomy.

Papers for this special issue must provide technical descriptions of systems and results and analysis of experimentation. We invite discussion and analysis of orbital robots/spacecraft and planetary rovers as well as prototype systems that have been field tested in terrestrial analogue environments. Lessons learned in development and operation are pertinent to the discussion.

We encourage papers addressing all aspects of space systems and applications. Robotic systems on Earth orbit, traveling in deep space, or operating on the surfaces of planets, moons, comets, or asteroids are of particular interest, as well systems envisioned for space application but developed and demonstrated in relevant environments here on Earth.

The T-FR encourages multimedia content and this issue seeks media illustrating space systems as well as open source software and public datasets related to space or analogue experiments

Timeline:

December 20, 2024 – Manuscript submission cutoff
February 20 - April 20, 2025 – Reviews returned; manuscript revisions completed
April 20 - May 20, 2025 – Publication decisions and articles published online
May 20, 2025 – Special issue website finalized linking all articles

Authors interested can discuss submissions with the special issue editors:

David Wettergreen dsw@cmu.edu
Teresa Vidal Calleja Teresa.VidalCalleja@uts.edu.au
Rudolph Triebel rudolph.triebel@dlr.de