Call for Papers

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Internet of Robots (IoR) is rooted in cyber-physical systems, involving cooperation between robots, computers, networks, and humans. There are many forms of robots that exist in space, air, ground, and water, which can help achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) delivery service, for instance, would reduce carbon emissions compared to a small freight van, and shared robotic taxis would result in less congestion in cities. With telepresence robots, humans can work in hazardous environments or attend remote offices without physically being present. This form of robotics-as-a-service could open the door to a "remote-controlled economy".

IoR involves a variety of frontier research, including networking, robotics, artificial intelligence, human-computer interactions (HCIs), etc. There is a lot to look forward to when bringing IoR to life. A major challenge is the capability of internet infrastructure. Conventional TCP/IP congestion and flow control algorithms, for instance, would struggle to guarantee robotic applications. In surgery robotic arms, even a 1-millisecond delay in haptic feedback could be fatal. The second challenge arise when humans interact with robots over the Internet. How do humans perceive the situation when communicating with robots over unreliable networks? What is the security, privacy, trustworthiness, and ethical concerns?

This Special Issue (SI) focuses on communication and networking technologies that support IoR with high levels of Quality-of-Service (QoS) and human perceived Quality-of-Experience (QoE). This includes processing, delivering, and analyzing IoR data over the internet using cutting edge approaches, such as the tactile internet, 6G, cloud and edge computing, software-defined networks (SDN), etc. Moreover, the issue encourages new research into secure and natural human-robot interaction in order to achieve efficient IoR deployment. 

Original contributions are solicited in designing and developing human-centric, sustainable, ecological, and efficient IoR approaches. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Challenges and opportunities of future internet infrastructure for IoR.
• New surveys, standards, prototypes, and case studies of IoR.
• B5G and 6G-assisted IoR.
• Tactile Internet design and applications for IoR.
• Integrated sensing, computing, and communications for IoR.
• Ultra-high reliability and low-latency communications (URLLC) for IoR.
• Multi-modal data acquisition, encoding, synchronization, and transmission for IoR.
• Cloud, fog, and edge computing intelligence for IoR.
• Quality-of-Service (QoS) and Quality-of-Experience (QoE) aware communications for IoR.
• Cross-layer design of future networks for IoR.
• Communication-aware robotic tasks including control, perception, and planning.
• Human-robot interaction over a responsive, trustworthy, and secure internet.
• IoR testbeds for real, virtual, and hybrid multi-robot systems.

Submission Guidelines

Manuscripts should conform to the standard format as indicated in the “Information for Authors” section of the Paper Submission Guidelines.

All manuscripts to be considered for publication must be submitted by the deadline through the magazine’s Manuscript Central submission site. Select “March2024/InternetOfRobots” from the drop-down menu of Topic titles.

Important Dates

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 15 October 2023 (Extended Deadline)
Initial Decision Notification: 15 November 2023
Revised Manuscript Due: 15 December 2023
Final Decision Notification: 15 January 2024
Final Manuscript Due: 1 February 2024
Publication Date: March/April 2024

Guest Editors

Zhenhui Yuan
Northumbria University, UK

Gan Zheng
University of Warwick, UK

Qing Li
Peng Cheng Laboratory, China

Shiwen Mao
Auburn University, USA

Bernhard Rinner
University of Klagenfurt, Austria

Xueli An
Huawei, Germany