What Are Your Go-To Conferences, Journals, and Authors for Staying Updated in Robotics?

  • How do you keep up with the rapidly evolving field of robotics and robotic machine learning? Which conferences, journals, or other resources do you follow regularly for the latest breakthroughs?
  • Do you have favorite authors or researchers whose work you follow closely? What makes their contributions stand out for you?
  1. Favorite Conferences:
  • What are your favorite conferences for robotics and machine learning? (e.g., ICRA, ICLR, NeurIPS, RoboCup). Why do you prefer these, and what key insights or trends do you typically gather from them?
  • Do you prefer attending conferences in person or watching virtual talks and workshops?
  1. Journals and Papers:
  • What journals do you rely on for high-quality research papers? (e.g., IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, Journal of Field Robotics)
  • Do you have any all-time favorite papers that significantly impacted your work or thinking in robotics?
  1. Researchers and Authors:
  • Who are the key researchers or thought leaders in the field of robotics that you follow? (e.g., Pieter Abbeel, Yoshua Bengio, Ken Goldberg)
  • What specific papers or projects from these researchers have inspired you the most?
  1. Online Communities and Resources:
  • Besides formal publications, what online platforms or communities (e.g., Reddit, GitHub, Robotics Stack Exchange) do you frequent to stay updated on the latest tools, methods, and discussions in robotics?
  • Are there any podcasts, newsletters, or YouTube channels that you find helpful for keeping up with industry trends?

In fact, a special session of ICRA, ICRA-40 just wrapped up in the Netherlands, and the next edition of IROS is just round the corner, if someone’s interested!

CoRL is another major conference you should look out for. This year CoRL is heading to Germany!

The GRASP lab channel is a fine place for updates in robotics. They shares the talks hosted by the GRASP lab at UPenn. Generally it features invited researchers and household ones fills in the odd gaps.

The seminar usually features professors’ talk. It’s generally more abstract and vague, but sometimes quite thought-provoking.

And the SFI is usually talks given by PhDs and postdocs. So it usually has more details and make more sense. But it can also be too specific to be interesting.

CMU has a couple of series worth following as well: