Abstract

Reliable and robust perception is fundamental to the safety of autonomous systems, especially in the context of driverless vehicles, where faults and mistakes might lead to disastrous consequences. Yet, no perception system is infallible, and no sensor can guarantee consistent performance in all possible circumstances. RGB cameras naturally struggle when illumination is scarce, for instance; LiDAR’s behaviouris affected by harsh weather conditions (e.g., heavy rain or fog). Combining sensing modalities in a mutually beneficial way, leveraging their strengths and mitigating their weaknesses, has been shown to lead to significant improvements in the accuracy and robustness of perception systems. This workshop aims to explore novel multimodal perception strategies in three ways. Firstly, it will investigate multimodal systems featuring the integration of sensors not typically applied to specific tasks. Secondly, it will explore some of the challenges still with holding the rapid development of multi-sensor suites, such as continuous calibration. Lastly, it will investigate innovative multimodal paradigms, such as end-to-end navigation schemes. Via these three themes, this workshop aims to stimulate discussion and research into multimodal perception, to improve the reliability and accuracy of transportation systems.

Keywords: Autonomous Driving, Intelligent Transportation Systems, Multimodal Perception, Sensing, Localization, Visual Learning, Sensor fusion, Multimodal Navigation, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Signal and Image Processing, Multi-Sensor Calibration, End-to-end Multimodal Navigation, Deep Reinforcement Learning for Perception-to-Action, Perception-Action Coupling, Cooperative Perception, Distributed Perception.

Descriptions

The rapid growth in sensing technology and algorithms leads the way towards autonomous systems equipped with smarter and more efficient perception and navigation frameworks. Yet, many challenges still need to be addressed for those frameworks to be considered reliable and robust on all occasions. Key toreaching such robustness and reliability is the possibility of employing a variety of sensors: only by strategically combining their properties and characteristics, indeed, we can obtain autonomous systems which can operate safely in all circumstances (e.g., in all lighting and weather conditions). This workshop wishes to attract the interest of those researchers in the robotics community who investigate the use of novel multimodal perception paradigms and less traditional sensing, including innovative sensor combinations, placements and configurations, as well as less explored sensor fusion models and schemes. Relying on multimodal perception means combining robotics with several other research areas, from signal processing and sensor design to machine learning and wireless sensor networks. We have been organising events on highly related research topics since 2018. Specifically, we organised the special session on “Beyond Traditional Sensing for Intelligent Transportation” at IEEE ITSC 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. Furthermore, we organised a workshop with the same title at IEEE ITSC 2023. All those events attracted the interest of the robotics and intelligent transportation systems communities, with many high-quality research paper submissions. The special sessions also managed to gather significant participation in the presentations and discussions over high-quality research contributions from several top-level international institutions, as well as industry, from all over the world (e.g., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Toyota Research Institute (TRI), Nissan Research Center, BMW, and the University of Oxford). In its first edition, we were also honoured by the presence of a highly regarded keynote speaker, Prof. Timothy Barfoot, from the University of Toronto, funded by the special session organisers, who kicked off the session with an invited talk on his long-term experience in alternative sensing. The workshop in 2023 was supported by the Nordic University Hub on Industrial Internet of Things (http://www.nordic-iot.org/), which is an alliance of 5 top engineering universities in the Nordic region of Europe and featured prominent speakers both from Academia and industry. Indeed, we hosted Prof. Ioannis Pitas from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), Greece, Dr. Aamir Aziz (Principal Engineer @ Oxbotica, Oxford, UK), and Sam Wood (Product Manager at Navtech Radar, Oxford, UK). Strengthened by its inherent multidisciplinary nature and the success of these previous events, we believe this workshop will manage to attract equal interest both in the Academic and Industrial worlds. Participants will be able to submit extended abstracts which will be reviewed by the organisation committee.

Call for Papers

Author Guidelines

The use of artificial intelligence (AI)–generated text in an article shall be disclosed in the acknowledgements section of any paper submitted. The sections of the paper that use AI-generated text shall have a citation to the AI system used to generate the text.

Paper Submission Guidelines

Please read the following paper submission guidelines before submitting your papers:
• We invite participants to submit 2 pages + references extended abstracts.
• Participants are encouraged to submit their recent work on the topics of interest mentioned above.
• The allowed paper length is 2+N, meaning 2 pages for the paper content, plus any number of pages for the references.
• All papers must be submitted through the CMT Microsoft online submission system.
• The accepted abstracts will be made available on the workshop website but will not appear in the official IEEE conference proceedings.
• New authors cannot be added after your paper has been accepted. Please ensure that you are following this guideline to avoid any issues with publication.

If you encounter any problems with the submission of your papers, please contact the conference Technical Program Chairs.

Paper Submission System

We adopt Microsoft CMT as submission system, available at the following link: TBD.

You can find detailed instructions on how to submit your paper here.

LaTeX and Word Templates

To help ensure correct formatting, please use the IEEE style files for conference proceedings as a template for your submission:
https://www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates.html. These include LaTeX and Word style files.

Violations of any paper specification may result in rejection of your paper.

Manuscript Style Information

• Only papers in PDF format will be accepted.
• Paper Size: A4 (210mm x 297mm).
• Paper Length: Each paper should have 2+N pages, meaning 2 pages for the paper content, plus any number of pages for the references.
• Paper Formatting: double column, single spaced, #10 point Times Roman font. Please make sure to use the official IEEE style files provided above.
• No page numbers.

Note: Violations of any of the above specifications may result in rejection of your paper.

Acknowledgments

The Microsoft CMT service was used for managing the peer-reviewing process for this conference. This service was provided for free by Microsoft and they bore all expenses, including costs for Azure cloud services as well as for software development and support.