When: November 6-8, 2025

Where: Arlington, VA

Web: ur-rad.github.io

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Dear colleagues,

We invite you to submit a paper and/or participate in the 3rd AAAI Fall Symposium on Unifying Representations for Robot Application Development (UR-RAD). Accepted papers will be presented in person only (though participants who are not presenting may attend remotely).

Capturing a desired task or interaction as a computational artifact (i.e., a representation) has long played a pivotal role in robotics. Many robotic subfields have traditionally employed a variety of different representational techniques, such as LTL, planning languages, social representations, natural language, and many more. These representations, however,  lack cohesion in when and how they are applied. The 3rd Symposium on Unifying Representations for Robot Application Development (UR-RAD) therefore aims to increase interaction between junior and senior researchers, support in-progress research, and cultivate collaboration.

Symposium Website: ur-rad.github.io
AAAI Fall Symposium Series Website: https://aaai.org/conference/fall-symposia/fss25/

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Submission Topics of Interest
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– Representational trends

– Representations for robot learning

– AI planning for robotics
– Formal methods in robotics
– Natural language as a representation
– Novel representations & novel representation uses
– Representations for user interfaces
– Robot end-user development
– Robot programming interfaces & paradigms
– Robot runtime/control environments
– Opportunities for standardization
– Frameworks (e.g., ROS or middleware)
– Open-source & collaboration initiatives
– Identifying representation requirements

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Important Dates
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“Preferred” round, with earlier feedback and the option to be included in the AAAI proceedings:

“Late” round, without the option to archive in the AAAI proceedings:

Regardless of archival plans, authors are encouraged to submit earlier rather than later. All papers submitted by August 7th, regardless of archival plans, will receive preference if a large number of submissions are received.

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Submission Information
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We invite the following contributions, formatted using the AAAI-25 author kit:

In order to encourage interaction between junior and senior researchers, each paper accepted to UR-RAD 2025 (regardless of archival status or contribution type) has the option to be paired with an expert in the field, as a “mentor”. Paper authors who opt in, in addition to junior members of the community, will have the opportunity for extensive interaction with mentors, who will guide discussions about individual papers.

If you intend to submit a paper, please email us at urrad.symposium@gmail.com. Use the subject line, “[UR-RAD] Intent to Submit”, and include the following in the body of the message: (1) a tentative title, (2) a tentative author list, and (3) tentative keywords. This step is optional, but will aid in our planning for reviewers. Note that at least one author from each paper will be expected to review 2-3 UR-RAD papers themselves.

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Organizing Committee
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Ruchen Wen (Co-Chair, Colgate University)

David Porfirio (Co-Chair, Naval Research Laboratory)
Saad Elbeleidy (Peerbots)
Laura M. Hiatt (Naval Research Laboratory)

Ross Mead (Semio)
Andrew Schoen (Semio)
Willie Wilson (Franklin & Marshall College)
Laura Stegner (George Washington University)

Contact urrad.symposium@gmail.com for any questions!