Report of the Conference Visit
Attendee: Udaka Ayas Manawadu
Place: Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Date visited: 2024/7/15-7/19
このレポートは、2024年7月15日～19日に会津大学大学院後期課程3年のUdaka Ayas Manawaduさんが「AIM2024 in Boston」に参加したときのものです。
About AIM 2024
The 2024 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM) was held from July 15 to July 19, 2024, in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. This was the 27th edition of AIM, which began in 1997 and is considered the flagship conference of IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics. The conference took place at the Sheraton Boston Hotel with over 300 attendees. In addition to technical sessions, the conference featured poster presentations, a welcome reception, a conference banquet, a farewell reception, and a tour of four MIT labs.
Figure2: Photos from the plenary sessions and Program-Chair's Report
Presented Paper
The presented paper was titled “Efficient Color Point Cloud Reconstruction with Robotic Arm-Guided Multiview Fusion”. The research is about a novel methodology that uses systematic robotic camera movements for multiview point cloud acquisition to enhance reconstruction accuracy in noisy environments. The approach, involving a Jaco robot arm and a Realsense D435 RGB-D camera, significantly improves position accuracy by 93%, reducing errors in position and orientation. The paper was presented in a session called “Sensor Integration, Data Fusion”, in which students and professors from Taiwan, Australia, Japan, Canada and China also presented their publications. Many of the attendees asked questions about the research including the testing environment, methodology, downsampling methods and limitations of the research. Ideas for future implementations were also suggested.
Figure3: Presentation in the research timetable
Figure4: Photos of the conference. (Presents from the organizing committee and from my presentation)
My Conference Experience
Over the last five years, I have participated in many online conferences because of COVID-19. This is my second conference attended onsite in recent five years and my first experience outside of Japan. The first onsite conference I participated in Japan was AIM2022, which was held in a hybrid format with most of the papers presented online. This conference was held onsite only, requiring all presenters to attend in person. I was really excited to participate since onsite conferences provide a platform for discussing research, finding research trends, making new connections, and attending presentations from world-class researchers. At AIM2024, I experienced all the qualities I expected; I could expand my research knowledge, found new connections in academia, and also enjoyed Boston in my free time. Figure 5 shows some places I went during my free time in Boston.
Figure5: From left to right, 1) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 2) Harvard University, 3) Boston Downtown, 4) Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Post-Conference Tour of MIT Research Labs
After the final day, a tour of four research labs at MIT was held. The labs we visited were the d'Arbeloff Laboratory (Bio Engineering), Mechatronics Research Lab, Biomimetic Robotics Lab, and The Eric P. and Evelyn E. Newman Laboratory for Biomechanics and Human Rehabilitation. Research students in these labs presented details about recent and previously published research. Collaborative projects with NASA and leading robotics companies were also showcased during the tour. It was a great opportunity for me to identify recent research trends in various fields of robotics.
Figure6: Photos taken during the Lab tour at MIT.
Final thoughts
Participating in an IEEE financially sponsored international conference was a valuable experience for me. I improved my knowledge about recent research trends, enhanced my social skills, and strengthened my connections with other academics. I hope to participate in more of these kinds of international conferences in the future.