PERMIS-2007

PerMIS'07 will be the seventh in the series that started in 2000, targeted at defining measures and methodologies of evaluating performance of intelligent systems. The workshop has proved to be an excellent forum for discussions and partnerships, dissemination of ideas, and future collaborations in an informal setting. Attendees usually include researchers,

graduate students, practitioners from industry, academia, and government agencies.

PerMIS 2008 

PERFORMANCE METRICS

FOR 

INTELLIGENTSYSTEMS(PERMIS) WORKSHOP

National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland USA

August 19 - 21, 2008
FOREWORD

The 2008 Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems (PerMIS'08) Workshop will be the eighth in the series 

that started in 2000, targeted at defining measures and methodologies of evaluating performance of intelligent

systems. The workshop has proved to be an excellent forum for discussions and partnerships, dissemination 

of ideas, and future collaborations in an informal setting. Attendees usually include researchers, graduate 

students, practitioners from industry, academia, and government agencies. 

PerMIS’08 aims at identifying and quantifying contributions of functional intelligence towards achieving 

success. Our working definition of functional intelligence is “the ability to act appropriately in an uncertain 

environment, where appropriate action is that which increases the probability of success”, and success is 

“the achievement of behavioral goals” (J. Albus, 1991). In addition to the main theme, as in previous years, 

the workshop will focus on applications of performance measures to practical problems in commercial, 

industrial, homeland security, and military applications. Topic areas include, but are not limited to:

Defining and measuring aspects of a system:

• The level of autonomy

• Human-robot interaction

• Collaboration & coordination

• Taxonomies

• Biologically inspired models

Evaluating components within intelligent system

• Sensing and perception

• Knowledge representation, world models, ontologies

• Planning and control

• Learning and adaption

• Reasoning

Infrastructural support for performance evaluation

• Testbeds and competitions for intercomparisons

• Instrumentation and other measurement tools

• Simulation and modeling support

Technology readiness measures for intelligent systems

Applied performance measures in various domains, e.g.,

• Intelligent transportation systems

• Emergency response robots (search and rescue, bomb disposal)

• Homeland security systems

• De-mining robots

• Defense robotics

• Hazardous environments (e.g., nuclear remediation)

• Industrial and manufacturing systems

• Space/Aerial robotics

• Medical Robotics & assistive devices

PerMIS 2008
PerMIS’08 will feature five plenary addresses and seven special sessions. The plenary speakers are worldclass experts in their own field and we are confident that the attendees will be able to benefit from their 

presentations. This year, there is a special session for every (parallel) general session. Over the course of 

three days, there will be twelve sessions related to performance of intelligent systems covering an array of 

topics from medical systems to manufacturing, mobile robotics to virtual automation, human-system interaction to biologically inspired models, and much more.

Special thanks are due to the Program Committee for publicizing the workshop, the special session organizers for proposing interesting topics and bringing together researchers related to their sessions, and the 

reviewers who provided feedback to the authors, and helped us to assemble an excellent program. We much 

appreciate the authors submitting their papers to this workshop and for sharing their thoughts and experiences related to their research with the workshop attendees. 

PerMIS’08, is sponsored by NIST with technical co-sponsorship of the IEEE Washington Section Robotics 

and Automation Society Chapter and in-cooperation with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 

Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence (SIGART). As in previous years, the proceedings of PerMIS will 

be indexed by INSPEC, Compendex, ACM’s Digital Library, and are released as a NIST Special Publication. 

Springer Publishers are back again this year to raffle off some of the books that will be displayed at their 

booth during the course of the workshop. Selected papers from this workshop will be considered for inclusion

in an edited book volume by Springer. We gratefully acknowledge the support of our sponsors.

We sincerely hope that you enjoy the presentations and the social programs!

Raj Madhavan Elena Messina

Program Chair General Chair

SPONSORS

 

 

PerMIS 2008
PROGRAMCOMMITTEE

General Chair:

Elena Messina (Intelligent Systems Division, NIST, USA) 

Program Chair:

Raj Madhavan (Oak Ridge National Laboratory/NIST, USA)

S. Balakirsky (NIST USA)

R. Bostelman (NIST USA)

F. Bonsignorio (Heron Robots Italy)

G. Berg-Cross (EM & I USA)

J. Bornstein (ARL USA)

P. Courtney (PerkinElmer UK)

J. Evans (USA)

D. Gage (XPM Tech. USA)

J. Gunderson (GammaTwo USA)

L. Gunderson (GammaTwo USA)

S. K. Gupta (UMD USA)

A. Jacoff (NIST USA)

S. Julier (Univ. College London UK)

M. Lewis (UPitt USA)

R. Lakaemper (Temple Univ USA)

T. Kalmar-Nagy (Texas A & M USA)

A. del Pobil (Univ. Jaume-I Spain)

S. Ramasamy UALR USA)

L. Reeker (NIST USA)

C. Schlenoff (NIST USA)

M. Shneier (NIST USA)

E. Tunstel (JHU-APL USA)

PerMIS 2008
ABSTRACT

We hypothesize that adding computational cognitive reasoning components to intelligent systems will result

in three benefits:

Most if not all intelligent systems 

must interact with humans, who are 

the ultimate users of these systems. 

Giving the system cognitive models 

can enhance the human-system interface by allowing more common 

ground in the form of cognitively 

plausible representations and qualitative reasoning. By using cognitive 

models, reasoning mechanisms and 

representations, we believe that we 

can yield a more effective and efficient interface that accommodates 

the user.

Since the resulting system in interacting with the human, giving it behaviors that are more natural to the human can also result in more natural 

interactions between the human and 

the intelligent system. For example, 

mobile robots that must work collaboratively with humans can actually result in less effective interactions if its behaviors are alien or non-intuitive to the human. By 

incorporating cognitive models, we can develop systems whose 

behavior is more expected and natural.

One key interest is in measuring the performance of intelligent 

systems. We propose that an intelligent system that is cognitively

enhanced can be more directly compared to human level performance. Further, if cognitive models of human performance 

have been developed in creating the intelligent system, we can 

directly compare the intelligent systems behavior and performance in the task to the human subject behavior and performance.

In this talk, I will present several instantiations of developing 

cognitively enhanced intelligent systems.

BIOGRAPHY 

Alan C. Schultz is the Director of the Navy Center for Applied 

Research in Artificial Intelligence at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. His research is in the areas of humanrobot interaction, cognitive robotics, evolutionary robotics, learning in robotic systems, and adaptive systems. He is the recipient 

of an Alan Berman Research Publication Award, and has published over 90 articles on HRI, machine learning and robotics. 

Alan is currently the co-chair of the AAAI Symposia Series, and 

chaired the 1999 and 2000 AAAI Mobil Robot Competition and 

Exhibitions. 

PLENARY SPEAKER

Mr. Alan Schultz

Navy Center for 

Applied 

Research in 

Artificial 

Intelligence 

(NCARAI), USA

Cognitively 

Enhanced 

Intelligent 

Systems

Tues. 8:30 am

ABSTRACT 

Haptics is the science and technology of experiencing and creating 

touch sensations. This talk will examine the role of haptics in three types 

of medical systems: surgical robotics, 

surgical simulators, and rehabilitation 

robotics. Robot-assisted surgery can 

improve the outcomes of medical 

procedures by enhancing accuracy 

and minimally invasive access, 

thereby reducing patient trauma and 

recovery time. However, the current 

lack of force and tactile information is 

hypothesized to compromise system 

performance. With approaches ranging from psychophysical studies to 

control systems engineering, we are 

designing teleoperated robots capable of providing haptic feedback in 

challenging surgical environments. 

Haptic information is also needed for 

accurate surgical simulation. Surgical 

simulators present a safe and potentially effective method for surgical 

training, and can also be used in 

robot-assisted surgery for pre- and 

intra-operative planning. I will describe experiments to determine 

the mechanics of interaction between surgical instruments and 

tissues, as well as techniques for accurate patient-specific modeling. Finally, rehabilitation through robotically enabled orthotics 

and prosthetics inherently requires understanding and appropriate generation of haptic interactions. Our recent work in this area 

includes motor control augmentation with an exoskeleton robot, 

and studies of the role of haptic proprioception in prosthetic limb 

use.

BIOGRAPHY

Allison M. Okamura received the BS degree from the University 

of California at Berkeley in 1994, and the MS and PhD degrees 

from Stanford University in 1996 and 2000, respectively, all in 

mechanical engineering. She is currently an associate professor 

of mechanical engineering and the Decker Faculty Scholar at 

Johns Hopkins University. She is associate director of the 

Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics and a thrust 

leader of the NSF Engineering Research Center for ComputerIntegrated Surgical Systems and Technology. Her awards include 

the 2005 IEEE Robotics Automation Society Early Academic 

Career Award, the 2004 US NSF CAREER Award, the 2004 JHU 

George E. Owen Teaching Award, and the 2003 JHU Diversity 

Recognition Award. Her research interests are haptics, 

teleoperation, medical robotics, virtual environments and 

simulators, prosthetics, rehabilitation engineering, and 

engineering education.

PLENARY SPEAKER

Prof. Allison 

Okamura

The Johns 

Hopkins 

University, USA

Haptics in 

Medical 

Robotics: 

Surgery, 

Simulation, 

and 

Rehabilitation

Tues. 2:00 pm

PerMIS 2008 
ABSTRACT

In industrial robotics, system 

integration is a rather common 

business. Robot manufacturers 

typically team up with a number 

of so-called system integrators, 

which design robot cells, 

assembly lines and entire 

manufacturing plants out of 

“standardized” components, 

such as manipulators, sensors, 

tools, and conveyor systems.

In service robotics the situation is 

in no way comparable. Service 

robots are typically considered as 

mass products, which are 

designed like dish washers or 

play stations. System integration 

is simply part of the regular 

product design.

It would be rather irrelevant to 

discuss this issue any further, if 

the design of a service robot for 

some specific application was a 

task like the design of a dish washer. As a matter of fact, the two 

tasks have not much if anything at all in common.

The design of a service robot is more the result of the ingenuity 

of an engineer rather of established procedures or 

methodologies or even technologies. Typically every new service 

robot is design from scratch. Not too seldom, the service task 

itself and the operational constraints are not too well understood, 

neither is the business model under which the automation of a 

service could become an economic success. A plenitude of 

components such as sensors, actuators, operating systems, 

algorithms are available but no common recipe for integrating 

and compiling them into a competitive product.

Service robotics today is in a situation very much comparable to 

the situation of the car industry in 1885, when Carl Benz built the 

first car. The industry is virtually not existing. Potential players 

and investors are skeptical because not only a realistic market 

but also a realistic technology assessment gives them a rather 

fuzzy picture.

This situation has motivated the German Ministry for Education 

and Research to invest into a so-called technology platform for 

service robotics. Other funding agencies such as the European 

Commission are implementing similar initiatives.

In my presentation I will talk about the German Service Robotics 

Initiative, which as a major activity pushes the development of 

such a technology platform. The platform is considered as a 

vehicle for understanding and managing the requirements for 

system integration in service robotics. I will talk about a first 

approach of this Initiative to incrementally integrate, evaluate and 

harmonize available off the shelf components and their interfaces 

to simplify and accelerate the development of new service 

robots. I will also talk about the lessons learned in this Initiative 

and how they are currently being picked up in other initiatives to 

promote the development of harmonized and/or standardized 

building blocks for service robots.

BIOGRAPHY

Erwin Prassler received a master's degree in Computer Science 

from the Technical University of Munich in 1985 and a Ph.D. in 

Computer Science from the University of Ulm in March 1996. For 

his doctoral dissertation he received the AKI dissertation award 

in September 1997. Between 1986 and 1989, Dr. Prassler held 

positions as a member of the scientific staff at the Technical 

University of Munich and as a guest researcher in the Computer 

Science Department at the University of Toronto. In fall 1989, he 

joined the Research Institute for Applied Knowledge Processing 

(FAW) in Ulm, where he headed a research group working in the 

field of mobile robots and service robotics between 1994 and 

2003. In 1999, Dr. Prassler entered a joint affiliation with 

Gesellschaft fur Produktionssysteme (GPS) in Stuttgart, where 

directed the department for Project Management and Technology 

Transfer. In this function, Dr. Prassler coordinated the MORPHA 

project (Interaction and Communication between Humans and 

Intelligent Robot Assistents, www.morpha.de) one of six national 

research projects in the field of Human Machine Interaction 

funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research. In 

March 2004, Dr. Prassler was appointed as an Associate 

Professor at the Bonn-Aachen International Center for 

Information Technology. Together with Prof. Rolf Dieter Schraft, 

director of Fraunhofer IPA in Stuttgart, he is currently coordinating the German Service Robotice Initiatve DESIRE 

(www.service-robotik-initiative.de), a joint national research 

project involving 7 academic and 6 industrial partners.

PerMIS 2008

PLENARY SPEAKER

Prof. Erwin Prassler

Applied Science 

Institute, Germany

Incremental 

Integration, 

Evaluation, and

Harmonization 

of Components

of a Reference 

Platform for 

Service 

Robotics

Wed. 8:30 am 
ABSTRACT

A mature systems engineering 

discipline is exemplified by aerospace 

engineering where purpose-built 

vehicles are designed while regularly 

consulting system level performance 

models to help guide the design 

optimization process. Robotics has 

not yet identified such rich and 

universal performance models but 

useful performance models do arise 

naturally in the performance of the 

work. This talk will discuss a large 

number of field robotic systems in an 

attempt to identify some system level 

constraints, tradeoffs and metrics 

which seem to be valuable in 

formulating the quest for an optimal 

system. Examples include the hard 

constraints of safe real-time 

replanning, the optimal update rate of 

a visual servo, the related tradeoff 

between systematic and random 

error accumulation in mapping, and 

the relative completeness of planning 

search spaces and its affect on winning robot races.

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Alonzo Kelly is an associate professor at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. He has also worked as a 

member of the technical staff at MD Robotics, Canada and at 

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His research typically concerns wheeled mobile robots operating in both structured and 

unstructured environments. His work spans many sub-specialties 

of mobile robots including control, position estimation, mapping, 

motion planning, simulation, and human interfaces. It also spans 

many application areas including outdoor unmanned ground vehicles, agricultural and mining vehicles, planetary rovers, and

indoor automated guided vehicles.

ABSTRACT

Robotics is emerging as a promising

tool for training of human functional 

movement. The current research in 

this area is focused primarily on 

upper extremity movements. This 

talk describes novel designs of three

lower extremity exoskeletons, intended for gait assistance and training of motor-impaired patients. The 

design of each of these exoskeletons is novel and different. Force 

and position sensors on the exoskeleton provide feedback to the 

user during training. The exoskeletons have undergone tests on 

healthy and chronic stroke survivors

to assess their potential for treadmill

training. These results will be presented. GBO is a Gravity Balancing 

un-motorized Orthosis which can 

alter the gravity acting at the hip and

knee joints during swing. ALEX is an

Actively driven Leg Exoskeleton 

which can modulate the foot trajectory 

using motors at the joints. SUE is a bilateral Swing-assist Unmotorized Exoskeleton to propel the leg during gait. This research

was supported by NIH through a BRP program.

BIOGRAPHY

Prof. Agrawal received a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering 

from Stanford University in 1990. He is currently the Director of 

Mechanical Systems Laboratory. He has published close to 200 

journal and conference papers and 2 books in the areas of 

controlled mechanical systems, dynamic optimization, and 

robotics. Dr. Agrawal is a Fellow of the ASME and his other 

honors include a Presidential Faculty Fellowship from the White 

House in 1994, a Bessel Prize from Germany in 2003, and a 

Humboldt US Senior Scientist Award in 2007. He has served on 

editorial boards of numerous journals published by ASME and 

IEEE. 

PerMIS 2008

PLENARY SPEAKER

Prof. Sunil Kumar 

Agrawal 

University of 

Delaware, USA

Robotic 

Exoskeletons

for Gait 

Assistance 

and Training 

of the Motor 

Impaired

Thurs. 8:30 am

PLENARY SPEAKER

Prof. Alonzo Kelly 

Carnegie Mellon

University, USA

Various 

Tradeoffs and

Metrics of 

Performance 

for Field 

Robots

Wed. 2:00 pm
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08:15 Welcome & Overview

08:30 Plenary Presentation:

Alan Schultz 

Cognitively Enhanced Intelligent Systems

09:30 Coffee Break

10:00 TUE-AM1 Performance Evaluation

Chairs: James Spall & Craig Schlenoff

• Evolution of the SCORE Framework to Enhance Field-Based 

Performance Evaluations of Emerging Technologies

[Brian Weiss, Craig Schlenoff]

• Reliability Estimation and Confidence Regions from Subsystem and Full 

System Tests via Maximum Likelihood [James Spall]

• Fuzzy-Logic-Based Approach for Identifying Objects of Interest in the 

PRIDE Framework

[Zeid Kootbally, Craig Schlenoff, Raj Madhavan, Sebti Foufou]

• Identifying Objects in Range Data Based on Similarity Transformation 

Invariant Shape Signatures

[Xiaolan Li, Afzal Godil, Asim Wagan]

• Stepfield Pallets: Repeatable Terrain for Evaluating Robot Mobility

[Adam Jacoff, Anthony Downs, Ann Virts, Elena Messina]

• Potential Scaling Effects for Asynchronous Video in Multirobot Search 

[Prasanna Velagapudi, Huadong Wang, Paul Scerri, Michael Lewis,

Katia Sycara]

12:30 Lunch

14:00 Plenary Presentation:

Allison Okamura

Haptics in Medical Robotics: Surgery, Simulation, 

and Rehabilitation

15:00 Coffee Break

15:30 TUE-PM1 Human-System Interaction

Chairs: Michael Lewis & Birsen Donmez

• Evaluation Criteria for Human-Automation Performance Metrics

[Birsen Donmez, Patricia Pina, Mary Cummings]

• Assessing Measures of Coordination Demand Based Interaction 

Durations [Michael Lewis, Jijun Wang]

• The Gestural Joystick and the Efficacy of the Path Tortuosity Metric for 

Human/Robot Interaction

[Richard Voyles, Jaewook Bae, Roy Godzdanker]

• Modeling of Thoughtful Behavior with Dynamic Expert System 

[Vadim Stefanuk]

19:00 Reception

PROGRAM PERMIS
PerMIS 2008 

August

08:15 Welcome & Overview

08:30 Plenary Presentation: 

Alan Schultz 

Cognitively Enhanced Intelligent Systems

09:30 Coffee Break

10:00 TUE-AM2 Special Session I: Cognitive Systems of EU Cognition Programme

Organizer: Patrick Courtney

• Cognitive Systems of EU Cognition Programme [Patrick Courtney]

• The Rat’s Life Benchmark: Competing Cognitive Robots

[Olivier Michel, Fabien Rohrer]

• The iCub Humanoid Robot: an Open Platform for Research in Embodied

Cognition [Giorgio Metta, Giulio Sandini, David Vernon, Lorenzo Natale, 

Francesco Nori]

• An Open-Source Simulator for Cognitive Robotics Research: The 

Prototype of the iCub Humanoid Robot Simulator 

[Vadim Tikhanoff, Angelo Cangelosi, Paul Fitzpatrick, Giorgio Metta, 

Lorenzo Natale, Francesco Nori]

• Symbiotic Robot Organisms: Replicator and Symbrion Projects 

[Serge Kernbach, Eugen Meister, Florian Schlachter, Kristof Jebens, 

Marc Szymanski, Jens Liedke, Davide Laneri, Lutz Winkler, Thomas 

Schmickl, Ronald Thenius, Paolo Corradi, Leonardo Ricotti]

• Virtual Agent Modeling in the RASCALLI Platform

[Christian Eis, Marcin Skowron, Brigitte Krenn]

12:30 Lunch

14:00 Plenary Presentation:

Allison Okamura

Haptics in Medical Robotics: Surgery, Simulation, 

and Rehabilitation

15:00 Coffee Break

15:30 TUE-PM2 Special Session II: Architectures for Unmanned Systems

Organizers: Roger Bostelman & James Albus 

• UAV Architectures [George Vachtsevanos]

• UGV Architectures [TBD]

• Levels-of-Autonomy of the ASTM F41 Unmanned Maritime Vehicles 

Standard [Mark Rothgeb]

• Ontological Perspectives for Autonomy Performance

[Hui-Min Huang, Elena Messina, Tsai Hong, Craig Schlenoff]

19:00 Reception

PROGRAM PERMIS

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08:15 Overview

08:30 Plenary Presentation:

Erwin Prassler

Incremental Integration, Evaluation, and Harmonization of 

Components of a Reference Platform for Service Robotics

09:30 Coffee Break

10:00 WED-AM1 Metrics & Measures

Chairs: Scott Spetka & Robert Wade

• Robotic Systems Technical and Operational Metrics Correlation 

[Jason Schenk, Robert Wade] 

• Survey of Domain-Specific Performance Measures in Assistive Robotic 

Technology [Katherine Tsui, Holly Yanco, David Feil-Seifer, Maja Mataric]

• Refining the Cognitive Decathlon [Robert Simpson, Charles Twardy]

• Using Metrics to Optimize a High Performance Intelligent Image 

Processing Code [Scott Spetka, Susan Emen, George Ramseyer, 

Richard Linderman]

• Measurement Techniques for Multiagent Systems

[Robert Lass, Evan Sultanik, William Regli]

• RoboCupRescue Robot League: 2008 Overview [Adam Jacoff, 

Andreas Birk, Johannes Pellenz, Ehsan Mihankhah, Raymond Sheh, 

Satoshi Tadokoro]

12:30 Lunch

14:00 Plenary Presentation:

Alonzo Kelly

Various Tradeoffs and Metrics of Performance for

Field Robots

15:00 Coffee Break

15:30 WED-PM1 Autonomous Systems

Chairs: James Gunderson & Edward Tunstel

• Integrating Reification and Ontologies for Mobile Autonomous 

Robots [James Gunderson, Louise Gunderson] 

• Quantification of Line Tracking Solutions for Automotive 

Applications [Jane Shi, Rick Rourke, Dave Groll, Peter Tavora]

• Mobile Robotic Surveying Performance for Planetary Surface Site 

Characterization [Edward Tunstel]

• Evaluating Situation Awareness of Autonomous Systems 

[Jan Gehrke]

18:30 Banquet

PROGRAM PERMIS
PerMIS 2008 

August

08:15 Overview

08:30 Plenary Presentation:

Erwin Prassler

Incremental Integration, Evaluation, and Harmonization of 

Components of a Reference Platform for Service Robotics

09:30 Coffee Break

10:00 WED-AM2 Special Session III: Performance Metrics for Perception in 

Intelligent Manufacturing

Organizers: Tsai Hong & Roger Eastman

• Performance of Super-Resolution Enhancement for Flash LADAR Data 

[Shuowen Hu, Susan Young, Tsai Hong ]

• Performance Evaluation of Laser Trackers [Bala Muralikrishnan, Daniel Sawyer, 

Christopher Blackburn, Steven Phillips, Bruce Borchardt, Tyler Estler]

• Preliminary Analysis of Conveyor Dynamic Motion for Automotive Applications 

[Jane Shi]

• 3D Part Identification Based on Local Shape Descriptors 

[Xiaolan Li, Afzal Godil, Asim Wagan]

• Calibration of a System of a Gray-Value Camera and an MDSI Range camera 

[Tobias Hanning, Aless Lasaruk]

• 6DOF Metrology for Evaluating a Visual Servoing Algorithm [Tommy Chang, 

Roger Eastman, Tsai Hong, German Holguin, Mike Shneier]

12:30 Lunch

14:00 Plenary Presentation:

Alonzo Kelly

Various Tradeoffs and Metrics of Performance for 

Field Robots

15:00 Coffee Break

15:30 WED-PM2 Special Session IV: Results from a Virtual Manufacturing 

Automation Competition

Organizers: Stephen Balakirsky, Raj Madhavan & Chris Scrapper

• NIST/IEEE Virtual Manufacturing and Automation Competition: 

From Earliest Beginnings to Future Directions [Stephen Balakirsky, 

Raj Madhavan, Chris Scrapper]

• Analysis of a Novel Docking Technique for Autonomous Robots

[George Henson, Michael Maynard, Xinlian Liu, George Dimitoglou]

• Partitioning Algorithm for Path Determination of Automated Robotic Part Delivery 

System in Manufacturing Environments [Payam Matin, Ali Eydgahi, Ranjith Chowdary]

• Algorithms and Performance Analysis for Path Navigation of Ackerman-Steered 

Autonomous Robots [George Henson, Michael Maynard, George Dimitoglou, Xinlian Liu]

18:30 Banquet

PROGRAM PERMIS

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08:15 Overview

08:30 Plenary Presentation:

Sunil Kumar Agrawal

Robotic Exoskeletons for Gait Assistance and Training of 

the Motor Impaired

09:30 Coffee Break

10:00 THU-AM1 Model-based Performance Assessment

Chairs: Kate Remley & Kam Saidi

• Wireless Communications in Tunnels for Urban Search and Rescue 

Robots [Kate Remley, George Hough, Galen Koepke, Dennis Camell, 

Robert Johnk, Chriss Grosvenor]

• A Performance Assessment of Calibrated Camera Networks for 

Construction Site Monitoring [Itai Katz, Nicholas Scott, Kam Saidi]

• A Queuing-Theoretic Framework for Modeling and Analysis of Mobility 

in WSNs [Harsh Bhatia, Rathinasamy Lenin, Aarti Munjal, 

Srini Ramaswamy, Sanjay Srivastava]

• Towards Information Networks to Support Composable Manufacturing 

[Mahesh Mani, Albert Jones, Junho Shin, Ram Sriram]

• 3D Reconstruction of Rough Terrain for USARSim using a Height-map 

Method [Gael Roberts, Stephen Balakirsky, Sebti Foufou]

12:30 Lunch

14:00 THU-PM1 Special Session VI: Biologically Inspired Models of 

Intelligent Systems 

Organizer: Gary Berg-Cross

• Session Introduction [Gary Berg-Cross]

• Overview of Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures (BICA) 

[Alexei Samsonovich]

• Recent modeling and Rapid Prototyping Experience Aimed at 

Building Architectures of Cognitive Agents [Giorgio Ascoli]

• Notable Developments in Developmental/EpiGenetic Robotics  

[Gary Berg-Cross] 

• Discussion of Biologically Inspired Models [Panel]

16:00 Coffee Break

16:30 Adjourn

PROGRAM PERMIS
PerMIS 2008 

August

08:15 Overview

08:30 Plenary Presentation:

Sunil Kumar Agrawal

Robotic Exoskeletons for Gait Assistance and Training of 

the Motor Impaired

09:30 Coffee Break

10:00 THU-AM2 Special Session V: Quantitative Assessment of Robotgenerated Maps

Organizers: Chris Scrapper, Raj Madhavan & Stephen Balakirsky 

• Characterizing Robot-Generated Maps: The Importance of 

Representations and Objective Metrics

[Chris Scrapper, Raj Madhavan, Stephen Balakirsky]

• Using Virtual Scans to Improve Alignment Performance in Robot 

Mapping [Rolf Lakeamper, Nagesh Adluru]

• The Role of Bayesian Bounds in Comparing SLAM Algorithms 

Performance [Andrea Censi]

• Map Quality Assessment [Asim Wagan, Afzal Godil, Xiaolan Li]

• Discussion: Roadmap for Map Evaluation Frameworks

12:30 Lunch

14:00 THU-PM2 Special Session VII: Medical Robotics

Organizer: Ram Sriram

• Overcoming Barriers to Wider Adoption of Mobile Telerobotic Surgery: 

Engineering, Clinical and Business Challenges [Gerald Moses, Charles 

Doarn, Blake Hannaford, Jacob Rosen]

• Calibration of a Computer Assisted Orthopaedic Hip Surgery Phantom 

[Daniel Sawyer, Nick Dagalakis, Craig Shakarji, Yong Kim]

• HLPR Chair – A Novel Patient Transfer Device

[Roger Bostelman, James Albus]

• Robotic Navigation in Crowded Environments: Key Challenges for 

Autonomous Navigation Systems [James Ballantyne, Salman Valibeik, 

Ara Darzi, Guang-Zhong Yang]

16:00 Coffee Break

16:30 Adjourn

PROGRAM PERMIS

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

These people provided essential support to make this event happen. Their 

ideas and efforts are very much appreciated.

Website and Proceedings

Debbie Russell

Local Arrangements

Jeanenne Salvermoser

Conference and Registration

Mary Lou Norris

Kathy Kilmer

Angela Ellis

Teresa Vicente

PerMIS 2008 

Intelligent Systems Division 

Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory 

National Institute of Standards and Technology

100 Bureau Drive, MS-8230

Gaithersburg, MD 20899 

http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/

Thank you 

PerMIS 

attendees!