The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society – Romania Chapter is pleased to announce the launch of the 2020 Best PhD Thesis Award Competition. The main objective of this award is to recognise and encourage young researchers from the local robotics and automation academic and industrial communities and to increase their engagement with IEEE and with the Robotics and Automation Society.

Eligibility requirements:

Application documents:

  • Cover letter (max. 3 pages) – briefly arguments the scientific and technical merit and the impact of the PhD thesis
  • CV including list of representative publications (max. 5 pages)
  • PhD Thesis Summary
  • PhD Thesis
  • Two letters of support – one from the PhD advisor of the applicant and a second one from a researcher outside the host institution of the applicant
  • PhD Degree / Proof of public PhD defense (for theses currently under CNATDCU validation)

The supporting application documents will be submitted in English. The PhD Thesis will be submitted in the original language (Romanian/English). Submissions can be updated before the competition deadline, with the latest submission being considered for evaluation.

SUBMISSION FORM

Submitting the application form and required documents involves an implicit agreement from the part of the applicant for the organizing and evaluation committees to use this information strictly for the purposes of this competition. The IEEE Privacy Policy will be observed throughout this competition.

Timeline
COMPETITION LAUNCH: July 22nd 2020
APPLICATION DEADLINE: August 31st 2020 September 7th 2020 (EXTENDED!) (CLOSED!)
EVALUATION: September 2020 (FINISHED!)
TECHNICAL AND AWARD SESSION: Friday, October 9th 2020

15:30-17:30 EEST
Virtual Room 2
FrRT4

IEEE RAS Best PhD Thesis Awards

The following PhD theses will be presented:

  • Iosif Birlescu, Studies regarding the safe operation of innovative medical parallel robots, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (TUCN)
  • Andrei George Florea, Contributions to the control of collective robotic systems using membrane computing, University Politehnica of Bucharest (UPB)
  • Raul-Cristian Roman, Model-Free techniques for tuning the parameters of automatic controllers, University Politehnica of Timisoara (UPT)

The applications are reviewed by at least three members of the Evaluation Committee. The evaluation criteria consist of: scientific merit (40%), technical merit (40%) and social/economic/environmental impact (20%). The top three ranked applicants will receive an award as follows:

  • FIRST PRIZE: Certificate and $1000 monetary prize
    ANDREI GEORGE FLOREA
  • HONORABLE MENTION #1: Certificate and $450 monetary prize
    RAUL-CRISTIAN ROMAN
  • HONORABLE MENTION #2: Certificate and $450 monetary prize
    IOSIF BIRLESCU

All award recipients are required to present their work in a technical and award session to be organised during October 2020, within the 24th International Conference on System Theory, Control and Computing
Joint Conference (IEEE ICSTCC 2020).

The award recipients will be required to be a member in good standing of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society at the time of the technical and award session. Monetary prizes represent gross amounts (without taxes) and will be paid out after the competition is concluded, in full compliance with Romanian laws and IEEE regulations.

The Evaluation Committee for the 2020 IEEE RAS Romania PhD Awards was composed of:

Chair: Prof. Theodor Borangiu (UPB)

Members: Prof. Radu-Emil Precup (UPT), Prof. Doru Panescu (TU IASI), Assoc. Prof. Adrian Burlacu (TU IASI), Prof. Lucian Busoniu (UTCN), Assoc. Prof. Levente Tamas (UTCN), Prof. Adrian Filipescu (UGAL), Prof. Dorian Cojocaru (UCV), Prof. Sorin Moraru (UNITBV), Prof. Ioana Fagarasan (UPB), Assoc. Prof. Florin Anton (UPB), Assoc. Prof. Ionela Prodan (INPG), Assoc. Prof. Tudor-Bogdan Airimitoaie (UNI BORD), Prof. Sorin Olaru (SUPELEC)

The Organizing Committee is composed of the members of the Romania RAS Chapter committee. The role of the organizing committee is to assure good administrative and logistic support throughout the competition, to check the completeness and correctness of the application documents and that the eligibility requirements are met by each applicant, to appoint the members of the evaluation committee and to validate the final rankings based on the evaluations received. Any inquiries regarding the competition should be addressed to the organising committee directly at romania-ras (at) ieee (dot) org or by using the contact form on the homepage of this website.

The first edition of the IEEE Romania RAS Chapter Best PhD Thesis Award is supported by a Chapter Initiative Grant of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society.