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The International Journal of Robotics Research

The International Journal of Robotics Research

Published in Association with Multimedia Archives

eISSN: 17413176 | ISSN: 02783649 | Current volume: 43 | Current issue: 3 Frequency: 14 Times/YearTimes/Year

A leading peer-reviewed journal in its field for more than two decades, The International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR) was the first scholarly publication on robotics research.


IJRR offers incisive and thought-provoking original research papers and articles, perceptive reviews, and lively editorials on ground-breaking trends issues, technical developments, and theories in robotics by the outstanding scholars and practitioners in the field. The Journal covers more than just narrow technical advances-it embraces a wide variety of topics. IJRR only publishes work of archival value, which is produced to advance science and technology in this field, and stays valuable in time. To do so the work must be original, solid, and useful for others to build upon.


Consistently ranked in the top 3 in its category of the Thomson Scientific JCR, IJRR publishes scholarly articles that provides engineers, researchers, and scientists with the very best of current research on robotics research - from applied mathematics to artificial intelligence to computer science, to psychological, cognitive and behavioural sciences, to electrical and mechanical engineering.


IJRR exclusively operates on the basis of peer reviews, with no professional editor external to the research community judging on scientific matters. All submitted manuscripts are reviewed by at least two expert reviewers of appropriate standing in the field of robotics research, in a single-blind scheme (reviewer names are concealed from the submitting authors).


There is no page limit for IJRR submissions. The rule is however that a paper should be as long as necessary, and no longer: conciseness is highly valued.


IJRR also publishes high quality, peer reviewed datasets, accompanied by adequate text material to illustrate them and their usage in the form of a regular manuscript.


Multimedia (mostly video or data) extensions are most welcome parts of an IJRR paper, as they concur to illustrate and demonstrate its results.


This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).


All issues of IJRR are available to browse online.

It is the policy of The International Journal of Robotics Research to encourage the application of theoretical advances to real problems and data in Robotics, intended here in its broadest meaning, as per Sir M. Brady’s definition: “the intelligent link between perception and action”. Results should represent a significant rather than incremental advance, and should be verified appropriately according to the topic. Experimental results are strongly encouraged. There should be an up to date literature review, and meaningful comparisons with previous work to demonstrate any proposed advance. Advancements must be rigorously demonstrated by all relevant and applicable scientific means - be it mathematical proofs, statistically significant and reproducible experimental tests, field demonstrations, or whatever may be needed to convince a duly skeptical, critical scientist.

The five fundamental questions implicitly asked to IJRR authors are: "Why is this problem important?", "Why wasn't it solved before?", "What's the key idea in the solution?", "How do you show that it really works?", and "How can others use your results?"

Editor
Antonio Bicchi Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) and University of Pisa, Italy
Editor Emeritus
John Hollerbach University of Utah, USA
Founding Editors
Sir J. Michael Brady University of Oxford, UK
Richard Paul University of Pennsylvania, USA
Senior Editorial Board
Arash Ajoudani Italian Institute of Technology, Italy
Timothy Barfoot University of Toronto, Canada
Kostas Bekris Rutgers University, USA
Jose Luis Blanco-Claraco Universidad de Almería, Spain
Rebecca Kramer- Bottiglio Yale University, USA
Luca Carlone Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Manuel Catalano Italian Institute of Technology, Italy
Greg Chirikjian National University of Singapore, Singapore
Margarita Chli University of Cyprus and ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Matei Ciocarlie Columbia University, USA
Antonio Franchi Twente Univ., NL, and Sapienza Univ. of Rome, Italy
Dongjun Lee Seoul National University, Korea
Max Likhachev Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Huaping Liu Tsinghua University, China
Elena De Momi Politechnic of Milan, Italy
Jun Morimoto Kyoto University, Japan
Christian Ott TU Wien, Austria
Jamie Paik EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
Jaeheung Park Seoul National University, Korea
Ioannis Poulakakis University of Delaware, USA
Carla Seatzu University of Cagliari, Italy
Adriana Tapus ENSTA Paris, France
Advisory Board
Jake J Abbott University of Utah, USA
Ruzena Bajcsy University of Pennsylvania, USA
Aude Billard EPFL, Switzerland
Oliver Brock Technical University Berlin, Germany
Henrik Christensen UC San Diego, USA
Peter Corke Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Dieter Fox University of Washington and NVIDIA, USA
Robert Howe Harvard University, USA
David Hsu National University of Singapore, Singapore
Seth Hutchinson Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
Lydia Kavraki Rice University, USA
Oussama Khatib Stanford University, USA
Vijay Kumar University of Pennsylvania, USA
Alessandro De Luca Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
Matt Mason Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Yoshihiko Nakamura The University of Tokyo, Japan
Paul Newman University of Oxford, UK
Allison Okamura Stanford University, USA
Nicholas Roy MIT, Boston, USA
Daniela Rus Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Tim Salcudean University of British Columbia, Canada
Giulio Sandini Italian Institute of Technology, Italy
Davide Scaramuzza University of Zurich, Switzerland
Alin Albu- Schäffer DLR, Germany
Siddhartha Srinivasa University of Washington, USA
Russell H Taylor Johns Hopkins University, USA
Dawn Tilbury University of Michigan, USA
Robert J. Webster III Vanderbilt University, USA
Associate Editors
David Abbink TU Delft, Netherlands
Siddarth Agarwal Ford Motor Company, USA
Pulkit Agrawal MIT, USA
Kostas Alexis NTNU, Norway
Daniel Aukes Arizona State University, USA
Kim Ayoung Seoul National University, Korea
Tapomayukh Bhattacharjee Cornell University, USA
Joydeep Biswas University of Texas at Austin, USA
Hermann Blum ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Laura Blumenschein Purdue University, USA
Davide Brugali University of Bergamo, Italy
Jessica Burgner-Kahrs University of Toronto, Canada
Roberto Calandra Facebook AI Research, USA
Berk Calli Worcestershire Politechnic Institute, USA
Angelo Cangelosi University of Manchester, UK
Danilo Caporale Technology Innovation Institute, UAE
Raffaella Carloni University of Groningen, Netherlands
Stephane Caro CNRS, France
Henry Carrillo Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia
Nilanjan Chakraborty Stony Brook University, USA
Georgia Chalvatzaki TU Darmstadt, Germany
Kevin Chen MIT USA
Andrea Cherubini LIRMM, France
Tat-Jun Chin University of Adelaide, Australia
Pakpong Chirarattananon City University of Hong Kong, China
Han-Lim Choi KAIST, Korea
Sanjiban Choudhury Cornell University, USA
Jen Jen Chung University of Queensland, Australia
Javier Civera University of Zaragoza, Spain
Neil Dantam Colorado School of Mines, USA
Cosimo Della Santina TU Delft, Netherlands
Mehmet Dogar University of Leeds, UK 
Eric Eaton University of Pennsylvania, USA
Nima Fazeli University of Michigan, USA
Francois Ferland University of Sherbrooke, Canada
James Forbes McGill University, Canada
Guillermo Gallego University of Berlin, Germany
Andrej Gams Institut Jožef Stefan, Slovenia
Animesh Garg Georgia Tech, USA
Junyi Geng Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Igor Gilitschenski University of Toronto, Canada
Giorgio Grioli IIT and University of Pisa, Italy
Giorgio Grisetti Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
Roderich Gross University of Sheffield, UK
Heredia Guillermo University of Seville, Spain
Christoffer Heckman University of Colorado, USA
Enrico Mingo Hoffman Leonardo, Italy
Genya Ishigami Keio University, Japan
Benoit Iung Lorraine University, France
Edward Johns Imperial College London, UK
Robert Katzschmann ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Majid Khadiv Max Planck Institute, Germany
Marc Killpack BYU, USA
Hyoun Jin Kim Seoul National University, Korea
Minjun Kim KAIST, Korea
Wansoo Kim Hanyang University, Korea
Laurent Kneip ShanghaiTech, China
Seong Young Ko Chonnam National University, Korea
Oliver Kroemer Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Yuichi Kurita Hiroshima University, Japan
Jinoh Lee DLR, Germany
Stefan Leutenegger TUM, Germany
Minas Liarokapis The University of Auckland
Giuseppe Loianno New York University (NYU), USA
Shengnan Lyu Behang U (BUAA), China
Martin Magnusson Örebro University, Sweden
Cristian Mahulea University of Zaragoza, Spain
Ann Majewicz The University of Texas at Austin, USA
Anirudha Majumdar Princeton University, USA
Ivano Malavolta Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Monica Malvezzi University of Siena, Italy
Joshua Mangelson Brigham Young University, USA
Joshua Marshall Queen's University, Canada
Roberto Martin The University of Texas at Austin, USA
Daniel Martins UFSC, Brazil
Takamitsu Matsubara Nara Institute of Science and Tech, Japan
José M Martínez Montiel University of Zaragoza, Spain
Patricia Pena Nascimento Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil
Sao Mai Nguyen Telecom Paris, and Institut Polytechnique de Paris, France
Gennaro Notomista University of Waterloo, Canada
Calogero Oddo Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy
Miguel A Olivares-Mendez University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Cagdas Onal Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA
Takayuki Osa University of Tokyo, Japan
Lionel Ott ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Michael Otte University of Maryland, USA
Claudio Pacchierotti CNRS, France
Hae-Won Park The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Korea
Luka Peternel TU Delft, The Netherlands
Florian Pokorny KTH, Sweden
Francois Pomerleau Universite Laval, Canada
Marija Popovic University of Bonn, Germany
Georg Rauter University of Basel, Switzerland
Ioannis Rekleitis University of South Carolina, USA
Federico Renda Khalifa University, UAE
Michela Robba University of Genoa, Italy
Matthew Robertson Queens University, USA
Paolo Rocco Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Hugo Rodrigue Sungkyunkwan University, Korea
David Rosen Northeastern University, USA
Loris Roveda DSIA-SUPSI/USI, Switzerland
Sheila Russo Boston University, USA
Lorenzo Sabattini University of Modena Reggio Emilia, Italy
Hamid Sadeghian TUM, Germany
Mahmut Selman Sakar ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Maria Sakovsky Stanford University, USA
Oren Salzman Technion University, Israel
Evren Samur Bogazici University, Turkey
Guillaume Adrien Sartoretti National University of Singapore, Singapore
Matteo Saveriano University of Trento, Italy
Cristian Secchi University of Modena Reggio Emilia, Italy
Shen Shaojie Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China
Masahiro Shiomi Advanced Telecommunication Research (ATR), Japan
Enrico Simetti University of Genoa, Italy
Harold Soh National University of Singapore, Singapore
Shuran Song Columbia University, USA
Koushil Sreenath University of California, USA
Cynthia Sung University of Pennsylvania, USA
Mahdi Tavakoli University of Alberta, Canada.
Evangelos Theodorou Georgia Tech, USA
Federico Tombari TUM, Germany and Google
Rudolph Triebel DLR, TUM, Germany
Ryan Truby Northwestern University, USA
Barkan Ugurlu Ozyegin University, Turkey
Abhinav Valada University of Freiburg, Germany
Cristian-Ioan Vasile Lehigh University, USA
Jorn Vogel DLR, Germany
Weiwei Wan Osaka University, Japan
Chen Wang State University of New York at Buffalo, USA
Wang Wei Hanyang University, Korea
Fei Wen Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
Patrick Wensing University of Notre Dame, USA
Li Wen Beihang University (BUAA), China
Sebastian Wolf DLR, Germany
Britta Wrede Bielefeld University, Germany
Helge Wurdemann University College of London, UK
Danfei Xu Georgia Tech, USA
Heng Yang Harvard University, USA
Shenli Yuan SRI International, USA
Wenzhen Yuan University of Illinois, USA
Andrea Zanchettin Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Fumin Zhang Georgia Tech, USA
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  • Manuscript Submission Guidelines: The International Journal of Robotics Research

    This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.

    Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijrr to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.

    Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of The International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR) will be reviewed.

    Please refer to these Guidelines for Editors and Reviewers for detailed information on the IJRR peer review process, timelines and best practice.

    There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.

    As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.

    1. What do we publish?
      1.1 Aims & Scope
      1.2 Article types
      1.3 Writing your paper
      1.4 Paper Submission Steps and Timeline for Authors
      1.5 Proposing a Review Paper
      1.6 Proposing a Special issue
    2. Editorial policies
      2.1 Peer review policy
      2.2 Authorship
      2.3 Acknowledgements
      2.4 Funding
      2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
      2.6 Research Data
    3. Publishing policies
      3.1 Publication ethics
      3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
      3.3 Open access and author archiving
    4. Preparing your manuscript
      4.1 Formatting
      4.2 Novelty statement
      4.3 Mathematics
      4.4 Style for illustrations
      4.5 Multimedia
      4.6 Data papers
      4.7 Page length
      4.8 Artwork, figures and other graphics
      4.9 Supplementary material
      4.10 Reference style
      4.11 English language editing services
    5. Submitting your manuscript
      5.1 ORCID
      5.2 Information required for completing your submission
      5.3 Permissions
    6. On acceptance and publication
      6.1 Sage Production
      6.2 Online First publication
      6.3 Access to your published article
      6.4 Promoting your article
    7. Further information

    1. What do we publish?

    1.1 Aims & Scope

    Before submitting your manuscript to The International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR), please ensure you have read the journal’s Aims & Scope.

    1.2 Article Types

    The International Journal of Robotics Research publishes

    • Original articles of archival value, produced to advance science and technology in the field, and stay valuable in time. The work must be original, solid, and useful for others to build upon;
    • Review articles on selected topics of broad interest. Review articles are normally solicited by the Editorial Board. Proposals of an unsolicited review article should be preliminarily sent to the Editor in Chief for pre-evaluation;
    • Special Issues on research areas of high interest. Special issues are normally solicited by the Editorial Board. Proposals of special issue should be preliminarily sent to the Editor in Chief for pre-evaluation;
    • Data papers of high quality, accompanied by adequate text material to illustrate the datasets and their usage in the form of a regular manuscript;
    • Multimedia extensions (mostly video or data) are most welcome parts of an IJRR article, concurring to illustrate and demonstrate its results.

    There is no page limit for IJRR submissions. The rule is however that a paper should be as long as necessary, and no longer: conciseness is highly valued.

    1.3 Writing your paper

    The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources.

    1.3.1 Make your article discoverable

    When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

    1.4 Paper Submission Steps and Timeline for Authors

    After authors submit their MS (day 0), they should expect to receive a first decision within ca. 3 months from submission (more precisely, by day 97). Possible decisions at this first stage are “Accept”, “Conditional Accept”, “Revise and Resubmit”, or “Reject”.

    • If the first decision is “Accept” authors must send in the final version of their manuscript within two weeks (i.e., by day 111). The production process is started.
    • If the first decision is “Conditional Accept” authors submit a minor revision of their manuscript along with a letter of response to review comments within two weeks (i.e. by day 111). The revised manuscript undergoes an editorial check. After this check, a second decision is issued (by day 137), which can only be “Accept” or “Reject”.  
    • If such second decision is Accept, authors must send in the final version of their manuscript within two weeks (by day 151), and the production process is started.
    • If the first decision is “Revise and Resubmit”, authors submit a major revision of their manuscript along with a letter of response to review comments within a month (i.e. by day 127). The manuscript undergoes a second review round, involving the previous Senior and Associate Editors and Reviewers, and possibly new experts as needed.  After this second review round, a second decision is issued within two months (by day 186), which can only be “Accept”, “Conditionally Accept”, or “Reject”.
    • If the second decision is Accept, authors must send in the final version of their manuscript within two weeks (day 200), and the production process is started.
    • If the second decision is Conditional Accept, authors submit a minor revision version of their manuscript along with a letter of response to review comments within two weeks (i.e. by day 200). The manuscript undergoes an editorial check. After this check, a third decision is issued (by day 219), which can only be “Accept” or “Reject”. 
    • If such third decision is Accept, authors must send in the final version of their manuscript within two further weeks (by day 233), and the production process is started.

    1.5 Proposing a Review Paper

    Those who would like to propose a Review Paper to be published in IJRR should send an email to the EiC in advance, who will discuss with the Senior Editorial Board. The proposal of a RP should include:

    1. The topic and tentative title of the review paper and the proposed submission deadline
    2. The author(s), their background and qualifications. Typically we expect authors of review papers to be authoritative scholars in the field, with a strong track record of well-cited publications in the area
    3. A motivation for timing: why a review on this subject is timely?
    4. A list of other surveys on similar topics that appeared in IJRR or other journals in the past 10 years, and a discussion of differences: why do we need a new RP on this topic?

    If encouraged by the Editorial Board, the author will prepare the final version of their Review paper and submit it as a regular IJRR manuscript., undergoing the regular review process. 

    1.6 Proposing a Special Issue

    Those who would like to propose a Special Issue (SI) to be published in IJRR should send an email to the EiC in advance, who will discuss with the Senior Editorial Board. The proposal of a SI should include:

    1. The topic and tentative title of the SI and the proposed submission deadline
    2. The Guest Editor(s), their background and qualifications. Typically we expect GEs to be authoritative scholars in the field of the SI, with at least few well-cited paper in the area
    3. A motivation for timing: why now? A motivating event could be e.g. a successful workshop, a particularly hot debate ongoing in the community, etc.
    4. A list of other Special Issues on similar topics that appeared in IJRR or other journals in the past 10 years, and a discussion of differences: why do we need a new SI on this topic?
    5. A list of perspective authors
    6. At least six letters (emails are OK) from authors explicitly committing to contribute a manuscript to the proposed SI by the deadline, with title and abstract.

    If accepted, a SI submission channel will be open in IJRR submission system and a deadline set. Guest Editors are introduced in the Review Management system, and they will participate in paper assignment and review, under the supervision of an IJRR Senior Editor.

    If the outcome of the review process finally produces at least 5 accepted manuscripts for the SI, the Special Issues goes in production containing the manuscripts and a Guest Editorial Article provided by the Guest Editors

    If less than 5 manuscripts are finally accepted, the Special Issue is not retained. Accepted manuscripts will be published as regular manuscripts in regular IJRR issues. 

    Back to top

    2. Editorial policies

    2.1 Peer review policy

    The International Journal of Robotics Research exclusively operates on the basis of peer reviews, with no professional editor external to the research community judging on scientific matters.

    Submissions to the journal are assessed by at least two independent expert referees of appropriate standing in the field of robotics research, who make recommendations on the suitability of the articles for publication. Articles are also assessed by an Associate Editor, a Senior Editor, and the Editor in Chief before a final decision is made.

    Our refereeing process is single-anonymize, that is, the referees remain anonymous and their identities are not released to authors. The referees, however, are informed of the authors’ names and affiliations.

    We are committed to providing timely assessment of articles and authors are informed of the publication decision as soon as possible. Our target submission-to-decision time is 90 days in average, and 240 days in the worst case (including author’s revisions).

    According to policies by the Committee on Publication Ethics, IJRR does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web based submission system or in other communication.

    2.2 Authorship

    Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.

    The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:

    1. Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,
    2. Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
    3. Approved the version to be published,
    4. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

    Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. When a large, multicentre group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.

    Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.

    Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

    2.3 Acknowledgements

    All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

    Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.

    2.3.1 Third party submissions
    Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

    • Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
    • Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
    • Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

    Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

    2.3.2 Writing assistance

    Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

    2.4 Funding

    The International Journal of Robotics Research requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. 

    2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

    It is the policy of The International Journal of Robotics Research to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.

    Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations here.

    2.6 Research Data

    The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages

    Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

    • share your research data in a relevant public data repository
    • include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
    • cite this data in your research

    Back to top

    3. Publishing Policies

    3.1 Publication ethics

    Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.

    3.1.1 Plagiarism

    The International Journal of Robotics Research and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

    3.1.2 Prior publication

    Material which has been previously published in archival publications is not generally acceptable for publication in a SAGE journal. Please refer to the guidance on the SAGE Author Gateway.

    However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication.

    • Preprints

    IJRR welcomes posting of preprint versions of an article on the author's personal or institutional website or on community preprint servers such as ArXiv. Preprints are not regarded as prior publication. Authors should disclose details (DOI, licensing terms) of preprint posting in the Novelty Statement accompanying the submission.

    Should authors post or update a preprint version of a manuscript that was revised after receiving feedback from the IJRR Board, it is expected that they acknowledge it in the preprint.  When a manuscript is accepted and published in IJRR, it is required that the authors update the pre-print with a publication reference, including the DOI and a URL link to the published version of the article on the journal website.

    • Conference proceedings

    IJRR also accepts submissions containing material previously appeared in conference proceedings.  In this case, the IJRR submission should provide a substantial extension of results, methodology, analysis, conclusions and/or implications over the conference proceedings paper.  An extension is considered substantial if it offers new research results, methodology, analysis, conclusions and/or implications. The mere inclusion of more details, experiments, or discussion is typically considered not substantial. The final decision on what constitutes a substantial extension will be made by the Editorial Board.

    Details of previous submissions (including the DOI and licensing terms) must be openly disclosed in the Novelty Statement accompanying the submission to IJRR, and all necessary permissions to re-use previously published material and attribute appropriately must be obtained by authors. Failure to disclose previously submitted material does not comply with IJRR’s code of ethics and will lead to exclusion from review.     

    The manuscript submitted to IJRR must contain a statement offering an open discussion of the differences with previous conference version(s), and explicitly cite the reference(s).  The conference version(s) must be uploaded as accompanying material along with the journal submission.

    3.1.3 Prior submission

    It is not acceptable that manuscripts are submitted to IJRR while they are being evaluated by other archival Journals. In case of parallel submission of partly overlapping material to a non-archival conference or workshop, this should be openly disclosed at the time of IJRR submission.

    It is also not acceptable to submit to IJRR manuscripts which have been previously rejected anywhere else, without openly informing and discussing how the reviews received from other members of the same community have been used to improve the quality of the paper. Proper practice is to enclose all relevant materials from previous submission(s) with the IJRR submission, as supplemental files. These include information on the venue of previous submission(s), the reviews received, the answers to such reviews, and the highlights of changes in the new manuscript that address the criticisms received. This material can be prepared in a similar style as when preparing a revised version for the same Journal.

    Manuscripts submitted elsewhere without informing the Editorial Board nor following the above practices will be editorially rejected before review.  The Editorial Board of IJRR will inform the EiC and Board of other involved Journals of such decisions.

    3.1.4 Human and Animal Studies

    Following SAGE’s standard policy (as spelled out at https://uk.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/editor_guidelines.pdf), IJRR requires every manuscript involving human and animal studies to include appropriate statements on the following: (1) Ethics committee, institutional review board (IRB) or institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) consideration. (2) Informed consent (for inclusion, collection/use of data or samples, and/or publication, as applicable) or, in the case of animal studies, animal welfare.

    3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

    Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway.

    3.3 Open access and author archiving

    The International Journal of Robotics Research offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.

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    4. Preparing your manuscript for submission

    4.1 Formatting

    The preferred format for your manuscript is LaTeX. Word is also acceptable.

    (La)TeX guidelines

    We welcome submissions of LaTeX files. Please download the Sage LaTex Template, which contains comprehensive guidelines. The Sage LaTex template files are also available in Overleaf, should you wish to write in an online environment. If you have used any .bib or .bst files when creating your article, please include these with your submission so that we can generate the reference list and citations in the journal-specific style. If you have any queries, please consult our LaTex Frequently Asked Questions.

    Microsoft Word guidelines

    There is no specific template provided to submit your manuscript in Word. However, please ensure your heading levels are clear, and the sections clearly defined. The final appearance of the manuscript should resemble the two-column style typical of IJRR printed papers.

    For further instructions please see the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

    4.2 Novelty statement

    During the submission process authors will be required to provide a novelty statement to accompany their submission to IJRR. Compliance is essential.

    As part of the submission process please include a short statement of no more than 80 words summarising the contributions made by the paper including the reasons your paper is novel and of specific relevance to IJRR’s Aims & Scope. The purpose of this statement purpose is different from the paper’s abstract. This novelty statement will be considered by the Editors when assigning your paper for peer review and only papers with justifiable novelty statements will be moved to the next stage of the peer review process.

    In case the submitted material contains parts which are already public – e.g. previously appeared in conference proceedings or in public repositories, such as arXiv – authors must include in the Novelty Statement all details (including DOI and licensing terms), along with a clear discussion of the original contribution of the submitted IJRR paper. Notice also that all necessary permissions to re-use and appropriately attribute previously published material and must be obtained by authors.

    4.3 Mathematics

    Type mathematical copy exactly as it should appear in print. Journal style for letter symbols is as follows: variables, italic type; constants, roman text type; matrices and vectors, boldface type. Indicate best breaks for equations in case they will not fit on one line.

    4.4 Style for illustrations

    A sharp image and good contrast are essential for quality reproduction. Keep in mind that most illustrations will be reproduced in a 3" column width. Show only essential information on charts and graphs, for example, coordinate axis, major grid lines, and lines on points of interest.

    Provide captions for all illustrations. Label them clearly and concisely (Fig1a, Fig10, etc.). 

    4.5 Multimedia

    Multimedia (mostly video, data, or code) extensions are most welcome parts of an IJRR paper, as they concur to illustrate and demonstrate its results.

    For video extensions, authors should provide material which: i) convey a clear message related to the paper and are explicitly cited in the manuscript; ii) are of reasonable length (2 min. max. recommended); iii) have a title frame with the sentence “Extension to the IJRR manuscript titled:”, the paper title, and the authors; iv) make the material available to reviewers in the format recommended in the submission site.

    For data extensions, similar guidelines as for data papers apply. Notice however that data provided as extensions are intended to reinforce the scientific/technological value of a manuscript, not as the main object of publication per se (as is the case for Data papers).

    Instructions on how to submit Multimedia Extensions can be found here: Multimedia Extension Submission Guidelines.

    An example of video to appear as IJRR Multimedia extension can be found here: Example IJRR video.

    4.6 Data papers

    IJRR also publishes high quality, peer reviewed datasets, accompanied by adequate text material to illustrate them and their usage in the form of a regular manuscript.  A data paper published in IJRR must be placed in the context of current research making it clear which research field it applies to. Authors are strongly encouraged to reference related work and describe which existing community would benefit from the data. Authors should demonstrate the legibility and usability of their datasets, and provide adequate guarantees as to availability of data in repositories for a minimum of ten years.

    Papers accompanying data sets are short submissions that support and summarize a substantial archival data set. Both the data set and the paper are peer reviewed with the same diligence that regular submissions receive. The contribution is expected to be in the quality and utility of the data to the robotics community.

    Instructions on what is defined as a Data Paper and how to submit can be found here: Data Paper Submission Guidelines.

    4.7 Page length

    The normal length of an IJRR paper is 12 pages in the final, two-column format.  Substantially shorter or longer submissions may be considered only if they are of sufficient merit.

    There is no page limit for IJRR submissions. The rule is however that a paper should be as long as necessary, and no longer: conciseness is highly valued.

    4.8 Artwork, figures and other graphics

    For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.

    Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.

    4.9 Supplementary material

    This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.

    4.10 Reference style

    The International Journal of Robotics Research adheres to the Sage Harvard reference style. View the Sage Harvard guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

    Please note: While observing Harvard reference style, we do ask that you include all names in the references. ‘Et al’ should not be included in any references.

    If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Harvard EndNote output file.

    4.11 English language editing services

    Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.

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    5. Submitting your manuscript

    The International Journal of Robotics Research is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijrr to log in and submit your article online.

    IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created.  For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.

    5.1 ORCID

    As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.

    The collection of ORCID iDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID iD will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

    If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

    5.2 Information required for completing your submission

    You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

    5.3 Permissions

    Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.

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    6. On acceptance and publication

    6.1 Sage Production

    Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. 

    6.2 Online First publication

    Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.

    6.3 Access to your published article

    Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.

    6.4 Promoting your article

    Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice. 

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    7. Further information

    Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to The International Journal of Robotics Research editorial office at ijrr.admin@sagepub.co.uk.

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