International Workshop on Ontologies for Autonomous Robotics (ROBONTICS) @ IEEE RoboticCC 2025, Naples, Italy (hybrid event – online participation was also possible)

Special Topics of RobOntics 2025

This edition of RobOntics was particularly interested in three interconnected themes:

Neuro-symbolic architectures for autonomous agents: Exploring architectures that integrate neural networks with symbolic reasoning systems, enabling robots to learn from data while maintaining interpretable knowledge structures and logical reasoning capabilities.

Cognitive-inspired world models for knowledge-driven reactive agents: Investigating how cognitive principles can inform the development of dynamic world models that support rapid, knowledge-informed reactions to environmental changes while maintaining consistency with learned and encoded knowledge.

Knowledge-driven human-robot interaction: Examining how ontological knowledge representation can enhance robots’ understanding of human behavior, intentions, and social contexts to enable more natural, effective, and trustworthy human-robot collaboration.

The important dates were

  • Submission deadline: October 29th, 2025
  • Notification: November 21st, 2025
  • Camera ready version: December 19th, 2025
  • Workshop: December 10th, 2025

Organizers (alphabetical order)

  • Daniel Beßler, Institute for Artificial Intelligence, University of Bremen, Germany
  • Stefano De Giorgis, Department of Artificial Intelligence, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • Mihai Pomarlan, Digital Media Lab, University of Bremen, Germany
  • Robin Nolte, Digital Media Lab, University of Bremen, Germany
  • Nikos Tsiogkas, KU Leuven, Belgium

Scientific committee

  • Stefano Borgo, Laboratory for Applied Ontology (LOA), ISTC CNR, Trento, Italy

  • Robert Porzel, Digital Media Lab, University of Bremen, Germany

  • Alberto Olivares-Alarcos, Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial, CSIC-UPC, Barcelona, Spain

  • Maria M. Hedblom, Jönköping AI Laboratory, Jönköping University, Sweden​

  • Mena Leemhuis, Faculty of Engineering, University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy​

  • Oliver Kutz, Faculty of Engineering, University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy​

  • Guendalina Righetti, Department of Philosophy, University of Oslo, Norway​

  • Mohammed Diab, Personal Robotics Laboratory, Imperial College London, UK

  • Alina Hawkin, Institute for Artificial Intelligence, University of Bremen, Germany

Accepted Papers

The following papers have been accepted for the proceedings of RobOntics 2025:

  • Alberto Borboni, Giorgio Pedrazzi, Fabio Zanoletti: Normative-Aware Ontology for Assistive Robotics: Bridging Legal Accountability and Cognitive Autonomy in Elderly Care

  • Lars Vanderseypen, Senne Van Baelen, Maria I. Artigas, Nikolaos Tsiogkas, Herman Bruyninckx: Online self-adaptive behavior of mobile robots through skill knowledge graphs

  • Giovanni De Gasperis, Sante Dino Facchini, Tayyab Rehman: Ontology-Guided Multi-Modal Perception for Trusted and Explainable Robotic Action

  • Jona Thai, Michael Grüninger: Object2Plan: An Ontological Approach to Automated Generation of Assembly Plans from Objects

  • Muhammad Raza Naqvi, Arkopaul Sarkar, Farhad Ameri, Linda Elmhadhbi, Mohamed Hedi Karray: Semantic Representation of Robotic Function, Process Characteristics, and Quality

  • Amber Maimon, Iddo Yehoshua Wald, Mihai Pomarlan, Shiyao Zhang, Daniel Beßler, Robin Nolte, Dennis Küster, Robert Porzel, Tanja Schultz, Rainer Malaka: INTERO: A Model of Robotic Interoceptive Sensing

  • Michael McCain, Chris Davis Jaldi, Susan Shrestha, Shreyas Casturi, Cogan Shimizu: Towards a Modular Ontology for Autonomous Robotic Orchestration

(Banner image made by Frédéric Bisson and was uploaded to wikimedia commons under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.)