international-symposium-on-experimental-robotics - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: international-symposium-on-experimental-robotics description: Use when targeting International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER) or deciding whether a computer-science manuscript fits this venue. Encodes conference fit, framing, evidence bar, submission-cycle checks, rebuttal posture, and desk-reject risks for experimental robotics.

International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER)

Conference positioning

International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER) is a top computer-science conference venue for experimental robotics, field robots, manipulation, navigation, embodied learning, and real-world validation. It rewards a robotics paper where experimental evidence and real-world performance are the contribution. Treat this skill as a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool for conference submission strategy, not as a substitute for the current year's CFP, author kit, ethics policy, or submission portal.

Because CS conferences change deadlines, templates, page limits, review workflow, artifact rules, AI-use policy, and rebuttal formats every cycle, always verify the live official instructions before making a submission-ready recommendation. Start from the official source anchor recorded for this venue in ../../resources/conference-roster.md and ../../resources/official-source-map.md.

When to trigger

The author names ISER / International Symposium on Experimental Robotics as the target venue.
A manuscript in experimental robotics needs a conference-fit read before being formatted or submitted.
The paper must be re-framed from journal style or arXiv style into a selective CS conference narrative.
The author needs an evidence-gap, anonymity, artifact, rebuttal, or re-routing diagnosis for this venue.

Scope & topic fit

Core fit: experimental robotics, field robots, manipulation, navigation, embodied learning, and real-world validation.
Best submissions make a precise contribution type visible: algorithm, theorem, system, dataset, benchmark, empirical finding, design artifact, tool, or socio-technical analysis.
The paper should explain why the result matters to ISER's reviewers, not just why it is interesting to the authors' lab or product context.
Position related work against the most recent conference-cycle papers in this venue and its closest siblings; stale comparisons are a common early-review weakness.
If the contribution is interdisciplinary, state which part is CS research and which part is domain evidence.

Venue-specific calibration

Reviewer lens: Treat ISER as a experimental robotics venue whose reviewers expect the scope and evidence to match its own community. Do not submit a generic CS paper until the introduction names the exact subcommunity, contribution type, and proof or empirical standard.
Contribution hook to foreground: the venue-specific contribution bar.
Scope vocabulary to use naturally in the abstract and introduction: experimental robotics, field robots, manipulation, navigation, embodied learning, and real-world validation.
Distinctive fingerprint for reviewer calibration: experimental, robotics, field, robots, manipulation, navigation, embodied, learning, real-world, validation, venue-specific, contribution, iser-robotics.
Official anchor domain: www.iser-robotics.org. Quote annual rules only after opening that source and the current-year CFP/author kit.

Close-neighbor routing guardrail

Route to ISER when the evidence is the contribution: real robot experiments, field trials, hardware constraints, repeatability, failures, and performance under physical-world conditions.
Do not confuse ISER with ISRR. ISRR should read as agenda-setting robotics research; CoRL as robot learning; ICRA/IROS as broader robotics conference targets.

What distinguishes this venue from its closest siblings

What ISER is. The International Symposium on Experimental Robotics — single-track, experiment-validated robotics results.
vs ISRR. ISRR (International Symposium on Robotics Research) is the foundational/forward-looking robotics symposium; ISER emphasizes experimental validation.
vs ICRA/IROS. The IEEE flagships are larger and multi-track; ISER/ISRR are selective single-track symposia — route by format and emphasis.

ISER-specific routing detail

Prefer ISER when the contribution is experimentally grounded robotics: real-robot protocols, embodied system behavior, controlled experimental design, or empirical comparison of robotic methods.
Route broad robotics theory and long-horizon research vision to ISRR, flagship robot systems to RSS/ICRA/IROS, and human-interaction claims to HRI/RO-MAN when people are central.
ISER evidence should make robot platform, task distribution, number of trials, reset policy, failure modes, and sim-to-real boundaries inspectable.

Method & evidence bar

Report hardware, simulation, environment, task distribution, reset procedure, and failure cases; embodied evidence must be inspectable.
Compare against meaningful robot-learning, planning, or control baselines under matched assumptions.
Separate simulation gains from real-world transfer and quantify reliability, not only best-case success.
For ISER, the evidence must support the venue-specific signature: a robotics paper where experimental evidence and real-world performance are the contribution.
Include limitations, negative results, compute/resource reporting, data provenance, and ethics details when they affect the claim.

Structure & house style

Lead with the robot task and system constraint before the algorithmic component.
Use video or supplementary material only as allowed by the current anonymous-review policy.
Use the current official template exactly; do not guess page limits, font sizes, supplement rules, anonymity exceptions, or camera-ready requirements from old cycles.
The introduction should answer: problem, why now, what is new, why this venue, and what evidence proves the claim.
Put the strongest result in the main paper, not only in the appendix or supplement; reviewers should not have to reconstruct the contribution.

Official-cycle checklist

Open the live official venue page: https://www.iser-robotics.org/
Re-check the current cycle's CFP, author kit, submission system, abstract/paper deadlines, page limits, supplementary-material rules, anonymity policy, dual-submission policy, ethics policy, AI-use policy, artifact/code/data expectations, rebuttal/author-response format, and camera-ready requirements.
Confirm the review workflow and portal: OpenReview / CMT / HotCRP / PCS / START or society portal, as specified for the current cycle.
Check whether accepted papers require in-person presentation, separate registration, artifact badges, proceedings copyright, or post-acceptance release forms.
If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.

Pre-submission self-check

One sentence states why this manuscript belongs at ISER, using the venue's scope rather than generic "top conference" language.
The claim is calibrated to the evidence: no broader than the datasets, proofs, systems, user studies, deployments, or threat model support.
Related work includes the nearest current-cycle experimental robotics papers and explains the technical delta.
The paper satisfies the current official template, anonymity, ethics, artifact, and rebuttal requirements.
The main paper is self-contained enough for reviewers to evaluate novelty and correctness without hunting through external links.

Common desk-reject triggers

Simulation-only evidence for a claim about real robots.
No clear task distribution, few trials, or missing failure analysis.
A learning curve without robot-specific insight or system integration.
Formatting, anonymity, dual-submission, external-link, or supplement violations under the current-year policy.
A contribution framed for a neighboring field while giving ISER reviewers too little technical or empirical substance.

Re-routing decision

If the paper misses ISER's bar, compare against ieee-international-conference-on-robotics-and-automation / ieee-rsj-international-conference-on-intelligent-robots-and-systems / robotics-science-and-systems / conference-on-robot-learning. Re-route based on contribution type, not prestige: theory to a theory venue, systems to a systems venue, application-heavy work to a domain venue, and early ideas to workshops or shorter tracks when the official CFP supports them.

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER)
[Contribution type] algorithm / theory / system / dataset / benchmark / empirical / design / security / other
[Main evidence gap] <single most important missing proof, experiment, study, artifact, or policy check>
[Official items to re-check] CFP / author kit / deadline / format / anonymity / ethics / AI-use / artifact / rebuttal / camera-ready
[Top rejection risk] <venue-specific risk>
[Re-route suggestion] <better-matched conference or journal if not a fit>