iros-topic-selection

Business

Use when deciding whether a project is a strong IROS fit, routing among ICRA, RSS, CoRL, RA-L, T-RO, HRI, and CASE from IROS's seat on the fall IEEE/RSJ calendar, identifying the integrated-system contribution and its embodiment constraint, and sharpening the intelligent-robots-and-systems framing before writing begins.

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Source SKILL.md: https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills/blob/HEAD/IROS-Skills/skills/iros-topic-selection/SKILL.md

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IROS Topic Selection

Use this before writing. IROS is strongest for an integrated intelligent system — perception, estimation, planning, learning, or control working together on a robot — validated under a real embodiment constraint. The house question is not "is the idea novel?" but "does the system run, on stated hardware, and is that demonstrably hard?"

Fit test

Prefer IROS when the contribution is a working system for perception-action integration, autonomy, navigation, manipulation, robot learning deployed on hardware, human-aware robotics, or fielded systems — and the embodiment (sensors, compute, power, latency) shapes the design.
Route to ICRA when the work is a fine automation/robotics contribution whose natural slot is the spring cycle; IROS and ICRA overlap heavily, so timing and program fit often decide.
Route to RSS when the contribution is a single, foundational, science-first claim that wants a single-track audience and a rebuttal, rather than deployed-system breadth.
Route to CoRL when the learning method is the contribution and robots are the testbed, more than the system integration being the point.
Route to RA-L / T-RO when the work wants journal review and revision, then optionally a conference presentation via the transfer window.
Route to HRI / RO-MAN for interaction studies with human-subjects methodology, and to CASE for automation-science and factory-scale problems.

Fit signal table

Signal in the project	IROS reading
A system that runs on real hardware under a compute/power/latency budget	Core fit — the house genre
Perception + planning + control integrated and evaluated end to end	Core fit
A single foundational theorem or model, science-first, best with rebuttal	Better served at RSS
A learning algorithm whose novelty carries the paper, robot as testbed	Better served at CoRL
A polished demo with no trials, resets, or failure analysis	Not yet IROS-shaped — build evidence
Journal-length exposition or need for revision cycles	RA-L or T-RO, then transfer to present

Vignette: where a legged-locomotion project goes

A project delivers a controller that keeps a quadruped upright on loose gravel, on the robot, with trial counts and a failure taxonomy. IROS reading: strong fit — an integrated system meeting a terrain constraint with embodied evidence. Strip the hardware and keep only a simulation policy-learning result, and it drifts toward CoRL; distill it to one provable stability claim wanting single-track scrutiny, and RSS becomes the better home; grow it into a journal-length treatment with revisions, and RA-L or T-RO fits, after which the transfer window can still put it on an IROS stage.

Sharpening moves before committing

Name the embodiment constraint the system respects — onboard compute, power budget, sensor noise, contact uncertainty, or real-time latency. If nothing physical constrains the design, the IROS framing is thin.
Confirm the argument fits the body alone: IROS has no supplementary PDF, so a system that only makes sense with an appendix is mis-sized.
Verify you can produce embodied evidence — real trials, resets, failures, and a stated sim-to-real gap — not just a curve or a single hero run.
Robotics program emphasis drifts between cycles and cities; scan the current CFP topic list before final routing.

Quick router:
  system on real hardware under a physical constraint? ---> IROS (or ICRA by season)
  single foundational science claim, wants rebuttal? ----> RSS
  the learning method is the contribution? -------------> CoRL
  wants journal review + revisions? --------------------> RA-L / T-RO (then transfer to present)

Output format

[Fit] strong IROS / possible IROS / better elsewhere
[Best venue] IROS / ICRA / RSS / CoRL / RA-L / T-RO / HRI / CASE / other
[System sentence] <one sentence naming the integrated system>
[Embodiment constraint] <compute / power / latency / contact / sensing>
[Top rejection risk] <evidence / integration / novelty / scope>
[Next action] <build evidence, reframe, or switch venue>