ICRA is the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society's biggest conference and one of the leading international forums for robotics researchers to present their work.

ICRA, the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, is an annual academic conference covering advances in robotics. It is one of the premier conferences in its field. This year, I was invited to attend to its 2017 edition in Singapore. With a superb organization and a beautiful location, the event included conferences of leading researchers and companies from all around the world, as well as workshops and an exhibitors area. This latter is where I spent most of my time, as I love direct interaction with the companies and research centres.

The next edition of IEEE 2017 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) is in Singapore! The event kicked off on Monday 29 May and is running until 3 June. ICRA is one of the leading international forums for robotics researchers to present their work. The conference theme, "Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Real-world Solutions", underscores the need for innovative R&D talent, dynamic and goal-driven entrepreneurs and practitioners using robotics and automation technology to solve challenging real-world problems such as shortage of labour, an ageing society, and creating sustainable environments. ICRA 2017 will introduce a new Robotics Innovation & Entrepreneurship Forum, alongside an industry forum, a government forum, an ASEAN & emerging country forum, a public forum (ICRA-X) centred on the conference theme, and an ethics forum.

Every six months, an enormous posse of top robotics researchers from around the world converge on some moderately exotic location to impress each other with their latest research. Right now, we're at the 2017 edition of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), which is taking place as you read this in Singapore. As always, we're going to do our best to read every single paper and attend every single technical session, even though there are 11 tracks all happening at the same time along with workshops, forums, and an expo. You can expect to see posts this week about what's most novel and interesting from the conference, but (again, as always) there's way too much cool stuff to cram into just one week: We'll continue to post ICRA-related content for the next few weeks, even as we get back to our regular robotics news. And if you're at ICRA, come say hi! I'll be the harassed-looking dude with a big camera frantically running between sessions.