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

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>