| name | icra-paper |
| description | Use this skill to help write, structure, polish, format, or review a paper for ICRA (IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, any year), or whenever the user mentions 'ICRA', an IEEE robotics paper, PaperPlaza submission, or IEEEtran double-column robotics manuscripts. Helps with ideation and narrative, section structure, sentence-level polishing, LaTeX/IEEEtran formatting, figures and tables (including leaving sized placeholders for figures), citation verification, and a submission checklist. Single-blind, video-attachment venue. Always verify exact dates, page limits, and policies against that year's official ICRA Call for Papers, since they change annually. |
ICRA Paper Writing
Help the user take a robotics paper from idea to a polished, correctly formatted ICRA
submission. You can brainstorm the narrative, structure sections, polish prose, build
LaTeX/figures/tables (or leave sized placeholders), verify citations, and run a reviewer
self-check.
How to use this skill
Pick the workflow that matches the request; load the matching reference file on demand
(do not load them all at once):
| User wants | Do this | Reference |
|---|
| Find the story / contribution / outline | nail the one-sentence contribution, then outline | references/ideation-and-structure.md |
| Draft or restructure a section | use the section blueprint | references/ideation-and-structure.md |
| Polish / tighten / "does this flow" | apply clarity principles + claim-evidence map | references/writing-and-polishing.md |
| Figures, tables, or placeholders | design or reserve space; generate plots | references/figures-and-tables.md, assets/ |
| Generate a flowchart / pipeline / experiment plot | run the helper scripts | references/generating-diagrams.md, assets/make_flowchart.py, assets/make_experiment_figures.py |
| Add citations | verify before citing; never hallucinate | references/citations.md |
| Set up LaTeX / fix formatting / convert venue | template workflow + pitfalls | references/latex-and-submission.md |
| Final pass before submitting | run the checklist below + 5-dimension self-review | this file + references/writing-and-polishing.md |
Be proactive: if the contribution and results are clear, deliver a full draft and flag
open choices, rather than asking permission section by section.
At a glance
- Conference: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (annual).
- Submission system: PaperPlaza (https://ras.papercept.net).
- Review model: single-blind (author names usually included; confirm each cycle).
- A supplementary video is allowed and strongly encouraged.
Dates change every year — check the current CFP
Do not rely on memorized dates. For the target cycle, open the official site
(e.g. https://20XX.ieee-icra.org) and read off the paper deadline, notification,
camera-ready, and conference dates/location. Rough rhythm (planning only): paper
deadline around September of the prior year; conference the following May/June.
Format (ICRA-specific)
- Template: IEEE conference template, IEEEtran class, two columns, 10pt, US Letter.
- ICRA commonly uses
\documentclass[letterpaper,10pt,conference]{ieeeconf}, or the
standard IEEEtran conference template per the CFP.
- Length: typically 6 pages of technical content; up to 8 allowed with an over-length
charge for pages 7-8. References usually count toward the limit. Confirm in the CFP.
- Video: common limits around 3 minutes and tens of MB; check the CFP for exact specs.
Structure notes specific to ICRA
Follow the general blueprint in references/ideation-and-structure.md, with robotics emphasis:
- Lead the abstract with the concrete capability and a key quantitative result.
- Include a clear system/architecture figure early (reserve it with a placeholder if needed).
- Experiments: report real-robot or hardware results when possible; give the platform,
sensors, and compute; report success rate, timing, and failure modes, not just averages;
multiple trials with variance.
- Tie video segments to specific figures/claims.
- State assumptions explicitly (known map, calibrated camera, etc.).
Submission checklist (ICRA)
When helping the user
- Ask the target topic/track and whether they have real-robot results.
- Offer to scaffold an IEEEtran skeleton, draft contribution bullets, build the system
figure as a placeholder, or tighten the experiments section.
- Flag anything that depends on the CFP (page fees, video specs, blind policy) and suggest
confirming on the current ICRA site.
