12th European Conference Update

​Conference Chair Schalk Els reports that both the program and the abstracts (47 K PDF) for the 12th European Conference of the ISTVS are set for the September conference.

Highlights include demonstrations at the test tracks at Gerotek and a tour of the laboratories at the University of Pretoria. The conference schedule will allow ample time for informal connections with your fellow attendees, along with formal scheduled time for ISTVS Working Groups.

Cultural opportunities include the African Aerospace and Defence show and short Pretoria city tour, a visit to a rhino and lion park, dinner at the famous Carnivore Restaurant, a trip on the Gautrain to Sandton City, and a trip to the Lesedi African Lodge and Cultural Village.

See link below for the abstracts PDF, and visit the conference website for full details and to register!

Call for Papers: 12th European ISTVS Conference, Pretoria, South Africa, Sept 2012

​Conference venue:
​Gerotek Test Facilities, South Africa

The 12th European Regional Conference of the ISTVS will be hosted in Pretoria, South Africa from 24 to 28 September 2012. Pretoria, the capital of South Africa, was founded in 1855. It is a large African city with around 3.2 million people and spans 3200 square kilometers in area.

The University of Pretoria, founded in 1908, is the biggest residential university in South Africa with around 50 000 students and 9 faculties.

The conference venue is the Gerotek Test Facilities, 25km west of Pretoria. Gerotek is an all-encompassing test facility, with a wide variety of test tracks and terrains, at which vehicle development and evaluation tests can be performed in a typical South African environment. Hosting the conference at this facility creates exciting opportunities for some hands-on vehicle experience.

ESTEQ is hosting the conference website and handle the registration and paper submission process:

Conference site
Call for papers

Conference themes include the following:

• Soil and terrain modeling and characterisation
• Planetary rovers and mobile robotics
• Tires, wheels and tracks modeling
• Agricultural and earth moving equipment
• Operation on snow and ice
• Vehicle dynamics, mobility and safety
• Terramechanics
• Test and measurement

All papers will be peer-reviewed, and those accepted will be included in the conference proceedings. We strongly encourage all authors to submit full papers, but will also accept oral presentations and posters, for which only an abstract needs to be submitted. To facilitate the communication and the exchange of ideas at the conference, all authors are also strongly encouraged to prepare a poster for each paper they present.

Abstract submissions are open now and abstracts will be accepted until 18 May [deadline extended].

Full papers, based on accepted abstracts will be accepted up to 2 July.

The Conference Chair is Schalk Els, Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Pretoria. Contact information:

Professor Schalk Els
Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering
Private Bag X20
Hatfield
0028
SOUTH AFRICA

Phone: (+27-12) 420-2045
Fax: (+27-12) 362-5087

Email: schalk.els(at)up.ac.za

Deadline Extended to 5/18: Call for Papers, 12th European Conference

​Conference Chair Professor Schalk has extended the deadline for abstract submissions to May 18, 2012. Full papers, based on accepted abstracts will be accepted up to 2 July. The 12th European Regional Conference of the ISTVS will be hosted in Pretoria, South Africa from 24 to 28 September 2012.

Conference themes include the following:

• Soil and terrain modeling and characterisation
• Planetary rovers and mobile robotics
• Tires, wheels and tracks modeling
• Agricultural and earth moving equipment
• Operation on snow and ice
• Vehicle dynamics, mobility and safety
• Terramechanics
• Test and measurement

All papers will be peer-reviewed, and those accepted will be included in the conference proceedings. We strongly encourage all authors to submit full papers, but will also accept oral presentations and posters, for which only an abstract needs to be submitted. To facilitate the communication and the exchange of ideas at the conference, all authors are also strongly encouraged to prepare a poster for each paper they present.

Contact information:

Professor Schalk Els
Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering
Private Bag X20
Hatfield
0028
SOUTH AFRICA

Phone: (+27-12) 420-2045
Fax: (+27-12) 362-5087

Email: schalk.els@up.ac.za

Call for Papers: 18th International ISTVS Conference in Seoul, Korea, 2014

The ISTVS Board of Directors at the meeting held in Blacksburg, Virginia, on September 18, 2011, decided to hold the next International ISTVS Conference at Seoul, Korea, in 2014.

It will be the 18th ISTVS International Conference and the second time a ISTVS conference will be held in Seoul: the first was the 5th Asian and Pacific Regional Conference held in 1998. Prof. Kyeong Uk Kim of Seoul National University, Conference Chairman, said conference preparation will be started in the next year and the conference website will be launched sometime in October 2012.

Prof. Kim has prepared a slidedeck of conference hhighlights that we've posted online for you to see here.

Conference highlights

When: 4th week of September 2014

Where: Hoam Faculty House of Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea

What: Plenary sessions, technical sessions, poster sessions, technical tour, social opportunities.

CALL FOR PAPERS

In the areas of:

• Tires, wheels, and tracks

• Soil and terrain

• Operations on snow and ice

• Vehicle mobility and safety

• Agricultural and forestry machinery

• Mining, earthmoving and construction machinery

• Military vehicles

• Performance assessment

• Planetary rovers and mobile robotics

• Education in soil-machine systems

ISTVS thanks Dr Corina Sandu, 17th International Conference Chair

Dr Corina Sandhu at the conference in Blacksburg with her Virginia Tech graduate students.

Dr. Corina Sandu, our 17th International Conference Chair, has sent a letter of greeting to all the participants in this year's international ISTVS conference (below).

The ISTVS would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to Dr. Sandu for chairing the 17th International Conference. As many of you will know, preparing for a conference is a tremendous amount of work, and running the conference itself requires excellent stamina and lots of quick thinking. Our Blacksburg participants received an excellent and professional conference, and also got to experience a region of the United States that is rich with history as well as a serious commitment to wheeled vehicles!

We are deeply grateful for your efforts for the 2011 Conference, Dr. Sandu.

ISTVS Board of Directors

p.s. View our YouTube channel and reconnect with your conference colleagues

Dr. Sandu’s postconference letter to our participants

Dear participants in the 17th International Conference of the ISTVS,

Thank you again for participating in the 17th International Conference in Blacksburg.

It was wonderful to have all of you here in September, and your effort to travel from fifteen countries to attend this event made our conference a splendid example of real international cooperation.

Your 70 high-quality publications, 80 technical presentations, and 13 posters illustrate the great research our community is conducting, as well as its uniqueness.

As part of the celebration of the fifty years since the inception of ISTVS, we had the honor to hear from a distinguished group of panelists. The technical tour took us to Southside Virginia, VIPER, VIR, and Martinsville Speedway; some of you also toured CVeSS, AVDL, and RTL. Many thanks again to our exhibitors, Kistler Instruments, KRC, and ERDC, and to our sponsors, COE at VT, VIPER, and VIR.

We also had some time to relax and reconnect during the social program at Mountain Lake, Chateau Morrisette, and The Inn at Virginia Tech. Now that all these events are part of the past, I hope that they will become wonderful memories, and that celebrating the first fifty years of ISTVS was in the same time a gate opened towards the next fifty years for our society.

Looking forward with enthusiasm, I wish everyone a great year ahead, in great health, with many professional and personal accomplishments.

Cordially yours,

Corina Sandu, Ph.D.
​
Conference Chair of The 17th International Conference of the ISTVS
​
September 19-22, 2011, Blacksburg, VA, U.S.
​
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
​
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University