--- name: icra-submission description: Use when auditing an ICRA paper for upload — PaperPlaza account and metadata, the 6-page-plus-2-reference-page limit, IEEE two-column template compliance, the double-anonymous rule introduced in the 2026 cycle, video-attachment specs (180 s, 20 MB), dual-submission conflicts with RA-L, and return-without-review triggers. --- # ICRA Submission Final-gate audit for a direct ICRA conference submission on PaperPlaza (`ras.papercept.net`), the RAS submission system used across ICRA, IROS, and RA-L. Everything here is anchored to the verified ICRA 2026 cycle; the numbers move, so open the current year's "call for papers" page before trusting any of them. ## Hard limits (2026-cycle values — reverify each year) | Check | 2026 rule | Consequence if violated | |---|---|---| | Page count at submission | 6 pages of content + up to 2 pages containing only references | Returned without review | | Format | IEEE two-column conference template (RAS PaperPlaza support page templates), PDF only | Compliance failure at upload | | Anonymity | Double-anonymous: no authors/affiliations in the PDF; full author list entered in PaperPlaza metadata | Administrative rejection | | Video attachment | ≤ 180 seconds, ≤ 20 MB, one of mpeg/mp4/mpg | Rejected by the upload form | | Video timing | Only inside the posted windows (2026: Aug 5–Sep 9 and Sep 17–22) | No video on record, no late path | | Deadline | Sep 15, 2025, 23:59 **Pacific** (not AoE) | Closed portal | The Pacific-time detail is a live trap: authors calibrated to AoE deadlines at ML conferences lose up to five hours. ## The 2026 anonymity turn Through ICRA 2025, review was single-blind — author names printed on page one. The 2026 cycle switched to double-anonymous. Concretely: - Strip the author block, affiliations, and identifying acknowledgements/grant numbers from the PDF; keep the full, final author list in PaperPlaza metadata (it cannot be extended casually later — treat the metadata list as binding). - Rewrite platform tells: "our previously developed XYZ-Arm [12]" becomes "the XYZ-Arm [12]" with third-person citation. - Blur or crop lab-identifying scenery in figures *and in the video attachment* — posters on the wall, safety vests with logos, institute door signs. - Anonymize linked material: a GitHub URL with a lab organization name is an identity leak. Use an anonymized mirror or omit the link at submission. - Because the policy is one cycle old, confirm it still holds for the target year before de-anonymizing or re-anonymizing anything. ## PaperPlaza mechanics worth knowing in advance - Every author needs a PaperPlaza PIN; collecting PINs from six co-authors on deadline night is a known time sink — do it the week the site opens. - The system runs its own PDF compliance test (fonts embedded, page size, page count); a failing PDF can be re-uploaded until the deadline, so test early. - Keywords/session topics are chosen from a fixed RAS taxonomy and steer which Associate Editor sees the paper — pick the two or three closest, not the broadest. - The submission confirmation email is the only receipt; archive it. ## PDF craft the compliance checker enforces - Fonts must be embedded — the usual failures are figures exported from MATLAB/matplotlib with Type 3 or missing fonts; regenerate with embedded TrueType/Type 1 before deadline week. - US Letter page size per the IEEE template; a European A4 build fails quietly. - Vector figures where possible: reviewers zoom into plots of contact forces and trajectories, and rasterized 300-dpi exports turn to mush at 400%. - Keep the final PDF a sane size — a 60 MB paper full of uncompressed photos strains the system and the reviewers' patience even where no hard cap bites. ## Dual-submission and the RA-L boundary The same manuscript may not be simultaneously under review at ICRA and anywhere else — including RA-L, arXiv exempted (a preprint is allowed; check the current policy text for wording). The clean patterns: - ICRA reject in January → revise → RA-L in February. Legal and common. - RA-L accept in autumn → transfer within the posted window for conference presentation. Legal; this is the designed pathway. - Same PDF to ICRA (September) and RA-L (October) "to hedge": dual submission, discoverable trivially since both run on PaperPlaza infrastructure with overlapping editorial boards. ## Metadata fields that outlive the deadline Three PaperPlaza fields have consequences authors rarely anticipate: - **Author list**: feeds the eventual IEEE Xplore record; a co-author omitted "to add later" creates an authorship dispute vector, not a placeholder. - **Keywords**: route the paper to an Editor's area and its reviewer pool — effectively the only reviewer-selection influence authors get (see `icra-review-process`). - **Abstract**: printed in the program and reviewer-bidding views; a stale abstract that diverges from the PDF makes bidding reviewers feel misled. ## Return-without-review triage ```text severity ▲ │ 7-page content body ............... certain return, no repair after deadline │ author names on page 1 (2026+) .... administrative reject │ template swapped for ML style ..... compliance flag, likely return │ references interleaved so page 7 │ contains prose ................... counts against content limit — fix now │ video 200 s / 25 MB ............... attachment refused; trim or re-encode │ acknowledgements naming the grant │ and PI .......................... anonymity leak; delete for review ▼ metadata abstract ≠ PDF abstract ... sloppiness signal to the AE; sync them ``` ## Pre-upload sequence (final 48 hours) 1. Regenerate the PDF from a clean clone of the paper repo; confirm the IEEE template class file is untouched. 2. Run the page split check: content ends on or before page 6; pages 7-8 contain nothing but the bibliography. 3. Anonymity sweep: PDF metadata (`pdfinfo`), acknowledgements, self-citations, figure backgrounds, video frames, embedded links. 4. Play the video attachment start to finish on a machine without the lab codecs; verify duration, size, and that captions carry no names. 5. Enter/verify PaperPlaza metadata: authors, keywords, abstract synced to PDF. 6. Upload paper and video; pass the compliance check; archive the confirmation. ## Output format ```text [ICRA upload verdict] go / fix-first / no-go [Page audit] content /6, reference pages /2 [Anonymity audit] pass / leaks: [Video audit] s / MB / format / window date ok? [Metadata audit] authors final? keywords chosen? abstract synced? [Dual-submission] clear / conflict: [Deadline math] vs 23:59 Pacific = ```