First Announcement and Call for Papers

Following the success of the 2023 RAPDASA Conference, joined by RobMech, PRASA and AMI, hosted at the CSIR in November 2023, we are pleased to announce the first call for papers for the 2024 RAPDASA international conference to be held on 28 - 31 October 2024 at the Boardwalk Hotel and Conference Venue in Gqeberha, South Africa. RAPDASA is again joined by Robotics and Mechatronics (RobMech), the Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa (PRASA) and the South African Advanced Materials Initiative (AMI).

This conference will bring together experts from industry, R&D institutions, academia and students in additive manufacturing, materials engineering, rapid product development, pattern recognition, robotics and mechatronics to present research, network and expand the fraternity that has been built by the previous conferences.

The theme of the 2024 conference is:

Unlocking Advanced Manufacturing

This is a call to everyone involved with advanced manufacturing in its various forms. Our collective aim is to support and advance the manufacturing industry for inclusive economic growth, academic collaboration, increasing competitiveness and improving the livelihoods of people.

The conference will offer opportunities for local and international participants from industry, R&D institutions, academia and government, to connect and collaborate to grow the next generation of advanced manufacturing enterprises across the African continent and globally.

Conference papers on the following topics are welcomed:

Additive Manufacturing

Rapid Prototyping

Advanced Manufacturing

Computer-aided Design

Product Engineering

Reverse Engineering

Design, Simulation and Modelling

Process Modelling

Structural Analysis

Materials Selection for Design

Materials Engineering

Materials Processing

Tooling Design and Development

Classifiers and related topics

Speech processing

Natural language processing

Computer vision and image processing

Bioinformatics

Signal processing

Remote sensing

Artificial intelligence

Machine learning

Computational analytics

End-user applications and systems

FMS Artificial Intelligence

Knowledge Based Systems

Information Technology Applied to Manufacturing

Computer-Aided Engineering Education

Sensors and Applications

Robots and Automation

Lean Manufacturing Logistics

Modelling and Simulation Scheduling

Management of Technology

Operations Management

Education and Training using Robotics

Agile Manufacturing

Mechatronics

Distributed Control Systems

Energy

Manufacturing Neural Networks

Mobile robotics

Mining robotics

Who should attend?

The Organizing Committee, on behalf of RAPDASA, RobMech, PRASA and AMI, invites product designers, engineers, production staff, technical directors and managers from industry involved in design, development and manufacturing of products and components to participate or simply attend the conference. In addition, participants from international product development and materials engineering communities, academia and R&D institutions are also invited to attend and participate in the conference. Furthermore, additive manufacturing, robotics and pattern recognition, are becoming important for general managers and CEOs and the world of finance and investment. Ample opportunities will be available to meet with experts in the field.

Important deadlines:

Deadline for submission of paper and poster abstracts: 29 March 2024

Notification of acceptance of abstracts of papers and posters: 8 April 2024

Deadline for submission of full papers: 3 June 2024

Feedback on paper reviews: 2 September 2024

Submission deadline for final revised papers: 30 September 2024

Submission deadline for poster designs: 30 September 2024

Please see <Conference abstract & paper submission> instructions on the RAPDASA website at http://rapdasa.org on how to submit an abstract to the conference.

Publication of papers

Abstracts must first be accepted before submission of a full paper can proceed. All papers submitted for the conference will be subjected to a double-blind peer review process, which will be led by the Technical Committee. Papers accepted after peer review will be published in the conference proceedings in MATEC Web of Conferences. Selected papers that comply with the scope of the journal and are of high quality, will be submitted for publication in the ISI accredited The South African Journal of Industrial Engineering (SAJIE).  

Industry presentations

As an alternative to the above publication of peer-reviewed papers, industry participants can present their applied research in a non-peer-reviewed format. Only an abstract must be submitted for such industry presentations. Industry presentations are not included in the conference proceedings.

The deadline for industry abstracts is 28 June 2024.

Companies or organisations that wish to be a sponsor of the conference proceedings may contact Rynette Coetzer at info@rapdasa.org