The 17th International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions (ICARSC 2017) is an international forum bringing together researchers from all robotics areas aiming to discuss the latest progress in their research field and how to integrate benchmarking methodologies to compare and evaluate with accuracy advances in the state-of-the-art. Robotics competitions are a standard approach for assessing and comparing the capabilities of robots on performing a particular task. The conference is technically co-sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and organized jointly with the 17th Portuguese Robotics Open, a RoboCup - sponsored local event. The University of Coimbra and the Portuguese Robotics Society promote the meeting, to take place in Coimbra, Portugal, on April 26-28, 2017.
 
ICARSC is organized in a single track to favor discussion and interactions, accompanied with poster sessions and keynote speeches. Contributions from the academy, industry and outputs from collaboration between industrial and academic R&D units are welcome.