We are pleased to announce the Call for Papers for the 2025 RAPDASA-RobMech-PRASA-AMI international conference to be held on 27 - 30 October 2025 in the CSIR International Convention Centre in Pretoria, 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 2025 conference is “Bridging the gap between industry and academia”.

Bridging the gap between academia and industry in advanced manufacturing, including areas like additive manufacturing, robotics, advanced materials, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, is essential for accelerating innovation, fostering technological adoption, and addressing real-world challenges.

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 product development and 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

Knowledge Based Systems

Information Technology Applied to Manufacturing

Computer-Aided Engineering Education

Sensors and Applications

Robotics and Automation

Lean Manufacturing Logistics

Management of Technology

Operations Management

Education and Training

Agile Manufacturing

Mechatronics

Distributed Control Systems

Renewable Energy

Manufacturing Neural Networks

Who should attend?

The Organizing Committee 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. 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 extended abstracts of papers and posters: 28 February 2025

Notification of acceptance of extended abstracts of papers and posters: 14 March 2025

Deadline for submission of abstracts of participants from industry: 6 June 2025

Deadline for submission of full papers: 9 May 2025

Feedback on reviews of full papers: 4 August 2025

Submission deadline for final revised papers: 1 September 2025

Submission deadline for poster designs: 26 September 2025

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