RA-L Submission Guide

Journal Positioning and Venue Choice

According to the official description of IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L):

The scope of this journal is to publish peer-reviewed articles that provide a timely and concise account of innovative research ideas and application results, reporting significant theoretical findings and application case studies in areas of robotics and automation.

In practice, this means:

• •RA-L is a letter journal, not a full-length journal.
• •Its scope covers robotics and automation.
• •It welcomes theory, algorithms, systems, and application contributions.
• •The manuscript is limited to 8 double-column pages total, typically 7 pages of main text plus 1 page of references, with no appendix.
• •It is open year-round, with a publication cycle of about five months.

Journal taste: what kind of paper fits RA-L?

RAS venues care about real robotics problems. It is usually better to tell the story from the robotics problem rather than from the AI method.

RA-L is a good fit for papers with a clear story and precise contribution. If the system is not yet large enough, RA-L can be better than RSS; for a fully integrated large system, RSS may be a better target.

Impact reference

One personal estimate of relative impact in robotics is:

• •RSS = 1.2× RAL/CoRL = 1.7× ICRA = 2.5× IROS
• •RA-L sits between ICRA/IROS and a long-form journal like TRO.

How to choose between RA-L and ICRA?

• •If the paper is already quite complete, RA-L is attractive because you get a rebuttal chance and stronger papers are often easier to push through.
• •If the paper is still somewhat incomplete, ICRA can be more suitable. There is no rebuttal, so results are more stochastic, but some incomplete papers still get in.

Writing and Formatting Requirements

Initial submission basics

• •Use the ieee conf template. The trans template is for the final version.
• •Submit anonymously under double-blind review. Do not include author information in the paper.
• •The manuscript plus references is limited to 8 pages total. Pages beyond 6 cost $175 each.
• •There is no appendix. Uploading extra text material can trigger a desk rejection.
• •You may submit multimedia material such as videos or code, but not an appendix.

Formatting details

• •Do not overflow the page boundary or exceed the page limit, otherwise the system may reject the upload.
• •If space is tight, reduce spacing with `\vspace`, and use `\small` or `\tiny` for equations when necessary.
• •Never change the page margins.
• •Both PDF and video uploads have size limits. Compress the PDF with Acrobat when needed, and prefer PDF images because they are often sharper and smaller.

Important Links

Initial Submission Checklist

Everything is handled through the RAS PaperCept system, not the general IEEE system.

Submission tips

• •Do not choose the Editor-in-Chief blindly. Check their Google Scholar profile and understand their area.
• •If keywords are hard to choose, you can use GPT for suggestions, then verify them yourself.
• •Write a cover letter. It affects how the AE assigns reviewers.
• •Conference-to-RA-L transfer is usually not recommended if the work is still short. Two or three conference papers can often be combined into a stronger long-form journal paper later.

Review Timeline

Sometimes the AE may request multiple rounds of rebuttal, each with another one-month revision window.

Rebuttal Strategy

About three months after submission, you will receive the decision email. If the result is Revise and Resubmit, that is already a good sign: the AE believes the work is worth continuing. You then have 30 days to revise, with a reminder email about five days before the deadline.

What to submit

• 1.Response to Reviewers (Statement of Changes), with point-by-point replies.
• 2.Marked manuscript, with all changes highlighted.
• 3.Clean manuscript, the final revised version.
• 4.Cover letter, still required at this stage.

Response tips

• •Reply one by one to every reviewer comment.
• •According to the official guidance, you may update the title and author list when needed.

Final Version Submission

Reference links

Camera-ready checklist

• 1.Switch to the ieee trans template. It is safer to copy the project into a new LaTeX workspace rather than editing the original one in place.
• 2.Download every file from Overleaf and upload them into the new template project, except for the template's own cls file.
• 3.Add author information and the author biography block at the lower left. Put acknowledgements before the references.
• 4.The trans layout is roomier than conf, so most papers fit. If it still overflows, adjust spacing or figure sizes; the editor may also help later.
• 5.Approximate date information is fine. The editor will usually help check it.

You then sign the copyright form, which requires a DOI, and upload both the final PDF and the source files.

Fees

• •RA-L provides a dedicated payment system.
• •Open access is optional. In many cases, posting the paper on arXiv is already sufficient.
• •Pages beyond 6 cost $175 each, paid by Visa or MasterCard.

Publication

After payment, IEEE will first release an early access version. The paper is then assigned to a nearby issue, often in the following month.

Conference Transfer

• •Check the official Upcoming conferences page for eligible venues and deadlines.
• •Transferred conference papers do not go through another review round. They are directly accepted.
• •You still need to pay the conference registration fee, and a student registration usually covers only one paper.
• •RA-L promises publication within 6 months of submission.