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GIVE US YOUR FEEDBACK ON THE EUROPEAN ROBOTICS FORUM 

On behalf of the local organizing committee and euRobotics we would like to thank all our participants, sponsors, speakers, people involved in the workshops, exhibitors, students and all those other people who helped to make ERF 2022 such an amazing event. We enjoyed having you with us in Rotterdam. We hope you enjoyed this edition. Please take just a few moments to help us improve the event even further by scanning the QR code and contributing to our simple feedback document. Thanks in advance and see you next year in Odense!

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Welcome to the European Robotics Forum 2022, Rotterdam

It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to the European Robotics Forum 2022 in one modern, easily reachable, spectacular city: Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

The European Robotics Forum 2022 (ERF2022), the most influential meeting of the robotics community in Europe, will be held from 28 – 30 June in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The ERF2022 covers all aspects and current themes related to the field of robotics. Researchers, engineers, managers, and a growing number of entrepreneurs, businesspeople, and public funding officers from all over Europe come together to discuss technology push and market pull and how innovation in robotics and robotics-related AI can be accelerated.

The Netherlands is a highly international country with a history of commerce and trading, and nowadays one of the most innovative countries of the world with companies like Philips and ASML (world leader in lithographic machines), VanderLande (global market leader for future proof logistic process automation at airports, the parcel market and  leading supplier of process automation solutions for warehouses) and Lely (world leader in  milking robots). This small country is one of the few countries in the world with an organized robotics sector.  With a broad array of high-quality universities, both academic and applied sciences, The Netherlands has created a unique Triple-Helix structure in which public authorities, entrepreneurs and the education sector are working well together. Living labs, High-Tech companies that invest in smaller companies and strong emerging sectors, together with our strength in system-thinking and -integration, and our capacity to use our unique knowledge makes the Netherlands a perfect place for the 2022 European Robotics Forum.

Covid-19, Responsable Forum

All Covid rules and restrictions have been lifted in the Netherlands and most parts of Europe, but the virus has not gone away. You can take action to help protect yourself and keep others safer. Together these actions help reduce the risk and make it safer for everyone. In particular, euRobotics recommends that you wear a face mask in small rooms and crowded areas. See also  CDC Poster for a summary of recommended actions .

Scope ERF2022

The European Robotics Forum (ERF) is a 3-day event and one of the most influential event for the robotics and artificial intelligence community in Europe. It is the meeting point for engineers, academics, entrepreneurs, investors, as well as end-users and policy makers in the field of robotics from all over Europe and beyond.

Theme

This year’s overarching theme will be ‘Sustainability’ in the broadest sense of the word. In 4 plenary sessions divided over the 3 days, high level speakers from industry, knowledge institutes and government will share their vision on the following topics;

  • Sustainable Science related to Climate change; How Robotics could impact climate change
  • Self-sustaining networks; Working  together to boost competitiveness, societal wellbeing and environmental aspects
  • How Sustainable integration of technology can lead to future proof adaptation and mitigation in society (ELS)
  • Sustainable education: How rethinking engineering education, quality education and lifelong learning opportunities contribute to sustainable education

Programme

The organization of ERF2022 aims in providing an interdisciplinary platform for their delegates, and present and discuss the latest developments in European markets and innovations, future developments, strategies, challenges, and tactics in the field of Robotics via an interactive workshop programme.
This 13th edition an extra academic track is added to the interactive workshop programme with interesting  keynotes on relevant topics and poster sessions with a focus on late breaking results.

Our 2400m2 exhibition floor will provide exhibitors and sponsors an unique opportunity to interact with the delegates during breaks. Side activities (such as a hackathon, pitch sessions, etc.) will provide extra liveliness on the exhibition floor.

Healthy Conference

Conferences and meetings are usually thought of as sedentary events, as they require attendees to spend hours sitting down in enclosed spaces and listing. The organization of ERF2022  makes significant effort to create an interesting and  memorable event, not only from the content/programme perspective, but also from a health and well-being perspective.

Sustainable Conference

With this year’s overarching theme of ‘Sustainability’, the organization of the European Robotics Forum has also focused on creating the most sustainable event possible. 

Rotterdam itself focuses on a quick and efficient transition to a circular economy, smart city structure and sustainable future. It has many initiatives transforming how to live sustainably in an urban environment. 

The event takes place at Rotterdam Ahoy. This venue was chosen precisely because it already has sustainable measures in place, such as circular air-conditioning systems, energy-efficient LED lighting, and wastewater separation. 

The venue also provides barrier-free access for wheel- chair users wherever possible.The organizers have also considered the implementation of measures that facilitate the participation of people with other disabilities e.g. visually and hearing-impaired people. Please contact the organizers to request more information. 

Rotterdam Ahoy will also deliver catering focused on sustainability. At the event you will find seasonal, local and fresh products, disposable catering materials made from 100% recycled material and FSC certified wood.  

There will be sustainable gifts at this year’s European Robotics Forum to save vital resources and avoid gifts ending up being thrown away soon afterwards.

How can you contribute to a sustainable European Robotics Forum? 

The section “Travel and Stay” provides multiple different options to commute to Rotterdam using public transport. In order to attend the event it is important for us that you are able to find the option that best suits you and that has the lowest environmental impact. Furthermore, when it comes to your accommodation, select one that is close to the event venue so that you can conveniently arrive by walking or biking while saving time. 

Help us avoid paper waste: we recommend avoiding printing the ticket and instead consider saving the online version on your phone in a folder where you can quickly retrieve it.

Do not buy plastic water bottles: instead bring your own, at the event we will provide water dispensers where you can just refill it at convenience. 

Shipping of goods as exhibitors: we suggest shipping goods by road or sea instead of air.

Background

The European Robotics Forum 2022 (ERF2022), the most influential meeting of the robotics community in Europe, started in San Sebastian in 2010 and has grown into a major annual event with many hundreds of attendees every year. This top notch forum covers all aspects and current themes related to the field of robotics. Researchers, engineers, managers, and a growing number of entrepreneurs, businesspeople, and public funding officers from all over Europe come together to discuss technology push and market pull and how innovation in robotics and robotics-related AI can be accelerated.

The European Robotics Forum is an initiative of euRobotics in cooperation with a local co-host. euRobotics aisbl (Association Internationale Sans But Lucratif) is a Brussels based international non-profit association for all stakeholders in European robotics. It aims to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness and to ensure industrial leadership of manufacturers, providers and end-users of robotics technology-based systems and services.

The objectives of euRobotics are to boost European robotics research, development and innovation, and to foster a positive perception of robotics. It aims at:

  • strengthening competitiveness and ensuring industrial leadership of manufacturers, providers, and end users of robotics technology-based systems and services;
  • the widest and best uptake of robotics technologies and services for professional and private use;
  • the excellence of the science base of European robotics.

euRobotics builds upon the success of the European Robotics Technology Platform (EUROP) and the academic network of EURON, leading towards the establishment of one sustainable organisation for the entire European robotics community. The association has been nurtured by the partners of euRobotics, a Coordination Action funded by the EC under FP7 which started in 2010 and ended in December 2012. Since 2014, euRobotics collaborates with the European Commission in the Public-Private Partnership SPARC under Horizon2020 to develop and implement a strategy and a road-map for research, technological development and innovation in robotics.

Currently (2020), euRobotics engages in the preparation of the envisaged partnership on AI, Data and Robotics (ARDA) in the Horizon Europe programme (2021-2027).

Local organisation team

Stefano Stramigioli

GENERAL CHAIR

Stefano Stramigioli received the M.Sc. with honors (cum laude) in 1992 from the University of Bologna and the Ph.D with honors (cum laude) from the Delft University of Technology in 1998. Since then he has been faculty member and he is currently full professor of Advanced Robotics and chair of the Robotics and Mechatronics Lab of the University of Twente.

He has been an officer of IEEE Robotics and Automation for many years and he is a IEEE Fellow. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Springer Journal of Intelligent Service Robotics and he has been the Editor in Chief of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine. He has been an AdCom member for IEEE RAS and Vice President for Membership of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society for two consecutive terms. He is currently the Vice President for Research of euRobotics, the association also representing the private side of the PPP called SPARC with the European Commission, the biggest civil robotic program of the world (2.7 bE).
He has been a member of the ESA Topical Team on Dynamics of Prehension in Micro-gravity and its application to Robotics and Prosthetics. He is involved in different projects related to Medical Robotics, Inspection and services and more. Among others, he has been the recipient of the ERF tech-transfer award 2006 with the project Robird together with Clear Flight Solutions, the IEEE RAL best paper award 2017 and the Hamlyn awards for best design and video in 2016 and 2017.

Jan Broenink

FINANCE & CO-CHAIR

Jan Broenink is Associate Professor of Embedded Control Systems at the Robotics and Mechatronics group of the faculty EEMCS at the University of Twente. His current research interests are on cyber-physical systems, embedded control systems (realization of control schemes on mostly networked computers) and software architectures for robotics. For that, he is interested in: model-driven design and meta-modeling of robot software architectures; designing software tools including (co)-simulation; concurrent and systems engineering. Since July 2017 he is chairman of the Robotics and Mechatronics group, together with prof. Stefano Stramigioli.

Inge Rehorst

PROJECT LEADER

Inge is an enthusiastic event and project manager that is specialized in organizing and managing both small and large scientific events and projects. With over 15 years of experience, Inge is well-known within the academic environment, High Tech industry and government for her systematic and consistent manner of working, her leadership & planning skills and her extended network. She has longstanding, hands-on expertise in the (Scientific) coordination and project management of large marketing and communication projects such as EU Framework projects.

Inge is equipped with knowledge and skills needed to understand the purpose of your event or project and is responsible to coordinate all the details efficiently and effectively to best support that purpose. Inge is a connector ‘pur sang’, who likes to make sure that content and implementation within events and projects are aligned to the max.

Nico Nijenhuis

SPONSORING / EXHIBITION

Nico is an entrepreneur with an original background in Applied Physics. He founded his first high tech company, Clear Flight Solutions, in 2012 and among other things he co-initiated the Space53 Foundation in 2015.

Nowadays, next to his direct involvement in several companies, he is mainly active in coaching new high-tech spin-offs of the University of Twente, and leads the Thematic Technology Transfer Smart Systems program of the 4TU federation and TNO. 

Iddo Bante

FINANCE

Iddo is business director at the Digital Society Institute (former CTIT) of the University of Twente (UT), one of the largest academic IT research institutes in Europe with over 450 researchers working together on present-day technological, economic and social challenges. Since 2017, Iddo is also program manager for all robotics activities at the UT, with participation of technical groups (electrical & mechanical engineering, computer science) and groups from behavioral, management and social sciences (ethics, philosophy, legislation). Being responsible for the knowledge transfer activities of the institute, Iddo is heavily involved in the creation of high-tech spin-off companies. He is member of the Advisory Board of Technology Circle Twente, a network of more than 190 high-tech SMEs.

Next to his main job, Iddo was Business Director at DesignLab Twente, a creative and cross-disciplinary ecosystem connecting science and society through design. As one of the initiators of EIT Digital, Iddo was responsable for setting-up it’s action line New Business Creation. Iddo was also business director of the consortium BrainGain (Brain-Computer Interfaces).

Prior to these positions, Iddo was business director at the UT Institute for Biomedical Technology (nowadays TechMed Center). During this period, he coordinated several EU research networks with participants from universities, industry and health care providers. Iddo also worked with the Dutch multinational firm DSM: first as leader of the agro-biotechnology research group and later as market research & business development manager in the fine-chemicals and performance chemicals domain.

Iddo has a master’s degree in Molecular Genetics with a minor in Bioprocess Technology and Biochemistry from the Free University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. His M.Sc. internship resulted in an approved patent application by the Unilever Research Laboratory.

Lucienne Dado

LOGISTICS

Organizing a conference or scientific event, whether small or large, requires months and sometimes years of planning. From setting goals and strategy for the event, pointing out the stakeholders, to securing a venue and promoting the event, there’s a lot to prepare to ensure that the event or conference runs smoothly and serves its purpose for attendees, vendors, sponsors and most of all our client.

Lucienne is equipped with knowledge and skills needed to understand the purpose of your event and is responsible to coordinate all the details of your meeting efficiently and effectively to best support that purpose.

ERF is Brought to you by:
Castrol

Castrol, one of the world’s leading lubricant brands, has a proud heritage of innovation and fueling the dreams of pioneers. Our passion for performance, combined with a philosophy of working in partnership, has enabled Castrol to develop lubricants and greases that have been at the heart of numerous technological feats on land, air, sea and even space for over 100 years.

Castrol has a proven track record of developing high-tech, high-quality lubricants for industrial environments, including Castrol advanced lubricants for robotics developed to help decrease the downtime of industrial robots and positively impact quality, costs and efficiency of your manufacturing process.
Today, Castrol is helping drive sustainability with our new strategy that sets out aims for 2030 to save waste, reduce carbon and improve lives.
See www.castrol.com/robotics for more information.

Website:
www.castrol.com/industrial

Contact Details:
Alina Starbatty
alina.starbatty@castrol.com
Phone +49 40 303 35 22 89

Since 2004, we have developed state-of-the-art robots specially designed to solve your needs. Today we are known for our humanoid robots REEM-C, TALOS, TIAGo and ARI, as well as our retail and manufacturing solutions, TIAGoBase and StockBot. We also offer a range of customizable robotic components. Our mission is to enhance people’s quality of life through service robotics and automation technologies. We design and manufacture highly integrated and reliable solutions for service industries and research institutions worldwide. We have sold our robotic platforms in more than 30 countries and all platforms are designed and manufactured in Europe. PAL Robotics is one of the founding members of the EU Robotics association, we are also involved in numerous collaborative projects.

Website:
www.pal-robotics.com

Contact Details:
events@pal-robotics.com

Saxion Mechatronics

The Research Group of Mechatronics at Saxion University of Applied Sciences is the applied research group that has a strong track record in developing innovative and applicable technologies in the field of Unmanned Robotic Systems and Smart Industrial Systems using modular functional building blocks and systems engineering design methodologies. All our research activities are demand driven and focus on applied robotics, mechatronics and artificial intelligence. As the co-founder of T-Valley (technology cluster) and Space53 (innovation cluster for unmanned system), the research group has been playing an instrumental role in knowledge transfer and bridging the gap between fundamental research and industries through innovative and applicable technology development.
Some of the developed technologies include Artificial intelligence enabled autonomous indoor/outdoor navigation of mobile manipulators (Robust 2D/3D indoor/outdoor SLAM, optimal path planning, robust motion controllers, advanced perception and cognition capabilities, robust algorithms for vision-based target object manipulation (target identification, localization and manipulation), Cobots (algorithms for adaptive and safe collaboration of robots with humans) and machine vision. The group is also known for the design and development of modular and robust robotic prototypes, including parametric modular manipulators with specialized end-effectors, mini to mega aerial as well as ground robots and smart drone-docking station technology. These technologies have been developed in a framework of international as well as national and (euro)regional collaborative projects between the research group, public institutions, and innovative companies. They have also been successfully demonstrated in operational environments for a wide range of applications, such as agriculture, inspection & maintenance, safety & security and smart manufacturing.
The Research Group is the largest research group at Saxion University of Applied Sciences with more than 30 researchers, 20 projects in which more than 100 companies and over 300 students/year are involved.

Website:
https://www.saxion.nl/mechatronics

Contact details:
Professor dr. ir. Abeje Y. Mersha
a.y.mersha@saxion.nl

DIH² believes in the power of robotics to transform the agility of manufacturing in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and to drive economic growth across the European Union. Our role is to facilitate the connections that enable agile production in factories, where speed and versatility are essential to satisfy customer demand.”

Website:
http://www.dih-squared.eu/

Contact details:
Ali Muhammad
ali.muhammad@eurodyn.com

Intrinsic is a robotics software and AI company at Alphabet, with a mission to make industrial robotics accessible and usable for millions more businesses, entrepreneurs, and developers. They are a multidisciplinary team of engineers, roboticists, designers, and technologists who are passionate about unlocking the creative and economic potential of industrial robotics.

Website:
https://www.intrinsic.ai/

Contact details:
Lien Swings
lienswings@intrinsic.ai

KUKA is a global automation corporation with sales of around 2.6 billion euro and roughly 14,000 employees. The company is headquartered in Augsburg, Germany. As one of the world’s leading suppliers of intelligent automation solutions, KUKA offers customers everything they need from a single source: from robots and cells to fully automated systems and their networking in markets such as automotive, electronics, metal & plastic, consumer goods, e-commerce/retail and healthcare.

Website:
https://www.kuka.com/

Contact details:
Vanessa Libal
vanessa.libal@kuka.com

Lely

As an international family business in the agricultural sector, we spend every day making farmers’ lives easier with innovative solutions and tailored services. We offer solutions for almost all activities in the cowshed: from milking to cleaning. We provide advice on how to organise a dairy farm smartly with the use of management systems. Our vision and the needs and demands of our clients are the things that drive and inspire us.

Something we do since 1948: in this year brothers Cornelis en Arij van der Lely introduced the finger wheel rake to the market: one of our first inventions that made a substantial change in the traditional way of working on the farm. There were many more innovations with only one purpose: making agrarian life easier and working together for a sustainable, profitable and enjoyable future in the agricultural sector.

Vision:
“A sustainable, profitable and enjoyable future in farming.”

Mission:
“We create innovative solutions that help our customers excel in sustainable milk production to feed the world.”

Website:
https://www.lely.com

Contact Details:
Esther Lelij
elelij@lely.com

Norce

NORCE

NORCE is a non-profit private research institute established in 2017 as a merger of the institutes Agderforskning AS, Christian, Michelsen Research AS, International Research Institute of Stavanger AS, Northern Research Institute, Teknova AS and Uni Research AS. The headquarter is in Bergen (Norway) in addition to more than 15 branches and laboratories distributed all over Norway. For an annual turnover over 100 M€, more than 900 scientists and engineers drive interdisciplinary research activities for industrial, societal, climate, environment, energy and health. NORCE operates in markets including energy (Oil & Gas, offshore wind, solar), in maritime (e.g. aquaculture, autonomous systems, sea biology) in transport (e.g. maritime, drones, mobility in cities and highways), climate (e.g. carbon capture and storage /use), in land-based industries (e.g. process industries for metal, chemical and food production, manufacturing) and for health and societal challenges and in enabling technologies (e.g. robotics, industrial automation, machine vision and artificial intelligence).

Website:
https://www.norceresearch.no/en

Contact Details:
Nabil Belbachir
nabe@norceresearch.no

Bosch

The Bosch Group is a leading global supplier of technology and services. It employs roughly 401,300 associates worldwide (as of December 31, 2021). According to preliminary figures, the company generated sales of 78.8 billion euros in 2021. As a leading IoT provider, Bosch offers innovative solutions for smart homes, Industry 4.0, and connected mobility. Bosch is pursuing a vision of mobility that is sustainable, safe, and exciting. It uses its expertise in sensor technology, software, and services, as well as its own IoT cloud, to offer its customers connected, cross-domain solutions from a single source. The Bosch Group’s strategic objective is to facilitate connected living with products and solutions that either contain artificial intelligence (AI) or have been developed or manufactured with its help. Bosch improves quality of life worldwide with products and services that are innovative and spark enthusiasm. In short, Bosch creates technology that is “Invented for life.”

Website:
https://www.bosch.com/

Contact Details:
Robert Bosch GmbH
Robert-Bosch-Platz 1 70839
Gerlingen-Schillerhöhe
GERMANY

Contact for ERF 2022:
Dr. Ralph Lange
ralph.lange@de.bosch.com

BlueBotics

At BlueBotics we help companies meet the challenge of vehicle automation. We provide the ANT® navigation technology and expert support they need to bring their AGV, automated forklift or mobile robot successfully to market.

Website:
http://www.bluebotics.com

Contact Details:
Email: info@bluebotics.com 

Robotnik designs, manufactures and markets autonomous and collaborative mobile robots and mobile manipulators.Our company was founded in 2002 and we are currently a reference company in mobile robotics worldwide and leaders in Europe. We have sold more than 5.000 robots for R&D and industrial sectors such as logistics or inspection and maintenance, among others. Our technology, professionalism and quality in the products and services offered, have made us become present in the main international markets: Korea, Japan, China, Singapore, USA, France, Germany or Italy.

We are certified in:
ISO9001:15 – Design, manufacturing and commercialization of products and systems based on robotic technology.
INNOVATIVE SME – SMEs with character and capacity for innovation.
OHSAS 18001:2007 – Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems

Website:
https://www.robotnik.eu

Contact Details:
Sales Manager: Néstor Bolinches
nbolinches@robotnik.es

Shadow Robot

Britain’s longest-running robot company building next-generation robot hands and systems. Shadow is best known for its Dexterous Hand, the world’s most advanced robot hand, reproducing, as closely as possible, the kinematics and dexterity of a human hand. The company is also a pioneer in the fast-developing fields of teleoperation and telepresence with their Tactile Telerobot, where the Shadow Hand is combined with sensors and controlled via a haptic glove for touch feedback. Shadow’s technology is designed to help humans in difficult or dangerous jobs – such as nuclear decommissioning, pharma labs and remote maintenance tasks.

Website:
https://www.shadowrobot.com/

Contact Details:
Alexandra Winning
Shadow Robot Company Ltd
Unit 31, Spectrum House
32-34 Gordon House Rd
London NW5 1LP, U.K.
email: alex@shadowrobot.com

Algorix logo

Algoryx is the world leader of interactive physics in virtual environments for engineering, AI and machine learning. Our flagship solution, AGX Dynamics, is the go-to simulation technology for engineers and designers in industries ranging from robotics, aerospace and construction, to forestry, maritime, mining and more. Together, we’re transforming how the future is engineered.

Website:
https://www.algoryx.se/robotics-autonomous-machines/

Contact Details:
Hugo Börjesson
hugo.borjesson@algoryx.se

ANYbotics

ANYbotics

ANYbotics is a Swiss robotics company pioneering the development of autonomous mobile robotics. Our walking robots move beyond conventional, purpose-built environments and solve customer problems in challenging infrastructure so far only accessible to humans. Founded in 2016 as a spin-off from the world-leading robotics labs at ETH Zurich, we are a fast-growing team of over 90 employees set out to revolutionize industries with robotics technologies. Our customers include leading international energy, industrial processing, and construction companies. In 2020, ANYbotics raised CHF 20 m in a Series A financing round and won several prizes, including the Swiss Economic Forum 2020 award.

Website:
www.anybotics.com

Contact Details:
Cheila Marques
info@anybotics.com

GIM Robotics logo

We make any mobile machine more intelligent

Our automation software for mobile machinery is working in all weather conditions. Our proprietary 3D localization, environmental modelling, and situational awareness solutions are not fixed to any environment or sensor technology and have been used extensively for example in railway, construction, agriculture, forestry and marine applications. GIM software enables increasing the machine intelligence up to full autonomy operations and makes the machines more intelligent, precise, efficient and safe.

Website:
https://www.gimrobotics.fi/

Contact:
Mika Vainio
mika.vainio@gimrobotics.fi

I.AM. is an intense collaboration between 9 partners, developing algorithms and solutions for impact aware manipulation in logistics. I.AM is tackling the challenge of reducing the cycle time (and footprint) in take-and-put operations in logistics by exploiting dynamic manipulation, allowing for intentional robot-object-environment collisions. The I.AM partners are: Eindhoven University of Technology, Ecolé Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Technische Universität München, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Algoriyx Simulation, Franka Emika, Smart Robotics and Vanderlande Industries.

Website:
https://i-am-project.eu

Contact Details:
info@i-am-project.eu

ITK Engineering GmbH is an internationally operating technology company that supports customers across all industries with the development of tailor-made systems including software, hardware, and mechatronics. In the healthcare business unit, which is certified according to EN ISO 13485:2016, ITK Engineering implements standards-compliant system and software solutions for medical products on its own responsibility up to the finished OEM product – from medical robotics, embedded real-time systems, web and desktop applications, medical apps, cloud-based patient solutions, and data analytics up to hardware and electronic controls for medical devices.

Website:
https://medical.itk-engineering.com/en/

Contact Details:
Richard de Klerk
richard.deklerk@itk-engineering.de

Holland Robotics logo

Holland Robotics is a technology cluster within sector organization High Tech NL. Holland Robotics is the national robotics ecosystem that aims to strengthen the robotics sector in the Netherlands at (inter)national level. We stimulate innovation and adaption of robotics in the Netherlands. We do that by being the bridge between between science, industry and robotics. Holland Robotics has three drivers:

  • A strong position in Europe
  • (International) projects for stimulating innovation in the robotics field
  • Creating a powerful ecosystem with players in science, industry and knowledge centers

Website:
http://www.hollandrobotics.com/

Contact Details:
Thijs Dorssers, Manager Holland Robotics
Thijs.dorssers@hollandrobotics.com

Independent newsplatform RockingRobots.com tells the story of humans, robots and artificial intelligence. More than ever, technology affects society as a whole, from people and companies to government and healthcare. We follow the digital transformation and the people shaping the new world.

Website:
https://www.rockingrobots.nl/

Contact Details:
Marco van der Hoeven, Editor-in-Chief
marco@rockingrobots.com

Odense Robotics

Odense Robotics is Denmark’s national cluster for robot, automation and drone technology. Our vision is to make Denmark an even bigger, better robot nation. We do this by accelerating innovation and sustainable development in the industry. We offer companies opportunities to develop innovative products and technologies, strengthen their foundation for growth, gain industry insights and increase their visibility. We do this through projects, networks and events – often in close collaboration with our many knowledge partners. With headquarters in Odense, Odense Robotics has regional hubs across the country.

Website:
https://www.odenserobotics.dk/

International Telecommunication Union

International Telecommunication Union

AI for Good is the United Nations’ leading platform for inclusive AI development, organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in partnership with 40 UN Sister Agencies. More than a Summit, more than a movement, AI for Good is a year-round digital platform where AI innovators and problem owners learn, build and connect to help identify practical AI solutions to advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Website:
https://aiforgood.itu.int/

Contact Details:
Guillem Martínez Roura
Guillem.martinez-roura@itu.int

Robohouse

RoboHouse is a future of work fieldlab on TU Delft Campus where robot developments and the study of social processes can occur simultaneously. With a culture built on learning by doing, our community creates solutions for making work healthy and empowering.

Website:
https://robohouse.nl

Contact Details:
Jaimy Siebel
j.siebel@tudelft.nl

Innovation Quarter

InnovationQuarter (innovationquarter.nl) is the regional economic development agency for the Province of Zuid-Holland, also known as the Greater Rotterdam-The Hague area, which includes Leiden and Delft. It invests in innovative, fast-growing local enterprises from its four funds and helps foreign companies become established in this unique delta region. Our experienced team assists foreign companies free of charge in every step of the international expansion process; from first inquiry to growing the business in the Greater Rotterdam – The Hague area. InnovationQuarter also facilitates national and international collaboration between forward-thinking entrepreneurs, knowledge institutes and governments. By collaborating with the business community, the agency is helping to make region one of the most innovative regions in Europe.

Website:
https://www.innovationquarter.nl/

Better Factory

Better Factory is a project funded by the European Commission, which supports manufacturing SMEs to collaborate with artists and technology providers to develop new and personalized products. At the same time, it gives SMEs the technology they need to become cyber-physical systems, transforming them into lean-agile production facilities capable of manufacturing new and personalised products along with existing ones. They are currently on their second round of experiments, having already had 7 teams pass through a one-year cycle of experiments together.

Website:
https://www.betterfactory.eu/

Contact Details:
Paula Cervera
pcervera@mobileworldcapital.com

TU Delft Robotics Institute

Delft Robotics Institute: Students and PhD’s are on a mission: they want to build robots and invent new robotic applications. TU Delft Robotics Institute helps them become inventors by offering mission driven education and by closing the gap between academia and the market.

Website:
https://tudelftroboticsinstitute.nl/

Contact Details:
Martijn Wisse m.wisse@tudelft.nl

Jamie Paik

Jamie Paik

Reconfigurable Robots for Soft Interactions

Prof. Jamie Paik is director and founder of Reconfigurable Robotics Lab (RRL) of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) and a core member of Swiss National Centers of Competence in Research (NCCR) Robotics consortium. RRL’s research leverages expertise in multi-material fabrication and smart material actuation toward unique robotic platforms. At Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory, she started developing unconventional robots that push the physical limits of material and mechanisms. Her latest research effort is in soft robotics and self-morphing Robogami (robotic origami). Robogami transforms autonomously its planar shape to 2D or 3D by folding in predefined patterns and sequences, just like the paper art, origami. Soft material robots and robogamis are designed to be interactive with the users and their environments through both innate and active reconfigurations. Such characteristics of the RRL’s robots have direct applications in medical, automobile, space, and wearable robots. While this novel technology has been published in multiple academic journals such as in Soft Robotics Journal, IEEE Transactions in Robotics, Nature, and Science, RRL’s spin-off, Foldaway-Haptics, has pushed the boundaries of the industrial applications of these robots as seen in TED conference 2019. The latest robogami is part of Mercedez’s 2020 concept car, Avatar, presented during CES 2020.

Abstract

A truly ubiquitous environment is where human-machine interactions are intuitive, reliable, and compatible. This requires an intelligent platform that is versatile and adaptable to evolving tasks and dynamic environments. While there are extensive efforts in addressing this challenge through massive data and learning algorithms, there is yet to be a cohesive solution to improve the actual physical interactions. Recent developments in soft robots with their unconventional material-based solutions and modular robots with a multitude of configurations propose possible avenues to extend the capacities of robotics. This talk will highlight the recent progress in soft-material robots and reconfigurable origami robots that aim at achieving comprehensive solutions toward diverse “softer” human-robot applications.

TU Eindhoven

Research at TU/e: Driven by societal challenges in strong collaboration with industry.

Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) educates engineers of the future and advances knowledge in science & technology for the benefit of humanity.

TU/e is situated in a technology hotspot called Brainport. Home to major innovative companies and knowledge institutes, the Brainport is the beating technological heart of the Netherlands. TU/e researchers play an important role in new products and companies in the Brainport area and all over the world.

Our research institutes combine the strengths of our university with industry needs and government strategy. We connect the brightest minds from different scientific disciplines to push the frontiers of artificial intelligence, complex molecular systems, energy research, photonics and quantum

Website:
http://www.tue.nl/research

Contact Details:
Hala Elrofai

QB-Robotics

We will attend ERF2022 presenting a new device the qb SoftHand2 Research.
“The qb SoftHand2 Research is the stronger, smarter and more versatile evolution of qb SoftHand Research: an anthropomorphic robotic hand with 19 disclosable self-healing finger joints. It is always adaptable and robust, easy-to-use and flexible.
The qb SoftHand2 Research represents a compromise between complexity and dexterity. This new hand is capable of performing both precision and power grips, as well as manipulating objects while maintaining a stable grip.
The introduction of second synergy hallows the qb SoftHand2 Research to manipulate objects intended for interaction with the human hand, without changing the wrist orientation.
The in-hand manipulation capability widely increases the applications in R&D, testing and human interaction fields.
Playing with the two synergies, the qb SoftHand2 Research can perform a precise grasp to accurately interact with little objects.The higher strength of qb SoftHand2 Research allows you to exploit the best from your robot, ensuring a firmer grip on the object. In addition to the great adaptability, the qb SoftHand2 Research capabilities allow it to apply localized contact forces, very useful feature for operating on interfaces commonly used in everyday life.”

Website:
https://qbrobotics.com/

Contact Details:
Tommaso Gualtieri
tommaso.gualtieri@qbrobotics.com

AHEAD.IO logo

Ahead.IO Labs Inc. is an innovation studio based in Vancouver.
We are the makers of Stanley and Stella, the first Canadian quadruped robots to be commercialized as kits for education and research. They are also the first quadruped robots using capstan drive on all axes. Stella’s is designed to be used in research and education in the fields of mechanics, robotics, machine learning and computer vision.
Stella is also an amazing learning platform for high school students starting from grade 8. It’s built in a way that students can take it apart as many times as they want, allowing schools to use one robot for multiple teaching cycles.
All of the Stella’s parts are either 3D printed, standard off-the-shelf, or CNC 2D routed in FR4 and aluminum plates. This makes it very easy to modify and repair, as well as providing a fun and engaging assembly process.
Stella kit comes with a guide that helps assemble the quadruped while learning all the choices we made to create it and get an understanding of the various layers that make Stella mobility and behaviours.
Stella’s key benefits:

  • Reusable on multiple teaching cycles. Robust platform, designed to be assembled and disassembled multiple times
  • Comprehensive assembly guide with technical knowledge base for novice robotics learners onboarding
  • Repairable. Most commonly broken parts can be 3D-printed or purchased as a repair kit
  • Open, easy-to-use development environment, based on industry standards such as Python and ROS
  • Room to mount up to 2 Nvidia Jetson Xavier Nx or similar computing devices.


Come to booth 60 to discover Stella and try to assemble a piece of its kit. We look forward building robots with you!

Website:
https://ahead.io/

Contact Details:
Alex Santo and Gaelle de Ruyter
info@ahead.io

Elinor Doubell

Elinor Doubell is a VP Digital Science for bp and leads agile digital R&D exploring emerging robotics and other future digital technology innovation in cyber security, nanotechnology and additive manufacturing.

Elinor has over 25+ years of technology leadership experience across a range of sectors including manufacturing, B2B and exploration & production in the UK, US and France. A characteristic theme in Elinor’s work is agile Technology R&D. It all started with new manufacturing process development and evolved through global technology-based initiatives like Pricing transform in Castrol and enterprise-scale data and analytics innovations in bp to her role now focusing on catalysing emergent, impactful digital technology.

Elinor has served as chairperson of the board of directors for an industry consortium dedicated to industry data standards and has been a finalist for ‘data leader of the year’ at the Women in IT UK awards.

Susan Frame

Susan Frame

Global Marketing Director – Castrol

As Global Marketing Director for Industrial fluids at Castrol, Susan is accountable for brand, product portfolio and marketing activities globally. She leads a team of dedicated marketing and product experts across multiple markets. Susan joined bp in 2014 and has held a variety of roles including Global sustainability manager in the cars division, strategy development and business transformation before taking up her current role at the start of 2021. Prior to Castrol, Susan had a successful 20-year career in the packaging industry, with Tetra Pak, where she held a variety of B2B sales and marketing roles, leading teams and working closely with customers in the UK, Europe and globally.

Logo Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT)

Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT – Italian Institute of Technology,) is a scientific research center established by law in 2003 by Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research and Ministry of Economy and Finance, in order to promote excellence in both basic and applied research and to facilitate the economic development at national level. IIT scientific activities started in 2006, they are multidisciplinary and with a very strong approach to technology transfer. Research is carried out in the Central Research laboratory in Genoa (IIT headquarters), in 11 research satellite centers across Italy and in 2 outstations in US. IIT scientific vision is interdisciplinary, based on the concept of “translating evolution into technology”, that is mimicking natural solutions to develop new technologies in the fields of robotics, materials science, and life science. The main goal is to produce technologies that will have a positive impact on some important societal challenges, such as sustainability and the environment, healthcare and aging society, also reflecting the priorities of EU framework programs.

Website:
http://www.iit.it/

Contact Details:
Valeria delle Cave
Head, Foreign Press Office and Communication of European projects Valeria.delleCave@iit.it

i-Botics logo

“The ANA Avatar XPRIZE is a four-year competition to develop a robotic system that will deploy the presence of a human to a remote location in real time, leading to a more connected world. In this competition, the i-Botics team is working to create synergy in multimodal telepresence, transporting the operator’s social and functional self to any fit-for-purpose avatar through a compelling combination of state-of-the-art social, visual, haptic, audio and olfactory technologies.

Our vision is that distance should not be a barrier to experience social connectedness and to apply one’s skills and knowledge to make this world a better and safer place. Our mission is to develop a system that enables the user to feel present at, and interact with, a remote environment and the people in it as if physically present. We are determined to create societal impact (e.g., in challenges related to aging, health care, safety and security) and business impact (i.e., contributing to strengthening the business proposition of our partners) during and after the ANA Avatar XPRIZE competition.

Our team is a combination of universities, an applied research organization and high-tech industry. The University of Twente and ETH have the state-of-the-art knowledge base, TNO integrates fundamental knowledge and industry interests towards working demonstrators, and our industry partners Sensiks, Halodi and Haption achieve high technology readiness levels.”

Website:
https://i-botics.com

Contact Details:
Douwe Desscher
d.dresscher@utwente.nl

Nico Zimmermann

Nico Zimmermann

40 years old / married / 3 children. 
Made my vocational training as electronics 1998 at SICK / After this I studied Electronics with specialisation in High Frequency / Automation and IT Technologies at the Applied University in Offenburg.
After my study I started as vocational trainer for electronics and IT at the SICK vocational training center.
In this time I was also an expert for the german national team of skill electronics at the Worldskills Organisation. I leaded the german national team to the Workskills events in London, Calgary, Leipzig and Sao Paulo.

In 2014 I changed my position to Head of the SICK Sensor Intelligence Academy with the aim to build up an own internal academy for employees and customers.
We started with 3 people. Today we are an academy with a team of 25 people and we have changed to a profit center with round about 3000 training events per year

Aldert Kamp

Aldert Kamp

Aldert Kamp is the Co-director of the CDIO Initiative, a leading worldwide collaborative network for innovative engineering education, and the immediate past director of Education at TU Delft Faculty of Aerospace Engineering (2007-2020) and Delft leader of 4TU.Centre for Engineering Education (2014-2020). 

He has been deeply involved in the rethinking of higher engineering education with a time horizon of 15 to 20-years. More than 20 years of industrial experience in space systems engineering, 19 years of academic teaching, educational management and leadership, and an in-depth study of trends in society, engineering business, science and technology and higher engineering education, have made him a global thought-leader in the future of engineering education.

He is the author of the thought-provoking reports (2016) Engineering Education in a Rapidly Changing World and (2020) Navigating the Landscape of Higher Engineering Education. Since July 2020 he is self-employed in his one-person Aldert Kamp Advies business.

TERRINet logo

TERRINet – The European Robotics Research Infrastructures Network is a European Research Network of 15 Robotics Infrastructures located in 7 different EU countries (including the UK) + 1 Associated Country (Switzerland).
The TERRINet Project represents the effort made by Europe to maintain European leadership in Robotics by focusing on research, and to grow and educate a new generation of researchers in Robotics able to design, develop and manage the Robots of the Future.
TERRINet offers fully covered Trans-National Access to top-quality robotics platforms, excellent research services, and training to users in Europe and worldwide.
TERRINet enables access by an Open Call-based mechanism to selected, eligible users (undergraduate/PhD students, graduate/postdoc, academic and industrial researchers, entrepreneurs).
TERRINet is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement N. 730994.

Website:
https://www.terrinet.eu/

Invitation logo

iniVation creates neuromorphic vision systems. Our bio-inspired intelligent technology offers unprecedented advantages over conventional machine vision systems: ultra-low response latency, low data rates, high dynamic range and ultra-low power consumption.

Website:
http://www.inivation.com

Contact Details:
Christy Aerne, Key Account Manager, Christy.aerne@inivation.com

Deutsches Rettungsrobotik Zentrum logo

Deutsches Rettungsrobotik-Zentrum e.V.

Rescue robotics can save lives and makes the daily work of firefighters, first responders and civil protection safer.
To research and develop robotic systems to function in the specific environments of first responders and to perform helpful tasks to enhance the responders’ safety, is the goal of DRZ (German Rescue Robotics Center).
We work on enabling aerial, aquatic and ground robots to support with situational awareness by collecting data as well as to performing certain tasks.
To do this DRZ has 2.800sqm of testing facility, an own academy and is working in the area of standardization as well as establishing the concept of a Robotics Task Force.

Website:
http://www.rettungsrobotik.de/

Contact Details:
Nicola Rupp
nicola.rupp@rettungsrobotik.de

Ignitarium logo

Ignitarium is a boutique product engineering house that combines its deep expertise in semiconductor, AI and multimedia embedded systems to realize cost-effective solutions to solve demanding real world use cases in Automotive, Robotics, Consumer and Healthcare segments. Ignitarium has a global footprint with presence in India (Bangalore and Cochin), USA (San Jose and Austin), Japan and Europe. Since our inception in 2012, we have been focused on providing product engineering services for intelligent systems.

Make Autonomous Mobility in Robots a reality, by working with our expert software engineering team that can seamlessly bring together aspects of Localization, Navigation, Motion planning, Sensor fusion and modalities, Perception engineering, Artificial Intelligence and System integration. For the implementation of functional safety-compliant hardware and software development processes, rely on a team that can enable customer products up to ASIL-D and SIL-3 standards.

Leverage our end-to-end autonomous mobility software architecture expertise and in-depth understanding of ‘applied robotics’ to accelerate your time-to-market.

Website:
http://www.ignitarium.com/

Contact Details:
Azif Saly
azif.saly@ignitarium.com

SDU Maersk logo

H2020 Drones4Safety

The Drones4Safety is a Research and Innovation Actions (RIA) project under H2020 program, led by the University of Southern Denmark, and aims to increase the safety of the European civil transport system by building a cooperative, autonomous, and continuously operating drone system that will be offered to railway and bridge operators to inspect their transportation infrastructure accurately, frequently, and autonomously.

The Drones4Safety project brings together world-leading expertise on energy harvesting, drone technology, artificial intelligence, and bridges and railway inspections into a single focused project. This allows the consortium to enhance the state-of-the-art drone technologies with new tools to harvest energy and autonomously find faults in the desired infrastructures.

Main objectives:

  • To develop a solution for harvesting energy for continuous drone inspection,
  • To increase inspection efficiency by developing AI algorithms,
  • To provide a platform for a collaborative drone operation for inspections,
  • To build a cloud-based AI system for autonomous navigation.


Facts:
Project period: June 2020 – May 2023.
Budget: 3.7M€
Number: 861111
URL: https://drones4safety.eu/

Partners: University of Southern Denmark (DK), Aarhus University (DK), Fraunhofer (DE), EUCenter (IT), Alteia (FR), NEAT (IT), ARIC (DE), DeepBlue(IT), EuroControl (BE).

Website:
https://www.sdu.dk/en/diii

Contact Details:
Emad Samuel Malki Ebeid
esme@mmmi.sdu.dk

LuxAI

LuxAI is the manufacturer and online seller of a social robot called QTrobot. QTrobot is an expressive humanoid robot designed to support a variety of use-cases including education of children with autism and other special needs education and human-robot interaction research and teaching.

QTrobot for Research is a powerful platform for Human-AI research and teaching used by top research institutes around the world for STEM education, elderly care, healthy ageing and much more!

QTrobot platform for research and development combines the best-in-the-market hardware components with a friendly design. QTrobot is a robust platform suitable for intensive working hours and multi-disciplinary research projects on social robotics and human-robot interaction.

While enabling programming via code for technical users, QTrobot is designed to also empower non-technical users to create advanced robot programs, thanks to QTrobot Studio. This easy-to-use graphical interface is designed for non-technical users such as researchers in the fields of psychology, education, and human science who are interested to create their own tailormade research use case. By using simple, easy-to-understand blocks, non-technical researchers are able to create a fully functional program that can be used with the intervention group in just a few clicks.

Key values of QTrobot:

  • Robust platform, designed for intensive working hours & working with children
  • Stand-alone platform with high computational power and 3D camera sensing
  • Empowered by an integrated Intel NUC computer with the latest Ubuntu desktop OS
  • Rich set of native ROS and JavaScript API
  • Easy-to-use graphical development environment for non-technical researchers
  • Comprehensive documentation and programming tutorials
  • Integrated best-in-class software for skeleton tracking, emotion and speech recognition


Come meet our team at stand 54, we look forward to discussing robotics with you.

Website:
https://luxai.com/

Contact Details:
Catharina Marschan
catharina.marschan@luxai.com

HAN University

HAN University of Applied Sciences offers bachelor and master education, intertwined with applied research via 14 schools in three key areas:

– Fair health
– Sustainable Energy & Environment
– Smart Region

Our mobile robotics activities are part of HAN Automotive Research (HAN-AR). HAN-AR is a research partner for the professional domain. We offer companies and organizations a broad spectrum of research services around the themes ‘INTELLIGENT MOBILITY’ and ‘GREEN MOBILITY’ Website: www.han.nl , https://specials.han.nl/sites/automotive-research/

Website:
http://www.han.nl/
https://specials.han.nl/sites/automotive-research/

Contact Details:
Jan Benders
jan.benders@han.nl

KNAP logo

KNAP Automation is a company which is specialized in high-quality (safety)solutions. If you are looking for a standard product or a customized solution you are at the right address. Our products are used for/at; AGV’s, Agri Culture, Door&Gate,, CNC, Internal transport (horizontally moving parts, Conveyor belts, Scissor Lifts) and many more applications . KNAP is the dealer/CPC of ASO Safety Solutions (Safety Edges/bumpers/mats) and distributor of:
Protec (Protective Fences)
Bihl+Wiedemann (Safety Technology)
Hiquel (HIgh Quality ELectronics / specialized automation relays).

With the products in our portfolio people and their surrounding can be protected against impacts and entrapment. Maybe we also can help you with your problem and come to a good solution together. If you would like to have more information, feel free to ask of visit our website www.knap.tech.

Website:
http://www.knap.tech/

Contact Details:
Peter Matze
peter@knap.tech

R14EU logo

RODIN

RI4EU – is the gateway to European robotics digital innovation hubs. RI4EU aims to accelerate innovation in robotics technologies in four priority application areas that are considered important for existing and emerging market segments with a potential for further robotization: agile production, infrastructure inspection, and maintenance, healthcare, and agri-food.

RI4EU mission is to support and spread robotics technologies in the EU by providing dedicated services and expertise, funding, networking, visibility, and access to the market for robotics innovations and bringing robotics technologies to the attention of technology adopters, allowing companies to find innovative products and services tailored to their needs.

WHAT DO WE DO?
– Promoting EU robotics projects services
– Promoting upcoming open calls and info sessions
– Representing projects at joint events and workshops
– Sharing success stories and good practices
– Supporting synergies between projects
– Sharing relevant industry trends
– Addressing sustainability efforts through communication

Website:
www.abb.com/robotics
https://cobots.robotics.abb.com

Contact Details:
Annelis Dietrich
es-marketingcx@abb.com

RIMA logo

RIMA

The RIMA network consists of 13 European Digital Innovation Hubs (DIH) with a vast experience in the field of robotics to connect and inspire key stakeholders in I&M robotics and aims to accelerate innovation and uptake of robotics between these stakeholders. With a funding of 8 million euros RIMA has accelerated 50 robotics applications. Now, RIMA’s main goal is to widespread the results, good practices and methodologies obtained. If you want to know more, join us at: https://community.rimanetwork.eu/

Website:
https://rimanetwork.eu/

Contact Details:
Juan Pavon
j.pavon@euronautas.com

HEBI

HEBI Robotics produces an agile platform for robotics development that is used worldwide by over 100 universities, research institutes, and industrial partners to create custom, world-class robots quickly and easily. We are also using the platform internally to develop next-generation automation solutions for industries whose needs are not well met by existing industrial robotics technology. Our initial industrial focus is on automating industrial inspection tasks such as non-destructive testing (NDT) inspection of complex surfaces, and inspection robots to eliminate the need for manned entry to confined spaces

Website:
http://www.hebirobotics.com

Contact Details:
Florian Enner
florian@hebirobotics.com

Joni Rautavuori

Joni Rautavuori

HowRobotics could impact climate change

Joni Rautavuori joined Tharsus as CEO in January, bringing many years’ experience running complex automation organisations and scaling them in multiple territories. He led ABB’s Global Robots & Solutions business from the UK between 2015 and 2020 and headed several commercial sustainable technology businesses in the roles of CEO and founder. During his 20 years at ABB, he worked across multiple roles in end-to-end value chains in Finland, China and the UK. Joni also holds a Master’s degree from the University of Cambridge Manufacturing Leaders Programme.

Martijn Boelens

Martijn Boelens

Legged mobility on the rise

 As a born engineer, Martijn Boelens has been on board with the Lely family business for years. Martijn is passionate about developing and continuously improving agricultural revolutions using robotics and high technology. It’s no coincidence that he has been in charge of our innovation-,product development and continuous improvement departments for years.

‘Our greatest challenge lies in accelerating the pace of making the agricultural sector more sustainable. With an ever-increasing world population we’re going to need more food and the negative impact of food production has to be seriously reduced at the same time. We’ve got a role to play here; how can we make dairy production truly sustainable?’

Martijn Boelens has been working at Lely for more than 22 years now, where he’s the longest serving board member. Started out as deputy director for production and then moved up to general manager of Lely Industries, among various other positions, and has been Chief Technology Officer at Lely for two years. He had no background in the dairy sector, so he was regularly surprised by the success and failure of innovations in his first 10 years at Lely. This partly explains why he is convinced about the power of employing so many colleagues with farming backgrounds and expertise. Lely; the place where food, animals, sustainability and robotics come together and a company that changed traditions in the agricultural sector for 75 years with groundbreaking innovations. A sustainable, profitable and enjoyable future for dairy farming, for current and future generations. That is what Lely is striving for. With innovative solutions that have truly changed the industry worldwide. The question ‘How Sustainable integration of technology can lead to future proof adaptation and mitigation in society (ELS)’, keeps us busy every day.

 

Website
https://www.lely.com/nl/

Franka Emika

Franka Emika is a German tactile robotics platform company. Our mission is to provide robotics as production services, making it universally accessible and useful for everyone in the industry and beyond.
Our easy-to-use Franka Emika Robot + flexible Apps package comes in 1 box and form a perfect scalable solution for any production automation.
Our established Partner network ensures a seamless integration for customers around the world.
Designed. Developed. Serviced. Made in Germany.

Website:
https://www.franka.de/

Contact Details:
Tatjana Zakharova
tatjana.zakharova@franka.de

Marco Hutter

Legged mobility on the rise

Abstract
In the recent years, we saw a tremendous progress in the field of legged robots. Thanks to superior mobility, in particular quadrupedal robots start offering unprecedented application potential in challenging and unstructured environments. Today, these machines are not only widely established in the research community but have also found their way into the first industrial applications. In this presentation, I will talk about control, perception and autonomy of quadrupedal robots. I will provide insights into the development of the ANYmal robots, show how reinforcement learning has revolutionized locomotion performance, and present new mapping and planning approaches to enable versatile navigation. We will look at different application examples in the industrial sector and I will give insights into what happened during the DARPA SubT challenge.

Bio
Marco is a professor for robotic systems at ETH Zurich and co-founder of several ETH Startups such as ANYbotics AG, a Zurich-based company developing legged robots for industrial applications. Marco’s research interests are in the development of novel machines and actuation concepts together with the underlying control, planning, and machine learning algorithms for locomotion and manipulation. Marco is part of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Robotics and NCCR Digital Fabrication and PI in various international projects (e.g. EU Thing, NI) and challenges (e.g. DARPA SubT). His work in this field has been recognized with a number of awards and prestigious grants such as the Branco Weiss Fellowship, ETH medal, IEEE/RAS Early Career Award or ERC Starting Grant.

Website
https://www.linkedin.com/company/leggedrobotics/

Roland Siegwart

Interactive and Environment-Aware Flying Robots

Bio
Roland Siegwart (1959) is professor for autonomous mobile robots at ETH Zurich, founding co-director of the technology transfer center Wyss Zurich and board member of multiple high-tech companies. He studied mechanical engineering at ETH Zurich, spent ten years as professor at EPFL Lausanne (1996 – 2006), held visiting positions at Stanford University and NASA Ames and was Vice President of ETH Zurich (2010 -2014). He is IEEE Fellow and recipient of the IEEE RAS Pioneer Award and IEEE RAS Inaba Technical Award. He is among the most cited scientist in robots world-wide, co-founder of more than half a dozen spin-off companies and a strong promoter of innovation and entrepreneurship in Switzerland. His interests are in the design, control and navigation of flying, wheeled and walking robots operating in complex and highly dynamical environments.

LinkedIn

Cyrill Stachniss

Deep learning / AI for robotics and ADvanced Perception

Bio
Cyrill Stachniss is a full professor at the University of Bonn and heads the Photogrammetry and Robotics Lab. Before his appointment in Bonn, he was with the University of Freiburg and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Since 2010 a Microsoft Research Faculty Fellow and received the IEEE RAS Early Career Award in 2013. From 2015-2019, he was senior editor for the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. Together with his colleague Heiner Kuhlmann, he is a spokesperson of the DFG Cluster of Excellence “PhenoRob” at the University of Bonn. In his research, he focuses on probabilistic techniques for mobile robotics, perception, and navigation. The main application areas of his research are autonomous service robots, agricultural robotics, and self-driving cars. He has co-authored over 250 publications, has won several best paper awards, and has coordinated multiple large research projects on the national and European level.

Website:
https://www.ipb.uni-bonn.de/

Alin Albu-Schäffer

Compliance and Oscillations in Robotics – on Bad and Good Vibrations

Abstract
In the early days of robotics, hardware compliance used to be regarded as a drawback, reducing the positioning and tracking precision of robots and causing undesired vibration, hard to address by control. Meanwhile, a certain level of compliance, even a mechanically adjustable one, is widely regarded as indispensable for interaction with humans and for skillful manipulation in contact with stiff environments. Also in legged locomotion, inspired by the biological archetypes, many roboticists exploit elasticity for robustness and energy efficiency. At latest here, the complex oscillations of multi-body, compliant systems are not any more parasitic and unwanted, but become an essential feature for achieving performance. However, for treating these highly nonlinear oscillations, new mathematical tools are required, which are currently a topic of intensive research. The talk will give an overview on the evolution of the robotics perspective on compliance and nonlinear oscillations both from hardware design and from control point of view. It will therefore present several examples of DLR robots for manipulation and locomotion in various application areas.

Bio
Alin Albu-Schäffer received his M.S. in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Timisoara, Romania in 1993 and his Ph.D. in automatic control from the Technical University of Munich in 2002. Since 2012 he is the head of the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), which he joined in 1995 as a Ph.D. candidate. Moreover, he is a professor at the Technical University of Munich, holding the Chair for “Sensor Based Robotic Systems and Intelligent Assistance Systems” at the Computer Science Department. His personal research interests include robot design, modeling and control, nonlinear control, flexible joint and variable compliance robots, impedance and force control, physical human-robot interaction, bio-inspired robot design and control. He received several awards, including the IEEE King-Sun Fu Best Paper Award of the Transactions on Robotics in 2012 and 2014; several ICRA and IROS Best Paper Awards as well as the DLR Science Award. He was strongly involved in the development of the DLR light-weight robot and its commercialization through technology transfer to KUKA.

Vanderlande is the global market leader for future-proof logistic process automation at airports, and in the parcel market. The company is also a leading supplier of process automation solutions for warehouses.

Website:
https://www.vanderlande.com/

Contact details:
Stijn de Looijer
Vanderlandelaan 2
5466 RB Veghel
The Netherlands
stijn.de.looijer@vanderlande.com

Dr. Rachid Alami

On Decisional issues for Human-Robot Joint Action

Abstract
This talk will address some key decisional issues that are necessary for a cognitive and interactive robot which shares decision, space and tasks with humans. We adopt a constructive approach based on the identification and the effective implementation of individual and collaborative skills. The system is comprehensive since it aims at dealing with a complete set of abilities articulated so that the robot controller is effectively able to conduct in a flexible and fluent manner a human-robot joint action seen as a collaborative problem solving and task achievement. These abilities include geometric reasoning and situation assessment based essentially on perspective-taking and affordances, management and exploitation of each agent (human and robot) knowledge in a separate cognitive model, human-aware task planning and interleaved execution of shared plans. We will also discuss the key issues linked to the pertinence and the acceptability by the human of the robot behaviour, and how this influence qualitatively the robot decisional, planning, control and communication processes.

Short bio
Dr. Rachid Alami is Senior Scientist at LAAS-CNRS. He received an engineer diploma in computer science in 1978 from ENSEEIHT, a Ph.D in Robotics in 1983 from Institut National Polytechnique and an Habilitation HDR in 1996 from Paul Sabatier University He contributed and took important responsibilities in several national, European and international research and/or collaborative projects (EUREKA: FAMOS, AMR and I-ARES projects, ESPRIT: MARTHA, PROMotion, ECLA, IST: COMETS, IST FP6 projects: COGNIRON, URUS, PHRIENDS, and FP7 projects: CHRIS, SAPHARI, ARCAS, SPENCER, H2020: MuMMER , France: ARA, VAP-RISP for planetary rovers, PROMIP, several ANR projects).

His main research contributions fall in the fields of Robot Decisional and Control Architectures, Task and motion planning, multi-robot cooperation, and human-robot interaction.

Rachid Alami holds the Academic Chair of Cognitive and Interactive Robotics at the Artificial and Natural Intelligence Toulouse Institute (ANITI)

Website:
https://aniti.univ-toulouse.fr
https://www.laas.fr/public/

Frederic P. Schuller

Mathematics for Robotics

Bio
Frederic P. Schuller is an expert on the applications of differential geometry in physics and engineering. He obtained a Master of Advanced Studies in Mathematics and a PhD in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics from the University of Cambridge, working in S. W. Hawking’s general relativity group with G. W. Gibbons. He was subsequently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada and a Researcher at the Albert Einstein Institute (Max Planck Institute of Gravitational Physics) in Germany and held professorial positions in various countries before moving to an Associate Professorship at the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Twente. For his internationally known advanced lecture courses on differential geometry, quantum mechanics and general relativity and his supervision of research students he received numerous awards, including the 2016 Ars Legendi Prize as Germany’s top physics lecturer.