Sylvain Calinon from Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland is the winner of the Robotdalen Scientific Award 2008 and received € 20 000.
Sylvain Calinon’s winning thesis is titled "Continuous Extraction of Task Constraints in a Robot Programming by Demonstration Framework" and examines how a human instructor can teach manipulation skills to a robot by first demonstrating the required motions, then leading the robot through them, then coaching the robot’s refinement of its skill level by providing feedback using gestures and voice emphasis.
The other finalists are Pinhas Ben-Tzvi from University of Toronto in Canada and Antonios Bouloubasis from University of Reading in Great Britain, both received honorary mentions and € 1 000.
