An European consortium coordinated by German ALBERT-LUDWIGS-UNIVERSITAET FREIBURG aims to develop the foundations for service robots designed to autonomously navigate in urban environments outdoors as well as in shopping malls and shops to provide various services to users including guidance, delivery, and transportation. The project called European robotic pedestrian assistant (EUROPA) will apply sophisticated probabilistic scene interpretation techniques to deal with the unpredictable and changing environments. Based on data gathered with its sensors, the robot will acquire a detailed model of the environment, detect and track moving objects in the environment, adapt its navigation behaviour according to the current situation and communicate with its users in a natural way, even remotely. EUROPA is targeted at developing novel technologies that will open new perspectives for commercial applications of service robots in the future.
The project will start 2 March 2009 and end 1 March 2012. The project cost is 3, 84 million Euro and is funded by the European Commission (FP7-ICT-231888) with 2.94 million Euro.
Partners: Albert-Ludwigs-Universitaet Freiburg, Germany; University of Oxford, United Kingdom; Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zurich, Switzerland; Bluebotics SA, Switzerland; Rheinisch-Westfaelische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Germany; Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.
