New chief for ABB Robotics Sweden

ABB Sweden has appointed Mr. Dennis Helfridson as new chief of the Swedish Robotics division. He will also be responsible for the Swedish business unit Robotics Products and will also become a member of the ABB Sweden management group.

Mr. Helfridson came to ABB in 1995 where he has worked with product development, construction, production, procurment and business development. Today he is global product manager for medium motors and chief for business unit LV Motors in Sweden.

Last year Mr. Helfridson has been ranked as the most influencial technology person under 40 years by the Swedish technology newspaper Ny Teknik.

Mr. Anders Nylander today pro tempore manager for the Swedish robotics division, will continue as global manager for the business unit Robotics Products.

ABB Sweden coordinates 10MEUR robotic project

The 4-year ROSETTA project coordinated by ABB Sweden started March 1st, 2009, and has a total budget of 10 MEUR. The goal of the project is to develop “human-centric” technology for industrial robots that will not only appear more human-like, but also cooperate with workers in ways that are safe and perceived as natural. Such robots will be programmed in an intuitive and efficient manner, making it easier to adapt them to new tasks when a production line is changed to manufacture a new product.

ROSETTA is the acronym for a new European Large-Scale Integrating Research Project “RObot control for Skilled ExecuTion of Tasks in natural interaction with humans; based on Autonomy, cumulative knowledge and learning”.

Open Robotics Development - ECHORD Opening Event

The European Clearing House for Open Robotics Development (ECHORD) is a new EU-funded project aimed to reinforce cooperation between the industry and the scientific research in robotics. ECHORD is coordinated by Professor Knoll, Technical University of Munich. The project's international orientation and its positioning in the existing robotics landscape are emphasized by the participation of the University of Naples Federico II (Prof. Siciliano) and the University of Coimbra in Portugal (Prof. Pires).
The industry can support research groups in the purchase of robotic equipment and the development of experiments in a series of selected scenarios, that are scientifically interesting and commercially relevant.

ECHORD Opening Event will be held September 4, 2009, 10 am – 4 pma t the Deutsches Museum, Ehrensaal Munich, Germany

Speakers will include:

• Horst Forster - Director of Directorate E "Digital Content and Cognitive Systems", Directorate-General for "Information Society and Media", European Commission
• Prof. Dr. Roland Siegwart – Autonomous Systems Lab , ETH, Zürich
• Ulf-Göran Norefors - Vice President ABB Automation Technologies, Sweden