€ 120 Million for Robotics & Mechatronics Center

German Aerospace Center DLR and European Space Agency ESA have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) at the Berlin Air Show in June 2010 on the use of the new DLR Robotics and Mechatronics Center (RMC) as an ESA reference laboratory. This cooperation aims to set up an extensive network of international partners in space-sector robotics with the aims of exploiting synergies between the partners to best effect, further increasing expertise in this area and preparing for the future. Some € 120 Million  are being invested in the centre. It will investigate autonomous robots for the servicing of spacecraft in orbit and for the exploration of the planets, among other projects. 

The DLR Robotics and Mechatronics Center has its origin in the Institute of Robotics and Mechantronics and will, in future, consist of many facilities and institutes working in the field of robotics, mechatronics, system dynamics, control engineering and optical information systems. The aim is to further consolidate and enhance Germany's leading position worldwide in both the scientific and industrial areas of robotics. This initiative is being supported by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) and the State of Bavaria.

Last year, Esa agreed to give its new technical centre at Harwell in the UK a space robotics portfolio. 
Source: DLR, ESA

2007 winners of the fourth EURON/EUnited Robotic Technology Transfer Award

The EURON/EUnited Robotics Technology Transfer Award was created in 2003 in order to improve the quality of robotics research and to raise the profile of technology transfer between science and industry.

The EURON/erf Technology Transfer Award rewards outstanding innovations in robot technology and automation arising from cooperation between academic researchers and industry. The initiative can have come from either end -- either industry going to a university with a problem to be solved; or a university project with real potential looking for expertese in the marketing process.

2007 winners are two teams:

Ulrich Hagn (DLR), Tobias Ortmaier (KUKA Roboter, DLR), Richard Wohlgemuth (Brainlab) for KineMedic: a generic, kinematic redundant, light-weight, and torque-controlled robot developed for medical interventions.

Hong Liu, Peter Meusel, Gerd Hirzinger (all of DLR) for the SAH hand (featured coincidentally as "Robot of the Week" on this site in week 11). The Schunk Anthropomorphic Hand (SAH) is a joint development study of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT). The goal is to use mainly industrial standard components and common technologies to produce a hand useable in small-scale production. EURON: activities/techaward