IKEA´s nightmare Swiss Roombots

Forget IKEA flat-pack furniture think Roombots, modular robots to be used as building blocks for furniture that assembles itself,  that can change shape over time - a stool becoming a chair, a set of chairs becoming a sofa. Furniture that moves using actuated joints to different locations depending on the users needs. When not needed, the group of modules create a static structure such as a wall or a box.

Roombots are the robotics vision of researchers at the Biorobotics Lab, EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland. The  project is funded by the Locomorph project and the Swiss National Center of Competence of Research in Robotics (NCCR). Preliminary studied were also funded by Microsoft Research Cambridge and EPFL.

EUR 10 million for Swiss Robotics Research Centre

Swiss National Science Foundation will support the strategic initiative "NCCR Robotics" - NCCR stands for "National Competence Center Research" - with 13,3 million CHF (EU 10,26) for four years and can be extended twice for a duration of up to twelve years. Leading House is EPFL with Prof. Dario Floreano, Deputy Leader is the University of Zurich (Dept. of Informatics) with Prof. Rolf Pfeifer. NCCR robotics includes all major robotics laboratories in Switzerland and will boost robotics research in Switzerland.

NCCR Robotics will develop interactive “helper” robots, a new generation of intelligent machines that perform tasks for people in their everyday environments and safely co-exist with them. To achieve the grand goal of developing helper robots, fundamental breakthroughs in technology, materials, and control methods will be required. An NCCR constitutes an ideal and timely platform for creating the desired synergies bearing the potential of a quantum leap in robotic technology and further strengthening Switzerland’s already strong international position and visibility in human-oriented robotics. The NCCR will capitalize on the Swiss tradition in micro-engineering, precise manufacturing, and human-friendly technology, creating tremendous opportunities for knowledge and technology transfer at a point in history when developing robots with a human orientation is in a situation strategically similar to that of the nascent personal-computer industry 30 years ago.
(Source: ifi, Univ. of Zurich)

Robot Festival 2010 at EPFL

Robot Festival 2010 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) May 29-30, includes 25 robotics demonstrations and performances among them humanoid ASIMO and Robot Dance with four industrial robots.