Winner of the Georges Giralt PhD Award 2011

The 2011 Georges Giralt PhD Award was won by Mario Prats from Robotic Intelligence Laboratory at Universitat Jaume I. , with a thesis entitled "Robot Physical Interaction through the combination of Vision, Tactile and Force Feedback. Applications to Assistive Robotics."
Dr. Prats is a robotics researcher at the Jaume-I Universit, Castellón, Spain. He received his Ph.D in Computer Science Engineering from the Jaume-I University in 2009. His research is to advance towards more autonomous, robust and versatile robotic manipulation. He received Robotdalen International Scientific Award Honorable Mention 2009 and was finalist of the CEA-GTRob award to the best PhD thesis on Robotics.
CONGRATULATIONS to the winner!

The other finalists were
Radu Bogdan Rusu, Willow Garage. His thesis is entitled "Semantic 3D Object Maps for Everyday Manipulation in Human Living Environments."
Dr. Rusu is a Research Scientist at Willow Garage. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Technische Universität München (TUM), Germany in 2009 with summa cum laude. He is currently the maintainer of PCL (Point Cloud Library), a project that aims at providing a comprehensive collection of point cloud/geometry processing algorithms.

Michaël Van Damme, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His thesis is entitled "Towards Safe Control of a Compliant Manipulator Powered by Pneumatic Muscles."
Dr. van Damme is researcher and teaching assistant at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel since 2003. The focus of his research is the use of a robotic assistive device in direct contact with an operator.
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The Georges Giralt PhD Award is an annual award given by EURON for the best PhD thesis in Europe. The aim is to encourage high-quality work amongst young researchers in their first research period. The prize consists of a diploma and, in addition, the authors of all short-listed theses are offered an opportunity to publish their thesis as a monograph with Springer.

European Robotics Forum 2011 - Final Agenda Online

Final agenda & workshop descriptions for European Robotics Forum in Västerås (6-8 April, 2011) is now online. You can now see the final agenda and the full descriptions of all the workshops being offered at the European Robotics Forum. More than 200 roboticists have already registered for this important community meeting which will take place at the Aros Congress Centre, in Västerås, Sweden on 6-8 April, 2011. The registration deadline is March 27th, 2011.

Robotland will attend and contribute with presentations at two workshops:
Promoting European Robotics – plans, ideas and projects, 7 April 2011, 11:00 – 12:30 a.m
Wolfgang Heller will present Global Robotics Brain 2.0, a new tool for robotics intelligence and promotion. Started in 2005 Global Robotics Brain is one of the world’s largest mind maps about robotics and a unique entry to the world of robotics for students, researchers and industry. It provides a new and comprehensive overview of robotics R&D, industry and media in more than 50 countries. Plans for version 3.0 will be presented.

Pioneered in Europe, commercialised elsewhere: domestic service robots in the past, present and future, 8 April 2011, 08:30 – 10:00 a.m.
The workshop will start with short (10 min.) statements of the invited speakers, the remaining time will be used for discussion with the audience. Wolfgang Heller will talk about "Smart Robots don´t fool Smarter Consumers - Rethinking Domestic Service Robots in the Age of Social Media Intelligence". Agenda

Enabling Robotics Innovation: From Research to Products

Since year 2000 about EUR 700 million have been invested in Europe by the EU, academia and industry in robotics research. Thousands of research papers have been published and increased the global robotics knowledge, but the transfer from research into innovations and new products has been more difficult and disappointing for market players and consumers. 

The theme of the European Robotics Forum 2011 is "Enabling innovation: from research to products". The theme is inspired by last year's theme, "Bridging the gap": the discussion around that theme led to the observation that the perceived gap between academia and industry in robotics is much smaller than the broad gap between new robotics developments and "the service robot customer".
The European Robotics Forum is a co-organisation by the networks EUROP (European Technology Robotics Platform) and EURON (European Robotics Research Network) and will take place in Vasteras, Sweden on April 6-8, 2011, hosted by Swedish Robotdalen.
More information about the ERF can be found online.

EUROP/EURON 2010

For the first time both EUROP and EURON held their annual meetings during the same period and at the same location - San Sebastian, Spain. Both EUROP and EURON members welcome this opportunity for exchange and communication of ideas among their members. This move facilitated EUROP and EURON's joint collaboration efforts in organising workshops during the first common day.

The first workshop was on real technical problems and the other workshop was about social challenges. The conclusion after the two workshops was that more technical details and more problem description from the product visions are needed.

Tackling societal challenges such as aging society, climate change and sustainable manufacturing very concrete descriptions of product visions are needed for an upcoming position paper prepared by EUROP.

For information about the Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) for robotics in Europe visit EUROP´s SRA webpage where you also can download a copy for free.

Euron/Europ annual meetings 2010, 2011

The EURON and EUROP Boards have taken a decision about the organisation of their Annual Meetings of 2010 and 2011. The 2010 meeting will be organised in cooperation with Fatronik/Tecnalia in San Sebastian, Spain and the 2011 meeting will be organised by Robotdalen in Västerås, Sweden.

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

Global Robotic Visions