Image from adarit.com/

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Robert Williamson, a Professor at the Australian National University, who speaks about a mathematical approach to ethics. This approach can get us started implementing robots that behave ethically. Williamson goes through his logical derivation of a mathematical formulation of ethics and then talks about the cost of fairness. In making his derivation, he relates bureaucracy to an algorithm. He wraps up by talking about how to work ethically.

Robert Williamson

Robert (Bob) Williamson is a professor in the research school of computer science at Australian National University. Until recently he was the chief scientist of DATA61, where he continues as a distinguished researcher. He served as scientific director and (briefly) CEO of NICTA, and lead its machine learning research group. His research is focussed on machine learning. He is the lead author of the ACOLA report Technology and Australia’s Future. He obtained his PhD in electrical engineering from the university of Queensland in 1990. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.

Links

• Download mp3 (14.4 MB)
• Robert Williamson’s homepage
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In this interview, Audrow Nash interviews Amruta Moktali, VP of Product Management at Salesforce Analytics, about Salesforce Analytics’ analytic and artificial intelligence software. Moktali discusses the data-pipeline, how data is processed (e.g., noise), and how insights are identified.  She also talks about how dimensions in the data can be controlled for (such as race, gender, or zip-code) to avoid bias and how other dimensions can be selected as actionable so Salesforce can make recommendations—and how they use interpretable methods so that these recommendations can be explained.  Moktali also tells about her professional path, including going from computer engineering and computer science to product management and her experience with intrapreneurship (that is, starting an endeavor within a large organization).

Here is a video demo of Einstein Analytics, and you can watch Moktali’s live in the Einstein Analytics keynote at Dreamforce on Thursday, Sept. 27 at 5pm PT at salesforce.com/live and youtube.com/user/dreamforce.

Amruta Moktali
Amruta Moktali, VP of Product Management for Salesforce Analytics, has spent 10+ years immersed in the data and analytics side of popular products. Before Salesforce, she was head of product at Topsy Labs, the social search and analytics company, where her team pinpointed the catalyst tweets that initiated the Arab Spring in Egypt. Topsy was acquired by Apple and is now part of Apple Search technology. Prior to that she worked at Microsoft where she worked on several products including Bing, which she had a hand in shaping with the Powerset team. She earned her bachelor’s degree in computer engineering at Maharaja Sayajirao University in India, and her master’s in computer science at Arizona State University.

Links

• Download mp3 (19.0 MB)
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In this episode, Audrow Nash interview Magnus Egerstedt, Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, about a way for anyone interested in swarm robotics to test their ideas on hardware, called the Robotarium.  The Robotarium is a 725-square-foot lab at the the Georgia Institute of Technology that houses nearly 100 rolling and flying robots.  To test their ideas, people can write their own programs, upload them to the Robotarium, and then watch the machines carry out their commands.

In this interview, Egerstedt speaks about the kinds of robots used in the Robotarium, design decisions in making the Robotarium, the differences between doing research in simulation and on hardware, and about lessons learnt and the challenges of building the Robotarium.

Magnus Egerstedt

Dr. Magnus Egerstedt is the Steve W. Chaddick School Chair and Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He holds secondary appointments in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, the School of Interactive Computing, and the Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, and has previously served as the Executive Director for the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines at Georgia Tech. He received the M.S. degree in Engineering Physics and the Ph.D. degree in Applied Mathematics from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, the B.A. degree in Philosophy from Stockholm University, and was a Postdoctoral Scholar at Harvard University. Dr. Egerstedt conducts research in the areas of control theory and robotics, with particular focus on control and coordination of complex networks, such as multi-robot systems, mobile sensor networks, and cyber-physical systems. Magnus Egerstedt is a Fellow of the IEEE and has received a number of teaching and research awards, including the Ragazzini Award from the American Automatic Control Council, the Outstanding Doctoral Advisor Award and the HKN Outstanding Teacher Award from Georgia Tech, the Alumni of the Year Award from the Royal Institute of Technology, and the CAREER Award from the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Links

• Download mp3 (14.4 MB)
• GRITS Lab
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In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Chris McCool and Chris Lehnert about different projects that relate to agriculture at the Queensland University of Technology. McCool speaks about a large robot for weed management in fields. The robot uses Real-time kinematic GPS (very accurate) and a camera with deep learning to recognize various types of plants. Lehnert speaks about a robot to harvest sweet peppers. The robot first grabs on to the sweet pepper with a suction cup and then uses a small saw to cut the fruit from the bush. Chris speaks about using their method for other crops, how their robot does in terms of deployment, and the future of agriculture.

A video of the AgBot II, the weeding robot that McCool discusses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=173&v=15tovWSnJe0

A video of Harvey, the robot to harvest sweet peppers that Lehnert discusses.

Chris McCool

Chris McCool is a Senior Researcher the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).  McCool is interested in applied image classification and its ability to help robots interact with their environment.  He holds a PhD and Batchelor’s from QUT.

Chris Lehnert

Chris Lehnert is a Robotics Lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He is interested in robotic manipulation, specifically in agriculture and for warehouse automation. Lehnert holds a PhD from QUT and a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Queensland.

Links

• Download mp3 (12.5 MB)
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• Support us on Patreon

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Shuo Yang about DJI’s RoboMaster first-person shooter (FPS) competition, a competition designed to get people excited about robotics. For the competition, university teams build and program a robot to go against DJI’s robots in a shooting battle. Each robot has a way of propelling marble-sized plastic balls and pressure sensors on their sides to register if they’ve been hit by an opponent’s projectile. Shuo speaks about the goals of the competition, the teams that are involved, what strategies the teams use, the difficulties the team had in making their robot’s good competitors, the future of the challenge, and how people can get involved.

Note that RoboMaster’s final tournament for the FPS competition starts on July 20, 2018 and goes until July 28, 2018.

Shuo Yang

Shuo Yang is the Director of Intelligent Navigation Technologies at DJI. He obtained B.Eng and M.Phil degrees from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). He is involved in developing flight control and navigation technologies for several DJI flagship products, such as the Inspire 1, Phantom 4 and Matrice 100 drones and the A3 flight controller. He has coauthored 4 academic papers and obtained near 10 US patents. Shuo is also leading an educational robotics competition project called RoboMaster at DJI.

Links

• Robomaster’s Official Website
• Robomaster’s Livestream Platform
• Download mp3 (15.6 MB)
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• Support us on Patreon

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Juxi Leitner, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at QUT; and Nicholas Panitz, Ben Wilson, and James Brett, from CSIRO.

Leitner speaks about the Amazon Picking challenge, a challenge to advance the state of robotic grasping, and their robot which won the challenge in 2017. Their robot is similar to a cartesian 3D printer in form and uses either a suction cup or a pinch gripper for grabbing objects. Their robot has a depth camera and uses a digital scale to determine if an object has been picked up successfully. Leitner discusses what their team did differently from other teams that helped them win the competition.

Panitz, Wilson, and Brett speak about their hexapod robots. Their hexapods are for several purposes, such as environmental monitoring and remote inspection. They choose to use hexapods because they are statically stable. They discuss the design of their hexapods and how research works at Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO.

A video of the robot Leitner discusses, #Cartman:

An example of CSIRO’s hexapod robots for inspection:

Links

• Download mp3 (12.9 MB)
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• Support us on Patreon

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Jonathan W. Hurst, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Oregon State University and CTO and co-founder of Agility Robotics, about legged locomotion, about a bipedal robot, called “Cassie.” Hurst discusses Cassie’s design, what types of research questions Cassie should allow, and applications of walking robots, including package delivery. 

Below is a video of Cassie walking in several environments.

Jonathan W. Hurst

Jonathan W. Hurst is Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Agility Robotics, as well as an Associate Professor of Robotics and College of Engineering Dean’s Professor at Oregon State University. He holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering and an M.S. and Ph.D. in robotics, all from Carnegie Mellon University. His university research focuses on understanding the fundamental science and engineering best practices for legged locomotion. Investigations range from numerical studies and analysis of animal data, to simulation studies of theoretical models, to designing, constructing, and experimenting with legged robots for walking and running. Agility Robotics is taking this research to commercial applications for robotic legged mobility, working towards a day when robots can go where people go, generate greater productivity across the economy, and improve quality of life for all.

Links

• Dynamic Robotics Laboratory
• Agility Robotics
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
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• Support us on Patreon
• Download MP3 (23.8 MB)

In this interview, Audrow Nash speaks with Sangin Park, Senior Research Engineer at Hyundai, about exoskeletons. Park describes three exoskeleton prototypes: one for helping workers reduce back pain, one for assisting a person with paraplegia, and an exoskeleton for soldiers. Park discusses the sensors and actuators of each exoskeleton, as well as Hyundai’s exoskeleton ambitions.

Sangin Park

Sangin Park is a Senior Research Engineer at Hyundai.

Links

• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
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• Support us on Patreon
• Download MP3 (12.6 MB)

Toyota HSR Trained with DART to Make a Bed.

In this episode, Audrow Nash speaks with Michael Laskey, PhD student at UC Berkeley, about a method for robust imitation learning, called DART. Laskey discusses how DART relates to previous imitation learning methods, how this approach has been used for folding bed sheets, and on the importance of robotics leveraging theory in other disciplines.

To learn more, see this post on Robohub from the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) Lab.

Michael Laskey

Michael Laskey is a Ph.D. Candidate in EECS at UC Berkeley, advised by Prof. Ken Goldberg in the AUTOLAB (Automation Sciences). Michael’s Ph.D. develops new algorithms for Deep Learning of robust robot control policies and examines how to reliably apply recent deep learning advances for scalable robotics learning in challenging unstructured environments. Michael received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His work has been nominated for multiple best paper awards at IEEE, ICRA, and CASE and has been featured in news outlets such as MIT Tech Review and Fast Company.

Links

• AUTOLAB
• Michael Laskey’s website
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
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• Support us on Patreon
• Download MP3 (13.2 MB)

In this interview, Audrow speaks with Andrea Bajcsy and Dylan P. Losey about a method that allows robots to infer a human’s objective through physical interaction. They discuss their approach, the challenges of learning complex tasks, and their experience collaborating between different universities.

Some examples of people working with the more typical impedance control (left) and Bajcsy and Losey’s learning method (right).

To learn more, see this post on Robohub from the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) Lab.

Andrea Bajcsy
Andrea Bajcsy is a Ph.D. student in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California Berkeley. She received her B.S. degree in Computer Science at the University of Maryland and was awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in 2016. At Berkeley, she works in the Interactive Autonomy and Collaborative Technologies Laboratory researching physical human-robot interaction.

Dylan P. Losey

Dylan P. Losey received the B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA, in 2014, and the M.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Rice University, Houston, TX, USA, in 2016.

He is currently working towards the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering at Rice University, where he has been a member of the Mechatronics and Haptic Interfaces Laboratory since 2014.  In addition, between May and August 2017, he was a visiting scholar in the Interactive Autonomy and Collaborative Technologies Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.  He researches physical human-robot interaction; in particular, how robots can learn from and adapt to human corrections.

Mr. Losey received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in 2014, and the 2016 IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics Best Paper Award as a first author.

Links

• InterACT Lab
• MAHL Lab
• Andrea Bajcsy’s website
• Dylan’s Losey’s website
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
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• Support us on Patreon
• Download MP3 (14.9 MB)

In this episode, Audrow Nash speaks with Maja Matarić, a professor at the University of Southern California and the Chief Science Officer of Embodied, about socially assistive robotics. Socially assistive robotics aims to endow robots with the ability to help people through individual non-contact assistance in convalescence, rehabilitation, training, and education. For example, a robot could help a child on the autism spectrum to connect to more neurotypical children and could help to motivate a stroke victim to follow their exercise routine for rehabilitation (see the videos below). In this interview, Matarić discusses the care gap in health care, how her work leverages research in psychology to make robots engaging, and opportunities in socially assistive robotics for entrepreneurship.

A short video about how personalized robots might act as a “social bridge” between a child on the autism spectrum and a more neurotypical child.

A short video about how a robot could assist stroke victims in their recovery.

Maja Matarić

Maja Matarić is professor and Chan Soon-Shiong chair in Computer Science Department, Neuroscience Program, and the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Southern California, founding director of the USC Robotics and Autonomous Systems Center (RASC), co-director of the USC Robotics Research Lab and Vice Dean for Research in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. She received her PhD in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence from MIT, MS in Computer Science from MIT, and BS in Computer Science from the University of Kansas. 

Links

• Interaction Lab
• Embodied
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
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• Support us on Patreon
• Download MP3 (13.7 MB)

In this episode, Audrow Nash speaks with Monica Daley about learning from birds about legged locomotion. To do this, Daley analyzes the gaits of guineafowl in various experiments to understand the mechanical principles underlying gaits, such as energetic economy, mechanical limits, and how the birds avoid injury. She then tests her ideas about legged locomotion on legged robots with collaborators, including Jonathan Hurst from Oregon State University. Daley also speaks about her experience with interdisciplinary collaborations. 

Monica Daley

Monica Daley earned an HBSc in Biology with a Chemistry minor at the University of Utah, where she was inspired to pursue an academic career through her research on human locomotor-ventilatory integration with Dennis Bramble and David Carrier. Daley then spent a year as a research technician at the University of Utah, investigating motor control of singing in zebra finches in the lab of Franz Goller. These experiences initiated a long-standing fascination with the interplay of mechanics and neural control.

Daley went on to Harvard University, where she earned her MA and PhD in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. Her research on muscle-tendon dynamics and biomechanics of avian bipedal locomotion was supported by a prestigious Predoctoral Fellowship award from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and supervised by Andrew Biewener at the Concord Field Station of Harvard University (CFS Website).

After completing her PhD, Daley was awarded a Research Fellowship by the U.S. National Science Foundation to develop models of the dynamics and control of bipedal locomotion, working with Dan Ferris in the Human Neuromechanics Lab at University of Michigan, in collaboration with Auke Ijspeert in the Biologically Inspired Robotics Group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.

Daley is a faculty member of the Structure and Motion Lab, where she leads research in Comparative Neuromechanics— a field that seeks to understand the interplay of morphology, mechanics and sensorimotor control that influences how animals move through their environment.

Links

• Structure and Motion Lab
• Download mp3 (15.5 MB)
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Image from the South China Morning Post

In this episode, Audrow Nash speaks with Karl Weaver (魏卡爾), formerly the Original Equipment Manufacturer Business Development Director for Oasis Smart SIM. Weaver discusses how wearable technology is growing as a form of payment system in China. He speaks about wireless technology, including Near-Field Communications (NFC) and Embedded SIM cards (eSIM), in wearable technology and in other applications, such as bike rental.

Karl Weaver (魏卡爾)

Since the recording of this interview, Karl has begun working for ARM promoting eSIM and iUICC to Greater China and Asia.

Karl Weaver (魏卡爾) previously worked as the Original Equipment Manufacturer Business Development Director (North America and Northeast Asia) for Oasis Smart SIM. Prior to Oasis, Karl worked for Rivetz Corp, a Massachusetts-based start-up to promote developer tools for design-in of TEE-enables applications on Smartphones for payment and security. Karl also spent 5 years working in China for Gemalto (and Trustonic) as liaison and evangelist of embedded Mobile Near-Field Communications Payments & TEE security technologies to the OEM Smartphone/Tablet PC ecosystem. Weaver has a B.S degree in Business Management from Salve Regina University and a Certification in Mandarin Chinese Language, Customs, and Culture from National Taiwan Normal University.

Links

• Download mp3 (17.5 MB)
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• Support us on Patreon

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Elliott Rouse, Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, about an open-source prosthetic leg—that is a robotic knee and ankle. Rouse’s goal is to provide an inexpensive and capable platform for researchers to use so that they can work on prostheses without developing their own hardware, which is both time-consuming and expensive. Rouse discusses the design of the leg, the software interface, and the project’s timeline.

Elliott Rouse

Elliott Rouse is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Michigan, where he directs the Neurobionics Lab. The vision of his group is to discover the fundamental science that underlies human joint dynamics during locomotion and incorporate these discoveries in a new class of wearable robotic technologies. The Lab uses technical tools from mechanical and biomedical engineering applied to the complex challenges of human augmentation, physical medicine, rehabilitation and neuroscience. Dr. Rouse and his research have been featured at TED, on the Discovery Channel, CNN, National Public Radio, Wired Magazine UK, Business Insider, and Odyssey Magazine.

Links

• Rouse’s lab website
• Rouse’s personal website
• Download mp3 (12.6 MB)
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In this interview, Audrow Nash interviews Helen Huang, Joint Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State, about a method of tuning powered lower limb prostheses. Huang explains how powered prostheses are adjusted for each patient and how she is using supervised and reinforcement learning to tune prosthesis. Huang also discusses why she is not using the energetic cost of transport as a metric and the challenge of people adapting to a device while it learns from them.

Helen Huang

Helen Huang is a Professor in the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) and North Carolina State University (NCSU) and the Director of the NCSU/UNC Closed-Loop Engineering for Advanced Rehabilitation (CLEAR) Core. Huang is interested in neural-machine interfaces for prostheses and exoskeletons, wearer-robot interaction, adaptive and optimal control of wearable robots, and human movement control. She has developed an EMG-based neural interface for robotic prosthetic legs. She was a recipient of the Delsys Prize for Innovation in Electromyography, the Mary E. Switzer Fellowship with the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), and a NSF CAREER Award and was named NC State faculty scholar in 2015.

Links

• Huang’s research lab
• Download mp3 (19.9 MB)
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• Support us on Patreon

Image: ICRA 2017

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews several companies at the International Conference for Robotics and Automation (ICRA). ICRA is the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society’s biggest conference and one of the leading international forums for robotics researchers to present their work.

Interviews:

Howard Michel, Chief Technology Officer of UBTECH Education, on a humanoid robot for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education for a range of ages. (Begins at 1m 20s.)

Li Bingbing, Software Engineer and Cofounder of Transforma in Singapore, on a robot for painting tall buildings. (Begins at 10m 25s.)

Xianbao Chen, Associate Researcher at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, on a hexapod robot for large parts machining. (Begins at 17m 5s.)

Lester Teh Chee Onn, Environmental Engineer at Advisian, on a watercraft for environmental monitoring. (Begins at 27m.)

Links

• Download mp3 (18.8 MB)
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• Support us on Patreon

Robohub Podcast has launched a campaign on Patreon!

If you don’t know, Robohub Podcast is a biweekly podcast about robotics. Our goal is to explore global robotics through interviews with experts, both in academia and industry. In our interviews,

• we discuss technical topics (how things work, design decisions),
• entrepreneurship (lessons learned, business models, ownership),
• and anything we find interesting and related to robotics (policy, ethics, global trends, international technology initiatives and education, etc.).

We have published nearly 250 episodes and have spoken with many of the most influential people in robotics, such as Rodney Brooks, Dean Kamen, Radhika Nagpal, and Helen Greiner.

We would like your support so we can bring you interviews from the leading robotics conferences and laboratories around the world. Our first goal is to send two interviewers to ICRA 2018 in Brisbane, Australia.

If you want to support us, visit our Patreon campaign.

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Peter Adamczyk, Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, on semi-active foot and ankle prostheses. The difference is that active below-knee prostheses work to move the person’s weight, emulating the calf muscle, while semi-active devices use small amounts of power to improve the performance of the prosthesis. Adamczyk discusses the motivation for semi-active devices and gives three examples: shiftable shapes, controllable keels, and alignable ankles.

Peter Adamczyk

Peter Adamczyk directs the University of Wisconsin-Madison Biomechatronics, Assistive Devices, Gait Engineering and Rehabilitation Laboratory (UW BADGER Lab) which aims to enhance physical and functional recovery from orthopedic and neurological injury through advanced robotic devices.

“We study the mechanisms by which these injuries impair normal motion and coordination, and target interventions to encourage recovery and/or provide biomechanical assistance. Our work primarily addresses impairments affecting walking, running, and standing. One core focus is advanced semi-active foot prostheses for patients with lower limb amputation. Additional research addresses assessment and rehabilitation of balance impairments, hemiparesis, and other neurologically-based mobility challenges.”

Links

• Download mp3 (19.6 MB)
• UW BADGER Lab
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
• Subscribe to Robots using RSS

In this interview, Audrow Nash interviews Marco Hutter, Assistant Professor for Robotic Systems at ETH Zürich, about a quadrupedal robot designed for autonomous operation in challenging environments, called ANYmal. Hutter discusses ANYmal’s design, the ARGOS oil and gas rig inspection challenge, and the advantages and complexities of quadrupedal locomotion. 

Here is a video showing some of the highlights of ANYmal at the ARGOS Challenge.

Here is a video that shows some of the motions ANYmal is capable of.

Marco Hutter

Marco Hutter is assistant professor for Robotic Systems at ETH Zürich since 2015 and Branco Weiss Fellow since 2014. Before this, he was deputy director and group leader in the field of legged robotics at the Autonomous Systems Lab at ETH Zürich. After studying mechanical engineering, he conducted his doctoral degree in robotics at ETH with focus on design, actuation, and control of dynamic legged robotic systems. Beside his commitment within the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication since October 2015 Hutter is part of the NCCR robotics and coordinator of several research projects, industrial collaborations, and international competitions (e.g. ARGOS challenge) that target the application of high-mobile autonomous vehicles in challenging environments such as for search and rescue, industrial inspection, or construction operation. His research interests lie in the development of novel machines and actuation concepts together with the underlying control, planning, and optimization algorithms for locomotion and manipulation.

Links

• Download mp3 (11.1 MB)
• Robotic Systems Lab
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
• Subscribe to Robots using RSS

I am happy to announce that Robots Podcast will be renamed to “Robohub Podcast“.

This name change is to avoid confusion about how the podcast and Robohub relate, a question we frequently get. The answer is that they are part of the same effort to connect the global robotics community to the world — and they were founded by many of the same people.

The podcast began in 2006 as “Talking Robots” and was launched by Dr. Dario Floreano at EPFL in Switzerland and his PhD students. Several of those PhD students then went on to launch the “Robots Podcast”, which will celebrate its 250th episode at the end of this year (make sure to check the whole playlist)! Robohub came a few years later as an effort to bring together all the communicators in robotics under one umbrella to provide free, high-quality information about robotics. Robohub has supported the podcast over the years by advising us, making connections for interviews, and sponsoring us to attend conferences.

Going forward, I am happy that our new name will show our close relationship to Robohub, and I look forward to many more interviews.

Happy listening!

Audrow Nash

Podcast Director, Robohub

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Chris Gerdes, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University, about designing high-performance autonomous vehicles. The idea is to make vehicles safer, as Gerdes says, he wants to “develop vehicles that could avoid any accident that can be avoided within the laws of physics.”

In this interview, Gerdes discusses developing a model for high-performance control of a vehicle; their autonomous race car, an Audi TTS named ‘Shelley,’ and how its autonomous performance compares to ameteur and professional race car drivers; and an autonomous, drifting Delorean named ‘MARTY.’

Chris Gerdes

Chris Gerdes is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University, Director of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford (CARS) and Director of the Revs Program at Stanford. His laboratory studies how cars move, how humans drive cars and how to design future cars that work cooperatively with the driver or drive themselves. When not teaching on campus, he can often be found at the racetrack with students, instrumenting historic race cars or trying out their latest prototypes for the future. Vehicles in the lab include X1, an entirely student-built test vehicle, and Shelley, an Audi TT-S capable of turning a competitive lap time around the track without a human driver. Professor Gerdes and his team have been recognized with a number of awards including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the Ralph Teetor award from SAE International and the Rudolf Kalman Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Links

• Download mp3 (21.7 MB)
• Dynamic Design Lab
• Center for Automotive Research at Stanford
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
• Subscribe to Robots using RSS

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Ayanna Howard, Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, about her work to help children with the movement disorder cerebral palsy. Howard discusses how robots and tablet can be used to “gamify” pediatric therapy. The idea is that if therapy is fun and engaging children are more likely to do it, and thus, they are more likely to see the long-term benefits of the therapy. Howard discusses how therapy is “gamified,” how a small humanoid robot is used to coach children, and how they work with pediatricians.

Ayanna Howard

Ayanna Howard, Ph.D. is Professor and Linda J. and Mark C. Smith Endowed Chair in Bioengineering in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She also holds the position of Associate Chair for Faculty Development in ECE. She received her B.S. in Engineering from Brown University, her M.S.E.E. from the University of Southern California, and her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California.

Her area of research is centered around the concept of humanized intelligence, the process of embedding human cognitive capability into the control path of autonomous systems. This work, which addresses issues of autonomous control as well as aspects of interaction with humans and the surrounding environment, has resulted in over 200 peer-reviewed publications in a number of projects – from scientific rover navigation in glacier environments to assistive robots for the home. To date, her unique accomplishments have been highlighted through a number of awards and articles, including highlights in USA Today, Upscale, and TIME Magazine, as well as being named a MIT Technology Review top young innovator and recognized as one of the 23 most powerful women engineers in the world by Business Insider.

In 2013, she also founded Zyrobotics, which is currently licensing technology derived from her research and has released their first suite of therapy and educational products for children with differing needs. From 1993-2005, Dr. Howard was at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. She has also served a term as the Associate Director of Research for the Georgia Tech Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines and a term as Chair of the multidisciplinary Robotics Ph.D. program at Georgia Tech.

Links

• Download mp3 (21.9 MB)
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
• Subscribe to Robots using RSS

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Katsu Yamane, Senior Research Scientist at Disney, about robotics in Disney. Yamane discusses Disney’s history with robots, how Disney currently uses Robots, how designing robots at Disney is different than in academia or industry, a realistic robot simulator used by Disney’s animators, and on becoming a Disney Research “Imagineer.”

Katsu Yamane

Katsu received his PhD in mechanical engineering from University of Tokyo in 2002. Following postdoctoral work at Carnegie Mellon University from 2002 to 2003, he was a faculty member at University of Tokyo until he joined Disney Research, Pittsburgh, in October 2008. His main research area is humanoid robot control and motion synthesis, in particular methods involving human motion data and dynamic balancing. He is also interested in developing algorithms for creating character animation. He has always been fascinated by the way humans control their bodies, which led him to the research on biomechanical human modeling and simulation to understand human sensation and motor control.

Links

• Download mp3 (9.1MB)
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
• Subscribe to Robots using RSS

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Peter Corke, Professor of Robotics at the Queensland University of Technology and Director of the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision, about Robot Academy. Robot Academy is an online platform that provides free-to-use undergraduate-level learning resources for robotics and robotic vision.

The content was developed for two 6-week Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that Corke taught in 2015 and 2016. This content is now available as individual lessons (over 200 videos, each less than 10 minutes long) or in masterclasses (collections of videos, around 1 hour in duration, previously a MOOC lecture). Unlike a MOOC, all lessons are available all the time.

While the content is typically designed for undergraduate-level students, around 20% of the lessons require no more than general knowledge. Each lesson is rated in terms of difficulty (on a 5-point scale), and Robot Academy references videos on Khan Academy to help students get up to speed to follow more advanced lessons.

Peter Corke

Peter Corke is Professor of Robotics and Control at the Queensland University of Technology leading the ARC Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision in Australia. Previously he was a Senior Principal Research Scientist at the CSIRO ICT Centre where he founded and led the Autonomous Systems laboratory, the Sensors and Sensor Networks research theme and the Sensors and Sensor Networks Transformational Capability Platform. He is a Fellow of the IEEE. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Robotics and Automation magazine; founding editor of the Journal of Field Robotics; member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Robotics Research, and the Springer STAR series. He has over 300 publications in the field and has held visiting positions at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Carnegie-Mellon University Robotics Institute, and Oxford University.

Links

• Robot Academy’s homepage
• Peter Corke’s website
• Download mp3 (12.5 MB)
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
• Subscribe to Robots using RSS

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Sergey Levine, assistant professor at UC Berkeley, about deep learning on robotics. Levine explains what deep learning is and he discusses the challenges of using deep learning in robotics. Lastly, Levine speaks about his collaboration with Google and some of the surprising behavior that emerged from his deep learning approach (how the system grasps soft objects).

In addition to the main interview, Audrow interviewed Levine about his professional path. They spoke about what questions motivate him, why his PhD experience was different to what he had expected, the value of self-directed learning,  work-life balance, and what he wishes he’d known in graduate school.

A video of Levine’s work in collaboration with Google.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXaic_k80uM&feature=youtu.be

Sergey Levine

Sergey Levine is an assistant professor at UC Berkeley. His research focuses on robotics and machine learning. In his PhD thesis, he developed a novel guided policy search algorithm for learning complex neural network control policies, which was later applied to enable a range of robotic tasks, including end-to-end training of policies for perception and control. He has also developed algorithms for learning from demonstration, inverse reinforcement learning, efficient training of stochastic neural networks, computer vision, and data-driven character animation.

Links

• Download mp3 (16.0 MB)
• Download extra mp3 (7.1 MB)
• Sergey Levine’s website
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
• Subscribe to Robots using RSS

Credit: sk.ru

In this episode, Audrow Nash and Christina Brester conduct interviews at the 2016 International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation conference in Moscow, Russia. They speak with Vadim Kotenev of Rehabot and Motorica about prosthetic hands and rehabilatative devices; and Vagan Martirosyan, CEO of TryFit, a company that uses robotic sensors to help people find shoes that fit them well.

An image of one of the rehabilitative devices from Rehabot.

The robotic platform that scans your feet from TryFit.

Links

• Download mp3 (13.3 MB)
• IASP 2016 conference website
• Skolkovo’s robotics page
• Rehabot’s website
• TryFit’s website
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
• Subscribe to Robots using RSS

In this episode, Audrow Nash and Christina Brester conduct interviews at the 2016 International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation conference in Moscow, Russia. They speak with Roman Luchin, CEO of CyberTech Labs., about a robotics development platform called Trik. Trik is intended to be an intermediate step when learning about robotics between Lego Mindstorms and programming on an embedded platform. Trik allows users to program with a graphical interface by ordering blocks. These blocks contain code in several common programming languages (python, F#, Pascal, etc.) and the code can be modified directly.

This is the second of three interviews from the conference.

Roman Luchin

Roman Luchin is Founder of TRIK and CEO of CyberTech Labs in Russia. He started as a researcher in a laboratory of theoretical cybernetics in Saint Petersburg State University, where he developed multi-agent control systems. Faced with two challenges in Russian robotics, young professionals and outdated approaches, he decided to devote himself to the improvement of STEM education through robotics and the creation of new educational tools. As a result, he developed a unified cybernetic platform for education, research, and robotics projects called TRIK. There is a continuously growing community around TRIK, including universities, researchers, prototyping labs, and creative teams working to provide everyone with the opportunity to create modern intelligent robots that can “see”, “hear” and collaborate.

Links

• Download mp3 (16.5 MB)
• IASP 2016 conference website
• Skolkovo’s robotics page
• Trik’s homepage
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
• Subscribe to Robots using RSS

In this episode, Audrow Nash speaks with Roland Siegwart and Matthias Hüni about Kickstart Accelerator, a Swiss Startup Accelerator. Siegwart leads the Autonomous Systems Lab at ETH Zürich and is one of the initiators of Kickstart Accelerator. Hüni is the vertical lead of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at Kickstart Accelerator and is involved in the program’s operations. Kickstart Accelerator seeks to provide international entrepreneurs with an inlet to the Swiss ecosystem, including connections to industry and academia.

Roland Siegwart

Roland Siegwart is a Professor of Autonomous Systems at ETH Zurich since July 2006 and Founding Co-Director of the Wyss Zurich. From January 2010 to December 2014 he took office as Vice President Research and Corporate Relations in the Executive Board. Roland Siegwart’s research interests are in the design and control of systems operating in complex and highly dynamical environments. His major goal is to find new ways to deal with uncertainties and enable the design of highly interactive and adaptive systems. Prominent application examples are personal and service robots, autonomous micro-aircrafts, walking and swimming robots and driver assistant systems.

Matthias Hüni

Matthias is a software engineer by profession and a maker by passion. At Impact Hub Zurich, he works for Kickstart Accelerator, taking care of the Robotics and Intelligent Systems vertical. Before Kickstart, he helped setting up the makerZspace at Impact Hub Colab, leveraging his experience from FabLab Zurich – both digital (and analog) fabrication workshops for startups and individuals to rapidly prototype and materialize their ideas and projects. His professional background covers several years in software architecture and IT project management at fundinfo.com before he started his own company sporttrip.ch, a online marketing and consulting services provider for the travel industry and beyond.

Links

• Kickstart Accelerator’s website
• Download mp3 (13.2 MB)
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
• Subscribe to Robots using RSS

Transcript has been edited for clarity.

Audrow:
Hi, welcome to Robots Podcast.

Roland:
Hello.

Matt:
Hello.

Audrow:
Would you introduce yourselves?

Roland:
I’m Roland Siegwart. I’m a professor on robotics at ETH Zurich. Also, I am one of the initiator of the Kickstart Accelerator here in Zurich.

Matt:
My name is Matthias Hüni, I go by Matt. I am the vertical lead for smart and connected machines vertical at Kickstart Accelerator, so I’m the counterpart of Roland in the operations of the program.

Audrow:
Now, would you tell me what Kickstart Accelerator is, Roland?

Roland:
Kickstart Accelerator is, as the name says, an accelerator program for young entrepreneurs.

Roland:
With a special focus on topics, I will come back to this, and also on the goals. So, what do you want to actually to offer the Swiss ecosystem to people mainly from abroad to benefit from having contacts through industry, but also to universities in specific fields.

Roland:
This makes it actually also special that we selected different verticals we call them, on topics where a student has to add something, or has to offer something. For example, new fintech, or smart and connecting machines where

Audrow:
And fintech is financial technology, right?

Roland:
Yes, exactly.

Audrow:
Okay, so analyzing markets and this kind of thing?

Roland:
Yes.

Audrow:
Okay. So you’re working within these verticals and you’re trying to develop accelerator, to help entrepreneurs in these areas, right? Would you tell me a bit about the areas? So fintech you mentioned, robotics is one of them.

Roland:
Yes, we have an additional one which is food, which is everything which is linked with food from production to up to the point where you sell food, where we offer them a vertical. Then we had one, which is was very generic, which was about the future of emerging technologies. We both remained in both this vertical on smart and connected machines, which is everything about machines which are connected through the network and offer new services to humans, toward our society, and of course robotics perfectly falls into this field.

Audrow:
So how are you involved with the Kickstart Accelerator?

Roland:
I myself, as mentioned I was involved in setting up the whole thing. So we came up with this idea that we should have something additionally in Switzerland about two years ago. Then I was involved in the definition on this verticals-

Roland:
And then really Kickstart Accelerator, I was somewhat involved as an expert. I was interacting with the different teachers selected to come to Zurich to give them support, to connect them to companies, but also connect them to lead with structural effects, at ETH to show that really benefit from the environment.

Audrow:
So how is this related to your role as a professor at ETH?

Roland:
So in principle, it probably has not a very direct connection, but of course I was always also very interested in not only doing research, but also bringing this to its market to really make something out of the wonderful research. My people do it here at ETH. We had ourselves a couple of first spinoffs already which are doing pretty well.

Roland:
So I am always excited to see young people really coming up with ideas and bringing them to the market. This is more or less a private initiative, which I think is very valuable for Switzerland and for young people.

Audrow:
Okay. And Matt, would you tell me how you’re involved as a vertical lead?

Matt:
Yeah, sure. I’m more like let’s say the ground troops in the vertical. I took care of onboarding all the startups. I also took care of the selection process where Roland was involved as an expert and lots of other people from our partners involved.

Matt:
My job is to facilitate the selection of the onboarding of the startups, the whole program, the access of the startups to our partners.

Matt:
As well as, generally, everything where the startups are stuck or they need help. Also, it’s a mixture in between event management, but also my background as observe engineer, helps me a lot in kind of understanding their technical issues and startup issues being part of the startup for the last 10 years.

Matt:
I would say it’s really a very generic, but also very specific ground work role that I’m taking care of.

Audrow:
I see. Now can you tell me about some of the companies that you have in the smart and connected machines domain, or vertical?

Matt:
Yeah, sure. I think it’s a very broad application. For example, there is one startup called Rooftop. They are developing sensor technologies to work sensor technologies on a very, let’s say affordable level, where they make robotics in the mass production market more sensible, or sensitive. There is a robotics startup, I would call it a robotics startup, it’s Teal. It’s a robotic building blocks for kids, it’s an Aztec education technology startup. They’re working close with Google Education now. They’re also involved with Roland. We have another startup with the name of Miscopic, they’re in a completely different field. They are doing field service technician support with a software that integrates into this new field of augmented reality. So you have to use Microsoft photo lenses for example, where Miscopic tries to take these devices into the field service technicians work.

Matt:
So they are at the machine and they can use this augmented reality applications. We had a selfie drone startup. Drones, of course, always have to be part of accelerators because everybody knows about drones and everybody wants to have drones. Their goal was to have a drone that you can get rid of your selfie stick, basically.

Matt:
What else did we have? I at least missed two startups.

Audrow:
Yes, I see six.

Roland:
Yes. We had, for example, one which a double ops a unit, which allows to track precisely stuff which is delivered. For example, where they are, but mainly also the temperature they go through, the humidity they go through, so that in logistics you have a precise track of what happened with the goods. This is especially for example, interesting for medicine, where you have to never go above a certain temperature.

Matt:
They were also Marvin, the future emersion technologies, vertical. Then the Remember Mind Books, which is also a very interesting combination of the simple metric attach storage thing where you just need to store data and you want to be sure that your data is safely stored.

Matt:
They are combining it with block chain technology as a, let’s say as a distributed cloud. Private cloud, where you store your data not only on your device, but also on other devices that are within your ear.

Matt:
It’s encrypted and you do the whole storage accounting stuff. So you use storage on all those machines and you pay for it using Bitcoin.

Audrow:
Oh, cool.

Matt:
They pay for their use of your space because they’re distributing their 1,000 new machines as well.

Matt:
So that’s a very interesting combination of this big new thing called block chain.

Audrow:
Yes. Okay. Now how many startups do you have total, between all of the verticals?

Matt:
There are 30 startups.

Audrow:
Yes.

Matt:
10 in the think tank section, six in the smart and connected machine section, or verticals as we call it.

Audrow:
Okay.

Matt:
Also six in the future and emerging technologies, and seven startups in the foods vertical. That doesn’t add up to 30, but 31, but one of the food startups was an entrepreneur team. That’s another possibility of participating in this accelerator, so if you’re part of an entrepreneurial team of one of our partners, you can participate in this program.

Audrow:
Okay. Now can you tell me a bit about the program that you offer entrepreneurs? Roland, if you want to describe this.

Roland:
Yes, first of all we have a wonderful space where we have all this startups together for roughly three months. They are not only accumulate together, but are also hosted in a youth hostel where they live more or less during night there, which is an important element. They interact, they challenge each other, there is some peer pressure.

Roland:
Then there is of course a very precise photo ops. So every week they have to report on their progress. The most important part is, of course, to connect them to potential clients, and to potential technology providers and supporters, so they can really nicely benefit from the Swiss ecosystem. So this was also then reflected in the outcome that we have. Most of these startups, we’ve spent three months in Switzerland, had then also pilot studies with companies around Switzerland, where they can actually test their ideas and visions, and really go and interact with potential clients and markets.

Audrow:
Okay. And what stage are these startups typically when they come to you for this accelerator?

Roland:
The selection criteria for us are at least an MVP, a minimum value product.

Roland:
So if your product isn’t ready yet, I think it’s too early to participate in this program.

Roland:
You also should have a sound team. So if you’re just, let’s say, a couple of friends having a good idea and you kind of clicked together a prototype, but you kind of, let’s say, lack the whole business expertise-

Audrow:
Acumen.

Roland:
You should have a business plan that it doesn’t need to be sound until the next 10 years, but you should know what you’re talking about, what numbers you’re talking about, and what you are hungry for in the end.

Audrow:
So you mean defining a market, in this sense?

Roland:
Yes. Exactly. You need to have a team, you need to have some traction, this is your minimum value product, and you of course need to convince us that you have potential. That this is a thing that’s not only born out of an idea you have, but out of a necessity and out of a problem that you are trying to solve.

Audrow:
Okay. So what does the program look like over the three months? You mentioned that all of the students, or all of the people live together. All of the entrepreneurs live in a hostel together and how there’s a competition there. But then, what does it look like with the mentoring and what do they have access to? Do they have access to good machine shops and perhaps information they wouldn’t have otherwise? What kind of things?

Roland:
It depends a little bit on, generally speaking, the startups are working together also, so they live in the same place during the night, or when they leave in the evening they go to the youth hostel where most of the startups live, except the ones who are from Zurich, of course.

Audrow:
And yes, they go home.

Roland:
Yes. They work in the same place as well. It’s an old transformer building in the middle of the city of Zurich.

Audrow:
Oh, cool.

Roland:
Just been converted into a co-working space. I highly recommend the listeners of this podcast to visit our webpage and have a glimpse at the pictures, it’s really nice.

Audrow:
And it will be included with the blog post for the episode.

Roland:
Very cool. Very cool. There we also try to always mingle the startups with each other, so they have the exchange there in the program. We have the format of master classes, so our partners provide master classes on certain topics, entrepreneurial, funding, technical topics, team project management, you name it, and of course investment. They get pitch training of course, because they will be pitching in front of investors-

Roland:
At midterm demo day and also at the final demo day.

Roland:
We have the format of so called one-on-one sessions with the partners as well, where you as a startup have the chance to meet experts from all our partners to kind of challenge you on your idea.

Roland:
If there is a match, or if there is at least interest, to have the possibility to work closer with this partner, and maybe possibly end up with a pilot/POC, as it’s called proof of concept, where you are in the end maybe implementing your product with one of the partners.

Audrow:
Okay. Oh, go ahead.

Roland:
You mentioned mentoring so I think that’s one thing that really distincts us from other projects or programs. The kickstart mentor you have is an entrepreneurial mentor, is somebody who has an entrepreneurial background. Usually, he has already founded several startups and failed and didn’t fail. Both hopefully.

Audrow:
Yes.

Roland:
He’s kind of your big brother and he takes you by the hand through the program and takes care of your entrepreneurial progress.

Roland:
That’s a very important aspect of this program because I think that most of the accelerators, they have several mentors for startup in different phases, and we make sure that you have one mentor. He takes you through the whole program and also the feedback from the startups was very positive on this side. The feedback from the mentors, of course.

Audrow:
Yes. I would imagine. Now, can you tell me about the seed funding for each startup and then what kind of stakes this Kickstart Accelerator has in each startup after they complete the program?

Roland:
If you are being selected for the program we grant you 10,000 francs, as a kind of start, or as a means of you will have expenses for your company. We also have this so called founder’s stipend, where each of the founders that are participating in the program, that’s up to three people, will get a stipend for the day-to-day expenses. Like, you want to eat something, for sure.

Audrow:
Yes.

Roland:
You want to have some party, hopefully, as well. We are not covering everything, but we can make sure that you kind of have enough money to keep you alive and keep you healthy in Zurich during these three months.

Roland:
In the end of the program, you’re able to winning up to 15,000 francs, so that ends up for your company not as the stipend, but as seed funding for your company in the end up to 25,000 K, if you make the first place at the end of the program.

Audrow:
So how many companies are in a batch over the three month period that compete for this 15,000 franc prize?

Roland:
This is verticalized, so you have-

Audrow:
Okay, per domain? Okay.

Roland:
Exactly. Per vertical, you have these 25. That means in the fintech vertical where you have 10 startups, it will be five startups getting more than these 10,000 francs.

Roland:
In the smart and connected machines, this year it was only six startups, so it was the upper half of the startups usually can get more than the 10,000, but the 10,000 they are granted if you’re being selected for the program.

Audrow:
Okay. Now, you have quite a collaboration here. There are many companies, and supporting partners, can you tell me a bit about who are your partners? I’d like to learn about setting this process up. Roland, would you talk a bit about your partners in this endeavor?

Roland:
Yes. In principle it’s at the moment, mainly big corporates in Switzerland, like the big Swiss banks. Also companies from food sectors, or the two big retailers for food, it’s with Migros and Coop. Then also the universities, ETH, University of Zurich, and Epath File of the Future are involved as more or less a technology provider. There are some industrial companies also. So for the next three years we are really pushing that we have more industrial companies also involved, which are probably more important, especially for smart and connected machines vertical. It’s somewhat of course an important and hard job to convince companies to invest in this to support young people, and then also to show them that it’s profitable for the whole ecosystem to generate new innovation and to [inaudible 00:27:40]. But also a high potential for themselves as probably bringing new ideas and having new technologies, which they can use for that product.

Audrow:
Okay. One of the selling points I saw on the website was that the Kickstart Accelerator can connect entrepreneurs to a European market. You mentioned global before, but probably more specifically the European market that you’re connecting with, and this comes from the partners that you have, correct? How do you connect them to the European market and then global market from there?

Roland:
Yes. I think it’s mainly through the partners. Of course, universities involved are international and a lot of network, but also the companies. There are probably companies which are a little bit more Switzerland-centric, like the retailer Migros and Coop, but the bigger companies are in finance they are very international. Also industrial partners like Maxon we had in which is well known in robotics community as world leading company for small and high performance motors. They actually open up to their network to and give them access to international collections. This is not the primary goal, so I think what we can offer you in the three months is to connect mainly to these companies and to the universities.

Roland:
Then, of course, the next step is that they continue to work with them, exchange with them, and then also have perfect access to different fields internationally.

Matt:
I might jump in here.

Audrow:
Yes, of course.

Matt:
In terms of partners, or to answer your question in terms of market access, if you look at the partner’s page, or it’s on the home page in the lower section, you’ll see all these logos.

Audrow:
Yes.

Matt:
You’ll see all these competitors, basically. So you have UBS and Credit Swiss, you have Migros and Coop, you have PWCX and EY, we call it the co-O petition thing. They work together still yet they are competitors.

Matt:
For example, all the consulting companies they bring you this really European and also worldwide access to other companies as they are consulting big corporations, small corporations all over the world.

Matt:
Also, lets say, ADP, all these partners, in the end they’re rooted in the Europe area, but they’re also rooted in different parts of the world. So this I will say is an outstanding opportunity and it’s really unique to have access to such big and such interesting companies.

Audrow:
Can you tell me a bit about the process of getting all of these companies to support the Kickstart Accelerator or be partners in some way?

Matt:
Yes, so there is one element also behind which had to be mentioned, it’s called Initial Switzerland. This is an association where with a vision around, big corporate actually initiated this, it’s a vision really to help to move Switzerland even faster on everything which is this new opportunities. Which digitalization is a great thing to our daily life, but also in companies. With this we had only a natural seed grant for getting these companies that a part of the association to also support us on the Kickstart acceleration. The Kickstart Accelerator is one of the programs, currently the biggest program in this association, in which really is focused on accelerating not only companies, but in general, Switzerland, in this process of new opportunities in digital abroad.

Audrow:
Okay. How many batches of companies has the program had so far? How many three month groups have gone through?

Matt:
There’s only one, up til now. So the-

Audrow:
First one?

Matt:
Yes. Now we will send out to call soon for the second batch which will be end of summer next year. So, typically from the middle of August to November.

Audrow:
What do you hope from this program? Where do you hope it is in five years?

Roland:
I think there is a couple of elements, which hopefully is probable agreement, and we had very good experience over this year. Alongside, I think it really should Switzerland, speed up in general in this innovation and progression field. Switzerland is already pretty well set up, but you should never sleep in. You should really push forward. That’s one element. Of course, probably the most important element is also to have, to bring science, politics, big corporates, and startups together. This was I think, a wonderful experience and the beginning we hoped, and we have seen that it works. So we have really the CEOs and CTOs from big companies coming to this place where these young and crazy young people work on their ideas. They mingle together, they network together, they dabble up visions together, and I think this should be even stronger next year and hopefully be the unique selling point for the kickstart accelerator in Switzerland.

Of course, we would like also to convince some young people with great ideas to probably then continue to work in Switzerland, or incorporate their companies in Switzerland, or at least have a strong link with Switzerland. Also, this vision we had in the beginning was really moving extremely nicely forward so we have the clear majority of the whole startups we had in the Kickstart Accelerator will continue to have a footprint in Switzerland. Some of them are now incorporating Switzerland, others have started a second branch in Switzerland, and the other group has at least very strong collaboration now already with Swiss companies.

Audrow:
Matt, do you have anything to add for where you hope to be in five years?

Matt:
I hope to be still here in five years, so that’s always … It depends on our work. That this program is there in five years, so I hope to deliver the next four years. For us, it’s really improving every year, I’m just coming from several feedback calls. I hope to be on a position where I can, where we are not only on the same level, but really on a higher level than both of the accelerators that exist right now. That we really have proven our approach is the right one. There is no right approach but it’s a very good approach. Let’s put it that way.

Audrow:
Okay. Thank you.

Roland:
Thanks.

In this episode, Audrow Nash speaks with Torsten Oelkes, Executive Chairman of CUBE, about the CUBE Tech Fair. The CUBE Tech Fair is a conference that takes place in Berlin in May that seeks to facilitate connections between companies. The Tech Fair also features a start up competition where the winner will be awarded €1,000,000 without exchange of equity or debt. In this interview, Toresten talks about CUBE’s business model, the robotic companies they’re affiliated with, the CUBE Tech Fair, and the €1,000,000 prize.

Torsten Oelke

For the past 15 years Dr. Torsten Oelke has been an active player in the German digital economy. As a businessman, he built up companies and incubators. Besides his business activities, he serves as advisor to the German Minister of Economic Affairs.

Torsten is the Executive Chairman of CUBE , a global ecosystem to connect startups with leading industry players. He has assembled a team of international experts with extensive experience with industry and startups. CUBE is backed by several board members of global corporates across industries.

Links

• CUBE’s website
• Tech Fair website
• Download mp3 (28.1 MB)
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
• Subscribe to Robots using RSS

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Bradley Knox, founder of bots_alive. Knox speaks about an add-on to a Hexbug, a six-legged robotic toy, that makes the bot behave more like a character. They discuss the novel way Knox uses machine learning to create a sense character. They also discuss the limitation of technology to emulate living creatures, and how the bots_alive robot was built within these limitations.

Brad Knox

Dr. Bradley Knox is the founder of bots_alive. He researched human-robot interaction, interactive machine learning, and artificial intelligence at the MIT Media Lab and at UT Austin. At MIT, he designed and taught Interactive Machine Learning. He has won two best paper awards at major robotics and AI conferences, was awarded best dissertation from UT Austin’s Computer Science Department, and was named to IEEE’s AI’s 10 to Watch in 2013.

Links

• bots_alive Kickstarter page
• Download mp3 (16.8 MB)
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
• Subscribe to Robots using RSS

In this episode, Audrow Nash and Christina Brester conduct interviews at the 2016 International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation conference in Moscow, Russia. They speak with Albert Efimov, Chief Roboticist at Skolkovo, about creating an innovation cluster for robotics companies; Anastasia Uryasheva, CEO of Tsuru, about a waterproof unmanned aerial vehicle; and Borris Rozman, General Director of GNOM, about underwater vehicles.

This is the first of three interviews from the conference.

Links

• Download mp3 (16.5 MB)
• IASP 2016 conference website
• Skolkovo’s robotics page
• Tsuru’s homepage
• GNOM homepage
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
• Subscribe to Robots using RSS