ERF2017 – Robohub https://robohub.org Connecting the robotics community to the world Sun, 04 Oct 2026 21:56:26 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.3 #ERF2017 in tweets https://robohub.org/erf2017-in-tweets/ Wed, 12 Apr 2017 11:54:43 +0000 http://robohub.org/erf2017-in-tweets/ The European Robotics Forum in Edinburgh late March brought together over 800 people from industry, academia and government. #ERF2017 is the premier event for European Robotics, with a staggering 1M impressions on twitter.

The 3-day event packed it’s lot of talks, workshops, and panel discussions.

The event kicked off with a dive into deep learning and its applications in robotics with keynotes by Senior Research Scientist at DeepMind Raia Hadsell, CEO of FiveAI Stan Boland, and Member of the Scottish Parliament Keith Brown.

The theme of the forum this year was “living and working with robots”. A theme that was tackled in nearly every session, and through dedicated events solely focussed on the legal, ethical, and societal opportunities and challenges surrounding the deployment of robots in our everyday lives.

The forum is also the main showcase for success stories from European Projects funded under FP7 and H2020. We’ll be featuring the projects in video pitches captured at forum in an upcoming post, but in the meantime, you can read about the seven success stories here.

In fact, the robot LINDA designed as part of the STRANDS project was roaming the exhibit floor, taking pictures of attendees.

The exhibit floor was also the main venue for networking, and featured dozens of robots from KUKA, Shadow Robotics, Softbank, Pal Robotics, Clearpath Robotics, Schunk, Tharsus, and many more.

Beyond the exhibit floor, networking extended to the conference dinner. True to tradition, the event featured a Bag Pipe concert at the National Museum of Scotland. In fact, the organisers of #ERF2017 opted to wear the kilt, along with the robot TIAGo from Pal Robotics.

The evening was the opportunity to hand out awards for Tech Transfer, Entrepreneurship, and for the European Robotics League.

The European Robotics Forum is organised by euRobotics under SPARC, the Public-Private partnership for Robotics in Europe. This year’s conference was hosted by the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics. And you know it was a success when Rory Cellan-Jones from BBC orders a Pint from a robot in your exhibit hall.

You can see all the pictures from the conference here.

]]> Simple, creative robotics: Fotokite and ‘Walk to Beat’ receive top awards for innovative designs at European Robotics Forum https://robohub.org/simple-creative-robotics-fotokite-and-walk-to-beat-receive-top-awards-for-innovative-designs-at-european-robotics-forum/ Tue, 28 Mar 2017 11:50:54 +0000 http://robohub.org/simple-creative-robotics-fotokite-and-walk-to-beat-receive-top-awards-for-innovative-designs-at-european-robotics-forum/

Credit: euRobotics

The 2017 European Robotics Forum in Edinburgh brought together over 800 people from robotics academia and industry. In an effort to bridge the two, euRobotics hosted an Entrepreneurship and TechTransfer award. Startups from around Europe competed for top prizes in front of a panel of experts.

The euRobotics Technology Transfer Award, now in its fourteenth year, showcases the impact of robotics research and puts the spotlight on successful technology transfer between science and industry. Innovations in robot tech and automation — through the result of research and industry working together —  are eligible for the prize.

The euRobotics Technology Transfer Awards were handed by MEP Victor Negrescu (Romania), winner of last year’s MEP Award on Digital Agenda. As a former digital entrepreneur himself, Victor Negrescu is a promoter of a stronger voice for European entrepreneurs and researchers.

Technology Transfer Award winners and coordinators together with MEP Victor Negrescu. Credits: Visual Outcasts

Fotokite, a tethered drone, won first place. The company is designed to make aerial photography accessible for everyone. Similar to a kite, the drone is tethered and foldable making it easy for anyone who wants to take photos from a bird’s-eye view. The company raised over 400K USD in crowdfunding in 2015 and have since started shipping their product.

Christopher McCall, who pitched for Fotokite, said: “We make a new type of tethered drone which is 100% autonomous, flies for several hours, and can be used by broadcast journalists, or for inspection.” Adding that, “It’s incredible to win the Tech Transfer Award at ERF.” Watch the Fotokite in action:

https://youtu.be/FX1BpdAmRss

The Entrepreneurship award helps small innovative companies pitch their ideas for the next big thing in robotics to a panel of technology investment experts. It’s all about learning skills, gaining visibility, and bringing in the cash prize.

Entrepreneurship Award winners, coordinators and juries. Credits: Visual Outcasts

The third prize was awarded to ReHand Technologies, maker of prosthetic, orthotic and rehabilitation devices. The second prize went to Haxtron for their robot Pr0be, a spherical autonomous aerial robotic platform. The winner this year was Neha Chaudhry from the company Walk to Beat. Inspired by her late grandad who suffered from Parkinson’s for 8 years, her product is a robotic walking stick with an innovative technology that gives out pulses in the handle  – it’s discreet and looks good, so people feel empowered instead of disabled.

Commenting on winning first prize, Neha Chaudhry said, “This was totally unexpected! I’m producing and designing for assisted living using smart technology products. Our product is simple: to help improve people’s lives. And with this [Walk to Beat] it’s for people who are struggling with Parkinson’s. Winning this award is great exposure for our company and we’re delighted.”

The euRobotics TechTransfer and Entrepreneurship Awards 2017 are funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 Programme.

European Robotics League finalists

The European Robotics League (ERL) consists of two indoor robotics competitions, ERL Industrial and ERL Service, and one outdoor robotics competition, ERL Emergency. Points are awarded by attending local and major tournaments, not a central event, with three main objectives: strengthening the European robotics industry, push innovative autonomous systems for emergency response, and addressing societal challenges of ageing populations in Europe. The European Robotics League is funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 Programme.

Current finalists for ERL Industrial Robots are autonOHM for the best-in-class task: “Fill a box with parts for manual assembly, and b-it-bots for the best-in-class functionality “navigation functionality.” Finalists for ERL Service Robots include homer@UniKoblenz and SPQReL.

Read the ERL Awards press release: Top service and industrial robots to win the European Robotics League Awards (Season 2016/17)

ERL Service and Industrial Robots Awards. Credits: Visual Outcasts

“Challenges such as these are the pivot from research to industrial applications. Trialling in real-world environments is key to this kind of innovation.” said Reinhard Lafrenz, Secretary General euRobotics.

“Through competitions, we can attract top talent in robotics to exchange knowledge while solving real-world challenges. We gave two ERL awards, in the service and industrial leagues at ERF. We’re also looking forward to the upcoming 2017 ERL Emergency Competition in Piombino, Italy,” said Prof. David Lane, ERF2017 General Chair and Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics.

Organisers:

The European Robotics Forum is organised by euRobotics under SPARC, the Public-Private partnership for Robotics in Europe. This year’s conference is hosted by the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics.

About euRobotics and SPARC

euRobotics is a non-profit organisation based in Brussels with the objective to make robotics beneficial for Europe’s economy and society.  With more than 250 member organisations, euRobotics also provides the European Robotics Community with a legal entity to engage in a public/private partnership with the European Commission, named SPARC.

SPARC, the public-private partnership (PPP) between the European Commission and euRobotics, is a European initiative to maintain and extend Europe’s leadership in civilian robotics. Its aim is to strategically position European robotics in the world thereby securing major benefits for the European economy and the society at large.

SPARC is the largest research and innovation programme in civilian robotics in the world, with 700 million euro in funding from the European Commission between 2014 to 2020, which is tripled by European industry to yield a total investment of 2.1 billion euro. SPARC will stimulate an ever more vibrant and effective robotics community that collaborates in the successful development of technical transfer and commercial exploitation.

www.eu-robotics.net

www.eu-robotics.net/sparc

]]> Living and working with robots: Live coverage of #ERF2017 https://robohub.org/living-and-working-with-robots-live-coverage-of-erf2017/ Wed, 22 Mar 2017 13:43:35 +0000 http://robohub.org/living-and-working-with-robots-live-coverage-of-erf2017/

Over 800 leading scientists, companies, and policymakers working in robotics will convene at the European Robotics Forum (#ERF2017) in Edinburgh, 22-24 March. This year’s theme is “Living and Working With Robots” with a focus on applications in manufacturing, disaster relief, agriculture, healthcare, assistive living, education, and mining.

The 3-day programme features keynotes, panel discussions, workshops, and plenty of robots roaming the exhibit floor.

We’ll be updating this post regularly with live tweets and videos. You can also follow all the Robohub coverage here.

]]> Living and working with robots: European Robotics Forum to focus on robotics markets and future of work https://robohub.org/living-and-working-with-robots-european-robotics-forum-to-focus-on-robotics-markets-and-future-of-work/ Tue, 21 Mar 2017 11:05:32 +0000 http://robohub.org/living-and-working-with-robots-european-robotics-forum-to-focus-on-robotics-markets-and-future-of-work/

Over 800 leading scientists, companies, and policymakers working in robotics will convene at the European Robotics Forum (#ERF2017) in Edinburgh, 22-24 March. This year’s theme is “Living and Working With Robots” with a focus on applications in manufacturing, disaster relief, agriculture, healthcare, assistive living, education, and mining.

The 3-day programme features keynotes, panel discussions, workshops, and plenty of robots roaming the exhibit floor. Visitors may encounter a humanoid from Pal Robotics, a bartender robot from KUKA, Shadow’s human-like hands, or the latest state-of-the-art robots from European research. Success stories from Horizon 2020, the European Union’s framework programme for research and innovation, and FP7 European projects will be on display.

Dr Cécile Huet Deputy Head of European Commission Robotics & Artificial Intelligence Unit, said, “A set of EU projects will demonstrate the broad impact of the EU funding programme in robotics: from progress in foundational research in robot learning, to in touch sensing for a new dimension in intuitive Human-Robot cooperation, to inspection in the oil-and-gas industry, security, care, manufacturing for SMEs, or the vast applications enabled by the progress in drones autonomous navigation.”

Reinhard Lafrenz, Secretary General of euRobotics said, “A rise in sales in robotics is driving the industry forward, and it’s not just benefiting companies who sell robots, but also SMEs and larger industries that use robots to increase their productivity and adopt new ways of thinking about their business. Around 80 robotics start-ups were created last year in Europe, which is truly remarkable. At euRobotics, we nurture the robotics industry ecosystem in Europe; keep an eye out for the Tech Transfer award and the Entrepreneurship award we’ll be giving out at ERF.”

Projects presented will include:

  • FUTURA – Focused Ultrasound Therapy Using Robotic Approaches
  • PETROBOT – Use cases for inspection robots opening up the oil-, gas- and petrochemical markets
  • sFly – Swarm of Micro Flying Robots
  • SMErobotics – The European Robotics Initiative for Strengthening the Competitiveness of SMEs in Manufacturing by Integrating aspects of Cognitive Systems
  • STRANDS – Spatio-Temporal Representations and Activities For Cognitive Control in Long-Term Scenarios
  • WEARHAP – WEARable HAPtics for Humans and Robots
  • Xperience – Robots Bootstrapped through Learning from Experience

The increased use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in robotics will be highlighted in two keynote presentations. Raia Hadsell, Senior Research Scientist at DeepMind will focus on deep learning, and strategies to make robots that can continuously learn and improve over time. Stan Boland, CEO of FiveAI, will talk about his company’s aim to accelerate the arrival of fully autonomous vehicles.

Professor David Lane, ERF2017 General Chair and Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, said,  “We’re delighted this year to have two invited keynotes of outstanding quality and relevance from the UK, representing both research and disruptive industrial application of robotics and artificial intelligence. EURobotics and its members are committed to the innovation that translates technology from research to new products and services. New industries are being created, with robotics providing the essential arms, legs and sensors that bring big data and artificial intelligence out of the laboratory and into the real world.”

Throughout ERF2017, emphasis will be given to the impact of robots on society and the economy. Keith Brown MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Jobs and Fair Work, will open the event, said, “The European Robotics Forum provides an opportunity for Scotland to showcase our world-leading research and expertise in robotics, artificial intelligence and human-robot interaction. This event will shine a light on some of the outstanding developments being pioneered and demonstrates Scotland’s vital role in this globally significant area.”

In discussing robots and society, Dr Patricia A. Vargas, ERF2017 General Chair and Director of the Robotics Laboratory at Heriot-Watt University, said, “As robots gradually move to our homes and workplace, we must make sure they are fully ethical. A potential morality code for robots should include human responsibilities, and take into account how humans can interact with robots in a safe way. The European Robotics Forum is the ideal place to drive these discussions.”

Ultimately, the forum aims to understand how robots can benefit small and medium-sized businesses, and how links between industry and academia can be improved to better exploit the strength of European robotics and AI research. As robots start leaving the lab to enter our home and work environments, it becomes increasingly important to understand how they will best work alongside human co-workers and users. Issues of policy, the law, and ethics will be debated during dedicated workshops.

Dr Katrin Lohan, General Chair and Deputy Director of the Robotics Laboratory at Heriot-Watt University said, “It is important how to integrate robotics into the workflow so that it support and not disrupt the human workers. The potential of natural interaction interfaces and non-verbal communication cues needs to be further explored. The synergies of robots and human workers could make all the difference for small and medium-sized businesses to discuss this the European Robotics Forum is the ideal place as it joins industry and academia community. ”

______________________

Confirmed keynote speakers include:
Keith Brown, Cabinet Secretary for the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work, Member of the Scottish Parliament
Raia Hadsell, Senior Research Scientist at DeepMind
Stan Boland, CEO of FiveAI

The full programme can be found here.

Dates: 22 – 24 March
Venue: EICC, The Exchange, 150 Morrison St., EH3 8EE Edinburgh, Scotland
Participants: 800+ participants expected
Website: http://www.erf2017.eu/

Press Passes:
Journalists may request free press badges, or support with interviews, by emailing publicity.chairs@erf2017.eu. Please see the website for additional information.

Organisers
The European Robotics Forum is organised by euRobotics under SPARC, the Public-Private partnership for Robotics in Europe. This year’s conference is hosted by the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics.

About euRobotics and SPARC
euRobotics is a non-profit organisation based in Brussels with the objective to make robotics beneficial for Europe’s economy and society.  With more than 250 member organisations, euRobotics also provides the European Robotics Community with a legal entity to engage in a public/private partnership with the European Commission, named SPARC.

SPARC, the public-private partnership (PPP) between the European Commission and euRobotics, is a European initiative to maintain and extend Europe’s leadership in civilian robotics. Its aim is to strategically position European robotics in the world thereby securing major benefits for the European economy and the society at large.

SPARC is the largest research and innovation programme in civilian robotics in the world, with 700 million euro in funding from the European Commission between 2014 to 2020, which is tripled by European industry to yield a total investment of 2.1 billion euro. SPARC will stimulate an ever more vibrant and effective robotics community that collaborates in the successful development of technical transfer and commercial exploitation.

www.eu-robotics.net
www.eu-robotics.net/sparc

Press contact details:

Sabine Hauert, Robohub President
Sabine.Hauert@robohub.org

OR

Kassie Perlongo, Managing Editor
Kassie.Perlongo@robohub.org

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