euRobotics – Robohub

Assistive robots compete in Bristol

SPARC — Mon, 26 Jun 2017 12:06:29 +0000

The Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) will host the first European- Commission funded European Robotics League (ERL) tournament for service robots to be held in the UK.

Two teams from the BRL and Birmingham will pitch their robots against each other in a series of events from 26 and 30 June.

Robots designed to support people with care-related tasks in the home will be put to the test in a simulated home test bed.

The assisted living robots of the two teams will face various challenges, including understanding natural speech and finding and retrieving objects for the user.

The robots will also have to greet visitors at the door appropriately, such as welcoming a doctor on their visit, or turning away unwanted visitors.

Associate Professor Praminda Caleb-Solly, Theme Leader for Assistive Robotics at the BRL said, “The lessons learned during the competition will contribute to how robots in the future help people, such as those with ageing-related impairments and those with other disabilities, live independently in their own homes for as long as possible.

“This is particularly significant with the growing shortage of carers available to provide support for an ageing populations.”

The BRL, the host of the UK’s first ERL Service Robots tournament, is a joint initiative of the University of the West of England and the University of Bristol. The many research areas include swarm robotics, unmanned aerial vehicles, driverless cars, medical robotics and robotic sensing for touch and vision. BRL’s assisted living research group is developing interactive assistive robots as part of an ambient smart home ecosystem to support independent living.

The ERL Service Robots tournament will be held in the BRL’s Anchor Robotics Personalised Assisted Living Studio, which was set up to develop, test and evaluate assistive robotic and other technologies in a realistic home environment.

The studio was recently certified as a test bed by the ERL, which runs alongside similar competitions for industrial robots and for emergency robots, which includes vehicles that can search for and rescue people in disaster-response scenarios.

The two teams in the Bristol event will be Birmingham Autonomous Robotics Club (BARC) led by Sean Bastable from the School of Computer Science at the University of Birmingham, and the Healthcare Engineering and Assistive Robotics Technology and Services (HEARTS) team from the BRL led by PhD Student Zeke Steer.

BARC has developed its own robotics platform, Dora, and HEARTS will use a TIAGo Steel robot from PAL Robotics with a mix of bespoke and proprietary software.

The Bristol event will be open for public viewing in the BRL on the afternoon of the 29th of June 2017 (Bookable via EventBrite), and include short tours of the assisted living studio for the attendees. It will be held during UK Robotics Week, on 24-30 June 2017, when there will be a nationwide programme of robotics and automation events.

The BRL will also be organising focus groups on 28 and 29 June 2017 (Bookable via EventBrite and here) as part of the UK Robotics Week, to demonstrate assistive robots and their functionality, and seek the views of carers and older adults on these assistive technologies, exploring further applications and integration of such robots into care scenarios.

The European Commission-funded European Robotics League (ERL) is the successor to the RoCKIn, euRathlon and EuRoC robotics competitions, all funded by the EU and designed to foster scientific progress and innovation in cognitive systems and robotics. The ERL is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. See: https://www.eu-robotics.net/robotics_league/

The ERL is part of the SPARC public-private partnership set up by the European Commission and the euRobotics association to extend Europe’s leadership in civilian robotics. SPARC’s €700 million of funding from the Commission in 2014̶20 is being combined with €1.4 billion of funding from European industry. See: http://www.eu-robotics.net/sparc

euRobotics is a European Commission-funded non-profit organisation which promotes robotics research and innovation for the benefit of Europe’s economy and society. It is based in Brussels and has more than 250 member organisations. See: www.eu-robotics.net

New Horizon 2020 robotics projects, 2016: Co4Robots

SPARC — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 13:52:34 +0000

In 2016, the European Union co-funded 17 new robotics projects from the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for research and innovation. 16 of these resulted from the robotics work programme, and 1 project resulted from the Societal Challenges part of Horizon 2020. The robotics work programme implements the robotics strategy developed by SPARC, the Public-Private Partnership for Robotics in Europe (see the Strategic Research Agenda).

Every week, euRobotics will publish a video interview with a project, so that you can find out more about their activities. This week features Co4Robots: Achieving Complex Collaborative Missions via Decentralized Control and Coordination of Interacting Robots.

Objectives

Recent applications necessitate coordination of different robots. Current practice is mainly based on offline, centralized planning and tasks are fulfilled in a predefined manner. Co4Robots’ goal is to build a systematic methodology to:

accomplish complex task specifications given to a team of potentially heterogeneous robots;
develop control schemes appropriate for mobility and manipulation capabilities of the robots;
achieve perceptual capabilities that enable robots to localize themselves and estimate the dynamic environment state;
integrate all in a decentralized framework.

Expected impact

The envisioned scenarios involve multi-robot services in e.g. office environments. Although public facilities are in some degree pre-structured, the need for the Co4Robots’ framework is evident since:
it will lead to an improved use of resources and a faster accomplishment of tasks inside workspaces with high social activity;
it will contribute towards the vision of more flexible multi-robot applications in both professional and domestic environments, also in view of the “Industry 4.0” vision and the general need to deploy such systems in everyday life scenarios.

Partners

KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
BOSCH
NATIONAL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS
PAL ROBOTICS
FOUNDATION FOR RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY HELLAS
UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG

Coordinator:Prof. Dimos Dimarogonas
dimos@kth.se
www.facebook.com/co4robots

Project website: www.co4robots.eu

Watch all EU-projects videos

If you enjoyed reading this article, you may also want to read:

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

New Horizon 2020 robotics projects, 2016: BADGER

SPARC — Fri, 26 May 2017 12:57:51 +0000

Every week, euRobotics will publish a video interview with a project, so that you can find out more about their activities. This week features BADGER, a Robot for Autonomous Underground Trenchless Operations, Mapping and Navigation.

Objectives

The goal of the proposed project is the design and development of an integrated underground robotic system capable for autonomous construction of subterranean small-diameter, highly curved tunnel networks and for localization, mapping and autonomous navigation during its operation. The proposed robotic system will enable the execution of tasks in different application domains of high societal and economic impact including trenchless constructions (cabling and piping) installations, etc., search and rescue operations, remote science and exploration applications.

Expected impact

The expected strategic impact of BADGER project focuses in:

Introduce advanced robotics technologies, including intelligent control and cognition capabilities, to significantly increase the European competitiveness,
Drastically reduce the traffic congestion and pollution in the European urban environments increasing, in this way, the quality of life of people,

Enabling technologies for new potential applications: search and rescue, mining and quarrying, civil applications, mapping, etc.

Partners

UNIVERSITY CARLOS III OF MADRID (ES)
UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW (UK)
CENTRE FOR RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY HELLAS (GR)
IDS GEORADAR (I)
SINGULARLOGIC (GR)
TRACTO-TECHNIK (D)
ROBOTNIK (ES)
UNIVERSITY CARLOS III OF MADRID (ES)

Coordinator: Prof. Carlos Balaguer
balaguer@ing.uc3m.es
Twitter: @badger_project

Project website: www.badger-robotics.eu

If you enjoyed reading this article, you may also want to read:

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

New Horizon 2020 robotics projects – 2016 presented at #ERF2017

SPARC — Thu, 27 Apr 2017 14:45:57 +0000

In 2016, the European Union co-funded 17 new robotics projects from the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for research and innovation. 16 of these resulted from the robotics work programme, and one project resulted from the Societal Challenges part of Horizon 2020. The robotics work programme implements the robotics strategy developed by SPARC, the Public-Private Partnership for Robotics in Europe (see the Strategic Research Agenda).

A wide variety of research and innovation themes are represented in the new projects: from healthcare via transportation, industrial- and logistics robotics to events media production using drones. Some deal with complex safety matters on the frontier where robots meet people, to ensure that no one comes to harm. Others will create a sustainable ecosystem in the robotics community, setting up common platforms supporting robotics development. One project deals exclusively with the potentially radical changes facing society with the rise of new autonomous technologies. The projects are either helping humans in their daily lives at home or at work, collaborating with humans to help them with difficult, strenuous tasks, or taking care of dangerous tasks, reducing the risk to humans.

The research and innovation projects focus on a wide variety of Robotics and Autonomous Systems and capabilities, such as navigation, human-robot interaction, recognition, cognition and handling. Many of these abilities can be transferable to other fields as well.

At the European Robotics Forum 2017, on 22-24 March 2017, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, all projects presented themselves during a dedicated workshop.

Watch the video with all Horizon2020 projects presentations:

Watch the video with FP7 projects results:

Every week, euRobotics will publish a video interview with each project, so that you can find out more about their activities.

We are looking forward to following these new projects and accompanying them to bring benefits to Europe’s citizens and economy.

European Robotics League gearing up for 2017-2018 season

SPARC — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 13:09:28 +0000

Teams participating in the ERL Service Robots local tournament at certified Leon@Home Test bed. Copyright: Universidad de León.

The European Robotics League has closed a successful first season. Funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme for research, the ERL brings a common framework for two indoor robotics competitions, ERL Industrial Robots and ERL Service Robots and one outdoor robotics competition, ERL Emergency Robots. The three competitions are designed to target three clear objectives: the European societal challenge of an aging population, the strengthening of the European robotics industry and the use of autonomous systems for emergency response.

The last tournament of the ERL season 2016/17 took place at the Leon@Home Test bed located at the Módulo de Investigación en Cibernética of the Universidad de León, Spain. The ERL Service Robots local competition organised by Dr Vicente Matellan and the Leon Robotics Group was held from the 13-17 March and consisted of several trials, which mainly took place on the last day.

Caption: (Left) Leon@Home Test bed. (Right) Módulo de Investigación en Cibernética (MIC). Copyright: Universidad de León

The teams competed in different Task Benchmarks (TBM) and Functionality Benchmarks (FBM), comprising “TBM1: Getting to know my home”, “TBM4: Visit My Home”, “FBM2: Navigation Functionality” and “FBM3: Speech Recognition”. Robots were required to generate a map of their environment, detect random changes in the location of furniture and other items, interact effectively with humans and demonstrate different behaviors when dealing with known and unknown people, and help them with general tasks throughout the day.

The three teams that participated in the local tournament were SPQReL, University of Rome (Italy) and University of Lincoln (UK), Outsider Bots, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Spain) and University of Luxemburg (Luxembourg), and Leonbot, Universidad de León (Spain).

Caption: (Left) Example of a semantic Map of the environment. (Right) Objects used in TBM1. Copyright: Universidad de León

The final score for each team was calculated as the MEDIAN of the best performance in each TBM and FBM trials. The teams’ scoring and standings for the season 2016/2017 are available on the ERL Service Robots and ERL Industrial Robots web page.

The ERL Service and ERL Industrial Awards (Season 2016/17), sponsored by Texas Instruments University Program, were handed to the winning teams during the euRobotics Awards Ceremony held on 23 March, at the National Museum of Scotland, in Edinburgh.

ERL Tournaments dates (Season 2017/18)

The European Robotics League has announced the tournament dates for the new season. The local and major tournaments are based in Europe and are open to international participation from Universities, Research labs, Industry and/or end-users. The events are open to the public and anyone interested is welcome to contact the local organisers and attend as a spectator.

There are eight tournaments already confirmed for this season 2017-2018 and new ones are expected to be confirmed in the next months.

ERL Service Robots

Major Tournament

28-31 August 2017: as part of the IEEE RO-MAN 2017 event held in Lisbon, Portugal

Local Tournament

26-30 June 2017: BRL Anchor Personalised Assisted Living Studio, Bristol Robotics Laboratory, Bristol, UK
11-15 September 2017: Leon@Home test bed, Universidad de Leon, Leon, Spain
ERW 2017, 20-26 November 2017: PAL Robotics, Barcelona, Spain.
4-7 December 2017: ECHORD++ RIF Peccioli test bed, Peccioli, Italy.

ERL Industrial Robots

Local Tournament

11-15 September 2017: b-it-bots@Work Test Bed, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Science, Sankt Augustin, Germany
ERW 2017, 21-25 November 2017: Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

ERL Emergency Robots

Major Tournament

15-23 September 2017: Piombino, Italy. (Download ERL Emergency 2017 brochure)

ERL Emergency 2017 promo video:

This season 2017/18, Worthington Sharpe Ltd., silver sponsor of ERL Emergency Robots 2017, will provide one Wing Ground Control Station (GCS) for loan to a selected applicant team. Teams wishing to borrow the Wing GCS must apply to the ERL consortium, following the application procedure set on ERL Emergency web page. Applications received will be evaluated by the consortium and Worthington Sharpe Ltd. to select the team who will be granted the loan equipment.

PAL Robotics, a platinum sponsor of ERL Service Robots, announced at the ERL Awards ceremony that the company will offer on a very affordable rental scheme limited units of TIAGo robots for different teams to use in the competition.

Companies and academic institutions interested in sponsoring ERL events can contact Dr Fausto Ferreira for information on the sponsorship and exhibitor packages.

To find out more about the European Robotics League, please visit www.robotics-league.eu.

ERL History

The ERL is the natural evolution of a series of highly successful previous competitions that were established via FP7 funded projects: RoCKIn, euRathlon and EuRoC. All three projects aimed to foster scientific progress and innovation in cognitive systems and robotics through the design and implementation of new competitions.

The European Robotics League is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement n° 688441

Watch the European Robotics League promo video:

www.robotics-league.eu

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

Air, land, and sea: ERL Emergency Robots competition dates announced

Marta Palau Franco — Tue, 15 Nov 2016 12:31:10 +0000

Air, land and sea robots will meet in Piombino, Italy, for the ERL Emergency Robots major tournament. Photos: Joshua Hayes Davidson / euRathlon

The European Robotics League (ERL) is pleased to announce the dates for the major tournament of the ERL Emergency Robots competition. The 2017 challenge will be held in Piombino, Italy, from 15-23 September 2017. The call for participation is now open.

Lead by euRobotics in collaboration with SPARC Robotics, and funded by the European Union, the ERL is the natural evolution of a series of highly successful previous competitions that were established via FP7-funded projects: euRathlon, RoCKIn and EuRoC. This competition builds upon the success of euRathlon 2015 Challenge, the first world’s robotics multi-domain competition and aims to push the state of the art in heterogeneous cooperative autonomous systems for emergency response.

ERL Emergency Robots: Call for participants

The call for participation in ERL Emergency Robots major tournament is now open. Detailed information on the application process and requirements can be found on ERL Emergency website and the competition Rulebook.

ERL Emergency Robots is a civilian, outdoor robotics competition, with a focus on realistic, multi-domain emergency response scenarios. Inspired by the 2011 Fukushima accident, the ERL Emergency challenge can only be met when land, marine and flying robots work cooperatively. The competition itself sees International teams of various disciplines and organisations surveying the scene, collecting data, searching for missing workers and identifying critical hazards, all in a race against the clock.

The challenge is open to universities, research centres and industrial companies interested in applying the results of robotics research and development to real world challenges.

ERL Emergency Robots 2017 is expected to go beyond the competition boundaries, aiming to cross-fertilise multiple robotics domain and foster discussions within the robotics community. The event will also provide a forum where roboticists from different areas will exchange ideas, show the state-of-the-art and outline the future of research on disaster-response robot systems.

Sponsors and exhibitors

Companies and academic institutions are invited to attend the event and present their work as an exhibitor and/or as a sponsor.

In parallel to the competition, the event will run a program of activities that will include robot demonstrations and robotics talks from eminent experts in the field. In 2015, the competition attracted over 100 robotics experts, 150 participants and more than 1200 visitors and public in general.

This is a unique opportunity to be associated with a high-profile European robotics competition and with universities and institutions leading in robotics research across Europe.

Please visit their website for detailed information on the competition and sponsorship, or contact erl.emergency@robotics-league.eu

If you enjoyed this article, you may also want to read:

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Robots at your service and empowering healthy ageing at #ERW2016

Robohub Editors — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 16:15:16 +0000

Source: euRobotics

European Robotics Week 2016 (#ERW2016) is kicking off 18-22 November in Amsterdam. The central event ‘Robots at your Service’ is about focussing on robotic technologies to help ageing populations live a healthier, active, and independent life. European Robotics Week celebrates Europe as a world-leader in robotics with typically hundreds of events.

In the 2015 Ageing Report from the European Commission, it’s anticipated that the number of Europeans over 65 will double in 50 years. Caring for those seniors – physically, emotionally and mentally – will be a big undertaking, and experts say there will be a shortage of professionals trained and willing to take on the job.

Photo credit: Keith Bujak. Source: Georgia Tech News Center

This year’s EWR is expected to have over 700 events across Europe. The opening at the Maritime Museum on the 18^thNovember will feature a number of dignitaries from The Netherlands, and EU officials from the European Commission and Parliament, who will welcome and present the ERW to members of Dutch the public. Presenting keynotes, Khalil Rouhana (DG Connect), Mady Delveux (MEP) and Bernd Liepert (CIO KUKA) will discuss their views for robotics developments and education in Europe. Followed by expert panel discussions about roboethics, our robotics future, and workshops about autonomous vehicles and professional service robots.

“Over the past few years we have seen considerable and growing interest in the ERW and the response from people wanting to engage with their own events have been phenomenal,” said Philip Piatkiewicz, Coordinator ERW, euRobotics. “What I feel makes it such a success are the principals of openness and inclusivity that drive our work, along with an exceptional network of dedicated individuals who form part of our National coordinator network. Together, we have managed to encourage kids and adults alike, from all walks of life, to become not just interested in robotics, but to continue their journey of discovery after the events wrap up for the year.”

Debate panels will be held on the 18 & 19 November about the use of robotics. On the 18th November, Roboethics, (12:30-13:30), will discuss developments in the ethical, legal, and societal aspects of robotics, an important debate that has increased in conversation in the last few years. Our Robotics Future, (14:00- 15:30), a debate around society’s current reaction to robotics technology and what we can expect in the future. On the 19th, the panel session Robotics for Elderly Care, (11:00-12:30), will consider how robotics can transform healthcare and provide solutions to social health and healthy ageing. Finally, a panel discussion Saturday afternoon about Women in Tech, (13:30-15:00), will feature Nuray Golap (moderator), Elisabeth Schärtl, Franka Buurmeijer, Jacqueline Heinerman, Jurate Keblyte, and Sabine Hauert.

The Hack(athon) for Active & Healthy Ageing – the central track of the event – will be held Friday evening. Multi-disciplinary students, start-ups and scale-ups will collaborate and compete for 48-hours to create the best solutions for this challenge and get the chance to win an accelerator program to bring their concept to life.

The entire schedule and additional information can be found on the website.

Major debate on robots & society sets scene for #ERW2015 European Robotics Week

Adriana Hamacher — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 18:09:06 +0000

“Robots and Society” panel discussion during European Robotics Week 2015. #ERW2015

A mouthwatering array of over 750 events has been taking place throughout Europe this week as the continent celebrates Robotics Week 2015. The festivities began with an eye-opening debate on “Robots and Society” in the UK city of Bristol on Tuesday, with experts versed in strategy, business, academia, law and policy. But, for many, the star of the show was Nao, in his guise as robot avatar.

The event was organised by euRobotics AISBL, which represents robotics stakeholders in Europe, and by Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL), one of the largest facilities of its kind in Europe. “We’re moving into a future where devices that interact with us are going to be part of our everyday experience,” said BRL’s director, Chris Melhuish, setting the scene.

The concern in Europe is that the continent should remain the number one robotics producer worldwide, said politician Mady Delvaux, who heads a European working group on robotics working on concrete proposals to steer European Union policy. The group is expected to issue a report in May next year.

But for the technology to reach its full potential, she told the audience, public acceptance and education are key. Investment is necessary to achieve these aims and encourage innovation in the region, she said, noting that EU nations benefit from SPARC, the largest civilian robotics programme in the world.

Delvaux was followed by a taste of what’s to come in the future: robot avatars. Part of an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) project, Being There focuses on robots and humans in public spaces. The project team is led by BRL’s Paul Bremner who, at a recent TEDx, presented the first talk using a tele-operated humanoid robot that replicates the movements of its human operator, showcasing the benefits of robotic avatars. The Bristol audience was able to see the experiment replicated with Nao.

Then came the main business of the evening — two panel discussions focussing on aspects underpinning the role of robots in society, the first focussing on economic considerations and the second on ethical implications.

Economics — The first panel featured Mike Aldred of Dyson’s Robotics unit, local council leader Amanda Deeks, London School of Economics professor Alan Manning, euRobotics road-mapping expert David Bisset, Phil Williams of the UK’s Knowledge Transfer Network, robolaw expert Andrea Bertolini, Technical Director of OC Robotics Andrew Graham, and Renaud Champion of Robolution Capital.

To put the enabling potential of robotic technologies into perspective, Amanda Deeks provided the audience with some eye-opening statistics. Over 60% of council work is in social care, she said, and as people live longer they need more and more help. The vast majority of adults live out a substantial part of their lives with some sort of disability. In the case of women, that’s an average of 18 years. For men, it’s 14 years, but only because they die earlier.

The KTN’s Phil Williams added some further figures to the mix, showing how much value many estimates placed on the robotics market: ranging from 15.5 billion euros to $25 billion, the widely differing figures had only one thing in common: they were huge. The question, as he sees it, is: why is the UK not taking more advantage of this?

Although the benefits of robotic technologies are demonstrable, the panel was keen to deal with the thorny question of robots replacing human jobs. In response to scaremongering reports, the LSE’s Alan Manning pointed out that, historically, everybody has ultimately benefited from past technological advances.

Issues of privacy (when it comes to data) and public perception were also touched on by the panel, particularly self-driving cars — a technological advance the UK is particularly keen to get behind. However, a recent survey by the UK’s Transport Systems Catapult, suggests that only 39% of UK citizens would allow themselves to be driven by an autonomous vehicle. The audience show of hands was roughly in accordance with this figure.

As with much else, the answer to this, in David Bisset’s opinion, is education. “Robots in research labs need to get out,” he said. “The problem with that is regulation and testing them. There are a stream of regulatory and ethical issues.”

Ethics — Ethical issues were at the heart of the second panel discussion, together with education. The panel featured robot ethics research specialists Alan Winfield of BRL and Fiorella Operto of the Genoa’s School of Robotics in Italy, as well as lawyer Andrea Bertolini of the Scuola Superiore, S. Anna in Pisa, Italy, Nikos Pronios from Innovate UK and David Bisset who was also on the prior panel.

Trust issues are at the core of the importance of robot ethics, said Alan Winfield. We have to define what kind of robot we don’t want in our lives. It’s also the start of the legislative process. It begins with ethics, which develop into standards and continue through to legislation. He urged the audience to look at BS8611 — the world’s first standard on robot ethics.

However, robots cannot be more ethical than humans. The ethics have to be predetermined by us and there has to collaboration with lawyers and ethicists, he said.

The panel were in accord that there will undoubtedly eventually be an accident with an autonomous vehicle or other robot, and the idea of a trusted robot commission that investigates accidents was put forward. Only through having a transparent process will we overcome the trauma of that first accident.

The importance of design in terms of interaction, to facilitate the right interfaces and experiences, was pointed out by David Bisset, who also advocated for lifelong education. “To be trained for second career in midlife needs to be a right,” he said. “There needs to be a sea change.”

EuRobotics acting President Uwe Haass provided further evidence for this. He told the audience about a scheme for giving educational robot kits to 45-year-old women returning to work after having had their children. It was very effective in helping these women develop a great sense of esteem, he said.

But learning about robots also holds great benefits early on in life, said Fiorello Operto. “Education in robotics is the best way to teach STEM.”

The audience had a great many questions, for instance: should you develop a robot that decides its own ethics? The panel was doubtful that this was advisable, or even likely, but it should be a public decision in any case. In a similar vein, another member of the audience wanted to know whether we should be able to design the ethics of our own car.

At this point the debate turned to data and privacy considerations that are likely to become commonplace with self driving vehicles. Putting this into perspective, David Bisset said that he believed that the larger ethical problems will arise from the data accruing from elderly care robots rather than from cars.

Echoing an earlier statement from Mike Aldred that the real benefit comes when things join up. “In robotics,” said Bisset, “ethics, law, engineering and design all need to interact together.”

EU launches world’s largest civilian robotics programme – 240,000 new jobs expected

the European Commission — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 13:41:48 +0000

The European Commission and 180 companies and research organisations (under the umbrella of euRobotics) have launched the world’s largest civilian research and innovation programme in robotics. Covering manufacturing, agriculture, health, transport, civil security and households, the initiative – called SPARC – is the EU’s industrial policy effort to strengthen Europe’s position in the global robotics market (€60 billion a year by 2020). The EC further describes how robots can contribute to a range of applications in a memo here. This initiative is expected to create over 240,000 jobs in Europe, and increase Europe’s share of the global market to 42% (a boost of €4 billion per year). The European Commission will invest €700 million and euRobotics will invest €2.1 billion.

European Commission Vice President @NeelieKroesEU, says: “Europe needs to be a producer and not merely a consumer of robots. Robots do much more than replace humans – they often do things humans can’t or won’t do and that improves everything from our quality of life to our safety. Integrating robots into European industry helps us create and keep jobs in Europe.” (SPEECH/14/421)

President of euRobotics Bernd Liepert says: “SPARC will ensure the competitiveness of European robotics industries. Robot-based automation solutions are essential to overcome today’s most pressing societal challenges – from demographic change to mobility to sustainable production”.

Robotics enables companies to continue manufacturing in Europe, where they might otherwise move operations to lower-cost countries. But the potential of robotics goes far beyond the factory: from helping nurses in hospitals to inspecting dangerous power plants and tedious farm work. Autonomous cars and drones are other examples of robots.

Background

The project is launched at the AUTOMATICA 2014 conference in Munich.

SPARC is open to all European companies and research institutions. The partnership launched today is based on a contract signed with euRobotics aisbl on 17 December 2013 (press release).

The first call for proposals related to SPARC are run under the pillar LEIT – Leadership in Enabling and Industrial Technologies of the new EU research and innovation programme Horizon 2020.

The next funding call will be published in October 2014 with an April 2015 deadline. Stay tuned via @RoboticsEU – find out more about EU support to robotics and examples of funded projects.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.