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

1. 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:
2. it will lead to an improved use of resources and a faster accomplishment of tasks inside workspaces with high social activity;
3. 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:

• New Horizon 2020 robotics projects, 2016: An.Dy
• New Horizon 2020 robotics projects, 2016: BADGER
• Two Horizon 2020 projects researching EU Digital Industrial Platform for Robotics
• EU’s Horizon 2020 has funded $179 million in robotics PPPs

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

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 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:

1. Introduce advanced robotics technologies, including intelligent control and cognition capabilities, to significantly increase the European competitiveness,
2. 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:

• New Horizon 2020 robotics projects, 2016: An.Dy
• New Horizon 2020 robotics projects – 2016 presented at #ERF2017
• Two Horizon 2020 projects researching EU Digital Industrial Platform for Robotics
• EU’s Horizon 2020 has funded $179 million in robotics PPPs

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

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.

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.

Advancing Anticipatory Behaviors in Dyadic Human-Robot Collaboration: An.Dy

Objective

Obj1. ANDY will develop the ANDYSUIT, a wearable technology for monitoring humans involved in whole-body physical interaction tasks.  Obj2. Based on the ANDYSUIT, ANDY will generate ANDYDATASET, a collection of motion and force captures of humans involved in and collaboration tasks. Obj3. From ANDYDATASET, ANDY will develop ANDYMODEL, a set of models to describe human and robot behaviour when engaged in collaborative tasks. Obj4. With ANDYSUIT and ANDYMODEL, ANDY will develop ANDYCONTROL, a reactive and predictive control strategy for human-robot physical collaboration.

Expected impact

Impact on manufacturing domain: ANDY technologies support this objective in two ways: (1) by increasing productivity through more effective production and service processes in which the strength of humans and robots are optimally combined, and (2) by maintaining workers health until the age of retirement including reduced costs for health care and compensation. Impact on healthcare: the ANDYSUIT will open a completely new field for methodological analysis with the possibility of monitoring patients also outside the clinics.

Partners

FONDAZIONE ISTITUTO ITALIANO DI TECNOLOGIA
INSTITUT NATIONAL DE RECHERCHE EN INFORMATIQUE ET EN AUTOMATIQUE
INŠTITUT JOŽEF ŠTEFAN
DEUTSCHES ZENTRUM FÜR LUFT- UND RAUMFAHRT
XSENS TECHNOLOGIES BV
IMK AUTOMOTIVE GMBH
OTTO BOCK HEALTHCARE GMBH
ANYBODY TECHNOLOGY A/S

Coordinator: Francesco Nori
francesco.nori@iit.it
http://iron76.github.io
Instituto Italiano di Tecnologia – iCub Facility
Via Morego, 30
16163 Genova, Italy
Phone: (+39) 010 71 781 420
Fax: +39 010 71 70 817
Twitter: @AnDy_H2020

Project website: www.andy-project.eu