Logo de la Semaine européenne de la robotique

Europe set to become leader in robotics?

This entry was posted in Robotics news on by Akim Boukhelif.

The possibility of Europe’s becoming the world leader in robotics is not unreasonable; the project certainly has enough fervent support – and the success of the CNES’ Philae robot
confirms this idea. Within the framework of European Robotics Week, the Midi-Pyrénées region is organising two events to be held from 27–30 November at the Cité de l’Espace in Toulouse .

4th European Robotics Week: everyone’s robotics of tomorrow

These events are being organised on a local level, but co-ordinated and promoted by the same body, i.e. euRobotics AISBL, an international non-profit association whose objective is to strengthen the existing ties between the European Robotics Technology Platform (EUROP) and the EURON (European Robotics Research Network) academic network. This organisation aims to speed up innovation, research and development, and to encourage a positive attitude to robotics.

Children with programmable NAO robot
Children with programmable NAO robot

Under the umbrella of European Robotics Week, numerous activities for the general public will be taking place across Europe, underlining the growing importance of robotics in a great many fields.

A map showing all the events can be found on their website:

European-Robotics-Week-maps-of-events

Robotics Together: bringing Europe’s regions together

A Europe-wide conference entitled Robotics Together will be held on 27 and 28 November at the Cité de l’Espace , with the participation of euRobotics AISBL, Thésame, Innoecho and LAAS-CNRS.

To this end, a roundtable will be held on Friday 28 November with the participation of Raja Chatila, director of research at ISIR and co-organiser with Génération Robots of the collaborative robotics seminar with Rodney Brooks held in Paris on 22 October.

This roundtable will be led by Catherine Simon from Innorobo, the largest European robotics conference in which Génération Robots has participated every year since 2011.

One objective of this conference is to present the first robotics collaborative map in Europe: EU-Robotics Map . The event aims to foster dialogue and exchanges between the various skill-areas in robotics among key players in research, development, innovation, regional clusters and companies.

RoCKIn challenge

The “RoCKIn challenge” (Robot Competition Kick Innovation in Cognitive Systems and Robotics), attracting academic teams in the field of robotics, will be held in the wake of this meeting. RoCKIn is a 3-year European project involving robotics competitions , meetings and educational workshops.

logo-rockin-challenge-euRobotics-week

The competition this year is divided into two categories: RoCKIn@Home and RoCKIn@Work.

  • RoCKIn@Home is a challenge focusing on domestic service robots , i.e. robots with enhanced networking and cognitive abilities able to perform socially useful tasks such as providing support for the impaired and the elderly.
  • RoCKIn@Work looks for innovative robot applications in industry, i.e. robots better able to work interactively with humans , with reduced initial programming requirements and enhanced physical simulation capabilities.

Some of the teams competing will be working with the ROS (Robot Operating System) system , confirming this working environment’s standardisation in robotics.

To find out more about European Robotics Week: http://www.robotics-week.eu

ROS-compatible robots available on Generation Robots site:

Baxter Research Robot Prototype


ROS-compatible TurtleBot 2 mobile robot


ROS-compatible TurtleBot 2 mobile robot