All posts by Kassie Perlongo

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. ”

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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

Yesterday, the UK government announced their budget plans to invest in robotics, artificial intelligence, driverless cars, and faster broadband. The spending commitments include:

• £16m to create a 5G hub to trial the forthcoming mobile data technology. In particular, the government wants there to better mobile network coverage over the country’s roads and railway lines
• £200m to support local “full-fibre” broadband network projects that are designed to bring in further private sector investment
• £270m towards disruptive technologies to put the UK “at the forefront” including cutting-edge artificial intelligence and robotics systems that will operate in extreme and hazardous environments, including off-shore energy, nuclear energy, space and deep mining; batteries for the next generation of electric vehicles; and biotech.
• Investing £300 million to further develop the UK’s research talent, including through creating an additional 1,000 PhD places.

The entire budget can be reviewed here.

Several experts in the robotics community agree that progress is shifting in the right direction, however, more needs to happen if the UK is to remain competitive in the robotics sector:

Prof Paul Newman, Founder, Oxbotica:

“The UK understand the very real positive impact that RAS [robotics & autonomous systems] will have on our society from now, of all time. It continues to see the big picture and today’s announcement by the Chancellor is a clear indication of that. We can have better roads, cleaner cities, healthier oceans and bodies, safer skies, deeper mines, better jobs and more opportunity. That’s what machines are for.”

Dr Graeme Smith, CEO, Oxbotica:

“We are at a real inflection point in the development of autonomous technology. The UK has a number of nascent world class companies in the area of self-driving vehicles, which have a huge potential to change the world, whilst creating jobs and producing exportable UK goods and services. We have a head start and now we need to take advantage of it.” [from FT]

Dominic Keen, Founder of Britbots:

“Some of the great robotics companies of the future are being launched by British entrepreneurs and the support announced in today’s budget will to strengthen their impact and global competitiveness.  We’re currently seeing strong appetite from private investors to back locally-grown robotics businesses and this money will help bring even more interest in this space”

Dr Rob Buckingham, Director of the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s RACE robotics centre:

“This is welcome news for the many research organisations developing robotics applications. As a leading UK robotics research group specialising in extreme and challenging environments, we welcome the allocation of significant funding in this field as part of the Government’s evolving Industrial Strategy. RACE and the rest of the robotics R&D sector are looking forward to working with industry to fully utilise this funding.”

Dr Sabine Hauert, University of Bristol:

“Robotics and AI is set to be a driving force in increasing productivity, but also in solving societal and environmental challenges. It’s opening new frontiers in off-shore and nuclear energy, space and deep mining. Investment from government will be key in helping the UK stay at the forefront of this field.” [from BBC]

Prof Noel Sharkey, University of Sheffield:

“We lost our best machine learning group to Amazon just recently. The money means there will be more resources for universities, which may help them retain their staff. But it’s not nearly enough for all of the disruptive technologies being developed in the UK. The government says it want this to be the leading robotics country in the world, but Google and others are spending far more, so it’s ultimately chicken feed by comparison.” [from BBC]

Prof Alan Winfield, UWE Bristol:

“I’m pleased by the additional funding, and, in fact, my group is a partner in a new £4.6M EPSRC grant to develop robots for nuclear decommissioning announced last week.

“I, like many others, was pleased to hear more money going into robotics and AI research, but I was disappointed – though completely unsurprised – to see nothing about how to restructure the economy to deal with the consequences of increasing research into and use of robots and AI. Hammond’s blunder on the relationship of productivity to wages – and it can’t be seen as anything other than a blunder – means that he doesn’t even seem to appreciate that there is a problem.

The truth is that increased automation means fewer jobs and lower wages and this needs to be addressed with some concrete measures. There will be benefits to society with increased automation, but we need to start thinking now (and taking action now) to ensure that those benefits aren’t solely economic gain for the already-wealthy. The ‘robot dividend’ needs to be shared across society, as it can have far-reaching consequences beyond economics: improving our quality of life, our standard of living, education, health and accessibility.”