The NCCR Robotics Spin Fund committee has granted Jaime E. Duarte and Kai Schmidt the Spin Fund for ExoSuisse. This project is hosted by Riener lab at ETHZ.
SensArs wins Venturekick support!
Congratulations to NCCR Robotics Spin Fund SensArs Neuroprosthetics for winning the Venturekick final.
PhD defense Volker Bartenbach
Congratulations to Volker Bartenbach from Riener Lab who successfully defended his PhD thesis on the design and control of robotic exoskeletons last December.The title was: Constraints Caused by Lower Extremity Exoskeletons.
TWIICE finalists in Robotics for Good
20.02.17 – The TWIICE exoskeleton (Bleuler Lab) has been selected as one of 10 finalists in the UAE Robotics for Good competition.
Teleoperation of robotic hand
Muscular activity contains information on motion intention. By decoding the muscular activity of an arm during reachig-to-grasp motions, Billard Lab were able to detect grasp type in the early stages of a reaching motion which enables fast activation of a robotic hand by teleoperation. Reference: I. Batzianoulis, S. El Khoury, E. Pirondini, M. Coscia and S. Micera …
Cybathlon 2020
The executive board of ETH Zurich has officially announced that Cybathlon will take place 2020 in Zurich! Also, discover the Cybathlon set of stamps issued by Sierra Leone & find out which Cybathlon image was selected as part of the BBC’s most striking photos of 2016.
Education committee
We are pleased to announce Francesco Mondada as chair of the NCCR Robotics Education Committee as of December 2016. We also take this opportunity to thank Aude Billard for her valuable work as previous chair of this committee.
Congratulations to SensArs for winning Venturekick support
Congratulations to NCCR Robotics Spin fund SensArs for winning Venturekick support.
Cybathlon 2020 announced
09.02.17 – In today’s press conference with the executive board of ETH Zurich an official announcement was made: The Cybathlon will take place once again in Zurich in 2020 – organised by ETH ZurichBehind the scenes, planning for the next Cybathlon has been taking place since the successful premiere in October last year. The success …
Post-Doc open position at Paik Lab
Post-Doc open position at Paik lab (EPFL).
Past Events
Date/Time | Event | Description |
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7 Jul – 13 Jul 2019 All Day |
Summer School on Rehabilitation Robotics
Shangai Jiao Tong University, Shangai |
The Summer School on Rehabilitation Robotics will take place at the Biomedical Engineering School, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) between 7-13 July 2019. Organisers: - SJTU: Prof. Shanbao Tong, Prof.... |
1 Apr – 5 Apr 2019 All Day |
Hannover Messe 2019
Deutsche Messe, Hannover |
NCCR Robotics will be present at the Hannover Messe 2019 with a corporate booth and 3 additional booths for its spin-offs: Dronistics FES-ABILITY Sevensense The corporate booth will also showcase... |
3 Dec – 4 Dec 2018 All Day |
BMI Symposium 2018 "Controlling behavior"
EPFL, Lausanne Suisse |
Prof. Pavan Ramdya, Prof. Carl Petersen & Prof. Auke Ijspeert (NCCR Robotics PI) invite you to the 2018 BMI Symposium on "Controlling behavior". With this one and a half day symposium, we... |
23 Nov 2018 All Day |
Neuroprosthetics Annual Research Symposium | Prof. Stéphanie Lacour, NCCR Robotics PI and Director of the Center for Neuroprosthetics, announces the First Neuroprosthetics Annual Research Symposium to be held on November 23rd, 2018, at Campus Biotech,... |
1 Nov 2018 All Day |
Swiss Robotics Industry Day 2018
SwissTech Convention Center, Ecublens |
The next Swiss Robotics Industry Day will take place on November 1st, 2018 at the Swiss Tech Convention Centre, in Lausanne. All information on the event can be found here: http://swissroboticsindustry.ch |
29 Oct – 31 Oct 2018 9:00 am – 5:00 pm |
Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL 2018) | CoRL 2018 will take place on October 29-31 2018 in Zurich. The conference focuses on the intersection of robotics and machine learning. CoRL aims at being a selective, top-tier venue... |
18 Oct – 19 Oct 2018 All Day |
SNSF Site Visit 2018 | The 2018 SNSF Site Visit will take place in Bern, on October 18 and 19th. More information will be provided closer to the dates. |
8 Oct – 9 Oct 2018 All Day |
Aerial Futures: The Drone Frontier @ HUBweek
Boston District Hall, Boston |
Swissnex Boston is gathering a selection of some of the most exciting drone exhibitors from Switzerland and the United States to bring to HUBweek. Expect an eclectic selection of UAVs... |
31 Jul – 2 Aug 2018 All Day |
EPFL Drone Days
EPFL, Lausanne Suisse |
Some NCCR Robotics laboratories will present demos at the EPFL Drone Days 2018. https://dronedays.epfl.ch |
2 Jul – 7 Jul 2018 All Day |
ARCHE
Wangen an der Aare, Wangen an der Aare |
The event took place in the training village of the civil protection forces of the Swiss Federal Department for Defense, Civil Protection and Sport and was used as field test... |
1 Jun 2018 3:15 pm – 4:45 pm |
Distinguished Seminar in Robotics, Systems & Control | The Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems presents: Telerobotic Touch June 1st 2018, 15h15-16h15 Place: ETHZ, Main Building (HG G3) For those at EPFL: a video streaming will take place... |
21 May – 25 May 2018 All Day |
ICRA 2018, Brisbane, Australia
Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Center, South Brisbane |
Roland Siegward, NCCR Robotics PI, will be a member of the Industry Forum Chairs Committee at ICRA 2018, in Brisbane, Australia. Margarita Chli, NCCR Robotics PI, will give a keynote... |
23 Apr – 27 Apr 2018 All Day |
Hannover Messe
Deutsche Messe, Hannover |
NCCR Robotics has a booth within the Swiss Innovation Pavillion and will be accompanied by 2 two of our spin-offs: MyoSwiss and Foldaway Haptics and the project "MIRobotics". For more information... |
19 Apr 2018 All Day |
Forward (Forum de l'Innovation pour les PME)
SwissTech Convention Center, Ecublens |
NCCR Robotics will have a booth during this event, hosting two of our spin-offs Foldaway Haptics, and TWIICE. https://forward-sme.epfl.ch |
13 Mar – 15 Mar 2018 All Day |
European Robotics Forum
Tampere Hall, Tampere |
The European Robotics Forum (ERF) 2018 hosted over 900 participants this year in Tampere, Finland from 13 to 15th March. NCCR Robotics was present with a booth, hosting two of... |
12 Mar – 14 Mar 2018 All Day |
AAAS Science Robotics Meeting
Plaza Heisei, Tokyo |
Robert Riener, NCCR Robotics co-director, will give a keynote talk about Cybathlon at the AAAS Science Robotics Meeting in Tokyo, Japan. |
8 Mar – 9 Mar 2018 All Day |
NCCR Robotics Annual Retreat
Hotel Ambassador, Bern |
The 2018 NCCR Robotics Annual Retreat (Bern, 8-9th March) was very successful, not only in bringing the community together but in achieving its targets in preparation for the next phase... |
25 Jan 2018 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm |
Motor learning and neurorehabilitation: training with or without errors? - A talk by Professor Laura Marchal Crespo | Abstract: There is increasing interest in using robotic devices to provide rehabilitation therapy following stroke. Robotic guidance is generally used in motor training to reduce performance errors while practicing. However,... |
12 Sep – 15 Sep 2017 All Day |
11th Conference on Field and Service Robotics
ETH Zurich, Zurich |
For more details and to register please see: https://www.fsr.ethz.ch/ |
1 Sep – 3 Sep 2017 All Day |
EPFL Drone Days
EPFL, Lausanne Suisse |
From 1 to 3 September 2017, EPFL's Ecublens campus will host the first-ever EPFL Drone Days. This event, which will include the Swiss drone racing championship, a robotics showcase and... |
25 Jul 2017 6:30 pm |
ROBOTIK-LABOR AN DER ETH ZÜRICH - TeleZüri Sendung | Tune into TeleZüri at 18:30 to hear Robert Riener speaking about all things rehabilitation robotics and Cybathlon. http://www.telezueri.ch/64-show-sommertalk |
5 Jul 2017 12:00 am |
RSS 2017 Workshop: Challenges in Dynamic Legged Locomotion
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge |
The performance of modern legged robots still pales in comparison to their biological counterparts in terms of speed, robustness, versatility, and efficiency. The technical challenges that fuel this gap touch... |
21 Jun 2017 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm |
Talk by Prof. Harmut Geyer (CMU) on neuromechanical modeling of human locomotion
ME D1 1518, ecublens Suisse |
Research at CMU’s Legged Systems Group Prof. Harmut Geyer, Carnegie Mellon University https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~hgeyer/ Abstract: Research at CMU’s legged systems group focuses on three questions: What are the principles of legged... |
15 Jun – 16 Jun 2017 All Day |
Building Bodies for Brains & Brains for Bodies & 3rd Japan-EU Workshop on Neurorobotics
Geneva, Geneva |
Building Bodies for Brains & Brains for Bodies & 3rd Japan-EU Workshop on Neurorobotics Registration for both events now open. |
5 Jun – 10 Jun 2017 All Day |
Summer School on Rehabilitation Robotics
Biomedical Engineering School, Shanghai |
Organised by the Riener Lab, ETH Zurich. For more information please see: http://www.sms.hest.ethz.ch/news-and-events/sms-news-channel/2017/01/summer-school-on-rehabilitation-robotics.html |
2 Jun 2017 8:30 am – 5:00 pm |
ICRA Workshop on Event-based vision
sands expo and convention centre, Singapore 018971 |
Tobi Delbruck and Davide Scaramuzza are confirmed speakers. For more information please see: http://rpg.ifi.uzh.ch/ICRA17_event_vision_workshop.html |
16 May – 18 May 2017 All Day |
InnoRobo
Paris, Paris |
Read more |
24 Apr – 28 Apr 2017 All Day |
Hannover Messe
Hannover Messe, Hannover |
We will present a booth at the Hannover Messe along with Swiss Robotics partners. To organise a meeting with us please contact techtransfer@nccr-robotics.ch |
5 Apr 2017 11:00 am – 12:00 pm |
Talk: Hearing the light: Optogenetic Sti
Campus Biotech, H8 Auditorium, Geneva |
Hearing the light: Optogenetic Sti by Tobias Moser Institute for Auditory Neuroscience & InnerEarLab, University Medical Center Goettingen, GE. For more information please see the seminar website. |
28 Mar 2017 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm |
Talks: By Professor Fumiya Iida & By Professor Robert J. Full
EPFL, Lausanne Suisse |
Talks: Model-free design optimization of soft robots: Any hope? By Professor Fumiya Iida (Cambridge Univ.), (14:30 – 15:30). BioMotion Science: Leapin’ Lizards, Compressed Cockroaches and Smart Squirrels Inspire Robots By... |
20 Mar 2017 6:15 pm – 7:45 pm |
Talk: Roboter als Reha-Helfer im Einsatz by Robert Riener
Universität Zurich Zentrum, Hörsaal KOL-F-101, Zurich |
For more information please see the official flyer. |
16 Mar 2017 10:00 am – 11:00 am |
Talk by Prof. Eric Tytell (Tufts University), Quantifying responses to perturbations during locomotion in fish
MED 115 18, EPFL, Lausanne |
|
6 Mar – 9 Mar 2017 All Day |
R4L @HRI2017
Aula der Wissenschaft – Hall of Science, Vienna |
http://r4l.epfl.ch/HRI2017 |
2 Mar 2017 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm |
Business Ideas @EPFL Swiss Robotics going global
SwissTech Convention Center, Ecublens |
www.ifj.ch/cti-epfl |
2 Mar 2017 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm |
Business Ideas @EPFL
SwissTech Convention Center, Ecublens |
http://www.ifj.ch/cti-epfl |
13 Feb 2017 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm |
Talk by Dr Diego Pardo (ETHZ) Legged Robots: Stepping out of the continuous and differentiable zone.
EPFL, Lausanne |
|
16 Dec 2016 3:15 pm – 4:15 pm |
Talk: MIT Cheetah: new design paradigm shift toward mobile robots, ETH Distinguished Lecture in Robotics, Systems & Control - Sangbae Kim
ETH Zurich, HG G3, Zurich |
|
9 Nov 2016 10:00 am – 11:00 am |
Talk: Rehabilitation robotics - Cristina Santos, Universidade do Minho, Portugal; Dealing with uncertainty in robot grasping - Alexandre Bernardino, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal; Locomotion with the Walkman humanoid robot - Nikos Tsagarakis, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova, Italy.
MED 115 18, EPFL, Lausanne |
|
4 Nov 2016 3:15 pm – 4:15 pm |
Talk: Designing and Controlling Robots for Direct Interaction with Humans by Prof. Alin Albu-Schaeffer, German Aerospace Center, Germany.
ETH Zurich, HG G3, Zurich |
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2 Nov 2016 All Day |
Swiss Robotics Industry Day
SwissTech Convention Center, Ecublens |
Please see www.swissindustryday.ch |
23 Oct – 27 Oct 2016 All Day |
International Symposium on Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics (SSRR 16)
EPFL, Lausanne Suisse |
Please see http://ssrrobotics.org/index.html |
9 Oct – 12 Oct 2016 All Day |
WORKSHOP ON BRAIN-MACHINE INTERFACES (SMC 2016)
Intercontinental Hotel, BUDAPEST, 1052 Budapest |
Please see: https://documents.epfl.ch/users/c/ch/chavarri/www/IEEESMC2016_BMI/BMI-IEEESMC2016.html |
8 Oct 2016 12:00 am |
Cybathlon 2016
SWISS Arena, Kloten |
Please see www.cybathlon.com |
6 Oct 2016 All Day |
Cybathlon Symposium
SWISS Arena, Kloten |
For further information, please see http://www.cybathlon-symposium.ethz.ch/ |
30 Sep – 7 Jan 2016 All Day |
The origami robot Tribot from Paik lab is currently at the exhibition in +Ultra Knowledge & Gestaltung in Berlin | |
23 Sep 2016 3:15 pm – 4:15 pm |
Talk: Humanitarian Robotics and Automation Technologies by Dr. Raj Madhavan
ETH Zurich, HG G3, Zurich |
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13 Jul – 15 Jul 2016 All Day |
Workshop on Dynamic Locomotion and Manipulation (DLMC2016)
ETH Zurich, Zurich |
Please see the website http://www.dlmc2016.ethz.ch/ |
Soft robots that mimic human muscles
«SRF Menschmaschine» IV: Der Endspurt beim Cybathlon
«SRF Menschmaschine» III: Exoskelette und Human Upgrading
«SRF Menschmaschine» II: Rollstuhlparcours und Samuel Koch
«SRF Menschmaschine» I: Der Start des Cybathlon
Innovative Textilien
This robot has the spinal cord of a salamander
Cyber Salamander Scurries like Its Biological Counterpart
Automated amphibian teaches us to walk
SALAMANDER ROBOT WALKS AND SWIMS LIKE THE REAL THING
A shape-shifting drone suggests the future of rescue missions
A new drone can change its shape to fly through a narrow gap
Diese Drohne kommt überall durch
Droni con ‘ali pieghevoli’ per passare ovunque. “I soccorsi anche dove è impossibile”
Foldable drone can fit through tight spaces
This drone shrinks to fit
Foldable Drone Changes Its Shape in Mid-Air
Foldable Drone Changes Its Shape in Mid-Air
Le Journal de 8h – Présenté par Foued Boukari
This Foldable Drone Is a Flying Transformer
Looking for publications? You might want to consider searching on the EPFL Infoscience site which provides advanced publication search capabilities.
Improved Efficiency in Legged Running Using Lightweight Passive Compliant Feet
This paper investigates the mechanical benefits of employing a passive foot segment to improve energetic efficiency in legged running. The proposed lightweight design significantly reduces impact and damping losses, while simultaneously allowing for a natural-looking stance configuration. Actuator in- put and ankle spring properties were optimized in simulation and successfully tested in 2D running experiments.
Increasing motivation in robot-aided arm rehabilitation with competitive and cooperative gameplay
Several strategies have been proposed to improve patient motivation and exercise intensity during robot-aided stroke rehabilitation. One relatively unexplored possibility is two-player gameplay, allowing subjects to compete or cooperate with each other to achieve a common goal. In order to explore the potential of such games, we designed a two-player game played using two ARMin arm rehabilitation robots.
IniRobot : a pedagogical kit to initiate children to concepts of robotics and computer science
We present the IniRobot pedagogical kit, conceived and deployed within French and Swiss primary schools for the initiation to robotics and computer science. It provides a microworld for learning, and takes an enquiry-based educational approach, where kids are led to construct their understanding through practicing an active investigation methodology within teams. It is based on the use of the Thymio II robotic platform. The paper presents the detailed pedagogical objectives and a first measure of results showing that children acquired several robotics-related concepts.
Insect-Inspired Mechanical Resilience for Multicopters
The ease of use and versatility of drones has contributed to their deployment in several fields, from entertainment to search and rescue. However, drones remain vulnerable to collisions due to pilot mistakes or various system failures. This paper presents a bioinspired strategy for the design of quadcopters resilient to collisions. Abstracting the biomechanical strategy of collision resilient insects’ wings, the quadcopter has a dual-stiffness frame that rigidly withstands aerodynamic loads within the flight envelope, but can soften and fold during a collision to avoid damage. The dual-stiffness frame works in synergy with specific energy absorbing materials that protect the sensitive components of the drone hosted in the central case. The proposed approach is compared to other state-of- the art collision-tolerance strategies and is validated in a 50g quadcopter that can withstand high speed collisions.
Iterative Design of an Upper Limb Rehabilitation Game with Tangible Robots
Keep on Moving! Exploring Anthropomorphic Effects of Motion during Idle Moments
In this paper, we explored the effect of a robot’s subconscious gestures made during moments when idle (also called adaptor gestures) on anthropomorphic perceptions of five year old children. We developed and sorted a set of adaptor motions based on their intensity. We designed an experiment involving 20 children, in which they played a memory game with two robots. During moments of idleness, the first robot showed adaptor movements, while the second robot moved its head following basic face tracking. Results showed that the children perceived the robot displaying adaptor movements to be more human and friendly. Moreover, these traits were found to be proportional to the intensity of the adaptor movements. For the range of intensities tested, it was also found that adaptor movements were not disruptive towards the task. These findings corroborate the fact that adaptor movements improve the affective aspect of child-robot interactions (CRI) and do not interfere with the child’s performances in the task, making them suitable for CRI in educational contexts.
Latency Correction of Event-Related Potentials Between Different Experimental Protocols
Objective: A fundamental issue in EEG event-related potentials (ERPs) studies is the amount of data required to have an accurate ERP model. This also impacts the time required to train a classifier for a brain-computer interface (BCI). This issue is mainly due to the poor signal-to-noise ratio, and to the large fluctuations of the EEG caused by several sources of variability. One of these sources is directly related to the experimental protocol or application designed, and may affect to amplitude or latency variations. This usually prevents BCI classifiers to generalize among different experimental protocols. In this work, we analyze the effect of the amplitude and the latency variations among different experimental protocols based on the same type of ERP. Approach: We present a method to analyze and compensate for the latency variations in BCI applications. The algorithm has been tested on two widely used ERPs (P300 and observation error potentials), in three experimental protocols in each case. We report the ERP analysis and single-trial classification. Results and significance: The results obtained show (i) how the experimental protocols significantly affect the latency of the recorded potentials but not the amplitudes, and (ii) how the use of latency-corrected data can be used to generalize the BCIs, reducing this way the calibration time when facing a new experimental protocol.
Learning Compliant Manipulation through Kinesthetic and Tactile Human-Robot Interaction
Robot Learning from Demonstration (RLfD) has been identified as a key element for making robots useful in daily lives. A wide range of techniques has been proposed for deriving a task model from a set of demonstrations of the task. Most previous works use learning to model the kinematics of the task, and for autonomous execution the robot then relies on a stiff position controller. While many tasks can and have been learned this way, there are tasks in which controlling the position alone is insufficient to achieve the goals of the task. These are typically tasks that involve contact or require a specific response to physical perturbations. The question of how to adjust the compliance to suit the need of the task has not yet been fully treated in Robot Learning from Demonstration. In this paper, we address this issue and present interfaces that allow a human teacher to indicate compliance variations by physically interacting with the robot during task execution. We validate our approach in two different experiments on the 7 DoF Barrett WAM and KUKA LWR robot manipulators. Furthermore, we conduct a user study to evaluate the usability of our approach from a non-roboticists perspective.
Learning Ground Traversability From Simulations
Lessons Learned from Robotic Vacuum Cleaners Entering in the Home Ecosystem
This article considers the suitability of current robots designed to assist humans in accomplishing their daily domestic tasks. With several million units sold worldwide, robotic vacuum cleaners are currently the figurehead in this field. As such, we will use them to investigate the following key question: How does a service cleaning robot performs in a real household? One must consider not just how well a robot accomplishes its task, but also how well it integrates inside the user’s space and perception. We took a holistic approach to addressing these topics by combining two studies in order to build a common ground. In the first of these studies, we analyzed a sample of seven robots to identify the influence of key technologies, like the navigation system, on technical performance. In the second study, we conducted an ethnographic study within nine households to identify users’ needs. This innovative approach enables us to recommend a number of concrete improvements aimed at fulfilling users’ needs by leveraging current technologies to reach new possibilities.