Robotics and Automation Magazine

September 2004


The "EURON/ERF Technology Transfer Award" was created in order to improve the quality of robotics research and to raise the profile of technology transfer between science and industry and was presented for the first time by the European Robotics Research Network (EURON) at its annual meeting on 13 March 2004 together with the European Robotics Forum (ERF) in Amsterdam and it is now to be presented annually.

The goal of EURON is to create a network of excellence intended to coordinate research work, teaching and education as well as the collaboration between academia and industry," explained Henrik Iskov Christensen, EURON coordinator and professor at the Centre for Autonomous Systems at Kungliga Tekniska Hoegskolan in Stockholm.

The European Robotics Forum is a European industry platform within the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). Stefan Sagert from VDMA Robotik + Automation is the General Secretary of the ERF, which has set itself the goal of increasing the visibility of the robotics community in Europe.

The winners of the first EURON/ERF Technology Award are:

1st place: Dr. Martin Otter, German Aerospace Centre Oberpfaffenhofen (DLR), Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, Wessling, Germany for 'High Performance Industrial Robots - The DLR-KUKA Success Story'.

2nd place: Dr. Olivier Michel, Cyberbotics Ltd., Switzerland, for his project: "Webots™ Fast Prototyping and Simulation Software for Mobile Robot Technology".

3rd place: Frank Beeh, Institute of Process Control, Automation and Robotics (IPR), University of Karlsruhe (TH) for developing an innovative seat testing system.

The members of the jury were:

  • Thilo Brodtmann (VDMA, ERF secretariat)
  • Henrik Christensen (Kungliga Tekniska Hoegskolan Stockholm, EURON)
  • Martin Hägele (Fraunhofer IPA, EURON key area "Industrial Relations")
  • Gisbert Lawitzky (Siemens AG)
  • Erwin Prassler (Gesellschaft für Produktionssysteme, EURON key area "Industrial Relations")
  • Hans Skoog (ABB)

This first EURON/ERF Technology Award was sponsored by the European Commission, Asea Brown Boveri Ltd. (ABB), Rexroth Bosch Group, Reis Robotics, Güdel AG, Fanuc Robotics and Kuka Roboter GmbH.  It is planned continuously to raise the profile of the Technology Award in the coming years and to increase public awareness of the Award.  

The authors of this column want to thank Martin Hägele for providing material for this report. Parties interested in promoting certain activities via this column can contact either Kostas Kyriakopoulos (http://users.ntua.gr/kkyria, ) or Bruno Siciliano (http://wpage.unina.it/sicilian, ).

Contributed by Kostas Kyriakopoulos and Bruno Siciliano

  

Getting Involved


We hope that you will get involved in many of EURON's activities and encourage others to do so as well.


Attend Meetings


Attending meetings is an excellent way of making contacts and friends within the community. The Annual Meetings are the major instrument for this purpose.


Communicate


A lot of things are happening all the time in the European robotics community: conferences and workshops are being organised, projects are starting, job offers are announced, etc. The EURON mailing list is the place-to-be for all your communications around these topics.
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