Research Roadmap

Summary at the end of EURON I

Today robotics is first and foremost used in discrete manufacturing and for extending human capabilities in hazardous and inaccessible environments. In this area Europe is already the market leader. Recent progress in mechanical engineering, human factors, sensory perception and computing is at the same time opening up a number of new potential application domains for robotics. In particular there are a number of new application domains in which computers are augmented with facilities for physical interaction with the environments. This opens up new possibilities.

In parallel, society is facing a number of new challenges. First of all the aging of society throughout the western world is posing a challenge to the health care and the living standards for retired and handicapped. It is thus vital that adequate facilities are provided to ensure a dignified living standard for our elderly. While the number of citizens actively involved in production and economic growth is decreasing the economic gain is required to increase significantly to allow maintenance of the same living standards, which call for new industries and radical increases in productivity. This again calls for new methods in automation and manufacturing. There is thus a need for a significant growth in production (in new and established industries).

Through adaptation of a holistic approach to robotics research it is considered likely that such new industries and economic growth factors can be provided.

In this document a comprehensive review of state of the art in robotics is provided as a basis for an in-depth analysis. From the state of the art the major obstacles to progress in terms of manufacturing, acceptance, market penetration, technological issues, etc are identified. These obstacles are the major factors that limit added economic growth through deployment and use of robotic technology.

The identified obstacles are analysed and various approaches to alleviate them are discussed. This involves a plan for new R&D efforts to allow use of robotics in a number of new areas. For concrete discussion of a plan for implementation a set of "man-on-the-moon" projects are proposed. These projects serve as integration platforms and demonstrators for a holistic approach to robotics in a number of new (and established) research domains. In the context of the Man-on-the-Moon (MOM) projects the European potential is discussed and it is identified how the region can become both an industrial and research leader in the field. This is in part due to a well developed social system, a diversified cultural market for deployment of systems, and a string industrial basis. At the same time it is shown that no single country will have adequate resources to pursue such a bold vision for the future on its own.

The plan for implementation of the research in terms of concrete action and initiatives is put forward to enable a sustained exploitation of the identified opportunities. At the same time the plan discusses a diverse set of efforts from education to basic research to achieve the overall goal. The expected deliverables of an initiative will involve both new applied and basic science, a number of new technologies which also have applications beyond robotics, a number of new industries and strengthening of existing companies, and finally new human resources will be trained as a basis for the implementation of the plan and the social impact in terms of growth and quality of life are key factors considered.

The current state of the roadmap can be seen on http://wwwiaim.ira.uka.de/euron