EURON stands for the "EUropean RObotics research Network". It is the community of (academic and industrial) groups with a common interest in doing research and development to make better robots.

The European Commission sponsored the EURON network (EURON I and EURON II) till the end of April 2008. Since then, EURON 3 continues on the momentum that it gained during almost a decade of networking. A new Board was elected, and that Board is now preparing the activities and policies for the coming years.

EURON II stopped accepting new members on Jan 20th. But EURON 3 has started admitting new members again. For the time being, the membership requirements remain as simple and clear as they were in the past: (i) only institutes can become EURON member, (ii) the institute must have a Research & Development activity in robotics, and (iii) it must provide information about a website URL and a contact person.

Information can be broadcast via euron-dist, a moderated mailing list for general announcements related to robotics, such as conferences, tables of contents or special issues of robotics journals, job offers, etc. To receive these emails, sign up to the mailing list; you can use the same link to look at the archive of previous messages.

The information on these pages has been sent in by the EURON community. EURON is responsible for neither the accuracy nor the completeness of this information.

EURON gratefully acknowledges the support that it received till April 2008 from the Unit Cognitive Systems and Robotics of the European Commission.

The LeRoS-F project involves the design and development of an innovative modular joint system for dexterous lightweight robots with flexible fluidic actuators. The idea is that such robots can operate safely around humans. [ Technical details. ]

A novel and particularly safe inherently compliant fluidic actuator is being developed: the "Rotary Elastic Chambers" actuator. This actuator is of revolute type and thus suitable for compact robotic modules of different sizes and power.

The modules comprise a small number of fully integrated components with matched mechanical and electrical interfaces: fluidic vane motor, sensors, control elements, as well as electronic unit and control algorithms.

LeRoS-F was developed by the Institute of Automation of EURON member 60, the University of Bremen, in close collaboration with the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Institute (FWBI), Bremen, Germany.