Contact:
Martin Hägele
Head of Robotics Systems at Fraunhofer Institute of Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA)
Tel: +49-711-970-1203
Fax: +49-711-970-1008
E-mail: haegele@ipa.fhg.de
URL: www.ipa.fhg.de
Second presentation of the "Technology Transfer Award" for outstanding achievements in European robotics technology
Collaboration between research and industry to be furthered
Stuttgart, 4 April 2005 –
There were two first prizes this year at the annual meeting of the European Robotics Research Network (EURON) and the European Robotics Association EUnited Robotics in Warsaw. The "Technology Transfer Award", which was being presented for the second year, was shared between Thilo Weigel from the Albert Ludwigs University in Freiburg for the "Star-Kick" table football robot and the Swedish robotics researchers Klas Nilsson and Anders Robertsson from Lund University for "Autofett", a robotics system designed to automate the costly fettling and finishing of industrial castings. Third place went to Francois Hirigoyen from the French company Robosoft (www.robosoft.fr) for an automated passenger transport system for use at trade fairs, parks, airports and large public areas.
"Star-Kick" is a research project of the Institute of Information Technology at the Freiburg University which has now been further developed by Adp Gauselmann AG. The table football robot performs at the level of an advanced human player and has now also been commercially marketed (www.gauselmann.de). "Autofett" is a flexible and economical system for the fettling and polishing of medium and large castings up to 1,500 kg which has been developed by the Lund Institute of Technology in collaboration with the Swedish company ABB (www.autofett.org).
The EURON/EUnited Robotics Tech-Transfer Award is presented every year in recognition of outstanding innovations in the field of robotics and automation. The intention is to reward and promote excellence in applied research and technology transfer between research and industry. The award is funded by the European Community and by industrial sponsors from the automation industry such as Asea Brown Boveri Ltd. (ABB), Comau, Schunk, Reis Robotics, Güdel AG, Fanuc Robotics and Kuka Roboter GmbH.
EURON acts as an excellence network with the aim of promoting research, teaching, publications and collaboration between universities and industry in robotics technology throughout Europe and of making Europe the "world's number one" in robotics technology. The network is available to all institutions and companies engaged in this field, explains EURON coordinator Henrik Christensen, Professor at the Centre for Autonomous Systems at Kungliga Tekniska Hoegskolan in Stockholm.
The European Robotics Association ("EUnited Robotics") (www.eu-nited-robotics.net) is a European robotics association which was set up in June of last year at AUTOMATICA 2004 by robot manufacturers. The association acts as a mouthpiece for European robotics manufacturers and system integrators and also as a cooperation platform between all stakeholders from research institutes through national associations to end customers. Its work focuses on the opening up of new applications for robotics as well as on the operation of an Internet portal and the Technology Transfer Award.
Also at the annual meeting of EURON, the Georges Giralt Ph.D. Award was presented to the Spanish researcher Juan Andrade Cetto for his work on environment sensing in mobile indoor robots. The award is presented every year to young postgraduates in recognition of outstanding achievements in the field of robotics. In workshops and lectures, the over 200 participating researchers also address a broad range of topical issues and projects from the sphere of robotics research.
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