"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, member of the EURON Advisory Board as well as coordinator and professor at the Centre for Autonomous Systems at Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan in Stockholm. With networks of excellence, the EU has created an instrument which is designed to integrate outstanding research organizations and institutes in order to strengthen top European research. EURON has set itself the target of making Europe the world number one in the field of robotics research. The European Robotics Forum (erf) 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.

On the motives behind the creation of the Technology Award, Martin Hägele, member of the EURON Advisory Board and head of Robot Systems at Fraunhofer IPA in Stuttgart, explained: "There are a number of scientific projects at universities and scientific organizations which are not visible to industry. It is, therefore, one of the objectives of the EURON/erf Technology Award to support the transfer of scientific findings to society and industry."

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. In reference to the presentation of the first prize, the director of the Institute, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gerd Hirzinger, stated: "The Technology Transfer Award was presented in Amsterdam to a team of three employees (Bals, Otter, Thümmel) from the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at DLR Oberpfaffenhofen and one employee (Hietmann) from KUKA. Their subject was 'High Performance Industrial Robots - The DLR-KUKA Success Story'. The prize winners have made a major contribution to the spectacular rise of the leading German robot manufacturer KUKA to join the ranks of the world elite (currently in 3rd position)."

2nd place: Dr. Olivier Michel, Cyberbotics Ltd., Switzerland, forhis project: "Webots – Fast Prototyping and Simulation Software for Mobile Robot Technology". "The main innovation achieved by this project," said Olivier Michel, "is the realization of a reference project which has hitherto not been available to scientists in the field of mobile robotics."

3rd place: Frank Beeh, Institute of Process Control, Automation and Robotics (IPR), University of Karlsruhe (TH). Frank Beeh, as a researcher at IPR, worked together with Kuka Robot Systems (Augsburg) under the direction of Prof. Heinz Wörn to develop a completely new seat testing system. "The system will become the seat testing system of the future," emphasized Prof. Wörn. "This seat testing system is an example of new sensor-based industrial robot applications."

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