NCCR Robotics is a consortium of robotics laboratories across Switzerland, working on robots for improving the quality of life and to strengthen robotics in Switzerland and worldwide. Newsletter
Human Robot Interaction
Have you ever dreamed of flying? The Symbiotic Drone Activity is a project that aims to give you the sensation of flying while controlling a real drone. The goal of… Read more
Masters in Robotics in Switzerland
Our partner institutions current offer two courses that have a strong focus on robotics at Master’s level, although it is worth noting that students with a wide variety of backgrounds… Read more
NCCR Robotics
Intelligent Robots for Improving the Quality of Life The National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Robotics is a Swiss nationwide organisation funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation… Read more
Open Source Robotics
NCCR Robotics publishes open source software and datasets, please see below for a list and links to where they can be downloaded. Robogen RoboGen™ is an open source platform… Read more
Press Pack
For a summary of our activities please download our info pack. Need more information? Contact our Communications Officer:
Call for Participation to the RSS 2018 Tutorial on Dynamical System-based Learning from Demonstration
RSS 2018 Tutorial on Dynamical System-based Learning from Demonstration, co-organised by Aude Billard, NCCR Robotics PI, will take place on June 29th at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. More information here: https://epfl-lasa.github.io/TutorialRSS2018.io/
CYBATHLON 2020 Team Registration is open!
The date of CYBATHLON 2020 is fixed! From 2–3 May 2020 the gates will be opened for the continuation of the CYBATHLON at the SWISS Arena in Kloten near Zurich. Prepare yourself for an arena charged with passion and an emotion-filled audience that is inspired by the exciting races and challenging tasks in the six …
Continue reading “CYBATHLON 2020 Team Registration is open!”
NCCR drones can now be effortlessly controlled with pointing gestures.
NCCR drones can now be effortlessly controlled with pointing gestures. A video demonstration of the system developed by IDSIA has been published at the Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2018) conference, March 5-8, 2018, Chicago, IL, USA. More info: http://people.idsia.ch/~gromov/hri-landing/
New soft robots really suck!
Recent advances in soft robotics have seen the development of soft pneumatic actuators (SPAs) to ensure that all parts of the robot are soft, including the functional parts. These SPAs have traditionally used increased pressure in parts of the actuator to initiate movement, but today a team from NCCR Robotics and RRL, EPFL publish a …
Control of Motor-Imagery BCI by a User with Locked-In Syndrome
Using Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) as a way to give people with locked-in syndrome back reliable communication and control capabilities has long been a futuristic trope of medical dramas and sci fi. A team from NCCR Robotics and CNBI, EPFL have recently published a paper detailing work as a step towards taking this technique into everyday lives …
Continue reading “Control of Motor-Imagery BCI by a User with Locked-In Syndrome”
Multi-directional gravity assist helps rehabilitation training
When training to regain movement after stroke or spinal cord injury (SCI), patients must once again learn how to keep their balance during walking movements. Current clinical methods mean supporting the weight of the patient during movement, setting the body off balance and meaning that when patients are ready to begin to walk without mechanical …
Continue reading “Multi-directional gravity assist helps rehabilitation training”
Past Events
| Date/Time | Event | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
29 Oct – 31 Oct 2018 9:00 am – 5:00 pm |
Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL 2018) | CoRL 2018 will take place on October 29-31 2018 in Zurich. The conference focuses on the intersection of robotics and machine learning. CoRL aims at being a selective, top-tier venue... |
|
15 Jun – 16 Jun 2017 All Day |
Building Bodies for Brains & Brains for Bodies & 3rd Japan-EU Workshop on Neurorobotics
Geneva, Geneva |
Building Bodies for Brains & Brains for Bodies & 3rd Japan-EU Workshop on Neurorobotics Registration for both events now open. |
|
4 Nov 2016 3:15 pm – 4:15 pm |
Talk: Designing and Controlling Robots for Direct Interaction with Humans by Prof. Alin Albu-Schaeffer, German Aerospace Center, Germany.
ETH Zurich, HG G3, Zurich |
|
|
9 Oct – 12 Oct 2016 All Day |
WORKSHOP ON BRAIN-MACHINE INTERFACES (SMC 2016)
Intercontinental Hotel, BUDAPEST, 1052 Budapest |
Please see: https://documents.epfl.ch/users/c/ch/chavarri/www/IEEESMC2016_BMI/BMI-IEEESMC2016.html |
Landing a Drone with Pointing Gestures
Posted on: March 29, 2018
Integrative Demo of Aerial and Terrestrial Robots for Rescue Missions – 1st November 2017
Posted on: December 12, 2017
New soft robots really suck!
Posted on: August 30, 2017
Gravity Assisted walking
Posted on: July 19, 2017
All the right moves: Fly jacket turns your body into an intuitive joystick
Publication date: July 20, 2018
Published in: ZDnet
This Wearable Controller Lets You Pilot a Drone With Your Body
Publication date: July 19, 2018
Published in: Futurism
Dimenticate il joystick, il drone si guida con i movimenti del corpo Leggi questo articolo su: http://www.gonews.it/2018/07/18/dimenticate-joystick-adesso-drone-si-guida-movimenti-del-corpo/ Copyright © gonews.it
Publication date: July 18, 2018
Published in: Go News
Une chercheuse de l’EPFL met au point une veste pour piloter des drones avec le torse
Publication date: July 18, 2018
Published in: Le Dauphiné
Des drones pilotés par le torse à l’EPFL
Publication date: July 18, 2018
Published in: 20 Minutes
Very Soon Drones Could Be Controlled with Upper Body Movements
Publication date: July 17, 2018
Published in: All India Roundup
Swiss Researchers Find Using Body to Control Drones More Effective Than Controller
Publication date: July 17, 2018
Published in: The Drive
No Joy in Joysticks? Try Driving Drones with Your Torso
Publication date: July 16, 2018
Published in: Drone Below
Drone Researchers Develop Genius Method For Piloting Using Body Movements
Publication date: July 16, 2018
Published in: Inverse
Now, control drones with your upper body Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/science-and-environment/now-control-drones-your-upper-681759.html
Publication date: July 16, 2018
Published in: Deccan Herald
Prof. Dario Floreano NCCR Director & Professor Laboratory of Intelligent Systems (LIS) and Management Team, EPFL dario.floreano@epfl.ch +41 21 693 52 30
Prof. Robert Riener NCCR Co-Director & Professor Management Team and Sensory-Motor Systems Lab (SMS), ETH Zurich riener@hest.ethz.ch +41 44 632 66 79
Dr. Jaime Duarte Postdoctoral Researcher Sensory-Motor Systems Lab (SMS), ETH Zurich jaime.duarte@hest.ethz.ch +41 44 632 57 95
Dr. Wafa Johal Postdoctoral Researcher Computer-Human Interaction in Learning and Instruction (CHILI) and Robotic Systems Lab (LSRO), EPFL wafa.johal@epfl.ch +41 21 693 26 11
Carine Rognon Doctoral Student Laboratory of Intelligent Systems (LIS), EPFL carine.rognon@epfl.ch +41 21 693 73 54
Stefan Schrade Doctoral Student Rehabilitation Engineering Laboratory (RELab), ETH Zurich stefan.schrade@hest.ethz.ch +41 44 510 72 31
PhD Ismael Seanez Gonzalez Postdoctoral Researcher Chair in Spinal Cord Repair (IRP), EPFL ismael.seanezgonzalez@epfl.ch
Can't see who you were looking for? You might want to try browsing by lab or looking in the A-Z people list.
Looking for publications? You might want to consider searching on the EPFL Infoscience site which provides advanced publication search capabilities.
A review: Can robots reshape K-12 STEM education?
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Can robots in classroom reshape K-12 STEM education, and foster new ways of learning? To sketch an answer, this article reviews, side-by-side, existing literature on robot-based learning activities featuring mathematics and physics (purposefully putting aside the well-studied field of "robots to teach robotics") and existing robot platforms and toolkits suited for classroom environment (in terms of cost, ease of use, orchestration load for the teacher, etc.). Our survey suggests that the use of robots in classroom has indeed moved from purely technology to education, to encompass new didactic fields. We however identified several shortcomings, in terms of robotic platforms and teaching environments, that contribute to the limited presence of robotics in existing curricula; the lack of specific teacher training being likely pivotal. Finally, we propose an educational framework merging the tangibility of robots with the advanced visibility of augmented reality.
Posted on: June 25, 2015
A Robot at Home? People"s Perception of a Domestic Service Robot
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Posted on: November 28, 2011
Anthropomorphic Language in Online Forums about Roomba, AIBO and the iPad
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What encourages people to refer to a robot as if it was a living being? Is it because of the robot’s humanoid or animal-like shape, its movements or rather the kind of inter- action it enables? We aim to investigate robots’ characteristics that lead people to anthropomorphize it by comparing different kinds of robotic devices and contrasting it to an interactive technology. We addressed this question by comparing anthro- pomorphic language in online forums about the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, the AIBO robotic dog, and the iPad tablet computer. A content analysis of 750 postings was carried out. We expected to find the highest amount of anthropomorphism in the AIBO forum but were not sure about how far people referred to Roomba or the iPad as a lifelike artifact. Findings suggest that people anthropomorphize their robotic dog signifi- cantly more than their Roomba or iPad, across different topics of forum posts. Further, the topic of the post had a significant impact on anthropomorphic language.
Posted on: March 15, 2012
Anthropomorphism and Human Likeness in the Design of Robots and Human-Robot Interaction
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In this literature review we explain anthropomorphism and its role in the design of socially interactive robots and human-robot interaction. We illus-trate the social phenomenon of anthropomorphism which describes people’s tendency to attribute lifelike qualities to objects and other non lifelike artifacts. We present theoretical backgrounds from social sciences, and integrate related work from robotics research, including results from experiments with social ro-bots. We present different approaches for anthropomorphic and humanlike form in a robot’s design related to its physical shape, its behavior, and its interaction with humans. This review provides a comprehensive understanding of anthro-pomorphism in robotics, collects and reports relevant references, and gives an outlook on anthropomorphic human-robot interaction.
Posted on: August 14, 2012
Cellulo: Versatile Handheld Robots for Education
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In this article, we present Cellulo, a novel robotic platform that investigates the intersection of three ideas for robotics in education: designing the robots to be versatile and generic tools; blending robots into the classroom by designing them to be pervasive objects and by creating tight interactions with (already pervasive) paper; and finally considering the practical constraints of real classrooms at every stage of the design. Our platform results from these considerations and builds on a unique combination of technologies: groups of handheld haptic-enabled robots, tablets and activity sheets printed on regular paper. The robots feature holonomic motion, haptic feedback capability and high accuracy localization through a microdot pattern overlaid on top of the activity sheets, while remaining affordable (robots cost about EUR 125 at the prototype stage) and classroom-friendly. We present the platform and report on our first interaction studies, involving about 230 children.
Posted on: January 9, 2017
FlyJacket: An Upper Body Soft Exoskeleton for Immersive Drone Control
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Posted on: June 22, 2018
From Real-time Attention Assessment to “With-me-ness” in Human-Robot Interaction
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Measuring “how much the human is in the interaction” — the level of engagement — is instrumental in building effective interactive robots. Engagement, however, is a complex, multi-faceted cognitive mechanism that is only indirectly observable. This article formalizes with-me-ness as one of such indirect measures. With-me-ness, a concept borrowed from the field of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, measures in a well-defined way to what extent the human is with the robot over the course of an interactive task. As such, it is a meaningful precursor of engagement. We expose in this paper the full methodology, from real-time estimation of the human’s focus of attention (relying on a novel, open-source, vision-based head pose estimator), to on-line computation of with-me-ness. We report as well on the experimental validation of this approach, using a naturalistic setup involving children during a complex robot-teaching task.
Posted on: February 22, 2016
How Children Tidy up Their Room with "Ranger" the Robotic Box
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"Ranger" is a robotic box designed to motivate young children to tidy up the toys in their rom. It explores the idea of integrating robotics into daily life objects, such as a wooden box. The box shows light and sound when toys are put inside or removed. We carried out a series of field experiments (Wizard-of-Oz) with 14 families to evaluate the first prototype of Ranger. The robot was operated showing two different behaviors: an active or a passive one. We found that the robot’s behavior had an impact on how children interacted with it. The poster also describes children’s and parent’s evaluation of the robot and how the design of Ranger could be improved.
Posted on: November 5, 2012
HRI in the home: A Longitudinal Ethnographic Study with Roomba
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Personal service robots, such as the iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaner provide a promising opportunity to study human-robot interaction (HRI) in domestic environments. Still rather little is known about long-term impacts of robotic home appliances on people’s daily routines and attitudes and how they evolve over time. We investigate these aspects through a longitudinal ethnographic study with nine households, to which we gave a Roomba cleaning robot. During six months, data is gathered through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods.
Posted on: November 28, 2011
Iterative Design of an Upper Limb Rehabilitation Game with Tangible Robots
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Posted on: April 17, 2018