The tech landscape in the EU has been very busy discussing policies, regulations, and ways to improve the current state of Europe’s startup scene. EU-funded initiatives like StepUp Startups and Innovation Radar Bridge are good examples of this.
When these projects were presented some weeks ago in Brussels, Eoghan O’Neill, Senior Policy Officer at the European Commission, highlighted the Commission’s dedication to fostering innovation through strategic initiatives like the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the European Digital Innovation Hubs program.
Discussions are ongoing about differente topics, from the challenges faced by startups to the pivotal role of effective strategies in nurturing entrepreneurship. Robotics is another area that is getting attention.
According to the latest data published by the International Federation of Robotics, industrial robot installations in Europe were up 24% to 84,302 units in 2021. On the cutting edge of this growth are adaptive robotics — or robots that can learn new things without needing to be reprogrammed. While these robots play an integral role in advancing the efficiency of collaborative environments in industries like manufacturing, healthcare and logistics, challenges remain in ensuring the safety and trustworthiness of such technology.
Is in that context that a consortium of universities, technology accelerators, and private research labs, funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe 2021-2027 research and innovation programme, announced the launch of RoboSAPIENS, a project that aims to ensure that the industrial robots of the future can readily adapt to changing environments, while maintaining safe and trustworthy collaboration with humans.
RoboSAPIENS will advance the field of robotic self-adaptation and empower robots with open-ended autonomous software adaptations, allowing them to dynamically respond to unforeseen changes in system structure or environment while maintaining trustworthy collaboration with humans.
“As the EU advances its industrial robotics capabilities, it’s imperative that measures be taken to ensure the safety and trustworthiness of the next generation of robots working alongside humans in a collaborative environment,” said Peter Gorm Larsen, a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Aarhus University, and the Coordinator of the RoboSAPIENS project. “With RoboSAPIENS, we will prepare Europe’s industrial robotics industry for rapid and unforeseen adaptability in system structure and environment, assuring trustworthy collaboration with humans by changing behavior while maintaining and even enhancing performance and safety.”
In addition to Denmark’s Aarhus University, other consortium partners include: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, AUTH (Greece); Danish Technological Institute, DTI (Denmark); Fraunhofer IFF, Fraunhofer (Germany); University of York, UoY (United Kingdom); University of Antwerp, UA (Belgium); Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU (Norway); PAL Robotics, PAL (Spain); ISDI Accelerator, ISDI (Spain); Simula Research Lab, SRL (Norway).
RoboSAPIENS will elaborate on the current autonomic computing framework, often referred to as Monitor-Analyze-Plan-Execute-Knowledge (MAPE-K), to include adaptive controllers in robotic applications, and reconcile it with stringent safety requirements. The generation of the adapted controller settings will largely rely on DL and Digital Twin (DT) — or a virtual representation of a physical object — techniques. Automated (virtual and real) tests will be deployed to evaluate a safe operation of the robot after adaptation.
