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Section: Partnerships and Cooperations

European Initiatives

FP7 & H2020 Projects

RESIBOTS
  • Title: Robots with animal-like resilience

  • Program: H2020

  • Type: ERC

  • Duration: May 2015 - April 2020

  • Coordinator: Inria

  • Inria contact: Jean Baptiste Mouret

  • Despite over 50 years of research in robotics, most existing robots are far from being as resilient as the simplest animals: they are fragile machines that easily stop functioning in difficult conditions. The goal of this proposal is to radically change this situation by providing the algorithmic foundations for low-cost robots that can autonomously recover from unforeseen damages in a few minutes. The current approach to fault tolerance is inherited from safety-critical systems (e.g. spaceships or nuclear plants). It is inappropriate for low-cost autonomous robots because it relies on diagnostic procedures, which require expensive proprioceptive sensors, and contingency plans, which cannot cover all the possible situations that an autonomous robot can encounter. It is here contended that trial-and-error learning algorithms provide an alternate approach that does not require diagnostic, nor pre-defined contingency plans. In this project, we will develop and study a novel family of such learning algorithms that make it possible for autonomous robots to quickly discover compensatory behaviors. We will thus shed a new light on one of the most fundamental questions of robotics: how can a robot be as adaptive as an animal? The techniques developed in this project will substantially increase the lifespan of robots without increasing their cost and open new research avenues for adaptive machines.

CODYCO
  • Title: Whole-body Compliant Dynamical Contacts for Humanoids

  • Programme: FP7

  • Type: ICT STREP (No. 600716)

  • Duration: March 2013 - February 2017

  • Coordinator: IIT

  • PI for Inria: Serena Ivaldi

  • The aim of CoDyCo was to improve the current control and cognitive understanding about robust, goal-directed whole-body motion interaction with multiple contacts. CoDyCo went beyond traditional approaches: proposing methodologies for performing coordinated interaction tasks with complex systems; combining planning and compliance to deal with predictable and unpredictable events and contacts; validating theoretical progresses in real-world interaction scenarios. CoDyCo advanced the state-of-the-art in the way robots coordinate physical interaction and physical mobility.

ANDY
  • Title: Advancing Anticipatory Behaviors in Dyadic Human-Robot Collaboration

  • Programme: H2020

  • Type: ICT RIA (No. 731540)

  • Duration: January 2017 - December 2020

  • Coordinator: IIT

  • PI for Inria: Serena Ivaldi

  • Recent technological progress permits robots to actively and safely share a common workspace with humans. Europe currently leads the robotic market for safety-certified robots, by enabling robots to react to unintentional contacts. AnDy leverages these technologies and strengthens European leadership by endowing robots with the ability to control physical collaboration through intentional interaction.

    To achieve this interaction, AnDy relies on three technological and scientific breakthroughs. First, AnDy will innovate the way of measuring human whole-body motions by developing the wearable AnDySuit, which tracks motions and records forces. Second, AnDy will develop the AnDyModel, which combines ergonomic models with cognitive predictive models of human dynamic behavior in collaborative tasks, which are learned from data acquired with the AnDySuit. Third, AnDy will propose the AnDyControl, an innovative technology for assisting humans through predictive physical control, based on AnDyModel.

    By measuring and modeling human whole-body dynamics, AnDy provides robots with an entirely new level of awareness about human intentions and ergonomy. By incorporating this awareness on-line in the robot's controllers, AnDy paves the way for novel applications of physical human-robot collaboration in manufacturing, health-care, and assisted living.

    AnDy will accelerate take-up and deployment in these domains by validating its progress in several realistic scenarios. In the first validation scenario, the robot is an industrial collaborative robot, which tailors its controllers to individual workers to improve ergonomy. In the second scenario, the robot is an assistive exoskeleton which optimizes human comfort by reducing physical stress. In the third validation scenario, the robot is a humanoid, which offers assistance to a human while maintaining the balance of both.

  • Partners: Italian Institute of Technology (IIT, Italy, coordinator), Josef Stefan Institute (JSI, Slovenia), DLR (Germany), IMK Automotive Gmbh (Germany), XSens (Netherlands), AnyBody Technologies (Denmark)