Cognitive Robotics and Robot Self-Programming

Development of novel approaches to endow robots with cognitive abilities. Ultimately, we want robots to be able to program themselves, given a description of the task in abstract terms.

Examples:

  • Deep unsupervised, semi-supervised or self-supervised learning
  • Imitation learning / learning from demonstrations
  • Sim-to-real and cross-domain transfer learning
  • Ontologies and knowledge bases
A robot grasping an object in a simulated supermarket environment.

Advanced Industrial Robotics

Development of novel solutions to challenging problems in industrial robotics, ranging from manipulation to surface treatment.

Examples:

  • Efficient and precise path planning in high-dimensional constraint spaces
  • Multi-robot collaboration
  • Real-time, GPU-accelerated reachability and manipulability analysis
  • Real-time multimodal robot and end-effector control
  • Precise and data-efficient robot, tool and workspace calibration

Connected Robotics in the Digital Factory

Development of novel approaches for simulating, monitoring and analyzing industrial robots in connected, digital production environments.

Examples:

  • Real-time monitoring and anomaly detection for complex robotic production processes
  • Prescriptive analytics: Augmenting deep learning with domain knowledge to predict and avoid problems problems before they occur, or deriving solutions to detected problems
  • Connected, intuitive user interfaces for programming, monitoring and analyzing robot behavior in the browser, VR and AR
  • Edge computing for program analysis and optimization
  • Decentralized data storage and federated learning

Medical and Assistance Robotics

Development of novel programming, control and interaction paradigms for assistance robots in the medical and care domains.

Examples:

  • High-level, intuitive programming of complex skills for domestic assistance robots by non-experts
  • Safe human-robot interaction in the context of elderly care
  • Advanced robot control and perception for robotic surgery (such as gallbladder removal)