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Robotics in the Netherlands

4TU-professors discuss state of Dutch robotics

Startup Stories

Seven robotics companies that drive innovation

Interview Wal van Lierop

‘We want to be a catalyst for investments in robotics’

ROBOTICS SPECIAL

Home of

Innovation

Colophon Contents Production Malou Spruit, TU Delft Valorisation Centre Jurjen Slump, RoboValley

Robotics in the Netherlands

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Text and Editing Jurjen Slump, RoboValley Lay-out Liesbeth van Dam, TU Delft Media Solutions Print Edauw en Johannissen © TU Delft Valorisation Centre - 2017

Theme: Intelligent vehicles

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Hightech-sector would benefit from bundling available expertise

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Interview Marc Hendrikse

Theme: Inspection and Maintenance

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RoboValley

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RoboValley leading in tech transfer

‘We want to be a catalyst for investments in robotics’

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Interview Wal van Lierop

Theme: Intralogistics

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‘Early signs of the robot society are everywhere’

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Chris Verhoeven

ROBOTICS SPECIAL

Introduction

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Theme: Health care

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Unique test location for drones

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Theme: Agriculture

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‘Ethics for robotics requires a tailormade approach’ Jeroen van der Hoven

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Theme: Autonomous harbour

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‘I’m an ambassador for RoboValley’

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Theme: Open-source robotics

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‘In the Netherlands, it is success that counts’

Ferrie Förster

Yasemin Baydaroglu

A lot happens at Delft University of Technology, an awful lot. The strength of the university lies in its array of research areas, ranging from Aerospace Engineering to Electrical Engineering and from Geosciences to Industrial Design Engineering. This broad scope means that students and researchers at Delft University of Technology are able to find solutions to societal problems in innumerable fields: the medical world, sustainable energy, infrastructure and mobility, and water-related concerns.

This expertise travels all around the world, as it has done for 175 years and counting. Not least thanks to the undeniable entrepreneurial spirit that characterises our students and researchers. Valorisation is one of the university’s core responsibilities and we believe that it is our duty to stimulate entrepreneurship and bring expertise and inventions to the market.

Many of these inventions are concerned with robotics or artificial intelligence. Robots are, as they say, ‘hot’. In the future, they will play a significant role in addressing the major societal issues that lie ahead.

Precisely because of the range of research areas at Delft University of Technology, the university offers a fertile climate for the development of the new generation of intelligent robots. After all, in order to build a successful robot, you need researchers from various disciplines.

The field of robotics is a hotbed of activity. That is why we present this special edition of Home of Innovation, in which we illuminate various aspects of the subject. Our primary focus is on the Netherlands as a whole. We asked several professors of robotics – Maarten Steinbuch (Eindhoven University of Technology), Stefano Stramigioli (University of Twente), Eldert van Henten (Wageningen University) and Martijn Wisse (Delft University of Technology) – to give their opinion of the Dutch robotics landscape. Where is the research heading? What is happening when it comes to technology transfer? What is collaborating with the business world like? And what is it like to collaborate between universities?

We will naturally also pause to reflect on the latest technology transfer developments here at Delft University of Technology, in RoboValley. We will be focusing on the various themes that are also set to take centre stage during the inaugural edition of International Robotics Week, held from 19 to 21 April in The Hague and Delft.

Be sure to read the other items as well. Professor Jeroen van den Hoven outlines the ethical aspects of the field and the need for responsible robotics. Chris Verhoeven sketches a fascinating image of what the ‘robot society’ of the future could look like. And after swapping Silicon Valley for RoboValley, Yasemin Baydaroglu explains the similarities and differences – it truly is an inspirational story.

Within the field of robotics, collaboration between the various disciplines is vital. The same applies to the four technical universities in the Netherlands. It is essential that Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, the University of Twente and Wageningen University & Research continue to build and maintain their connection.

Collaboration with industry and government is also crucial in order to translate scientific expertise into practicable applications. Together, we can work towards a united Netherlands as a powerful force in the international robotics market.

Tim van der Hagen President of the Executive Board, Delft University of Technology

4TU robotics professors discuss research, technology transfer and entrepreneurship

Robotics

in the Netherlands The four technical universities in the Netherlands (collectively known as the 4TU) excel in the field of robotics research. They even lead the international field in specific areas such as agro-robotics and medical robots. While the differences between the universities are often highlighted in the Netherlands, these differences are non-existent to parties overseas. What is the state of robotics in the Netherlands as a whole? How does this impact collaboration between the 4TU? And how good is the investment climate for robotics companies in the Netherlands?

By Jurjen Slump

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n an interview with Home of Innovation, robotics professors Maarten Steinbuch (Eindhoven University of Technology), Stefano Stramigioli (University of Twente), Eldert van Henten (Wageningen University) and Martijn Wisse (Delft University of Technology) answer these questions, offering an impression of the current state of Dutch robotics.

THE NETHERLANDS AND THE WORLD The Netherlands is not traditionally a country associated with robotics. The best-known robot builders are those in countries that are home to large car manufacturers, such as Germany and Japan. The Netherlands focuses on next-generation robotics: robots with added intelligence or precision. In the future, these will appear everywhere: in homes, on the streets, on factory floors and in the fields. Several factors underlie the expectation that the Netherlands is set to play a major role in these developments.

Hierarchyless When asked what makes the Netherlands unique, both Stramigioli and Wisse mention something that has nothing to do with technology. ‘Hierarchical contacts play a much less promi-

nent role in society here’, argues Stramigioli, himself from Italy. ‘It is much easier to make contact, and people seek each other out.’ That is ‘extraordinary’ and equates to a great deal of potential, particularly for robotics research, being a field in which numerous disciplines unite. ‘In other countries, they are more likely to decide to form separate groups: one for the software, one for the electronics and one for the mechanics’, Wisse adds. In the Netherlands, people are ‘quicker to look across borders’ and seek out collaboration, which results in creative solutions.

Back to technology. The Netherlands holds a unique position with regard to high-tech systems, agro-food and medical robots. ‘We have extensive expertise with agricultural and horticultural products, and we shine in the high-tech construction industry’, Steinbuch says.

‘That means that we are very good at making systems extremely precise.’ To illustrate this, he – naturally – points to the football robots that have secured Eindhoven the world championship on numerous occasions. The exterior of these robots conceals an advanced system that allows them to understand the world around them.

Medical robotics is just as advanced.

‘We are able to design mechatronic pre-

cision, and regard robots as high-tech systems. This results in products and spin-offs like nowhere else in the world, such as our eye surgery and vascular surgery robots.’ These systems can perform operations with five to ten times more precision than human surgeons.

‘There is no other university or startup anywhere in the world that can do this’, Steinbuch says. This ‘high-quality mechatronic expertise’ is also praised

by Stramigioli, who works on advanced medical robots as well, at the University of Twente.

Wisse also points to education in the Netherlands, another area in which the country stands out from the competition. Students receive an ‘extremely advanced’ education, exploring the entire robot system, both software and hardware. ‘It is of a high academic level.’

In both Delft and Twente, close attention is also paid to ethical concerns.

‘Even if you only consider regulations and ethical issues, you can see how important this aspect will become’, says Stramigioli.

Guiding country Van Henten emphasises the Netherlands’ position as a frontrunner in agro-robotics, ascribing the country a ‘guiding role’ in the field. One familiar

ROBO ROBOTICS SPECIAL

example is Lely’s robotic milking system: the first major hit scored for robots operating in a more complex working environment. At Wageningen, work started on agro-robotics back in the mid-1990s. The role that robots can play in satisfying rising demand for food and with regard to sustainability is now becoming increasingly clear. As a result, there is rising international interest in what is happening at Wageningen in this field.

The challenge facing the agrarian sector is focused on the automation of complex tasks. ‘All of the simple things have already been mechanised. Planting machines, cutting machines, repotting machines, you name it. It’s all available.’ The challenge lies in the complex tasks that are currently still being completed by humans, such as deciding what should be harvested and when. It is the automation of human decision-making. Besides that, all of the hardware needs to be able to resist farming conditions and be resistant to dust, mud and rain. It has to be robust.

several fields. But the competition is fierce. ‘There are an inconceivable number of robotics groups scattered around the world’, says Steinbuch.

‘Huge amounts of money are being invested in Japan, Germany, Italy and the US.’ In this light, it would be a stretch to say that the Netherlands holds a unique position. The total research funding available in the Netherlands is too limited to reach first place on a global scale. ‘But, having said that, we took home the world championship for robot football for the third time.’ Such victories attract interested parties from all over the world.

Stramigioli also calls for realism. The Netherlands is primarily a world player in certain areas. The University of Twente’s particular area of expertise is pipeline inspection and advanced MRI-compatible medical robots. ‘In several countries, high-level research is being conducted into the new generation of intelligent robotics’, Wisse says. ‘The Netherlands is one of these breeding grounds.’

Tipping point

If the Netherlands is to become a leading robotics country, it is vital that the 4TU collaborate effectively, and particularly that they present a united front to countries overseas.

‘From the perspective of Shanghai, the Netherlands is no larger than a postage stamp’, explains Steinbuch.

Working together is the ideal means of facilitating acceleration. In recent years, this collaboration was sometimes tough going. Collaboration within RoboNED was sound, but hit a rough patch during the past few years – partly because the individual universities were primarily focused on promoting themselves.

Things have improved: under the title of ‘Holland Robotics’ (see page 13), consultations between the universities are gaining more shape.

‘We have entered a phase in which we accept that we are all promoting ourselves, but we have once again set our sights on finding the added value. I am pleased with this development.’ >>

Nonetheless, Wisse believes that the ‘truly major success stories’ are yet to come. The technology to make robots intelligent, allowing them to enter our daily lives through a range of applications, has not been around for long. ‘To be honest, we are still to see this technology deliver results’, Wisse says. He predicts the Netherlands will be ‘extremely good’ in this field, thanks to the multidisciplinary collaboration he already praised before. ‘We are at a tipping point. Robots are moving out of factories and into our daily lives, and the Netherlands can play a prominent role in this development.’

Research at Delft University of Technology focuses on the interaction between robots and the people around them – an issue that was not relevant to factory environments.

Research at the other three universities is also focused on robots that are capable of functioning in ‘unstructured environments’.

So, the Netherlands leads the way in

Prof. dr. ir. Martijn Wisse (1976) • Professor of Biorobotics • Director of the TU Delft Robotics Institute • Involved with two robotics start-ups: Delft Robotics and Lacquey Martijn Wisse’s robot:

‘I recently bought a Cozmo, an artificially intelligent toy robot with a playful personality’

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4TU: STANDING UNITED?

Prof. Maarten Steinbuch (1960) • Professor of Systems and Control • Director of TU/e High Tech Systems Center • Involved with three robotics startups: Preceyes, Microsure and Medical Robotic Technologies.

Maarten Steinbuch’s robot:

‘A robotic pool cleaner. It is similar to a lawn mowing robot: you put it in your swimming pool and it cleans the bottom and sides of the pool. It is extremely intelligent, a joy to behold’

Care robot Amigo, delevoped by Eindhoven University of Technology (Photo: Bart van Overbeeke Fotografie).

Bundling strengths

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Stramigioli welcomes the renewed initiatives for collaboration. ‘I think it is a good idea to present a single face to the world outside and to bundle our strengths’, he says. ‘That is what is most important: that everyone has the opportunity to showcase their strengths, but not at the expense of the others.

You have to realise that we can achieve much more by working together.’

‘The opportunities for us are fantastic’, Van Henten enthuses. ‘The Netherlands is a small country. I think that, with respect for each other’s expertise, we need to find ways of working together.

Because the Netherlands is home to an absolutely enormous amount of expertise.’

Other universities Steinbuch also expressly includes the non-technical universities: those of Tilburg, Amsterdam, Nijmegen and Utrecht. These universities have a completely different perspective on robotics, paying attention to the social and legal aspects. ‘I always hope that people complement each other sufficiently in the research so that they actually help each other.’ Wisse says that this often happens automatically. ‘It manages itself, as you are never going to do the same as your colleague – that would make it difficult for you to get ahead, after all. Researchers always look for something that nobody else is already

doing.’ When it comes to agro-robotics, Van Henten sees innumerable opportunities for collaboration. The vision systems developed by the TU/e for their football robots could be put to good use in robots for picking fruit. Delft is home to Lacquey, a company that specialises in the field of grippers – also required for the same picking robot.

TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER If the Netherlands is to become one of the leading countries in the field of robotics, successful collaboration with the business world and the government is essential, as is a healthy investment climate. In this respect, the professors are predominantly positive. They do believe that a long-term vision is sometimes lacking, however, and are critical of the government’s so-called top sector policy, which they believe negatively impacts robotics.

The idea behind the policy was that the business world would increase in-

quently, the whole top sector approach does not work for new enterprises, such as robotics.’

‘It is underpinned by extremely limited long-term vision’, Van Henten agrees.

‘The industry looks no more than a few years ahead, while we are talking about scientific research that spans a period of ten or fifteen years.’ The Wageningen University professor thinks that the government has an ‘inadequate’ understanding of the importance of technology for agriculture and of the role that his university can play in this regard. He appeals to the government to show a higher level of ‘structural involvement’.

Start-ups Recent Times Higher Education research revealed that Eindhoven University of Technology is world leader when it comes to collaborating with the most innovative companies. ‘We have an unbelievable number of start-ups here’, says Steinbuch, who is personally

‘Silicon Valley did not become what it is today because the people are better than people in the Netherlands, but rather because it is much easier to secure capital’ vestment in R&D. However, Steinbuch explains that there are too few robotics companies in the Netherlands to ensure a flow of research funds. ‘Conse-

involved with Preceyes and MicroSure, two companies that manufacture medical robots.

He has ambitious plans for Eindhoven

ROBOTICS SPECIAL

region, both regarding the research into medical robots and the business side of things. ‘I am consulting with investors on how to take things to the next level, and far beyond. In a recent column, I wrote that in a decade’s time, I want to see 1,000 people working in this field in this region.

That is my ambition.’

Stramigioli points to the University of Twente’s more than 900 spin-offs, including robotics company Clear Flight Solutions. They manufacture the Robird, a robotic bird that can be used at airports to scare away other (non-robotic) birds that could otherwise cause problems for air traffic.

During the CES technology fair in Las Vegas, TechCrunch magazine praised the Robird as one of the ten ‘coolest gadgets’. Delft is a familiar face on the scene thanks to RoboValley, and there is now also plenty of focus on start-ups in Wageningen.

funding to help them through the challenging initial period. ‘Once you have secured a loan, that is when things really start to happen.’

Stimulating entrepreneurship While it is easy to set up a company in the Netherlands, Steinbuch would like to see more done to improve the links between research and entrepreneurship. He is not concerned about the educational programme, but rather about how entrepreneurship is perceived. ‘I see that students are extremely ambitious, but this ambition is sometimes smothered by academic staff who attach greater importance to publications.’

When all is said and done, the government has a responsibility to stimulate substantive social discussion regarding the future of intelligent robots. Wisse thinks that once the population’s fear is quelled, people will be more inclined to purchase a robot.

Venture capital A lack of venture capital is unanimously identified as one of the most significant problems. ‘The only thing missing is a huge pile of money’, Steinbuch says. Stramigioli agrees, noting that finding investors is the greatest challenge. ‘Silicon Valley did not become what it is today because the people there are better than people in the Netherlands, but rather because it is much easier to secure capital, because entrepreneurs dare to take more risks and are not afraid of failing.’

Wisse brings up the lengthy development phase associated with robotics, which means that investors need to be patient. Robots comprise software and hardware, and it is primarily the development of the mechanical part that takes so much time. An additional issue is that each new robot has to be designed and tested individually. It takes ‘an awful lot of time and money’ before it actually works.

All burgeoning robotics companies have to make their way through this protracted development process.

‘And that always involves sums upwards of €1 million’, says Wisse.

Steinbuch thinks that a fund should be established to address the problem. Start-ups could then apply for

Liberation Robots could result in job losses, but – paradoxically – they could in fact be the saviour of the agriculture industry. The agrarian sector has struggled with a shortage of workers for years, and fewer and fewer people want to become farmers.

Because they do not fancy getting up at the crack of dawn to milk the cows, for example. But if robots in ‘intelligent sheds’ take over this demanding work, there is hope, Van Henten says.

‘Perhaps the younger generation, those who have grown up playing computer games, will gain a fresh interest in agriculture, precisely due to all of the technology.’ The farmer of the future will be a systems administrator, strolling through his fields, iPad in hand.

Wisse is also optimistic. He suggests a comparison with the washing machine. Before that was invented, women spent endless hours plugging away in a washtub. And, just as the washing machine offered many women liberation, robots will bring liberation in other fields. ‘Robots will expedite future liberation from all sorts of boring and physically demanding work.’ <<

Prof. Stefano Stramigioli (1968) • Professor of Advanced Robotics at the University of Twente • Vice-president of Research at euRobotics Stefano Stramigioli’s robot:

‘I have two vacuuming robots at home. I would like to have a lot more robots around the house, but my wife is not a fan. If it were up to me, the whole house would be packed with gadgets’

Prof. Eldert van Henten (1963) • Professor of Biosystems Engineering • Head of the WUR Farm Technology Group since 2005 Eldert van Henten’s robot:

‘A lawn mowing robot. It puts me at ease, because I no longer have to bother with the lawn’

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THEME: INTELLIGENT VEHICLES

WEpod

The future of public transport The future of public transport goes by the names of WURby and WElly. Otherwise known as WEpods, these vehicles started providing a bus service on the public highway at Wageningen University & Research last year. WURby and WElly are fully autonomous, devoid of a steering wheel, brake pedal or accelerator.

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A WEpod driving on the campus of Wageningen University & Research. (Photo: WEpods)

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elft University of Technology is one of several parties involved with the WEpod project. The objective of the project is knowledge development: it will not result in a ready-for-use system, instead generating valuable information for companies, governmental agencies and knowledge institutions, contributing to the drive to bring autonomous transport a step closer.

The carriage is based on the EX-10, an electric vehicle produced by the French company EasyMile that can be easily adapted. The WEpod project team subsequently installed additional technology to make the vehicle suitable for use on the public highway. WURby and WElly can both transport six people at a time, having a top speed of 40 km/h and a range of approximately 100 kilometres.

Delft University of Technology researchers collaborated with Robot Care Systems to develop the sensor system that enables the WEpod to drive autonomously. The vehicles are fitted with radars, lidars (comparable to radar, but using light instead of radio waves), GPS and six cameras. The laser scanners chart the surroundings and create a virtual map, so that the WEpod knows exactly where it is.

The vehicles brake or stop for other road users as necessary.

Traffic legislation needed to be adjusted in order to allow the bus service to operate. Several conditions

do still apply: the carriages are only permitted to operate on an agreed route, and a trained steward must always be on board to take over, if necessary.

The trial was originally intended to run until the end of 2016, but the decision has now been made to develop the WEpods further and to keep them in service for at least another three years. In addition to the trials in Wageningen, crossborder journeys to Germany are also planned. Tests transporting both people and packages will be conducted at Airport Weeze, alongside a trial in which trucks drive in a convoy autonomously.

Delft University of Technology will also continue their involvement. Pieter Jonker, Professor of Vision-Based Robotics, will continue research into the sensor system. Riender Happee, Programme Manager Automotive, will focus on the interaction between people and machine: how will an autonomous vehicle in motion interact with other road users?

This trial in the border region is an initiative of the Dutch government, the provincial authorities, twenty Dutch and German companies, Delft University of Technology, the HAN University of Applied Sciences and the German research institute IKEM. The project is also supported by a European Union subsidy. wepods.nl

COLUMN Several passenger cars already feature restricted forms of automation, but drivers are still expected to keep their eyes on the road and monitor the driving task.

Technology is continually improving, we can soon expect cars and trucks that allow drivers to take their eyes off the road and use the driving time for other work or leisure activities.

Meanwhile, driverless vehicles without steering wheel and pedals already provide operational public transport on constrained routes. Driverless robotic vehicles are tested in mixed traffic, with a perspective of affordable 24/7 transport of passengers and goods.

But are we ready to massively deploy automated vehicles on public roads?

Certainly not, as we still have to prove that they are safe. Proving safety requires on-road and virtual testing to rigorously assess not only the technology but also the human interaction with automation.

In a range of collaborative projects, TU Delft addresses fields such as: detection and intent recognition in particular for pedestrians and cyclists, safe interaction between human drivers and automation during transitions of control, safe and acceptable interaction of automated vehicles with other road users, and integration in the transport system.

Given these challenges, it may take decades until automation can handle all public roads.

However, in the near future we will safely read and text in highway conditions, and use driverless buses on public roads.

RIENDER HAPPEE

Assistant Professor & Programme Manager Automotive, Delft University of Technology

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Technology is continually improving, we can soon expect cars and trucks that allow drivers to take their eyes off the road and use the driving time for other work or leisure activitiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

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‘The Netherlands has a unique opportunity in the field of robotics’

High-tech sector would benefit from bundling available expertise The Netherlands has a ‘unique opportunity’ to become a major player in the field of robotics. Marc Hendrikse, CEO of high-tech company NTS-Group and a member of Holland High Tech, the high-tech systems and materials sector in the Netherlands, advocates that in order ‘to capitalise on this opportunity, it will be necessary to bundle all of the knowledge and expertise available at various companies and knowledge institutions.’

By Jurjen Slump

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obotics represents an enormous range of opportunities for the Dutch high-tech sector.

Hendrikse explains that the list of potential applications is virtually endless, although he expects the most significant impact to be in the medical field (including care and surgery robots), the agricultural and horticultural industries, and the smart industry (with regard to the industrial process itself ).

Robots are also in operation at his own company. ‘We use robots in some of our production processes, and we manufacture drones for one of our clients.’

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Marc H

end

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se

SOLID POINT OF DEPARTURE The Netherlands benefits from a solid point of departure.

‘We are good at connecting various areas of expertise. The Netherlands is a world leader with regard to that kind of system architecture’, Hendrikse says. And that is important in the field of robotics, where numerous disciplines interact, including software, sensor systems, data processing and mechatronics. Hendrikse argues that it is in the nature of the Dutch to have no qualms at all with ‘peeking over the fence’ and communicating with others. That ultimately leads to better solutions.

That being said, lots of individual parties are developing new applications: major companies such as

Philips, suppliers, smaller companies and start-ups, but also universities and knowledge institutions such as TNO. The strength of the Dutch robotics sector – but also the challenge facing it – is unity between all of these parties. ‘If you succeed in bringing together the various competencies from all of the different areas, the Netherlands will have a unique proposition’, Hendrikse explains. ‘Because that will enable us to look for solutions from all of the different lines of approach.’

COLLABORATION Hendrikse therefore applauds the fact that the four technical universities are once again working together in the field of robotics, under the name ‘Holland Robotics’ (see page 13) precisely because it is currently a hot topic all around the world. ‘It is because we have such a unique proposition that it is so important that we showcase what we have to offer. So that people in other countries also realise that, when it comes to robotics, the Netherlands should be your first port of call.’ It should not be about emphasising the differences between the various universities, rather about seeking collaboration. After all, overseas parties view the Netherlands – with its compact geography – as a single player on the international robotics market.

CAPITAL The main problem for technology transfer (i.e. launching robotics start-ups) is money. ‘The initial start is not the most difficult aspect, but you ultimately need large sums of money to develop and market a product’, says Hendrikse. Financial institutions still have difficulties with the high-tech sector. ‘Because they cannot properly assess companies like this, and are therefore not in a position to

ROBOTICS SPECIAL

gauge the risks and potential returns. Which means that, as a high-tech company, you soon miss out on funding.’

TOP-SECTOR POLICY Hendrikse indicates that attention is paid to these problems in the government’s top-sector policy. He thinks that the government should offer certain projects ‘a sort of endorsement’, so that major backers such as pension funds would be keener to get involved. Hendrikse explains that programmes in this field take longer and the required investment is sizeable: ‘It takes longer before the cash is released and the risk involved is greater, so it would help if some of that risk were covered by government policy.’

Hendrikse also comes across problems like this at his own company. ‘We have been involved with several robotics start-ups, so I am aware of what a struggle securing sufficient financing can be.’

Holland Robotics is a national robotics community that aims to strengthen collaboration between science, industry and robotics entities. Holland Robotics must ensure the robotics knowledge in the Netherlands is used to its maximal potential. The goal: to reinforce the international competitiveness.

With High Tech NL as driving force behind Holland Robotics, the four technical universities, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Rijksuniversiteit Groningen have joined forces with industry giants DEMCON, VDL Enabling, Technologies Group, Philips, Lely and Vanderlande Industries. This platform allows the industry, through a serious technology roadmap, to take the lead in the future of Dutch robotics.

Under the name of Holland Robotics, research and enterprise will operate on national and international levels.

PRECEYES Despite these challenges, many fine things are happening in the field of technology transfer in the Netherlands. For example, Hendrikse praises Preceyes, a company based in Eindhoven that manufactures eye-surgery robots, and with which Professor of Robotics Maarten Steinbuch is involved.

‘It is great to see how a company like this succeeds in shifting the technological boundaries of what is possible.’ <<

www.hollandrobotics.com

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THEME:INSPECTION & MAINTENANCE

Birds.ai Managing your assets with AI Birds.ai creates cutting edge image analysis software as a service, to locate objects and defects in the inspection and precision agriculture industries. Birds.ai is a cloud-based service that measures, tracks and reports the status of assets to provide clients with actionable information.

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The Birds.ai team. (Photo: Birds.ai)

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nspectors of wind turbines must quickly locate defects in order to perform the necessary maintenance.

Gathering and analysing this information by climbing up the wind turbine is dangerous and labour intensive. Drones cut down the cost significantly, but leave the inspector with a big pile of aerial data to analyse.

Birds.ai provides a service to cut down the pile of images, the inspector has to inspect. By searching through the pile of images with algorithms (deep neural networks) on super computers, Birds.ai cuts down the pile of images and is able to locate and report the various defects that occur in a wind turbine.

The Birds.ai team was originally founded 3.5 years ago, to develop and test an affordable and easyto-use smart drone system for wildlife protection. We learned that drones are great tools to collect images and can be used for numerous applications. Going through these images to find what you are looking for is a dull, time consuming and labour-intensive task. By automatically analysing these images, we are able to provide infrastructure inspectors of wind turbines,

cell towers, power lines with defect information. Therefore, last year, we shifted our focus to image analysis and launched the for-profit corporation Birds.ai at 30 March 2016.

The technical challenges in both the inspection and agriculture industries are providing services that provide cost savings or increase profits for the customer.

Artificial intelligence can be applied at many places, but understanding the industry and creating a service that solves a costly problem is hard from both an operational and technical standpoint. Therefore, Birds.ai closely works with end customers to finetune our services.

In ten years Birds.ai, will be a world player in serving image analysis software as a service for the inspection and agriculture industries. Our service is used for visual inspections worldwide; be it wind turbines, cell towers or power lines.

Our experience as a robotics start-up company is that customers do not care how fancy your robotic technology is; as long as it gets the job done, reduces costs and generates profits. birds.ai

COLUMN Inspection and maintenance robotics will solve an enormous number of problems. Take pipe inspection for example, a major research area at the University of Twente. It is impossible to see some types of damage from the outside, which means that it is handy if you can send a robot into the pipe. When the pipes are only 60 millimetres in diameter, a human inspector has no chance of fitting inside.

Those are technical considerations, but safety also comes into play. At the moment, the production process often has to be interrupted to allow human inspectors to do their job. And time equals money.

That never used to be much of an issue, as there was no shortage of cash in the oil world. But with today’s low margins, efficiency and effectiveness have suddenly become buzzwords in the petrochemical industry. Robots offer a solution.

Aside from the oil and gas sector, the main areas in which maintenance and inspection robotics can be used are the infrastructure and energy sectors (wind turbine inspection). The scientific challenges that are yet to be overcome in this respect are linked to mechatronics, navigation and control. For example, how can you ensure that a drone can conduct stable measurements in an unstructured environment, close to the blades of a wind turbine?

I do not believe that using robots for inspection and maintenance will instantly result in the loss of jobs.

For the time being, robots will still be controlled by people. We are talking about telerobotics with a touch of added intelligence. This is a transitional phase, on the way towards fully automated systems.

Telerobotics will allow robotic systems to prove themselves in practice. Increasing amounts of intelligence will gradually be added, making the robots more autonomous. I think that we will see a steady increase in these types of applications in about five years’ time. A decade from now, it will really be booming.

STEFANO STRAMIGIOLI

Professor of Advanced Robotics at the University of Twente

‘With today’s low margins, efficiency and effectiveness have suddenly become buzzwords in the petrochemical industry. Robots offer a solution’

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TU DELFT ROBOTICS INSTITUTE

ROBOQUARTER ADMINISTRATIVE

Housing and office facilities

Secretarial and legal services

Unites more than 170 robotics researchers

PORTAL Online platform for knowledge transfer, jobs and special reports on robotics

16 ROBOVALLEY INVESTMENT FUND 100 million euro fund for breakthrough robotics technologies

MAKERSPACE Several labs and testing facilities

ROBOCAFÃ&#x2030; Monthly informal event for the RoboValley robotics community

INCUBATOR TRIPLE HELIX COLLABORATION

Building good ties with decision makers in the government and industry

Entrepreneurial advise for robotics start-ups

ROBOVALLEY:

CONNECTING ROBOTS AND PEOPLE WORLDWIDE

By Arthur de Crook, Managing Director

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER Connecting the university with the industry

In RoboValley, more than 170 robotics researchers from a multitude of fields collaborate with other experts, entrepreneurs and decision-makers from the public and private sector. As a result, a unique network is thriving, with TU Delft Robotics Institute as its beating heart. This allows RoboValley to take a leading role in the development of the next generation robotics.

We have worked hard during the past two years to build this ecosystem. Office space is available for researchers, start-ups and larger companies. 30 robotics start-ups have already settled in RoboValley, in addition to already established robotics companies. It is expected that, in the next 10 years, thousands of new jobs will be created in RoboValley. These companies, and their labs, will need tens of thousands m² of office space.

ROBOT MASTER TEAM Consulting services for the industry

MATCHMAKING Connect with the right companiesin the robotics industry

To attract investors, the RoboValley Investment Fund has been created, with a target size of 100 million Euro. We also engage in partnerships with large companies, connect companies with robotics researchers, and we are building an online portal where knowledge can be exchanged. Finally, we make ourselves known. A lot of technology that is currently being developed is largely invisible to the market and society. Innovation is stimulated by making this technology visible and available.

The point is that knowledge will spread, money will flow and the many talented robotics minds will flourish. We need robotics to help solve the grand societal challenges we currently face. To develop this technology, we need to collaborate. RoboValley facilitates and stimulates this collaboration. The physical location of RoboValley is in Delft, but our ambition covers the globe.

Everyone who wants to join our platform is most welcome!

www.robovalley.com

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Wal van Lierop of Chrysalix on the Chrysalix RoboValley Fund

‘We want to be a catalyst for investments in robotics’ 18

Last summer, RoboValley and the Canadian investor Chrysalix Venture Capital announced that they were setting up the Chrysalix RoboValley Fund. With a target-size of €100 million, this is the first such fund dedicated entirely to next-generation robotics. Its first investments are expected to be initiated soon. Chrysalix President and CEO Wal van Lierop tells us more.

‘We want to be a catalyst for investments in the robotics sector.’

By Jurjen Slump

Why was the Chrysalix RoboValley Fund established?

‘We’re currently on the verge of the fourth Industrial Revolution. You can see robots making an entrance everywhere, in all industries. Last year McKinsey produced a report showing that, thanks to robotics and related technologies, a large proportion of the production processes in every manufacturing industry can be automated over the next few years.

That represents a huge opportunity – we think this market will be worth 10-20 billion dollars in 2025.’

The fund is dedicated to robotics.

Can you explain?

‘We’re talking about robotics in the broadest sense of the word, including robots themselves, artificial intelligence, machine learning, 3D

printing and digital manufacturing, but also sensors, the internet of things, mobility and autonomous systems.

This all about a world of industry in which everything communicates with everything else.’

Why did you choose to set up the fund jointly with RoboValley?

‘We have a history together. A couple of years ago Chrysalix invested in Epyon, a small RoboValley firm making fast-chargers for electric cars.

We were later able to sell that on with a very good return to ABB, one of the world’s biggest companies, where it’s now their electric-vehicle charger division. That success had us craving for more! So RoboValley certainly didn’t come out nowhere for us.’

The Chrysalix RoboValley Fund was announced last summer. What’s happened since?

‘We’ve been working hard on a number of things. First, raising enough

Wal van

Liero

p

ROBOTICS SPECIAL

money. With a fund worth more than €100 million, you have to attract investors who see the same promise in RoboValley as we do: the promise that robotics is going to deliver structural growth and new industrial processes capable of generating a lot of money.

‘We expect to start actually making investments very soon. We’re currently looking at potential candidates. And not just some company that has invented a nice drone – no, what we’re looking for are specific applications of robotics with the potential to grow major industries by making a leap forward in efficiency or introducing new products or services.’

Can you give us an example?

‘Yes. We’ve invested in Minesense, a company devoted to innovation in the mining industry. The problem there is that you have to dig out huge amounts of rock to find a little bit of what you’re looking for: for every 1 per cent of copper, iron ore or coal, 99 per

cent of what you excavate is useless waste rock. Through Minesense, we’ve added artificial intelligence and sensors to the diggers so that the operators can see in real-time what’s in their buckets. If that’s mainly waste rock, it’s dumped straight away and not sent for processing. Moreover, the AI helps them follow the valuable veins of ore.

‘Over time, then, your “hit rate” for good ore increases substantially. Depending on the size of the mine, that translates into a financial gain of between 20 and 200 million dollars a year. A massive opportunity, in other words.

Minesense is now growing fast in an industry not used to much innovation.

And this is only the beginning. In the future we’ll no longer have dig underground tunnels. We’ll just send down a robot, like a mole, and a week later it’ll resurface loaded with lovely ores.

‘That’s the kind of business we’re interested in. We’re looking for robotics solutions capable of fundamentally altering the value chain and so delivering huge financial benefits. Not a couple percent, but up to ten times the original investment.’

Who has invested in the fund?

‘I can’t go into detail at the moment, but about two-thirds of our investors are major industrial players in search of further innovation. The other third are big financial institutions.’

How can start-ups contact the fund?

‘Chrysalix is going to be represented during International Robotics Week, so new entrepreneurs can approach us

then. Because of our association with RoboValley, we can also be reached through them. When considering an investment, Chrysalix wants to prove as quickly as possible – and with minimum risk – that the technology works. We therefore analyse when a company will be able to stand on its own two feet, what its growth prospects are like and so on. We also bring in other venture capitalists, because our €100 million fund should really be the catalyst for additional investments worth another couple of hundred million. Chrysalix is often the first investor, but in our slipstream come others who want to join us in supporting these new technologies.’

Finally, what is your advice to students here at Delft University of Technology who are nearing graduation and want to start their own robotics business?

‘I have several pieces of advice. What I often tell students at technical universities is that it’s really important to come up with a good product, but you must remember that your invention and all the work you put into it are worth absolutely nothing until somebody actually pays for it. So make sure that you develop something that adds value. A lot of people think of consumer products, of course, but there are a lot of other very big industries – mining, oil and gas, agriculture, manufacturing, the motor industry – in need of innovation. Also, don’t just focus on the technology. Try to find something that really solves a problem for society or opens up big new opportunities. And never stop believing in yourself. Go for it. If you want to be an entrepreneur, be one!’ <<

Wal van Lierop’s robot:

‘I have a robotic vacuum cleaner and I’m currently looking at the GardenBot. That’s a robot that grows vegetables for you in your own garden. It gives them water and weeds the plot, and you can follow it all on your iPhone. It’s fun and it’s healthy and that kind of thing puts a smile on my face.’

19

THEME: INTRALOGISTICS

Delft Robotics Tailor-made intelligent robots Robotisation releases people from the burden of repetitive, boring, dirty, physically demanding and dangerous work. It has already brought a great deal of social and economic progress, but significant gains are still to be made. After all, many tasks require a high level of hand-eye coordination and the ability to make the correct choices in a changing environment. Delft Robotics manufactures robots that are up to the job.

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Delft Robotics won last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Amazon Picking Challenge. (Photo: Jurjen Slump)

D

elft Robotics is a software company with extensive practical experience with the integration of robots into production processes. Put simply, we give robots eyes and the ability to think for themselves. Using deep-learning algorithms, we translate 3D images into concrete actions that control the robot. This all happens within 1/8 of a second, guaranteeing robustness and reliability in dynamic production environments.

Deep learning is a form of machine learning that uses neural networks to teach a computer extremely complex tasks. We feed stereoscopic images of the product in the environment in which it needs to be recognised into our algorithm, and continue training the machine in this way until it recognises these products. Once the machine has learnt what is required, it will recognise the product in a flash, even if it is partially concealed or there is interference from sunlight or dust!

Winning last year’s Amazon Picking Challenge attested to the capabilities of our technology.

During this competition, Delft Robotics demonstrated that it had developed a durable system for ‘bin and order picking’ random products, a process that is very difficult to automate.

Delft Robotics was the first to apply deep learning for object recognition. This proved to be an extremely successful decision, leading us to a double victory ahead of organisations such as Mitsubishi and MIT. The food industry is one of the fastest growing segments for robotics. This is a pre-eminent example of an industry in which many processes still require manual intervention, and in which automation repeatedly proves to be complex due to the multitude of variations that need to be taken into account when picking fruit and vegetables, for example.

Around the world, dozens of projects are currently focusing on developing picking robots, but none of these robots are ready for use in a real-life situation. With our deep-learning technique, we can teach a machine to recognise a certain type of vegetable or fruit within just a few weeks – with extremely robust results.

Located in RoboValley, Delft Robotics primarily comprises deep-learning experts in the field of vision. Our team features specialists from the fields of industrial design, mechanical engineering, electronics and robotics, making us a valuable partner during implementation programmes.

COLUMN For the first time, it is now possible to make affordable, intelligent intralogistics systems: automated arms for order picking and autonomous robots able to navigate unstructured environments.

The enabling algorithm, SLAM (‘simultaneous localisation and mapping’), has already been around for a few years but now is it robust – and cheap – enough to be implemented in physical systems.

Robots have been scuttling around warehouses for a while, of course. Systems like Amazon’s Kiva make the most of the machine-intelligence currently available, with minimal use of expensive actuators and mechanics. This device has just two small motors, the same as robotic lawnmowers and vacuum cleaners.

And it is set to evolve fast over the next few years: the Kiva will soon be acquiring an arm, so that it can pick objects up from the ground and off shelves – key skills for an order picker.

For the time being, the main limiting factor is the cost of the hardware. It no longer takes magic to imbue devices with intelligence or make them perform smart manoeuvres. We can do all of that now. The only real question is: how much does it cost, and is it worth it?

The more fundamental issues that we at the TU Delft Robotics Institute are trying to solve are all about human-robot interaction. How does a user understand what an intelligent device is thinking – and vice versa? In other words, how do we achieve mutual comprehension?

As a Professor of Biorobotics, I like to let nature inspire me. Take the human skeleton, for example.

It is designed in such a way that our movements are second nature. It is very inspiring to realise that when you want to make robots for innovative new applications, as long as the design is right you are given a great deal of the behaviour that you want as a free added bonus.

delftrobotics.com

MARTIJN WISSE

Professor of Biorobotics at Delft University of Technology

‘It is very inspiring to realise that when you want to make robots for innovative new applications, as long as the design is right you are given a great deal of the behaviour that you want as a free added bonus’

21

Chris Verhoeven on how robots are going to change life dramatically

‘Early signs of the robot society are everywhere’ The robot society of the future is an unimaginable prospect as yet, but the first signs of what it might be like are everywhere, says associate professor Chris Verhoeven of the TU Delft Robotics Institute. He foresees a world in which smart robots are an integral part of life.

‘The new society will fail without its robots.’

22

By Jurjen Slump

L

et me start with a fairy tale,’ says Verhoeven. ‘Once upon a time there’ll be a little boy with a robot friend he plays with all the time. One day he’s walking down the down the street when a couple of other kids start pestering him. On the other side of the road is a group of big robots, outside a supermarket. They’re unloading pallets from a lorry. Suddenly one of them spins round, crosses the road, walks up to the little boy and stands next to him. Then it turns to the other boys and says, “Will you please stop bothering him?!” The little lad looks up at the big robot, who looks back and winks at him. “It’s me,” he says, “Your robot friend.” What happened? The robot friend’s personality was transferred, via the cloud, to the big work robot. As soon as that happened, it recognised its young human companion and came to his aid. The point of the story: in the future we’ll own

behaviour, which can be loaded onto any hardware we like.’

WASTE COLLECTOR ‘Back to today. I believe some early signs of the new society are now appearing, although it does require a bit of imagination to see them. Society is always satisfying needs, so when new technology comes along it may be new, but the needs it meets aren’t.

One example I like to use is from the old days: the waste collector’s horse, pulling the cart he throws waste into.

The horse keeps an eye on where his master is and keeps up with him.

When he’s done, the man climbs onto the cart and the horse walks home of his own accord. That’s really just a self-driving lorry. So the demand for autonomous vehicles has been there for centuries, but it’s only now that the technology’s catching up.

‘There are all kinds of signs of that in today’s world. Another example is

Uber. Say I’m standing at the side of the road and I want to go home. Using an app, I get a car to stop and take me.

Right now there’s a driver in it, sure, but why shouldn’t it be autonomous?

Again, this example shows that the demand’s already there: I want a car at the moment I need it, but after that I don’t want or need it. When you look at Spotify, you see that people add tracks they like to their playlist but they don’t then buy CD. Evidently, they don’t want to own music any more. All they want is the right to use it.’

BEHAVIOUR ‘In the future, robots will be in radio contact with each other – what we might call telepathy. They’ll be able to exchange information and experiences, and so predict how certain things will happen. That also means that robot behaviour is transferrable: it hangs in the cloud and from there can enter any suitable hardware. Imagine

ROBOTICS SPECIAL

23 Inspired by Rembrandt: The Zebro Anatomy Lesson of dr. Chris Verhoeven. (Photo: Michiel Wijnbergh)

you have a robot dog you’re really attached to. One day you go on holiday.

You leave your dog at home and head for the airport. But once you arrive at your destination you’re greeted by an identical piece of hardware loaded, via the cloud, with the same behaviour.

So your dog has effectively come with you!

‘Similarly, any car becomes your own from the moment you get into it. It knows you like to drive fast, so it handles like a sports coupé – safely, of course. Your wife isn’t such a speed freak, though, so as soon as she takes the wheel it behaves as if it’s always more cautious. The same goes for plenty of other things, too: we each “own” a whole repertoire of behaviour, and any robot in the vicinity can take that on whenever we want to use it.

‘This brings us to the heart of the robot society: it’s a system that would fail if there were no more robots. For me, that’s the acid test. Just as there came

a point in the nineteenth century, during the Industrial Revolution, when the steam engine became indispensable. When people think about what the robot society will be like, they should always apply this test.’

FORGETFULNESS ‘So we’re going be owners of behaviour, but that also means we’re going be responsible for the behaviour we give to robots. Paradoxically, part of that is that they’ll forget things, too. Say you manage to break the speed limit in your autonomous sports car and you lose your driving licence. Then it would be good if, when you’re allowed to drive again after a year, the first car you get into doesn’t let you just shoot off at full speed and says, “I’ve no idea why you’d want to do that,” because it’s simply forgotten how you drive.

‘I think it’s very important that things can be forgotten in the robot society of the future. It certainly is when you

have big data, because only then does the whole thing stay manageable.

Sooner or later, robots will have to be able to discard irrelevant information.

Why should a car that hasn’t been driven for a year still know its owner’s driving style? That’s no more than logical, because a person who hasn’t been in a car for a year would find it strange if it did know everything perfectly. And it also allows bad habits to disappear from the system!’

SMART CITIES ‘Think all of this through and you automatically arrive at the “smart cities” of the future, where the omnipresence of big data and sensors means that people hardly have any privacy any more.

Whereas God was omniscient in the Middle Ages, in the future that’ll be big data. And there will come a time when that makes life unbearable. The mediaeval answer to this problem was the system of confession, allowing the bad

AUTONOMOUS SWARM ROBOT ‘At Delft we’re working on the initial prototypes of this kind of electroid.

Currently, the focus of our research is to create an autonomous swarm robot.

Although the word swarm conjures up images of a whole mass of robots, each individual in the group first has to be able to act entirely independently.

Only once it’s fully autonomous can it achieve all kinds of collective results by interacting with its fellow robots, making the swarm a powerful entity in its own right. But that swarm is a virtual phenomenon – it doesn’t exist in reality, so it has no physical means to come to the aid of an individual robot in difficulties.

‘For this reason, we’re concentrating on developing robots that can survive for months at a time without help. If you place a beetle in a situation it’s un-

ZEBRO ‘At the moment we’re developing so-called “Zebro” robots, a Dutch acronym for “six-legged robots”, and trying to give them beetle-like behaviour.

If they encounter an obstacle, rather than immediately trying to climb over it they first stop and wait. That helps them survive. They also need to find their own energy. If they’re working on something and they get hungry, they have to look for new energy to “feed” on.

‘Our aim is total autonomy. Once we have one Delfly robot that can fly around a room without crashing, for example, then two can do that as well.

The funny thing about swarm robots is that their first priority is to keep themselves safe as individuals, because that guarantees the safety of the swarm as well. All you then have to do is add the behavioural trait of wanting to stick together. Paradoxically enough, a swarm robot is the loneliest robot.

‘Swarm robots are so popular because they’re the first type we’re going to see entrusted with serious tasks in society, functioning as flying fire alarms and that kind of thing. Primitive creatures, but useful ones.’

LABOUR SUBSTITUTION ‘What’s our role as people in this future society? That question always seems to trigger a debate about employment, but I think we should draw a distinction between what some politicians call the right to work but which I would rather describe as our right as humans to be useful. That’s broader than work.

We already find that volunteers, people without a paid job, feel – and are – extremely useful. That, perhaps, is what’s going to change in society: people will feel more useful, while the robots take on all the chores that simply have to be done.

WORLD PEACE ‘If our intention is to look after nature, then they – the robots – will certainly do that and mankind won’t die out. I think they’ll make sure that we survive as a species. With world peace as a result. And so we’ll all live happily ever after.’ <<

Chris Verhoeven’s robots:

‘I have a number of Zebros at home, both large and small. Plus an Ozobot, a Delfly and several drones’ yr

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‘The robot society and smart cities are going to be populated by “electroids”: robots that constitute the next step in evolution. With their completely electronic brains, robots think faster than people, for whom that’s still an electrochemical process. Robots are electric animals and that means they can think faster and have far more sensors to observe with, so that they can respond more quickly than we.

‘It is simply a matter of evolution.

Some animals die out, others take their place. Electroids may one day face extinction, too, but right now they’re on the rise and they hold a winning hand. They respond faster, meaning that self-piloting drones, for instance, will never collide with aircraft. They eat sunlight, so there’s no shortage of food.

And they don’t need water. They could probably live on the Moon or Mars just fine. If people do colonise other planets, the electroids are likely to be the first inhabitants. We won’t be going there ourselves. We can’t live in the sea, either, but there are animals that can, so that’s really quite normal.’

‘But money still has to be earned. Ellen Rowan-Willemse of the Netherlands Study Centre for Technology Trends was talking recently about the LSR: the labour-substitution robot. With that people are able to give up work not because they retire, but because they’ve finally earned enough money to buy an LSR to do their job for them.

The owner can then devote all her time to hobbies. Once again, though, this is going to be a radically different society – and it’s one that is going to be turned completely upside down if all the LSRs suddenly fail.

‘All this raises ethical questions, too, but I’m optimistic about them. Once robots acquire human traits, they will start outperforming us – not least ethically, probably. Thanks to deep learning and rule sets, people and robots will display the same ethical behaviour. And because the robots know the rules better than we do, I think they’ll put us to shame.’

elf

ELECTROIDS

familiar with – and realising that takes intelligence in itself – then it simply draws its legs into shell and waits until it does recognise what’s happening around it. Beetles have survived a good 350 million years using this strategy, so it must count as intelligent behaviour.

It takes a lot of patience, though, and we people are really impatient – but perhaps a robot in such in situation would simply take a pause.’

AD

things you’d done to be forgiven >> and forgotten. To make the smart city of the future bearable to live in, an equivalent system of technological forgiving and forgetting will have to be introduced. That’s why I believe forgetfulness is incredibly important.’

ob

o t.

ROBOTICS SPECIAL

THE CYBERZOO

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Assistant professor Guido de Croon (left) and two researchers test a drone in the CyberZoo (Photo: Michiel Wijnbergh)

The CyberZoo is cage measuring ten by ten by seven metres in the faculty of Aerospace Engineering of Delft University of Technology – a controlled environment for testing swarm robots. A camera system monitors and guides them, and researchers can also enclose them in virtual cages inside the zoo. These are computergenerated zones within which a swarm of drones can fly freely, but as soon as one tries to ‘escape’ the system says ‘no.’ Robots

can also walk around the CyberZoo for comparable experimental purposes. Large fans generate different airflows to simulate the outside air. The next CyberZoo, in the Science Centre garden, will be a rather more ‘hostile’ environment than the current cage, with more unpredictable elements to encourage the robots to operate safely under all conditions.

THEME: HEALTHCARE

Project March Student team of Delft University of Technology builds an exoskeleton to re-enable paraplegics to walk Ruben de Sain knew something was wrong a few seconds after he hit the ground. He had a motorcycle accident and couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t move his legs. Medical professionals later told him that he would probably never walk again due to a spinal cord injury.

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Ruben de Sain and the Project MARCH team (Photo: Project MARCH).

1

0 years later, de Sain has proven them wrong thanks to an upcoming technology in robotics: exoskeletons. An exoskeleton is a device which takes over partial or full control over the legs. In this way, an exoskeleton is used to stimulate and support the natural human gait. It offers paraplegics the opportunity to walk and to be able to communicate with others on eye level again. Furthermore, training with an exoskeleton increases the blood circulation and thereby reduce nerve and back pains, which allows the user to reduce his medication.

After de Sain was able to buy his own exoskeleton, thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign, his daily life improved significantly. This year, he will be the pilot of Project MARCH, a non-profit student team consisting of 31 students from Delft University of Technology.

Each year, a new team of enthusiastic students takes up the challenge of designing and building a robotic exoskeleton that will increase mobility for people like Ruben.

Currently, they are working on their second exoskeleton: the MARCH II. The design of the MARCH II was revealed during the design presentation on the

24th of March. Codenamed MARCH, which stands for ‘Motor-Assisted Robotic Chassis for Humans’, the team is racing to complete the project by October. That is when they will try to accomplish their goal: to overcome all six obstacles of the Cybathlon within ten minutes.

These obstacles are based on the daily activities that healthy persons carry out without any problem, but that are almost impossible for people that are bound to a wheelchair. Examples are rising from a sofa and climbing the stairs.

At this moment, the technology is underdeveloped with regard to exoskeletons for people with paralyzed legs, bound to a wheelchair for the rest of their lives. Project MARCH wants a change: their goal is not just giving paraplegics their mobility back, but they want them to be able to express themselves without any limits. With their project, they would like to contribute to this beautiful and upcoming innovation as much as possible. Because walking is a basic necessity for the human being and a wheelchair can’t meet this priority! projectmarch.nl

COLUMN Robots in health care are used for three applications.

There are service robots that can help, for example, the elderly around the house. There are also advanced surgery-robots that make a range of new operations possible. And thirdly, there are robotic systems that are installed in and on a patient’s body, such as exoskeletons or implants, or ‘nano-pills’, which zero in on diseases via your bloodstream.

Developments in healthcare robotics are primarily driven by the exponential development in processing power. As a result of this, the technology behind sensors has become so inexpensive that it is possible to create extremely intelligent systems. The mechanics are also falling in price, which means that implementing such systems is becoming increasingly advantageous. At the same time, that is what problematises the business case for medical robotics: you need to be able to demonstrate cost effectiveness.

For example, service robots are still far too expensive. They are also still incredibly clumsy, so you could question their added value. Surgeons themselves are extremely enthusiastic when it comes to robots for use in operations, but getting through all the various phases of approval is an issue. It simply takes a long time. There is plenty of development linked to exoskeletons, primarily in the military field. But for an ‘ordinary’ member of the public suffering from paraplegia, this option is still far too expensive.

I expect that in five to ten years’ time, we will have made enormous progress in all three of the applications I mentioned. A decade from now, it will be commonplace to see robots at work in old people’s homes.

Healthcare is one of the finest applications of robotics. You can really improve people’s lives, both in the home of someone in a wheelchair and in the operating theatre. We can absolutely improve people’s quality of life.

MAARTEN STEINBUCH

Professor of Systems and Control at Eindhoven University of Technology

‘Health care is one of the finest applications of robotics. You can really improve people’s lives, both in the home of someone in a wheelchair and in the operating theatre’

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Unique test location

for drones

28 Researchers from Delft University of Technologyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Micro Air Vehicle Laboratory (MAVLab) are testing drones at Drone Center Valkenburg, in a hangar on a disused military air base just north of The Hague, which opened for business in February this year.

ROBOTICS SPECIAL

The man behind the centre is former naval pilot Jeroen Engelkes. He decided to open an indoor test facility for companies, research centres and other users because aviation regulations in the Netherlands severely limit the use of drones in the open air.

The Valkenburg hangar also hosts drone races, organises training cour-ses to qualify as a licensed operator and supports start-ups in the sector. Parents and kids looking for a chance to try out their new

pilotless aircraft are also welcome.

The centre is a partner of Unmanned Valley Valkenburg, a joint initiative â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in which RoboValley is a participant â&#x20AC;&#x201C; to transform the former airfield into a testing and expertise centre for drones and other unmanned aircraft.

Its location close to the North Sea, The Hague, Rotterdam and the Leiden and Delft universities makes it ideal for this purpose. dronecentervalkenburg.com

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Photos: Michiel Wijnbergh

THEME: AGRICULTURE

FTNON Delft Building complex robots for the food processing industry Lacquey, now FTNON Delft, makes complete robot solutions for the produce industry. This encompasses not only a robot, but a complete stainless steel work cell that is compliant with stringent food safety requirements. The setup also includes a vision system, tooling and application intelligence. The work cells have a footprint equivalent to the amount of the human labour it replaces and require no infrastructural changes.

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the iceberg lettuce CoreTakr (Photo: FTNON Lacquey).

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acquey was founded in 2010, based on a Delft University of Technology patent. The patent involves a mechanism that can adapt to objects of various sizes and shapes, such as natural products in food and agriculture. We found out that just selling the grippers is a difficult business case, so we moved to complete processing solutions; a completely different ball game.

For that reason, we merged with FTNON in 2015. FTNON has been a global leader in the produce and thermal equipment segment for over 50 years. We discovered that the companies are a very strong and unique combination. Being embedded in a bigger group significantly increases the business options for a small company. At FTNON Delft, 8 robotics specialists reside with an estimated 120 additional people on group level in Almelo, Horst, Salinas and Shanghai.

Building a complex robot application in food takes a lot of time and money, which a customer is not willing to pay. So the only way

forward is to develop standardised products. Which is what we did last year. The CoreTakr is our first standardised cell for decoring iceberg lettuce very fast and efficient.

Next, we will focus on cabbage and consequently other leafy products. It is a huge and growing market.

In 10 years from now, it will be just as normal to process your vegetables with our robots as it is to milk a cow with a Lely Astronaut. The big challenge in this is to let the users embrace this new technology. We have to learn to look at it from a user’s perspective, not an engineer’s perspective.

Starting a robotics company is a very challenging experience. Just consider the risk aversive food market, food safety, the capital required, the long lead times, the harsh investment climate in Europe, and so forth. Not to mention the technical challenges due to seasonal and geographical product variation. One moment your robot works perfectly; the next day, it can be totally different. lacquey.nl

COLUMN Robotics and agri-food. The combination of these disciplines is getting more attention, but is still in its infancy. I would like to advocate more involvement of robotics researchers in the agrifood domain. Not only is there a societal need for more automation, the agri-food domain also offers a wide range of interesting research challenges.

World population is expected to reach over 9 billion by the year 2050, leading to a huge increase in the demand for agricultural products.

At the same time, there is a growing scarcity of resources such as water, fossil fuels and fertilizers while the impact of agriculture on the environment is already substantial. Furthermore, there is a lack of people who want to do the repetitive and harsh work. We need to evolve to a more sustainable agri-food industry that produces more with less.

Robotics and smart sensor systems are enabling technologies to optimized farming and postharvest processing.

Agri-food poses several interesting research challenges. The main challenge is to deal with natural variation. The variability in biological products is enormous. Not a single plant, piece of fruit or animal looks alike. Appearance, morphology and material properties already vary within a single species. Moreover, there is variation in environmental properties, such as illumination, temperature, humidity, dust and dirt. There is a need for improved hardware (sensors and actuators) and software (perception and cognition) to deal with all the variance.

Although Wageningen Agri-Food Robotics has a long track record in this field, we need to collaborate with other universities, research organisations and companies to deal with all these challenges and opportunities. We invite you to contact us!

GERT KOOTSTRA

Scientific coordinator and researcher in Computer Vision and Robotics at Wageningen University & Research

‘We need to collaborate with other universities, research organisations and companies to deal with all these challenges and opportunities’

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The arrival of intelligent robots on the streets, in our workplaces and in our homes has sweeping moral and ethical implications.

At Delft University of Technology, Jeroen van den Hoven and his team are doing research on the question of how people can retain control of these systems. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;A society with robots and artificial intelligence requires new ethical models.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

By Jurjen Slump

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Jeroen van den Hoven, Professor of Ethics and Technology, discusses intelligent systems

‘Ethics for robotics requires a tailormade approach’

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magine that your elderly mother has an intelligent device that you can use to keep an eye on her. It initially sounds like a handy aid. But as the child, you may end up feeling obliged to constantly check whether your mother is still alright. For her part, your mother also becomes aware that her child feels constantly responsible to check whether everything is still working.

Jeroen van den Hoven offers this example as an indication of the ‘subtle implications’ that robots can have on the ‘fabric of human relations and moral dependence’. ‘That means that the introduction of intelligent devices will always have moral implications.’

HACKABILITY It is one of many ethical questions associated with intelligent robots.

In addition to the aforementioned example, there are naturally questions relating to safety. ‘What can go wrong?

What is the deal with hackability?’, Van den Hoven asks. ‘You have to have it properly sorted, otherwise you could be held liable.’

Of equal importance is safeguarding human dignity after the arrival of robots. ‘A secretary was recently in the news who had been replaced by a tablet. The woman was not only angry, she also felt humiliated’, Van den Hoven says. ‘It is now becoming very real.

This is now going to happen. There are an increasing number of examples of people who not only fear that they will be replaced by a robot, but actually are.’

These are somewhat philosophical questions. ‘Is this a good society? And if we want a society in which robots play a significant role, what does this society look like, and how do we create the robots?’

MEANINGFUL HUMAN CONTROL In this regard, a primary concern is the so-called ‘meaningful human control’ concept. Together with Aimee van Wijnsberghe and Filippo Santoni de Sio, Van den Hoven is researching this subject. ‘If robots are given increased autonomy, what does it mean to have meaningful human control of them?’

To conceive this, the concept of ‘meaningful human control’ – which has its roots in international law – needs to be translated to the world of robotics. ‘You see, the point is: you know absolutely nothing until you have conducted a thorough analysis of what it means in concrete cases. Because if you don’t know what it means, you cannot build anything that meets the requirements.’

Van den Hoven believes that this issue will now become palpable in robotics.

‘It is no longer sufficient to hold an ethical discussion in which terms like privacy, liability, democracy and justice are bandied about without being able to say, “Okay, but that will impact how we make this or that system”.

Because otherwise, you may be doing good things, but you are not actually helping the world to advance.’

In a high-tech society, with robotics and artificial intelligence, ethics will need to take a different form. It

needs to be about ethics in the form of system requirements. ‘If you talk about human dignity, that needs to be translated concretely for each individual situation. For example, how to you safeguard this in a new data system for hospitals? Literally, how will that look?’

DELFT DESIGN FOR VALUES And that is precisely what is being done at Delft: building bridges between these two worlds. We already have the TU Delft Robotics Institute, and that will be joined by another institute, Delft Design for Values. This new institute is focused on building that bridge: translating existing ethical models into new applications. ‘You continue to question what it means for a certain system in concrete terms – with regard to privacy, for example.

You will then eventually be left with a list of requirements that can actually help engineers during the construction process.’

Van den Hoven has high expectations of the collaboration with the TU Delft Robotics Institute. ‘We have secured a subsidy for research into autonomous mobility and meaningful human control, a project involving both people from our faculty and from the Robotics Institute.’

Alongside the technicians, the opinions of behavioural scientists, social scientists and other experts are all required in order to answer the question of what is ethically the best course of action. ‘That is what we call comprehensive engineering: you have to >>

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Tech cele nolog y fo bra of TUting 175 r Life y inno Delft an ears vatio d n!

@ TU Delft campus 34

TU Delft Research Exhibition 175 innovative research projects Be inspired Update your knowledge Expand your network Get a taste of our cutting edge technology and meet our brilliant minds!

Research Exhibition

http://www.tudelft.nl/exhibition

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unite the humanities, hard sciences and life sciences, otherwise you will never reach a decent solution.’

PRIVACY In addition to his research into meaningful human control, Van den Hoven still spends a great deal of time researching privacy. And that is a much broader area of interest. ‘Robotics is just one aspect of the whole digital revolution. It is about artificial intelligence, deep learning, the internet of things and industry 4.0, in which robots are simply a manifestation of cutting-edge digital technology.’

The challenge for Van den Hoven is to connect fundamental research with real life. ‘It’s like a whale swimming: you have to dive extremely deep, but also come back up for air. And it is precisely this process that yields so many results.’

SENSE OF PURPOSE The secretary mentioned earlier probably sets little store by concepts like meaningful human control. Van den Hoven believes that unemployment stemming from automation and robotisation is set to be an enormous social issue. This is a different type of problem from that regarding the design of robots and how to take account of how they impact their users.

The discussion surrounding employment is much more a socio-economic problem. And even if you find a solution for the people whose job is taken over by a robot – a guaranteed minimum income, for example – you haven’t won the war. ‘My point is that then you will only have solved half of the problem. Because it is one thing to ensure that people have enough to buy food, but we should not forget what having a job means to people: a sense of purpose and recognition, a feeling of involvement.’ That also needs to be considered. ‘How do we equip people for an age in which they are no longer part of the production process, but have to find other ways of making themselves useful? That is a massive concern.’

RESPONSIBLE ROBOTICS FOUNDATION Van den Hoven is also a member of the Responsible Robotics Foundation, together with van Wijnsberghe. The aim of this organisation is to ensure that smart robotics are introduced into society in a responsible fashion, with sufficient focus on all the associated ethical, legal and social issues. The foundation’s ‘activism’ is an extension of ‘the types of ethics that we concentrate on here’, Van den Hoven explains.

He commends the organisation’s practical approach. For example, van

Wijnsberghe organised a workshop exploring the humanitarian application of drones. ‘It is no longer sufficient to write an article or book on the subject, or to set a doctoral candidate to work, because that takes four years. You need to find other means of demonstrating your involvement, of informing the public.’ This is precisely why Van den Hoven is a member of the Supervisory Board. ‘That is extremely important for getting ethical questions linked to robotics on the agenda and expanding the general public’s understanding of the concept. And we need to keep at it.

You simply cannot repeat it enough!’ << responsiblerobotics.org

Jeroen van den Hoven’s robot:

‘I do not yet have a robot. I still haven’t seen anything that made me want it, that made me think “I have to have that!” Plus, for the moment, we can cope just fine by ourselves’

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THEME: AUTONOMOUS HARBOUR

Indymo Monitoring water quality with drones Indymo is a start-up that works in the field of managing water resources. The focus is on innovative ways of monitoring water quality and ecology, and in inspections of underwater infrastructure (e.g. underwater drones). Indymo has conducted its activity mostly within the Netherlands but has recently been involved in international projects as well.

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Indymo aims to develop a versatile underwater drone that is suitable for different tasks (Photo: Indymo).

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ow located in Delft and Leeuwarden (YES!Delft/WaterAlliance), Indymo was founded in 2015 by professors Rutger de Graaf and Floris Boogaard to explore the possible applications and market potential of unmanned technology. It followed a successful project where an underwater drone (ROV), equipped with sensors and cameras, had been used to travel under floating structures to collect data and video images.

Indymo first used remotely operated vehicles (ROV’s) in multiple pilot case-study locations. Since then, Indymo has worked to improve these vehicles for water quality purposes, and gradually introduce new features and autonomous capabilities. Our goal for 2017 is to develop a flexible and versatile modular autonomous vehicle that is suitable for different tasks in the water sector.

Unmanned vehicles allow us to increase the response to rapidly changing conditions of water environments and reduce monitoring/ inspection costs. Features such as adaptive sampling, autonomous navigation or access to real-time data, allow to us actively search and follow sources of polution and quickly detect/locate problems.

Such vehicles fit with upcoming/trending changes in water

COLUMN

management monitoring-control chains. In port areas, drones could also perform tasks of inspecting and assessing the need for maintenance of underwater infrastructure, or inspect ship hulls – tasks that are usually performed by divers: higher costs and risks.

Common challenges associated with using underwater drones in inland waters include the impossibility of using GPS equipment, difficult underwater communication, high water turbidity (low visibility), or presence of underwater obstacles/vegetation.

Within 10 years, we expect Indymo to be established in the Netherlands as an efficient water quality and ecology surveyor that uses drones and other innovative and dynamic technologies to create high resolution 3D visualization of water quality. We expect to be using highly-automated data-collection devices and infrastructures (e.g. swarms of collaborative aqua-bots) able to measure in real-time a wide array of parameters. This will require combining state-of-the-art technologies from different fields. We intend to also offer our services abroad and thus have a worldwide impact in making environmental monitoring and port monitoring more efficient.

At first sight, the port of the future does not look much different from present-day ports. But if you look closely, you will see new technology everywhere: unmanned boats, aqua-bots that test water quality and drones that fly around carrying out inspection and monitoring tasks.

However, the most significant change is not visible to the naked eye: the various data flows that are being increasingly linked, enabling the limited space both inside and outside of the port to be used more efficiently. When a large container ship sails into port, you intuitively know that traffic jams will be likely on surrounding roads a few hours later. In the future, data flows from these logistical chains will be linked, minimising nuisance. This could also mean that the ship does not dock at a major port like Rotterdam, but at a smaller nearby port instead.

New technology will initially be used for small systems, such as robots for monitoring and inspecting channels and waterways. Stimulated by developments in the car industry, autonomous boats are another significant focus. Due to safety concerns, we do not believe that people will disappear from the bridge in the next ten to twenty years. However, there will be increased interaction between humans and machines.

Aside from issues of human control, the greatest technological challenges still to be overcome are associated with systems for collision avoidance and situational awareness. How do you ensure that an autonomous boat has an adequate image of its surroundings, and avoids sailing into other vessels?

A development that is still in its infancy is that of drones inspired by nature. For example, a swarm of artificial jellyfish could offer a means of conducting completely emission-free depth measurements and waterway inspections. The artificial jellyfish could be dropped in a river upstream and spend a fortnight travelling with the flow of the river, before regrouping downstream with the necessary data.

indymo.nl

KEES PIETERS & PETER VERHEIJEN

Kees Pieters: Lector Big Data in a Water Context at Hogeschool Rotterdam.

Peter Verheijen: Director RDM Center of Expertise Maritime & Offshore Innovation s

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‘I have numerous robots at home, mainly for experimentation purposes. My major project involves a model sailing boat, which I would like to automate fully’

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Pete

Kees Pieters’s robot (Peter Verheijen does not own a robot):

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Alderman Ferrie Förster wants to bring robotics businesses to Delft

‘I’m an ambassador for RoboValley’

By Jurjen Slump

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Ferrie Förster, Vice Mayor for Economic Affairs, Culture and Spatial Planning at the City of Delft, has been actively involved with RoboValley from the start. Like the university, the project to make the Netherlands one of the world’s leading centres of robotics is an important regional economic driver. ‘We want give start-ups the chance to make a success of their business.’

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örster still clearly remembers the day Arie van den Ende, one of the founders of RoboValley, appeared at his desk. ‘He said, “I’ve got big plans”.

Now people with big plans come to my office quite often, and about half of them succeed, but I really believed Arie’s story.’ Förster shared his analysis of robotics’ potential, and saw that he had a well-crafted plan for RoboValley. Even though the city council was strapped for cash, it was decided to award the project a €50,000 grant.

Now, just a couple of years later, RoboValley has opened a new building to house start-ups on Julianalaan in Delft.

A Chrysalix RoboValley Fund worth €100 million has been established. The first International Robotics Week is being organised in The Hague and Delft. And Förster is as enthusiastic as ever. ‘I think you could call me something of an ambassador for RoboValley,’ he declares. If he and the council have a say in it, the project will continue to grow.

‘Delft definitely has the facilities and the environment to make RoboValley something really big.’

OPPORTUNITIES FOR ROBOTICS Förster sees opportunities for robotics across the region.

‘I was recently at a fruit-and-vegetable grower and the

ROBOTICS SPECIAL

managing director told me his business was fully automated. Then I saw tomatoes being picked by hand, and crates of fruit packed manually.’ These two tasks could be taken over by robots almost overnight: the technology already exists.

‘That would be a huge step for a company like that,’ Förster admits. ‘RoboValley could really help them.’

Building robots is not an objective in itself. What RoboValley is actually all about, Förster stresses, is ‘cross-pollination’

‘What makes this region unique is the proximity of two other universities, in Leiden and Rotterdam, plus their teaching hospitals. That gives you a link with robots for the care sector’ with other sectors. ‘What makes this region unique is the proximity of two other universities, in Leiden and Rotterdam, plus their teaching hospitals. That gives you a link with robots for the care sector. The port of Rotterdam is unique, and Greenport is one of the biggest glasshouse horticulture areas in the Netherlands. Both are currently undergoing extensive automation, and Delft – with RoboValley – is right in the middle geographically. That offers great opportunities.’

Regional co-operation is vital, he continues. ‘We’re working with a variety of public and private-sector partners from Leiden to Dordrecht and from Westland to Zoetermeer.

They include the regional development corporation InnovationQuarter, fellow local authorities and research centres like TNO and Delft University of Technology.’

YES!Delft Delft already has several programmes to help start-ups. The city council has been a shareholder in YES!Delft (Young Entrepreneurs Society Delft), one of Europe’s largest technology incubators, since its launch. ‘We began that in partnership with the university about twelve years ago’, Förster says, ‘and it has since produced 180 start-ups, created more than a thousand jobs and generated €300 million worth of investment.’ All of them are as important to the region as they are to the city itself.

Delft Technology Partners is another unique ‘town-andgown’ collaboration. ‘This has three goals’, Förster explains.

‘To roll out the red carpet for companies wanting to set up in Delft, to encourage established businesses here to innovate and, lastly, to put us on the map as a city of technology.’

Better access to the campus is a key part of that strategy, as it is crucial to further regional development.

The local authority can also play its part as a ‘launch customer’, as it did with the famous Senz storm umbrella. ‘We bought it as a corporate gift’, Förster says. ‘Every person the council does business with receives an umbrella with the city logo on it. This is our way of helping a company find a way into the market. Senz umbrellas are now sold all over the world.’

COMPOSITE BRIDGE Entrepreneurs can also test new products locally. For ex-

ample, a maker of innovative composite bridges was given the chance to build one in Delft. A footbridge in the Tanthof district was nearing the end of its life and so planning permission was granted to replace it with a composite version.

‘That provided the company with a test case to check that everything actually worked as expected’, Förster explains.

As far as he is concerned, much the same could be done with robotics. ‘If you ask me, Delft couldn’t have enough robots around town. Since I would even go so far as to say that we’re the robotics capital of Europe, in fact, it’s only right that they became an everyday sight here; that the duckweed-eating Kroboot sails our canals, that visitors are welcomed at the station by Mika the selfie robot and that autonomous robots are tested on the market square. With warning signs, of course – but I think visitors and tourists would be fascinated.’ Naturally, the council has to stick to the rules and safety always comes first, but Förster is keen to be flexible. ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could test Delft inventions right here in Delft?’

RETRAINING Another aspect of the council’s task is explaining to local people how robots will affect their lives, so that they can prepare. ‘Jobs are bound to disappear,’ Förster admits, ‘but others will appear in their place. All these robots have to be built and maintained, after all, and that will create new employment opportunities.’ Since that requires special skills, though, retraining is sure to be needed. ‘We have to respond to that need soon, so that our people are ready to take the new jobs when the time comes.’

INTERNATIONAL ROBOTICS WEEK The International Robotics Week is an important event for Delft. ‘We know that we’re a global leader in robots,’ Förster says, ‘but we want to tell the whole world.’ A major gathering like this is the city’s chance to show what it has to offer. And prove that RoboValley really can become ‘something really big’. Naturally, Förster also hopes that it will encourage foreign firms to consider setting up shop here.

He is therefore keen to see international visitors come off the campus and into town. ‘Our historic centre is a gem, of course, attracting countless tourists from all over the world.

People always fall in love with Delft,’ he laughs, ‘and when they do we often end up marrying them.’ <<

Ferrie Förster’s robot:

‘I don’t have a robot yet, but I recently saw a film of one that washes, dries and irons your laundry. That would be a godsend for me, because that’s definitely not my favourite chore. When that robot comes onto the market, I’m buying one straight away’

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THEME: OPEN-SOURCE ROBOTICS

ROSin European grant brings smart industrial robots within reach of companies This spring, Delft University of Technology researchers were awarded a European subsidy totalling â&#x201A;Ź7.6 million for the development of open-source robot software. This will bring intelligent industrial robots within reach of companies, partly because half of the budget is available for industrial parties that are keen to get involved with the development of applications.

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The robot arm that won the 2016 Amazon Picking Challenge runs on ROS-software (Photo: Jurjen Slump)

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ntitled ROSIN (ROSIndustrial qualityassured robot software components), the new project is subsidised by the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme and coordinated by Delft University of Technology. The European subsidy supports the global open-source ‘ROS’ (‘Robot Operating System’) project. Objectives of this project include developing software to allow robots to see, to understand 3D images and even to determine how they can move quickly and safely.

The international ROS community will make the advanced scientific algorithms available to everyone. For free. The ‘ROS-Industrial’ subgroup will subsequently make the software suitable for reliable application in industry.

Gijs van der Hoorn, Delft University of Technology researcher: ‘Half of the ROSIN project budget is reserved for third parties. Each group of European parties – both companies and institutions – that has a good idea can apply to get involved with a Focused Technical Project or a new educational activity for ROSIndustrial.

‘For example: say that three companies require an ROS software component for automated burnishing. They subsequently submit an application to ROSIN together with a party that can create this software. If the application is

successful, 33% of the expenses can be subsidised. Incidentally, the call for proposals goes beyond software components; security and safety audits, standardisation initiatives and example applications are also eligible.’

Alongside coordinator Delft University of Technology, the project partners are: the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA and FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences (Germany), the IT University of Copenhagen, robotics company ABB (Sweden) and the research institute Tecnalia (Spain). The partners will concentrate on further improving the quality of software (including the development of tools for this purpose), training students and employees from the industry, and further expanding the user group of the ROS software.

Numerous applications that have been developed by ROSIndustrial will be showcased during International Robotics Week (19 to 21 April) in The Hague.

For additional information about the programme and exhibition, please visit the event website: robobusinesseurope.com.

ROSIN website: rosin-project.eu ROS-Industrial website: rosindustrial.org

COLUMN Software is the invisible fabric woven through modern society. It runs the infrastructure that we rely on for communication, power, transportation; it is making the “remote controls of our lives”, our smartphones, increasingly convenient means for everything from social interaction to mobility. With the internet of things set to take off, software will be ubiquitous.

The keyword in a world running on software is platforms, and their common denominator is Open Source: just look at the license agreement in your phone or in the infotainment system of your car. Platforms are shared infrastructures allowing businesses to flourish, and they ultimately benefit users. Open Source is an enabler for platforms, as it aggregates developer communities that single companies cannot afford on their own.

Think of Linux, or think at the projects promoted by Google, a company that can arguably hire the best and brightest in huge numbers, but still embraces Open Source.

Robotics is no exception to this trend – quite the contrary actually. Open Source stacks such as ROS (the Robot Operating System) power service robots, drones and many other devices since years, and are moving fast into the realm of factory automation. Open Source however is no magic bullet: you need to understand its business value, to adopt if effectively, to license it properly. I am happy to have this topic hosted at RoboBusiness by the thriving robotics community forming around Delft University of Technology!

MIRKO BORDIGNON ROS-Industrial Consortium Europe Manager Mirko’s robot:

‘I do not have (yet) a physical robot at home, but I would say that I still have a robot: it is an Amazon Echo, therefore the Alexa personal assistant. As soon as I move to a place without carpet flooring (which is not that great for autonomous vacuum cleaners) I will get a Roomba, which I would have bought since long otherwise’

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Yasemin Baydaroglu from Birds.ai on the differences between Silicon Valley and RoboValley

‘In the Netherlands, it is success that counts’ The first thing she noticed coming from Silicon Valley: Dutch people are more reserved and more modest even though they are equally interesting.

by Jurjen Slump

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ow working in RoboValley as a business developer for the start-up Birds.ai, Yasemin Baydaroglu’s story about her career is inspiring and insightful for anyone doing business in the tech sector. “In the Netherlands, success is measured by proven results rather than by popularity.”

Baydaroglu, an engineer born and raised in France, has a background in aviation and aerospace. At Vueling Airlines, she was in charge of creating flight plans for over 50 different routes. At the European Space Agency, she worked as an engineer on the Jules Verne ATV, Europe’s largest spaceship. At NASA, she was part of a team that was involved in a Venus orbiter mission. “Through my experiences in governmental space agencies and in aviation, I learned how to manage even the most challenging projects to successful results.”

POKER STAR In the meantime she also found time to become an online poker star. She created a channel that provided tips to a large audience on how to become a great poker player. Her channel grew to 15 thousand followers with an average of 300 to 500 people watching daily. To get recognition as a woman in a man’s dominated world, was an ‘insightful process’, she says.

It was NASA that brought Baydaroglu to Silicon Valley. She worked for the NASA Ames Research Center in California.

“Silicon Valley is a unique place in the US”, Baydaroglu tells.

“I felt constantly energised just being part of this dynamic and fast paced environment.” It is after all the place where tech companies like Google or Facebook were born.

PURSUE YOUR DREAM But what’s doing business like in Silicon Valley? The people working there are ‘very good’ in demonstrating their accomplishments, she says. “Their way to present themselves in a confident and articulate way is fascinating.” During

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network events, Americans are very pro-active and literally ‘bump’ into each other to share their business cards.

Besides, in Silicon Valley you are stimulated into pursuing your dream. “Even though I was the youngest and only woman in the Venus project mission at NASA, my direct manager would always encourage me to speak out loud in front of more experienced team members. This gave me a lot of confidence over time.”

This contrasted with the more reserved Dutch when Baydaroglu decided to move back to Europe. Why move to the Netherlands? “When I returned from Silicon Valley, I actively looked for a similar ecosystem in Europe where I could meet inspiring entrepreneurs.” It turned out she had to be in Amsterdam: the European Capital of Innovation. She became a participant at THNK School of Creative Leadership, founded by Menno van Dijk.

DRONES FOR WILDLIFE PROTECTION In Amsterdam she met Eduard Burer, the founder of Recruit for Good, who connected Baydaroglu to Birds.ai, a startup company from RoboValley. The story of the founders immediately got her enthusiastic, as their initial project was to develop a smart drone system for the wildlife protection in Africa. Meanwhile, the focus has shifted to automated aerial image analysis – artificial intelligence - which can be used for finding defects on wind turbines, solar panels or power lines.

Baydaroglu works as the head of business development and partnerships. “As soon as I joined Birds.ai, I quickly realised that the start-up was under the radar of many of the biggest companies and consulting firms.” Her goal is to find

‘The Netherlands is the perfect place for the smartest people from all over the world to contribute to the growth of the economy, as the start-up scene is considerably growing’ strategic solutions to live up to the company’s vision and to scale up globally. She’s confident that the company will grow ‘exponentially and rapidly’ in the next five years.

It’s ambitious, but she comes from Silicon Valley. “If you think about it, Uber would not have become what it is today without a brilliant business development strategist.”

ROBOTICS Baydaroglu describes RoboValley as the ‘Silicon Valley of Robotics’. She thinks it is a promising concept. She especially likes the close interaction with other start-ups, for example, Delft Robotics (see page 20). “It is a deep tech company, that applies artificial intelligence on 3D vision to guide machines and robots.” Its CEO, Herbert ten Have, ‘always wants to help others and has already given me tips and advice’.

Besides the mentality, there are other differences between Silicon Valley and RoboValley as well, observes Baydaroglu.

Silicon Valley is spread across the whole region within the

Google bikes: Google conducts brand management in detail.

bay area. “Young entrepreneurs can start their own business in a garage, like Steve Jobs, or be part of a big corporation like Google.” RoboValley is ‘more concentrated’ around Delft University of Technology. “It applies the same concept as Plug and Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale, which hosted start-ups like Dropbox or Paypal.

FUNDING When it comes to investing, in Silicon Valley there is more private capital available. “I met entrepreneurs who got their ideas fully or partially funded by private or angel investors.

Or even movie celebrities”, Baydaroglu tells. In the Netherlands, public funds seem to be more widely available for innovative start-ups, is her opinion. But it doesn’t stop there.

“Our start-up even got a visit by potential investors coming all the way from China.”

In the end, RoboValley will be the ‘ultimate start-up ecosystem’ in Europe, Baydaroglu thinks. “The Netherlands is the perfect place for the smartest people from all over the world to contribute to the growth of the economy, as the start-up scene is considerably growing.” Having worked in many places around the globe, Baydaroglu finds herself fortunate to be part and evolve in this environment. She concludes with a statement that reflects her Silicon Valley roots: “I am definitely determined to make the most out of it by becoming a successful businesswoman in the Netherlands!” <<

The robot of Yasemin Baydaroglu:

‘I don’t have a robot at home but in the future I would like to own the next generation of intelligent computing through AI. A robot companion with an amplification of our intelligence with cognitive abilities who would help with the complexities of our lives (finance, learning, etcetera)’

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TU Delft Valorisation Centre P.O. Box 5 2600 AA Delft