Do You Remember Louise and Her Robot?

Online, November 15, 2013 (Newswire.com) - For several weeks, a video flourished social media showing a girl who had seemingly programmed a robot to splash her boyfriend with cola. Now we can reveal that it is all a staged prank: The video was actually made by the SMErobotics consortium.

SMErobotics is an initiative aiming at maintaining manufacturing jobs in Europe. Focus and attention are demanded here and now to secure that profitable production will remain in the region in the future. Therefore, it is important to motivate young students to explore their opportunities for a future career within robot technology and especially robots for industrial manufacturing.

The video with Louise was produced within the SMErobotics project by the Danish Technological Institute. It was posted online to arouse interest, create inspiration and communicate the opportunities for educations in the field of robot technology. Furthermore, the video aimed to illustrate how much research still needs to be done in order to create a complete cognitive robot solution for future manufacturing.

"In Denmark, the technical education opportunities - especially in Odense but also in Aalborg - have created a real difference. We are now encountering new companies in the market and lots of competence is available for the Danish Industry that can revitalise Danish production. Nevertheless, it is not enough compared to the expected demand that will arise in the future if we want to keep profitable production in Denmark," says Jesper Johansen, Manager at Danish Technological Institute, Robot Technology, partner of the SMErobotics consortium.

Students.smerobotics.org
Therefore, SMErobotics has created a homepage - currently available at http://student.smerobotics.org - that addresses young students who are considering which ´field´ they want to invest their future in. The homepage will contain articles concerning the newest technologies within industrial robotics and to some extent provide direct access to the results and research fields of SMErobotics. Moreover, the homepage will announce different workshops about industrial robot technology taking place all over Europe.

To further spread knowledge about the homepage, SMErobotics has published another video online. In an entertaining way, this video illustrates how the ´Louise` video was made. By explaining the depicted robot solution it illustrates some of the challenges faced with industrial robots today. In addition, it tells the story about how the video was received and the attention it attracted from all over Europe.

Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGL_0SPeQ5c

"We are quite overwhelmed by the attention the ´Louise´ video received: It was much more than we expected. Maybe this is because we choose to present industrial robots to the youth in a new, different and interesting way" says Jesper Johansen from Danish Technological Institute, responsible for the campaign. He further states that the video also received large attention in the USA and that it was shown at IEEE Spectrum´s homepage.

What is SMErobotics?
SMErobotics is the European Robotics Initiative for strengthening the competitiveness of SMEs in manufacturing. It is set to bring cognitive robotics from vision to reality in a key segment of EU-manufacturing.

SMErobotics strives to create SME-suitable robots that can assist in managing uncertainty by symbiotic human-robot-interaction and embedded cognition going beyond flexibility by semantic integration.

SMErobotics is supported by EU´s seventh framework program FP7. It is researching and developing cognitive robot systems for small and medium-sized manufacturing companies in Europe. These are known for having several readjustments in the production which are increasing the need for flexible solutions and easy readjustment enabled technologies. In addition, the technologies must be so agile that companies can change the processes and assignments of the robots without having to call in specialists.

This creates high demands to the robots´ competences of today. New and better software components need to be developed to create improved communication, understanding and collaboration between humans and robots. Furthermore, to some extent, robots need to be capable of taking more decisions on their own with a reliability that ensures companies' confidence in that the robots can and will fulfill jobs or assignments on time and with the quality expected from a ´human workforce´. The ´human workforce´ will then be free to focus on more challenging jobs in the production, which robots cannot yet handle, if ever.

"There is a need for flexible robots that can be used by production workers on their premises. We hear this from all sides, and those who visit our test-exhibition at our center in Odense, walk home with renewed inspiration and are probably reconsidering automation and profitability. Now it is up to us and the researchers of the future to meet the expectations - there is still lots of work to be done in this field," says Jesper Johansen from the Danish Technological Institute and ends this story about Louise…

www.smerobotics.org