The robot revolution
Perhaps you already have robots in the house, independently vacuuming the rooms and mowing your lawn. In Flemish robotics labs, action is well under way to develop more advanced versions of this new generation that closely interacts with its environment and with people. On a tour around the high-tech hotspots, I met robots that help paralysed people to move again, robots that help autistic children to improve social interaction and one robot that enjoys a spot of badminton
Out of the lab and into our homes: Flanders is developing the next generation of robots
At the University of Leuven’s campus in Heverlee, Flanders’ Mechatronics Technology Centre (FMTC) assembles the expertise of the leading Flemish mechatronic companies, such as weaving equipment producer Picanol and sorting business Best. Mechatronics combines mechanical, electronic and computer engineering to manufacture machines. Jada, the badminton-playing robot (named after the daughter of Kim Clijsters) is FMTC’s showpiece.
“Jada is both a demonstrator to show a broad audience the extraordinary features of industrial applications and a tool to test the effectiveness of innovations,” explains FMTC general manager Marc Engels. Jada has the speed, precision and intelligence of a worthy sparring partner, thanks to electric motors, cameras and computers. “She has a faster starting speed and more brake power than a Formula 1 car,” Engels declares.
Since her “birth” in 2010, Jada has become more energy-efficient, less noisy, received wireless communication and learned to analyse what went wrong if she misses the shuttlecock. These breakthroughs have helped to improve real-life applications – such as machines on assembly lines, combine harvesters, laser cutters and weaving equipment.
However flexible she may be, though, in a few months Jada will have to make way for the next generation, who can return drop shots. Unlike Jada, who only speeds from left to right fixed on a metal shaft, the new robot will move around the whole court and will also track its opponent’s position. Before this updated version arrives, I took the chance to have a game with Jada. No score was kept, but let’s call it a draw.
The automated servant
In the same building, KU Leuven’s robotics research group has unique expertise in fine-tuning the movements of robots to improve its interface with users and to optimise energy use. Postdoctoral researcher Tinne De Laet presents PR2, a robot that has wheeled right out of a science fiction movie. “PR2 functions as our research platform, helping us to develop and test applications for future service robots in households,” says De Laet. “Like, for instance, cooking robots that look up recipes on the internet and prepare them autonomously.”
In another corner of the lab stands Kuka, a lightweight robot arm that can be used both as a safe assembling machine and a rehabilitation tool that can help patients to relearn movement after a stroke, for example. Less eye-catching are the wheelchairs, but De Laet explains how the team equipped them with sensors and laser scanners to make sure their operators don’t bump into obstacles. “The people, however, ultimately remain in control,” she adds.
At the other Flemish robotics research group, at the Free University of Brussels (VUB), Professor Bram Vanderborght shows me Lucy. Named after our first human “ancestor” who walked upright, Lucy consists of two legs, through which Vanderborght has refined the mechanical walking technique of robots. Lucy is the predecessor of the new exoskeleton robots that the research team designs for rehabilitation purposes.
An even more striking personality is Probo, VUB’s huggable robot with bright green fur that communicates with children through speech, facial expressions and a video screen in his belly. Probo can support psychologists in teaching autistic children social skills, such as greeting acquaintances and the interpretation of facial expressions. “Autistic children listen to robots more easily because they don’t overload them with words and gestures like people often do,” explains Vanderborght.
Robots for kids
While research groups prepare future technology, the non-profit organisation Dwengo trains the next generation of technological experts. Dwengo equips about 100 secondary schools in Flanders, the Netherlands and even Argentina with their Dwengo board, which teaches children basic programming skills. With the board and an online version, children learn to programme, among other things, a microwave, but with additional gear they can create simple robots in one or two lessons.
“One boy even invented a robot that cleaned up his room by pushing everything towards the walls,” says Peter Bertels, Dwengo co-founder and secretary. Dwengo sponsors the international RoboCup Junior competition for school teams but is also involved in competitions at Ghent University. Last year, robots completed an obstacle course and had to push each other out of a circle during a “sumo-robot” competition and hopes to introduce robotics in the compulsory education of both primary and secondary school students. “Robots are the ideal instruments to give technological education a cooler image,” says Bertels.
