As we greet the news of the launch of the Tech Transfer Award’s latest edition, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the diversity and quality of the most recent winners and finalists. Six innovative robotics applications were showcased at this year’s euRobotics Tech Transfer Award presentations in Odense – and all six will make a difference to people’s lives.
The first prize was awarded to a team from healthcare automation firm ROPCA for ARTHUR, a robotic ultrasound imaging platform designed to scan the finger joints and wrists of patients. ARTHUR team members were: Thiusius R. Savarimuthu, Søren A. Just, Johannes Schäferhoff, Johannes C. A. Jørgensen, Anders B.H. Christensen, Martin Hubel, Dan Jakobsen and Trine Winther. More information about ARTHUR
The second prize was awarded to Roman Weitschat, Dimitri Butsch and Jan Cremer of Leverage Robotics for ToolCubes, a versatile tooling application that can be used to perform a variety of tasks. More about Tool Cubes
Third-prize recipients were the team members behind Robco, a modular robot kit offering an easy-to-use, software-based system for small and medium-sized businesses involved in industrial manufacturing. Robco’s prize-winning team were: Paul Maroldt, Constantin Dresel, Roman Hölzl, Julian Högner and Tilman Tschoeke. More about Robco.
Three other projects commended by the Tech Transfer Award jury were also represented at the presentation ceremony, although they finished just outside the top three places in competition. These finalists were:
Tom – a mapping and monitoring robot used in farming, developed by the Small Robot Company. More about Tom
ML4AUTOMAPPPS – a machine learning innovation for faster robot programming led by Convergent Information Technologies (CIT) and Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt. More about CIT
The Broccovator – a robotics-enabled broccoli harvester developed by a team from Wageningen University.
Announcing the winners and finalists, Werner Kraus, Chair of the euRobotics Technology Transfer Award, outlined the importance of technology transfer and the role of the award: “In the coming years, we will be faced with demographic change on many fronts. To cope with this and other societal challenges, the use of robotics is inevitable and will become essential. The key to successful robotics in Europe is technology transfer – from science to industry – and the Technology Transfer Award was created to recognize and reward the best examples and we saw several of those this year.”
The Tech Transfer Award jury is well established. Jury members are shown below:
The Tech Transfer Award was one of three Awards presented during the 2023 European Robotics Forum (ERF) in Odense, Denmark at a ceremony in front of several hundred people at the University of Southern Denmark in March. All three awards together form an arc that spans from robotics research to real-world practice. The first of these, the Georges Giralt PhD Award, recognises excellence in robotics research. The third, the Entrepreneurship Award, celebrates the zeal and know-how displayed by entrants in bringing robotics innovations to market. All three awards will be presented again in 2024 when Rimini, Italy will be the ERF host city.