The Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) established in 2019 the Eindhoven Artificial Intelligence Systems Institute (EAISI) to facilitate the work and collaboration with many different partners. In this article, we present three success stories of collaboration between TU/e researchers and industrial companies located in The Netherlands.

The Eindhoven Artificial Intelligence Systems Institute facilitates collaborations that push the frontier of robotics technologies

The Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) pushes the frontier of robotics technologies in its many fields of expertise and applications, while aiming to positively impact our everyday life. For achieving this, TU/e established in 2019 the Eindhoven Artificial Intelligence Systems Institute (EAISI) to facilitate the work and collaboration with many different partners.

In this article, we present three success stories of collaboration between TU/e researchers and industrial companies located in The Netherlands


Collaboration with Philips

Interventional radiology robots, such as the ones created by Philips, aid physicians during procedures to treat, for example, coronary heart diseases. These robots are operated by the medical team and move in dynamically changing and cluttered environments. Increasing their level of autonomy, enabling them to predict and react to the intention of the medical team. This is the path we envision when creating robots that collaborate with a medical team.

The research projects with Philips involve PhD and master students jointly supervised by academics and industrial experts. Current and past projects include model-driven engineering design of trajectory generators, model predictive control for autonomous navigation, design, and evaluation of digital twins, and learning from demonstrations. From an academic perspective, the collaboration between TU/e and Philips on this exciting topic is the perfect opportunity to address real-life challenges with inherent real-life problems and requirements.“The future generation of our systems requires direct application and development of state-of-the-art technology. Together with TU/e we are addressing those challenges”
Marco Alonso, Senior architect at Philips

Caption: Team of students, TU/e and Philips company experts developing state-of-the-art collaborative robots for medical applications. Photo credits: TU/e

Collaboration with I.AM – Smart Robotics and Vanderlande

The H2020 EU project I.AM. (https://www.i-am-project.eu) is a Research and Innovation Action (RIA) coordinated by the Eindhoven University of Technology. Four European academic partners (TU/e, EPFL, TUM, CNRS) and four industrial partners (Algoryx, Franka Emika, Smart Robotics, Vanderlande) are developing a robot manipulation technology that will enable faster autonomous object handling in warehouse and parcel logistics applications. The I.AM. consortium is responsible for the development of autonomous robotic tossing and boxing, and the physical experimentation takes place at Vanderlande’s Innovation Lab on TU/e campus. The lab is an example of an open innovation facility where companies’ employees, researchers, and students get together in a lively and dynamic environment. It brings on-the-field experience and market needs into universities and transfers state-of-the-art scientific knowledge to industry. “I.AM. technology unlocks human-like capabilities for robot arms, allowing further automation of our logistic processes” Bas Coenen, Innovation Manager, Vanderlande
 
“Moving robot arms into logistics requires some important technological breakthroughs. I.AM is addressing the core of a major step change for near future manipulation tasks”
Heico Sandee, CTO and founder Smart Robotics

Caption: A digital twin of a robot arm alongside its physical implementation. Photo Credits: I.AM consortium 

Collaboration with Karakter academic center for child physiatry and TiViPE

The usefulness and the uptake of robots in social therapies are suggested in many studies, but there are no randomised controlled trials (RCT) that actually prove that robots are equally good or even better than humans in training social skills in children. TU/e developed in collaboration with  TiViPE and the Karakter Academica Center for child physiatry, an end-user programming tool so researchers and students with a background in clinical or educational studies could create/program their own robot interactions and games. The results of this study provided a first proven by RCT evidence that the use of robotics in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be an effective treatment component in diminishing ASD-related symptoms and improving general clinical functioning in young children with ASD.

Caption: One of the robots and games used in the experiment. Photo Credits: TU/e

“This is a very rewarding project. We started in 2009 with this project and working on a completely new application, which is impossible without a large research effort. The positive impact on the children with ASD made me truly happy. Although the project was mainly an investment for the company, we later got three robotics projects. Also, the project was spread during a long period of time, so it is good for relations with the institution and the university”

Tino Lourens, CEO TiViPE company

Authors: Hala Elrofai, Elena Torta, Alessandro Saccon, Emilia Barakova and Shane O’Seasnáin

Header photo copyright: Philips

If you want to know more about these or other collaborations of TU/e or even discuss a future one, you can contact Hala Elrofai, eaisi@tue.nl