GMV Robotics Day

Building on the success of the first event last year and with the aim of promoting and stimulating robotics at Europe-wide level, on 29 November, GMV organized the “2nd GMV Robotics Day”, showcased the latest research being carried out with mobile robots and the many applications of this technology. This event was designed and developed ´k (26 November– 2 December, 2012) with over 200 robotics-related events planned throughout the whole of Europe.

Robotics covers a very varied range of technologies (artificial vision, manipulation, locomotion, navigation, human-robot interaction), all of which are gradually making inroads into our daily lives in the form of household cleaning robots, unmanned vehicles and smart games. All these technologies call for early research from the very first stages of their development to reach a competitive level in the business world. This is precisely why GMV wishes to promote robotics on a Europe-wide scale.

The exhibition was divided into two parts. The first part involved robot demonstrations from the academic and industrial worlds on GMV’s Martian Terrarium; the second involved exhibitions of robots built by students aged 7 to 18, closely supported by GMV.

The first robot to be put through its paces was the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid’s system of land-air robotic explorers. Next up was AVATAR ONE EODTM, a mobile robot designed by Robomotion. Next came the turn of Robotnik’s GWAM. The last up was the LRM rover, a rugged platform used for research into remote, unmanned operation in space (specifically designed for the moon’s polar caps), created by GMV and the European Space Agency (ESA).

Robotics is highly appealing to the up-and-coming generation, which includes the budding scientists and leaders of tomorrow’s society. GMV sponsors many educational and/or training initiatives to inspire this budding talent, and this 2nd GMV Robotics Day highlighted two of them: First Lego League and COMPLUBOT.

The day ended with demonstrations of other low-cost robotic platforms designed with fun-based education in mind: the Lego MOCUP platform (GMV); the NAO humanoid, the robot football team SPiteam (URJC) and the commercial platform Qbo Pro Evo (PersonalRobotics).

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