1st GMV Robotics Day

GMV, the Spanish technology multinational, presented today its 1st GMV Robotics Day (I Jornada GMV de Robótica), showcasing the latest mobile robot research and the many applications of this technology. This event was designed and developed as part of the European Robotics Week (28 November– 4 December, 2011) with over 300 robotics-related events planned throughout the whole of Europe.

Robotics cover a large 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 robot vacuum cleaners, unmanned vehicles and smart games. These technologies all call for early research in the very first stages of their development to reach a competitive level in the business world.

With the aim of promoting and stimulating robotics at both the national and European levels, GMV organized this robotics meeting in its Martian Terrarium, a 180m2 test area which reproduces Martian conditions with copper-colored soil, grain size, a distribution of rocks on the ground, and a 15mx12m background panel showing a Martian panorama taken in November 2005 from the summit of Husband Hill by NASA’s Spirit rover.

The exhibition was divided into two parts. The first part involved robot demonstrations from the academic and industrial worlds; the second involved exhibitions of robots built by students aged 8 to 16, closely supported by GMV.

The first robot to be put through its paces was AVATAR ONE EODTM. This was a mobile robot designed by Robomotion to carry out military tactical missions of reconnaissance, surveillance and manipulation of hazardous objects in high risk environments.

The next robot displayed was “MoonHound”. This robot was an unmanned electrical vehicle custom designed by GMV and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid for space exploration missions. Using a 3D laser sensor it is able to navigate autonomously by means of robust predictive control techniques that directly control the wheel motors by continuously applying the correct torque to follow the planned obstacle-free route.

Next came the turn of Robotnik’s Guardian robot, an ideal mobile platform for tasks of research, security and inspection, capable of working in challenging environments of difficult access on the strength of its high mobility.

Next came the presentation of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid’s WSNDeployer, a robotics platform made up of an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) specializing in outdoor missions and a system for deploying sensor nodes around it. The UGV imitates the behavior of a planetary exploration rover, reproducing precisely and reliably a possible trajectory on Martian soil.

The first robotics session of the industrial and academic world ended with a demo of Robotnik’s Summit, a medium-sized, high-performance all-terrain robot, ideal for research and for carrying out indoor and outdoor application tests for research, education, security and military purposes, among others.

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 1st GMV Robotics Day highlighted two of them.

COMPLUBOT is the name identifying the students of the robotics workshop, created in 2003, of the Parent Teacher Association of the state school Miguel Hernández. This name COMPLUBOT is a compound of the Roman name (COMPLUTUM) of this school’s home town (Alcalá de Henares) with the ending of the word ROBOT tagged on to denote its subject matter. The activities carried out in this robotics workshop are targeted at children aged 8 to 16. After presentation of its educational program, its football-playing robots of the NEXUS series showed how to score a great goal or make a stunning save.

They were followed by the “Go4It” team, which has often participated in the First Lego League, an international robot-building competition for schoolchildren. Underway since 1988, this competition challenges the schoolchildren, working under a coach, to build and program a robot from the LEGO Mindstorms robot set and many LEGO® parts, and also to draw up and present a scientific project.

The 1st GMV Robotics Day ended with the presentation of the LRM rover, a highly robust platform used for research into remote, unmanned operation in space (specifically designed for the moon’s polar caps), currently in development phase by GMV for the European Space Agency (ESA).