Cognitive Systems and Robotics: opportunities in FP7 Austrian Robotics Summit July 3, 2009 Libor Král, Head of Unit Unit E5 - Cognitive Systems, Interaction, Robotics DG Information Society and Media European Commission http://www.cognitivesystems.eu 1
Overview Context Recent history Current activities Future opportunities Conclusion 2
Context - EU Research Aims The Treaty on European Union Chapter on Research and Technological Development Article 163 "The Community shall have the objective of strengthening the scientific and technological bases of Community industry and encouraging it to become more competitive at international level while promoting all the research activities deemed necessary by virtue of other Chapters of this Treaty." 3
Research Funding in Europe Framework Programmes for research and technological development (FP) 7 th Framework Programme (FP7): chief instrument for funding research over the period 2007 to 2013. 4
7 th Framework Programme breakdown Five building blocks Information and communication technologies (ICT) theme is the largest in Cooperation (over 9 billion Euro in FP7) 5
Recent history: Robotics and cognitive systems in FP5 - FP7 FP5 (1998-2002) Cognitive vision 9 projects FP6 (2002-2006) Cognitive Systems + Advanced robotics 40 projects FP7 (2007- onwards) Cognitive systems, Interaction, Robotics 49 projects so far ~ 20 new projects coming soon 6
FP7 - ICT Call 3 (2008) results (projects started early 2009) 23 projects retained: Robotics (higher level sensing/understanding & lower-level sensory-motor innovations in e.g. dexterity and locomotion); best practice, research industry collaboration assistance to people dexterity, manipulation locomotion: aerial, urban & marine, navigation, swarming Cognition is recurrent in the robotics and also with other types of platforms or physical instantiations (e.g. auditory or visual sensor networks and other types of (distributed) devices); learning & feedback control; cognitive architectures Interaction (HRI, natural language understanding, multimodal behaviour / gesture recognition e.g. of sign language); 7
FP7 ICT CALL3 Robotics projects INDUSTRY / MANUFACTURING ECHORD BRICS ROSETTA IM_CLEVER HANDLE MANIPULATION SORTING OBJECTS ASSEMBLY ECCEROBOT MONITORING SURVEILLANCE SECURITY MOBILE MANIPULATION PROSTHETICS Co3AUVs SCANDLE ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING FILOSE SHOAL SFLY SEARCH & RESCUE SOCIAL- COMMUNICATIVE SKILLS (multimodal interaction TV-Host) SERVICE ROBOTICS & HRI EUROPA GUIDANCE DELIVERY TRANSPORT STIFF HUMOUR REHABILITATION MOTOR SKILL LEARNING HUMANOBS ROBOSKIN PROGRAMMING BY DEMO/ TOUCH-BASED SOCIAL INTERACTION 8
Current project portfolio (some of) issues addressed General Cognitive architectures Neuro- and/or behaviour modelling Object / scene / event detection Learning and adaptation Concept formation and proto-language Planning and reasoning Probabilistic approaches Robot specific Service robotics Humanoid robotics Roving and navigation (2D & 3D) Manipulation and grasping Robot-Robot interaction Human-Robot interaction Benchmarking robot capabilities Other Agency in digital content and service spaces Cognitive assistance HW support of cognitive functions see: http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/cognition/projects_en.html 9
ECHORD - European Clearing House for Open Robotics Development Recently started Integrated Project large-scale introduction of robotic equipment into research institutions three scenarios: human-robot co-worker, hyper-flexible cells, cognitive factory technology transfer between academia and industry through the solicitation of focused, small-size scientific research projects (experiments) Participants: TU München (Prof. Knoll), Università di Napoli Federico II (Prof. Siciliano), Universidade de Coimbra (Prof. Pires) Letters of interest signed by ABB, KUKA, Comau, Güdel, Schunk, EUnited 10
FP7 2009-10 (Call 4 and ICT Call 6) Cognitive systems and robotics Continuity and progress: the long term focus on artificial systems which are: More robust More adaptive More effective More natural, cooperative etc Dealing with unconstrained, real world situations Important research questions: How pro-active or autonomous can / should a robot be? Can we categorise real world behaviour unambiguously through sensors? How can a robot recognise and deal with critical safety problems? How can we endow robots with high level cognitive skills? How can we make sense of raw data streams in environments not known to the sensors / robots? 11
Current Call for Proposals FP7 - ICT Call 4 OBJECTIVE: 2.1 Cognitive Systems and Robotics PUBLICATION: 19/11/2008 DEADLINE: 01/04/2009 BUDGET: 73 M New approaches towards endowing robots with advanced perception and action capabilities, and towards developing pertinent benchmarks and tests New, scientifically grounded system architectures integrating communication, control, and cognitive capabilities A 'Virtual Institute' integrating diverse research areas that contribute to understanding cognitive systems and designing useful new ones Coordinated cooperation and communication within a multidisciplinary robotics community in Europe 12
Current Call for Proposals (FP7 - ICT Call 4) Lessons learned 109 proposals will result in <20 projects Most common reasons of failure: Insufficient description of methodology (proposals tell WHAT they want to achieve but not HOW) Unrealistic goals Lack of discussion of state of the art Underestimated integration Missing CVs of key personnel, missing references to the most relevant publications Too restrictive dissemination of results 13
The next Call for Proposals FP7 - ICT Call 6 OBJECTIVE: 2.1 Cognitive Systems and Robotics PUBLICATION: November 2009 (TBA) DEADLINE: April 2010 BUDGET: 80 M New approaches towards understanding and solving key issues related to the engineering of artificial cognitive systems New ways of designing and implementing complete robotic systems A framework to facilitate cross-fertilisation between academic and industrial research efforts in robotics Coordinated co-operation and communication within a multidisciplinary artificial cognitive systems research community in Europe 14
FP7 - ICT Call 6 Some tips DO: DO NOT: Target the key goal of this Call Make clear what you want to do and how (your methodology) Make clear the added value compared with state of the art Match the human resources and management to the proposal Tip: cite references of key personnel Have commensurate resource estimates Explain the expected impact, whether on: Science and technology research Markets / applications / Industry / engineering Add partners just for the sake of it Assume IPs have always to be huge Assume STRePs always have to be very small Describe a large number of diverse goals without describing clearly how they tie together Promise something too far beyond the state of the art or something already done Use of keywords from the call (which are deliberately broad), rather than more specific terminology that describes your detailed intent 15
FP7-2010 2010-NMP-ICT-FoF: Cross thematic call between NMP and ICT "Factories of the Future" OBJECTIVE: FoF-ICT-2010-10.1 Smart Factories: ICT for agile and environmentally friendly manufacturing PUBLICATION: 31/07/2009 DEADLINE: November 2009 BUDGET (ICT): 35 M Part of the ICT WP 2009-10 Update One of the targeted outcomes: Robotics-enabled production processes tested and validated in real-world environments. Projects are expected to involve system integrators and manufacturers and to test and validate robotic prototypes, paving the way for large-scale operations in smart factory environments. The projects should target domains which have until now not made much use of robotics technology such as in food processing and packaging, service supply (logistics, transport and warehousing), lightweight goods industries and SMEs. 16
Future Vision: Strategic Research Agenda for Robotics in Europe RTD strategy document developed by EUROP members in the CARE project (FP6) Industry-driven, based on extensive analysis of market development and future opportunities Commitment of all European stakeholders Short-term (2010), mid-term (2015) and long-term (2020) vision Public release in Brussels on July 7 17
And finally Your conclusion (I hope): this is a programme worth looking into more closely Consult our website: www.cognitivesystems.eu in order to find more details about projects THANK YOU! 18