FET FLAGSHIPS Preparatory Actions

Proposal

"RoboCom:

Robot Companions for Citizens"

RoboCom Proposal Main Concept

• Abilities that robotshaven’t reached yet

• Lessons from Nature: simplifying principles for a complex world

• Unifying goal, Grand S&T challenge and Vision• to progress robot abilities• to understand the strategies that make living beings effective and efficient and the simplifying

principles that allow them to cope with a complex world• filling the gap of robot abilities would break the thin barrier that still keeps robotics apart from its

huge potential for application and its related impact on economy and citizens’ quality of life

• Grand Challenge and main “game-changer” concept• The envisaged progress of robotics will have a game-changing impact because it will enable scenarios

for robot applications that are not possible today.

• Goals and Objectives, new technologies (including digital technologies)• Science: new principles for robot abilities, based on a bioinspired approach and simplifying principles

for a complex world, like simplexity, embodied intelligence, morphological computation, smart and self-healing materials, learning-based behaviours, neuromorphic control, and more;

• Technology: using new principles for new devices and systems, new materials and fabrication techniques for robot bodyware, new sensing and actuation, new energy forms, new cognitive capabilities, new forms of interaction with people, new ways for operating in a connected world;

• Society: a new generation of robots that increases the quality of life of citizens, a sustainable model for robotics, responding to the ethical questions and going beyond the concerns about robots & jobs;

• Economy: developing technologies and systems and enabling applications of robots that promote economic growth, by the growth of European industry and access to markets like the domestic one.

WHAT MAKES IT A FLAGSHIP

S&T

fundamental

research

New principles

Robot

abilities

Applications

and economic

growth in

Europe

PREPARATORY ACTIONS IMPACTScience & Technology

• EU at the forefront with other regions of the world

Publications in robotics – top countries Publications in robotics – top EU countries

EU

"Robotics" in Title, Abstract, Keywords, Scopus, Nov. 17, 2017

"Robotics" in Title, Abstract, Keywords, Scopus, Nov. 17, 2017

• EU Industry and innovation potential

1.4 million industrial robots will be installed in the factories to increase productivity333,000 service robots for professional use will be sold to non-manufacturing and to manufacturing sectors42 million service robots for personal and domestic use (consumer robots) will be used in our private life

PREPARATORY ACTIONS IMPACTEconomy & Society

Integration & EU added Value

• large-scale integration across disciplines:• Robotics, biology, materials science,

AI, neuroscience, ICT• Large communities, already in contact

• critical mass & involvement of academia, industry and society at large• Scientific communities (1000+ scientists involved), strong European companies,

huge mass communication topic

• estimated effort scale and how long will it take to do so• Ten-year perspective, for transforming science in technology

• Relevant Transnational, National & Regional ongoing initiative• EU: SPARC, euRobotics, HBP FET-Flagship, euCOG, ESNAM, Terrinet,

RoboCom++, RoboSoft• Associate: Swiss NCCR Robotics• International: IEEE-RAS, AAAS, Harvard Wyss Institute (soft robotics),

Soft Robotics Research Centre of Korea

FET CA (Flagship Pilot)FET-Flagship proposal

Flag-ERA project

RoboCom++ Project: Rethinking Robotics for the Robot Companion of the Future

Initiative details: FLAG-ERA JTC 2016

Project Coordinator:Paolo Dario, The BioRobotics Institute (Scuola

Superiore Sant’Anna)

Partners: 24 partners (13 funded; 11 in-kind)

Start of the Project: 01/03/2017

End of the Project: 29/02/2020

Funding: 2.825.012,05 €

Cost: 4.216.718,90 €

RoboCom++ is gathering the community and organisign the knowledge necessary to rethink the design principles and fabrication

technologies of future robots. RoboCom++ aims at developing the Robot Companions of the year 2030, by fostering a deeply

multidisciplinary, transnational and federated effort. RoboCom++ pursues a radically new design paradigm, grounded in the scientific studies

of intelligence in nature. Simplification mechanisms will be based on the concepts of embodied intelligence, morphological computation,

simplexity, and evolutionary and developmental approaches.

THREE MAIN LINES OF ACTION to pursue the ambitious objectives of RoboCom++:

• Building an interdisciplinary community. RoboCom++ will involve a wider community of roboticists and non-roboticists, including material

scientists, mathematicians, AI experts, biologists, physicists, neuroscientists, economists, sociologists, philosophers and others.

• Defining the long-term S&T roadmap, competitiveness strategy, governing and financing structure, and the ethical, legal, economic and

social framework of a future FET Flagship–like initiative on Robotics

• Targeting five exploratory pilots: Computational Foundations of Actions; Morphological Computation and Soft Robotics; Soft Technologies

for Wearable and Mobile Robots; Bio-Inspired Self-Healing Materials; Biomimetic Cognitive Architecture for Human-Robot interaction.

The WGs are the building blocks of the RoboCom++ Project The

activities of the WG will be important to define the roadmap for

the future FET-Flagships. Their contribution will be fundamental

for the definition of the objectives, the identification of the most

important topics and of the priorities to include in the flagship

proposal. The roadmapping activity will be carried out in

collaboration with the responsible partner of the RoboCom++

exploratory research Pilots.

SEVEN Working Groups are active in the RoboCom++ Community:

• Embodied Intelligence in Natural and Artificial Physical Agents

• Soft Robotics and Bodyware

• Energy Management in Natural and Artificial Agents

• Embodied Cooperative and Communication Processes

• Impact on Robotic System Technologies

• Ethical, Legal, Societal and Economical Issues

• Science Platform Tools

Stakeholders to engage• Flag-ERA partners, supporting RoboCom++:

• 39 funding agencies from 26 countries in Europe and beyond

• Local administrations:

• Regione Toscana and other participants’ regions

• European companies collaborating with the BioRobotics Institute and with otherparticipants, which declared support to RoboCom FET-Flagship proposal and/or to RoboCom++

• 30 coordinators of relevant projects (ERC and others), sending endorsement letters for RoboCom++

RoboCom++ consortium

Infos

• Coordinator:

Cecilia Laschi

The BioRobotics Institute

Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy

• Web site: http://www.robotcompanions.eu/