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Our Biomimic Cobots research program have had a great couple of days at the 2023 Australasian Conference for Robotics & Automation) cohosted by UNSW and UTS Robotics Institute.
Our Centre’s researchers were involved in four papers accepted at the conference:
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr Fouad (Fred) Sukkar also chaired the Machine Vision session.
We’d like to officially welcome two new Chief Investigators from UTS to the Centre and to our Quality Assurance and Compliance research program.
* Dr. Nathalie Sick is a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Technology Management and a core member of the Centre for Advanced Manufacturing in the Faculty of Engineering and IT at the University of Technology Sydney.
Prior to joining UTS, Nathalie held positions as Assistant Professor for Innovation and Technology Management at the University of Muenster, Germany and led the interdisciplinary young research group Innovation and Technology Management in Energy Storage with the Helmholtz-Institute Muenster.
* Gavin Paul is an Associate Professor in the School of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering at University of Technology Sydney He is part of the UTS Robotics Institute where he leads the ‘Next Frontiers in Robotics’ research sector. Gavin and team are working with mining, transport, manufacturing, construction, space and partner institutions, to develop the next generation of robots and intelligent systems in the field.
As part of 2023 OzCHI conference held in New Zealand from 1-6th December, our researchers along with those from CSIRO, conducted a workshop on “Empowering People in Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) Why, How, When, and for Whom”. This is the second year this workshop has run and this year it was hybrid.
During the workshop, there were over 17 attendees with a program that included:
A summary of this workshop will be available here: https://workshophri.github.io/OzCHI2023/
The workshop organisers included: Stine S. Johansen, ACC; Hashini Senaratne, CSIRO; Alan Burden, ACC; Melanie McGrath,CSIRO; Claire Mason, CSIRO; Glenda Caldwell, ACC; Jared Donovan, ACC; Andreas Duenser, CSIRO; Matthias Guertler, ACC; David Howard, CSIRO; Yanran Jiang, CSIRO; Cecile Paris, CSIRO; Markus Rittenbruch, ACC; Jonathan Roberts, ACC.
Congratulations to our PhD Researchers who passed their confirmation of candidature over the past month!
Researchers from Swinburne University of Technology, QUT (Queensland University of Technology), and UTS joined forces with industry partners from ARM Hub (Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing), Cook Medical, and Stryker, making the event both enjoyable and thought-provoking.
The symposium featured a packed agenda including workshops, poster presentations, awards, research program updates, and a keynote talk by Cécile Paris from CSIRO’s Data61 CINTEL.
A note of appreciation goes to Centre Director Jonathan Roberts for his leadership in ensuring the success of the event. We are already looking forward to future gatherings with the same spirit of collaboration and knowledge-sharing.
Objective, systematic research and analysis and interpretation of complex data to provide authoritative, evidence based and timely strategic advice to senior managers.
At the annual ACC Symposium, an awards evening was held with nominations put forward by Centre members in the lead up to the event.
Our annual awards were a great way of celebrating the achievements of our people and their collaborative efforts over the past 12 months.
2023 winners included:
* Best Collaborative Research output: the 2023 OzCHI workshop “Empowering People in Human-Robot-Collaboration” organised by Australian Cobotics Centre and CSIRO’s Data61 researchers.
* Research Achievement: A/Prof Teresa Vidal Calleja
* Best Event: Swinburne’s ‘Encounters with Cobots’ event held in July (Mats Isaksson, Jagannatha Charjee Pyaraka, Anushani Bibile, Chris McCarthy, John McCormick & Michelle Dunn)
* Contribution to Public Debate: Dr Melinda Laundon
* Quiet Achievers: Dr Fouad (Fred) Sukkar & PhD researcher Barış Balcı
* Emerging Leaders: Dr Stine Johansen & Dr Alan Burden
* EPIC Centre Citizens: Dr Melinda Laundon & PhD researcher, Jasper Vermeulen
Well done to our nominees and winners. We look forward to these awards being part of our future symposiums.
Last night we held the second PhD Connect and Share event at University of Technology Sydney.
We were joined by other Sydney-based ARC funded Training Centres and Hubs (ARC FAAB and ARC Hub for Nutrients in a Circular Economy).
The evening was facilitated by Australian Cobotics Centre (ACC) Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr Melinda Laundon and included talks from:
With over 50 PhD and Postdoctoral researchers in attendance, our speakers shared their experience and gave great advice for our students who are all working with industry as part of the PhD. Key takeaways:
Thank you to everyone who came along and to our fantastic speakers! We look forward to hosting more of these events throughout 2024!
Last week we went along to the TAFE Queensland Engineering and Emerging Technology Industry night at Eagle Farm.
Centre Director, Jonathan Roberts and program co-Lead, Penny Williams were there along with ARM Hub (Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing)‘s Callum Elder.
Lots of demonstrations and opportunities to talk, including with Cornelis Van Niekerk from Weld Australia (one of our industry partners)!
It was a great night that highlighted the importance of collaboration across industry, universities and vocational education and training.
Congratulations to Victor Hernandez Moreno from the UTS Centre for Advanced Manufacturing, and Associate PhD Researcher from the Australian Cobotics Centre, for successfully passing his final Candidature Assessment.
Victor’s work addresses the problem of making robots easier to program through “Learning from Demonstration” in the industrial context. This is an important tool in helping to increase the utilisation of robotics.
