ICRA stands for the International Conference on Robotics and Automation. The conference will be held in Seattle, WA from May 26th to the 30th. This event is where new research into the future of robotics is presented. In fact, a bunch of industrial and research labs specifically come to show and tell what they are up to with their projects. There are always a wide range of different activities, competitions and subjects that will be covered during the conference. Here are a couple of things that will be interesting to look out for during this event.
But first watch this video to catch the vibe of ICRA 2015.
Career Fair
Tuesday, May 26th will be the career fair. This event will regroup all the robot specific companies that are seeking brains to achieve their projects. From industrial applications to research project proposals a wide variety of different projects will be presented. Notice that companies from around the world come here seeking the best robot geeks in the industry to add to their teams and accomplish their robotic projects, so prepare your resume. If your company wants to exhibit, make sure to book your place fast.
Amazon Picking Challenge
We are pretty excited about this challenge. First because it's a challenge and we love challenges. But especially because it is directly related to our field of expertise: Picking! So the Amazon Picking Challenge is designed to find a solution for Amazon warehouses, to pick objects off the shelves. The teams have a list of objects (32) to pick in a controlled environment. The robot and gripper are chosen by the teams themselves. The winner of the competition will be the team that will be able to transfer the greatest number of objects from the shelves to a bin in the allotted amount of time. The solution (and the challenge itself) will help develop a final solution for all the Amazon warehouses worldwide. And will no doubt be interesting for many other warehouse scenarios.
Expo
Of course there will be companies that will be exposing their product. From industrial applications to pure research programs, a bunch of tech companies will be promoting their services or products. Notice that Robotiq will be part of this exposition at booth 218. We will be presenting our products and a demo using a Universal Robots, a 3-Finger Adaptive Gripper and a FT 150 Force Torque Sensor. This demo is geared to highlight the potential of the FT sensor and the flexibility of the 3-Finger Gripper. If you are at the convention, come and check out our demo.
Autonomous Cars: What's up?
With the continuous hype around autonomous cars, we are expecting the subject to be one of the most popular at ICRA 2015. With the fact that Uber is one of the sponsors of the event and that they are in a big recruiting campaign for their Pittsburgh research center. You can expect a lot of car manufacturers to be there collecting resumes and observing what is up in the robotic market.
''Funky'' Google Autonomous car design.
Drones, Drones and More Drones!
This is just a hunch, but with DJI being the main sponsor of the event this year, we might see a couple of drones flying around. With several major companies getting interested in the concept of drone delivery, you can expect to see some innovations on drones and drone safety highlighted at the show. You can also listen to the keynote hosted by DJI.
With these last two categories being widely ''politicized'' outside of the robotic market, it will be interesting to see what approach will be taken by the companies involved either to recruit people or to propose research projects. In any case, this will be a very interesting exhibition. A lot of conferences and product exhibitions will continuously be going on during ICRA. We will have a Robotiq representative in the field, so we will try to feed you the latest news and innovations. In the meantime, you can take a look at the different research projects that have been put together with our 3-Finger Adaptive Gripper.
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