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IROS'02 Full-Day Workshop, October 1, 2002
IEEE / RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
Introduction |
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Over the past years, the number of robots that have been deployed in museums, trade shows and exhibitions has been grown steadily. The exhibition context has emerged as a new application domain of autonomous robots. At the same time robots have become a new media technology for curators, exhibition makers and artists.
In this workshop we will focus on robots deployed in a public, exhibition-like space with high degrees of autonomy and interactivity. Its main goal is to bring together robotics researchers and end-users from various backgrounds to discuss recent developments, ongoing projects and visions for the future.
We believe that exhibitions are excellent opportunities for nowadays robotics research. Robots in exhibition encounter a number of challenges:
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Difficult, inherently dynamic operating environments. Exhibitions are by their nature crowded, highly dynamic, cluttered and partly uncontrollable. This has implications to obstacle avoidance, localization, global path planning, multi-robot coordination, interaction and HMI-design.
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Human-robot interaction is a key technology. The robot's interaction modalities and the way they are employed are crucial for the acceptance and success of an exhibition robot. The relation which is established to people should be at the same time entertaining, efficient, educational and managable.
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System integration must be fully addressed. Autonomy with respect to computation, perception and energy becomes an issue. Safety with respect to the environment, the robot (vandalism) and the mission can have an important impact on the robot's design.
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The robot has to work really. Constant supervision and manual intervention is laborous and expensive. High degrees of robustness and reliability are mandatory at least for long-term events.
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On the other hand, exhibitions are a chance:
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Long-term experiments. Many researchers state a lack of large-scale long-term experiments in today robotics research. In terms of operating duration, interaction intensity and overall travel distance, exhibitions offer opportunities to validate research results never met in research laboratories.
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Gentle specification profile. The success metric of exhibitions is not as severe as with industrial products. Suboptimal performance may remain unremarked or is not considered as a total failure. Technical problems with the robot might in some cases even be a part of the exhibition's message.
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A new field of application for mobile robots. Successful exhibition events with robots concretize the vision of robots as an established exhibition technique and innovative media technology usable for museums, curators, and scenographers.
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The trigger for this workshop is also the "Robotics" Pavilion of the Swiss National Exposition Expo.02. It is the biggest project in mobile robotics of this kind: Ten robots, fully autonomous, interact with visitors, guide them around in the pavilion and take pictures of them. They will have served more than half a million visitors until autumn 2002, eleven hours per day, seven days per week, during five months.
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Topics to be Covered |
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Enabling technologies for exhibitions robots
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Navigation in highly cluttered and dynamic environment
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Human-robot interaction with individuals and groups
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Multi-robot coordination and techniques for visitor flow management
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Hardware and safety-related issues
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Long-term experiments and results
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Impact factor from an exhibition maker's point of view: do exhibitions really profit from robots?
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Robots as new media technology
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Economic aspects of exhibitions robots
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Educational aspects of exhibition robots
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Workshop Committee and Speakers |
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Kai Oliver ARRAS (Workshop Chair)
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland
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Wolfram BURGARD (Workshop Co-Chair)
Computer Science Institute, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany
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Rachid ALAMI, LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France
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Olaf ARNDT, Exhibition Maker and Robot Artist, Berlin, Germany
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Oliver BARTH, IPA and GPS GmbH, Stuttgart, Germany
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Volker GRAEFE, Bundeswehr University Munich, Germany
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Björn JENSEN, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland
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Shoichi MAEYAMA, Osaka Electro-Communication University, Japan
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Diego RODRIGUEZ-LOSADA, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain
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Gerard MCKEE, The University of Reading, United Kingdom
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Andrea NIEHAUS, Director of the Deutsches Museum Bonn, Germany
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Illah NOURBASKSH, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), USA
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Roland SIEGWART, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland
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Nicola TOMATIS, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland
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Panos TRAHANIAS, FORTH, University of Crete, Greece
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Sjur VESTLI, MRS Automation, Switzerland
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Exhibition Projects |
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Rhino |
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Exhibition type: technical museum
Task: tourguide
Number of robots: 1
Launch: n.a.
Duration: 1 week
Web resources: 1
Speaker: Burgard, Niehaus
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The MOBOT Museum Robots |
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Exhibition type: natural science museum
Task: tourguide
Number of robots: 1 (3 installations)
Launch: May 22, 1998
Duration: 4 years
Web resources: 1, 2
Speaker: Illah Nourbasksh
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Minerva |
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Exhibition type: technical museum
Task: tourguide
Number of robots: 1
Launch: n.a.
Duration: 2 weeks
Web resources: 1
Speaker: Wolfram Burgard
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Museum of Communication, Berlin |
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Exhibition type: technical museum
Tasks: info desk, playmate
Number of robots: 3
Launch: n.a.
Duration: 1 year
Web resources: 1, 2, 3
Speaker: Oliver Barth
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Expo.02 |
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Exhibition type: mass exhibition
Tasks: tourguide, photographer, ...
Number of robots: 10
Launch: May 15, 2002
Duration: 5 months
Web resources: 1, 2, 3
Speakers: Arras, Jensen, Siegwart, Tomatis
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World Exhibition Expo 2000 |
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Exhibition type: mass exhibition
Task: swarm entities
Number of robots: 72
Launch: n.a.
Duration: 6 months
Web resources: 1, 2
Speaker: Olaf Arndt
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Kapros |
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Exhibition type: art museum
Task: telepresence
Number of robots: 1
Launch: Feb. 14, 2000
Duration: 2 weeks
Web resources: 1
Speaker: Shoichi Maeyama
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Diligent |
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Exhibition type: trade fair
Task: personal robot
Number of robots: 1
Launch: 2001
Duration: 3 years research project
Web resources: 1
Speaker: Rachid Alami
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Hermes |
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Exhibition type: technical museum
Task: demonstrations
Number of robots: 1
Launch: October 2001
Duration: 6 months
Web resources: 1
Speaker: Volker Graefe
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Tourbot Project |
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Exhibition type: museum
Task: telepresence, tourguide
Number of robots: 1
Launch: n.a.
Duration: n.a. research project
Web resources: 1
Speakers: Trahanias, Burgard
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Blacky |
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Exhibition type: trade fairs
Task: tourguide, entertainment
Number of robots: 1
Launch: March 2001, May 2001
Duration: 1 week each
Web resources: 1
Speakers: Diego Rodriguez-Losada
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Museomobil |
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Exhibition type: museum
Task: tourguide
Number of robots: 1 (five installations)
Launch: Februar 2000
Duration: 39 weeks total
Web resources: n.a.
Speakers: Sjur Vestli
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Program |
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Time |
Title, Speaker(s) |
9.00 |
Welcome and Introduction to the Workshop
Kai Oliver Arras, EPFL, Switzerland
Wolfram Burgard, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany |
MORNING |
9.20 |
Entertainment Robotics: Examples, Key Technologies and Perspectives
Oliver Barth, GPS Ltd., Stuttgart, Germany |
9.40 |
The Mobot Museum Robot Installations: A Five Year Experiment
Illah Nourbasksh, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), USA |
10.00 |
Online Robot Teacher Kits for Museum Field Trips
Gerard McKee, The University of Reading, United Kingdom |
10.20 |
Mobile Robots in Art Museum for Remote Appreciation via Internet
Shoichi Maeyama, Osaka Electro-Communication University, Japan |
Coffee Break (10.40 - 11.00) |
11.00 |
TOURBOT and WebFAIR:
Web-Operated Mobile Robots for Tele-Presence in Populated Exhibitions
Wolfram Burgard, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany
Panos Trahanias, University of Crete, Greece |
11.40 |
Diligent: Towards a Personal Robot
Rachid Alami, LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse, France |
12.00 |
Design of and Operational Experiences from Five Museum Robot Installations
Sjur Vestli, MRS Automation, Switzerland |
12.20 |
On the Prospects of Robots in Museums
Andrea Niehaus, Deutsches Museum Bonn, Germany |
Lunch Break (12.40 - 14.00) |
AFTERNOON |
14.00 |
Demonstrating the Humanoid Robot HERMES at an Exhibition:
A Long-Term Dependability Test
Volker Graefe, Bundeswehr University Munich, Germany |
14.20 |
Experiments at Trade Fairs with Blacky the Robot
Diego Rodriguez-Losada, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid |
14.40 |
System Integration, Navigation and Interaction for the Ten Expo.02 Exhibition Robots
Kai Oliver Arras, Björn Jensen, Nicola Tomatis, Roland Siegwart, EPFL, Switzerland |
Coffee Break (15.40 - 16.00) |
16.00 |
Interactive Exhibition Design: Robots in Exhibitions
Olaf Arndt, BBM Group, Berlin, Germany |
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16.30-18.00: Round table discussion
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Date, Location and Registration |
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Date: Tuesday, October 1, 2002
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Time: 9.00 h - 18.00 h
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Location: EPFL, Lausanne. SG Building, Room AA CO 14
Note that the conference banquet on Thursday is held at Expo.02 in Neuchâtel.
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Affiliation of committee members and speakers |
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Rachid Alami
LAAS/CNRS
7, Avenue du Colonel Roche
31077 Toulouse Cedex 04, France
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Olaf Arndt
Machine-Performance Group BBM
Hasenheide 71
D-10967 Berlin, Germany
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Kai Oliver Arras
Autonomous Systems Lab
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne
CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
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Wolfram Burgard
Institut fuer Informatik III
Ludwigs-Universitaet Freiburg
D-70000 Freiburg, Germany
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Oliver Barth
GPS GmbH, Neobotix Ltd.
Nobelstrasse 12
D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany
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Volker Graefe
Bundeswehr University Munich
Werner-Heisenberg-Weg 39
D-85577 Neubiberg, Germany
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Björn Jensen
Autonomous Systems Lab
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne
CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
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Shoichi Maeyama
Osaka Electro-Communication University
18-8 Hatsucho, Neyagawa
Osaka 572-8530, Japan
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Diego Rodriguez-Losada
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Jose Gutierrez Abascal 2
E-28006 Madrid, Spain
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Gerard McKee
School of Computer Science
The University of Reading
Reading, Berks, RG6 6AY, United Kingdom
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Andrea Niehaus
Deutsches Museum Bonn
Ahrstrasse 45
D-53175 Bonn, Germany
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Illah Nourbasksh
Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
70000 Pittsbourgh, USA
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Roland Siegwart
Autonomous Systems Lab
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne
CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
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Nicola Tomatis
Autonomous Systems Lab
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne
CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
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Panos Trahanias
Department of Computer Science
University of Crete
71409 Heraklion, Crete, Greece
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Sjur Vestli
MRS Automation
Geeringstrasse 67
CH-8049 Zurich, Switzerland
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Related Links |
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Exhibition Projects
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Expo.02 Robotics Exhibition
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The Tourbot Programme
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Rhino, Tourguide in the Deutsches Museum Bonn
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The Robotic Tourguide Project Minerva
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Sage, a Self-Reliant Robot with a Full-Time Job
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Robotics Exhibition at Expo 2000, Hannover
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Communication Museum, Berlin, Germany
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Related Companies
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Mobot Inc., East Homestead, PA, USA
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Bluebotics SA, Lausanne, Switzerland
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Neobotix Ltd., Stuttgart, Germany
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GenRob Ltd., Stuttgart, Germany
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Sarcos Inc., Salt Lake City, USA
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