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Waterloo RoboHub Spring Symposium

Engineering Advancement Coop — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 20:33:06 +0000

Waterloo RoboHub Spring Symposium Engineering Ad… Tue, 02/20/2024 - 15:33

Join Us at the Waterloo RoboHub Spring Symposium

Join us on campus on April 4th for a full-day symposium: an interdisciplinary event where a variety of people and organizations across the private and public sectors will come together to discuss and learn about the opportunities and challenges provided by robotics over the coming 5-10 years.

We will have several keynote talks from experts in various fields related to the future of robotics, as well as exhibitors and lightning talks from across the robotics ecosystem.

Click here to jump to our registration form at the end of the page, or feel free to have a look below for a list of keynote speakers, lightning talk presenters, and exhibitors.

Symposium Agenda

0830 - 0900: Registration and Breakfast

A registration table will be set up on the 7th floor of Engineering 7 starting at 0830, where you can pick up your badge and get directions if/as needed.

A light continental breakfast will also be provided during this registration period before we start the first talk of the day.

0900 - 1000: Keynote - "More Just, For All of Us: Telling the Story of our Robotic Future(s)"

In this keynote, communication and technology expert Heather Suzanne Woods offers four sets of provocations on emerging technology for robotics researchers, engineers/makers, industry stakeholders, and all those who engage with increasingly ubiquitous robots. Building on her research in cultural innovation, and using narrative as a diagnostic, Woods invites playful introspection and disciplined collective action on: (1) “AI’s PR problem” (2) runaway optimization (3) the banality of the bot and (4) the problem with “opt-in” human-robot interaction. This talk will be of particular interest to those concerned with the societal impact of robotics and automation (and those who tend to doomscroll).

1000-1100: Lightning Talks by RoboHub's Community Partners

This session will consist of lightning talks by movers and shakers at various RoboHub Community Partner organizations.

This includes speakers from the Canadian Robotics Council, the Urban Robotics Foundation, the Nuclear Innovation Institute, WatSPEED (the professional education unit on campus), the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics, the Waterloo Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute, the local chapter of Women in AI & Robotics, and the Open Roboethics Institute.

1100-1300: Networking Lunch and Exhibition

Over this extended networking break, a wandering lunch will be provided to our attendees on the second floor of Engineering 7.

While eating this lunch, they will also get the opportunity to talk to fellow attendees, RoboHub partners with exhibition booths, and a selection of undergraduate and graduate students who will be demonstrating their capstone projects and research projects in the field of robotics.

1300-1400: Keynote - "Challenges and Opportunities of Social Robots in Health and Wellbeing Applications"

In this keynote, social robotics expert Kerstin Dautenhahn will briefly introduce the field of social robotics and highlight some key challenges when designing such robots. This includes both basic research to understand the fundamental principles of human-robot interaction as well as applications of social robots in therapy, care and education.

1400-1500: Lightning Talks by RoboHub's Commercial Partners

This session will consist of lightning talks by movers and shakers at various RoboHub Commercial Partner organizations.

This includes speakers from Clearpath Robotics, Avidbots, Kinova Robotics, Teledyne/FLIR, Labforge, and Real Life Robotics.

1500-1600: Keynote - "Future of Robotics: False Promises and Unexplored Opportunities"

In this keynote, economics expert and author Larry Smith will talk about the challenges and opportunities he sees coming for robotics over the next 5-10 years: Amid robotics’ great potential, hype and intense competitive pressure, we discuss how to identify false promises and find rich unexplored avenues of endeavour. Whether with the latest tech or well-established domains, basic economic principles will not be denied.

1600-1700: Networking and Exhibition

To wrap up the day, participants will get another opportunity to talk to their fellow attendees, a selection of RoboHub partners with exhibition booths, and several groups of undergraduate and graduate students who will be demonstrating their capstone projects and research projects in the field of robotics.

Keynote Speakers

Heather Suzanne Woods is a scholar and researcher of digital rhetoric. Her areas of expertise include memes, virtual assistants Siri and Alexa, online activism and social media, and smart homes. She is the Interim Director and an Associate Professor of the A.Q. Miller School of Media and Communication at Kansas State University. She is also the co-author of Make America Meme Again: The Rhetoric of the Alt-Right with Leslie Hahner.

Specializing in the economics of innovation and forecasting, Larry has worked with governments, financial institutions, professional associations and companies developing new markets or new products. Along with his role as an economics professor, he is the Founding Director of the Problem Lab, one of the few in the world devoted solely to finding and understanding important problems. He has happily taught ten percent of Waterloo’s alumni and is a recipient of the University’s Distinguished Teacher Award.

Since August 2018, Kerstin has been a Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo and the Canada 150 Research Chair in Intelligent Robotics. The main areas of her research are Human-Robot Interaction, Social Robotics, Assistive Technology and Health Technologies. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC), an IEEE Fellow, a member of ACM, and a Lifelong Fellow of AISB.

Lightning Talks

Throughout the day, we will have two "Lightning Talks" sessions presented by thought leaders from many of our professional and research partners.

These talks will provide an avenue for each of our partners to talk about what they see as the key challenges and opportunities in robotics over the next 5-10 years.

These talks aim to introduce these organizations to the broader RoboHub community and to plant seeds for potential collaborations.

Exhibitors

As part of the Spring Symposium, RoboHub partners taking part in the recently launched Professional Partnership Program will have booths setup where you can talk to experts across our community, learn what their organizations are all about, and see some exciting demos of robots, sensors, and other technology.

Throughout the day, you will have several opportunities to network with our partners without missing any of our interesting keynotes and lightning talks, including during the extended networking break over lunch and after the final talk of the day.

Registration

We hope you're excited to join us at the Waterloo RoboHub Spring Symposium! If you would like to join us at the symposium on April 4th, please fill out the contact form below. For more information about the symposium, including details about sponsoring the event, hosting a booth, or taking part in the lightning talks, please reach out to us directly at robohub@uwaterloo.ca.

LoopX AI: Canada’s first autonomous, all-weather pizza delivery robot

Sanya Jain — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 18:10:39 +0000

LoopX AI: Canada’s first autonomous, all-weather pizza delivery robot Sanya Jain Fri, 08/12/2022 - 14:10

University of Waterloo students may soon be able to order pizza or a burger from a nearby plaza and have it brought to campus by Canada’s first all-weather autonomous delivery robot.

LoopX, a Waterloo Engineering startup company that is developing the technology to do just that, received a $30,000 funding boost recently when it took top prize in the 5G Transportation Challenge sponsored by Rogers and the Ontario Vehicle Innovation Network.

As the challenge winner, LoopX is also benefiting from technical support from Rogers and its partners to develop a 5G Multi-access Edge Computing system (MEC) that gives software developers cloud-computing capabilities which are close to the end users.

“While most of the companies competing have been in business for over 10 years, LoopX just launched last year,” says founder Chao Yu, a mechatronics engineering doctoral candidate. “There are a lot of factors that helped us be successful including all the autonomous vehicle expertise at the University. Most of the LoopX team members are involved in the University of Waterloo’s WATonoBus, the first all-weather 5G autonomous shuttle bus at a Canadian university.”

View on YouTube

Within the next three months, LoopX - also a recipient of funding from the Engineer of the Future Fund at Waterloo Engineering - plans to demonstrate its 5G MEC-based hybrid driving system in the David Johnson Research + Technology Park at the University of Waterloo. Yu, a member of the Mechatronic Vehicle Systems Lab led by Amir Khajepour (RoboHub researcher), his PhD supervisor, expects the startup’s autonomous delivery robot to receive the necessary approvals to be commercialized sometime next year. The service is expected to be piloted in August with customers ordering food from a partner restaurant close to campus for delivery to the front of the Davis Centre. Within 30 minutes, the robot would arrive with the food in one of its multiple compartments. The customer would unlock the compartment using a code messaged to them.

Although there are other autonomous delivery robots, Yu says his company is unique because its advanced chassis control techniques, cutting-edge autonomous driving algorithms and datasets gathered in harsh Canadian winters provide a reliable all-weather delivery service. Its bright red, 1.2 m X .8 m X 1.2 m delivery vehicle is equipped with multiple safety features, such as an audible signal for pedestrian safety, and remote and on-board e-stops. Its autonomous driving features include two LiDARs, eight ultrasonic sensors, and eight monocular cameras, as well as a GNSS module that delivers 360-degree perception and centimetre-level positioning.

Read the full article on the University of Waterloo News page.

RoboHub helps Avidbots to advance robotics innovation

Sanya Jain — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 17:36:51 +0000

RoboHub helps Avidbots to advance robotics innovation Sanya Jain Fri, 08/12/2022 - 13:36

When Pablo Molina (BASc ’11), chairman, CTO, VP of Product and co-founder of Avidbots, wanted to improve his company's flagship autonomous floor-scrubbing robot, he turned to his former University of Waterloo professor and mentor, William Melek, for help.“When I attended Waterloo, I co-founded a robotics team and Professor Melek was instrumental in helping us all the way through,” Molina says. “We now have a global company and have to solve really hard problems. I reached out and asked if we could collaborate on research because Waterloo talent is truly among the brightest in the country.”

The University of Waterloo has the largest and most active robotics and automation research group in Canada, and RoboHub brings together all the related technical, educational, research, and service support into one central group. The robotics expertise within RoboHub allows researchers and collaborators to dive deeper into some of the problems industry is grappling with and find research solutions that a company would not otherwise have access to on their own.

“Avidbots had the opportunity to get access to some of our brightest minds working in advanced robotics, artificial intelligence. The intellectual property generated from the research partnership will make them competitive in the marketplace and will put the products at the leading edge of the technology in their industry sector. This is something that is very unique to Waterloo and unlikely found anywhere else,” says Melek, RoboHub Director.

View on YouTube

Melek explains that the robotics expertise within RoboHub allows them to dive deeper into some of the problems industry is grappling with and find research solutions that a company would not otherwise have access to on their own.

Waterloo RoboHub is powering Canadian robotics innovation through research opportunities and collaborations. Academic and industry partnerships like Avidbots can infuse research solutions into sectors critical for innovation and economic growth in Canada.

“Waterloo is an epicentre for robotics, not just in Canada, but globally because we have the talent and the institutions like the University of Waterloo,” Molina says. He is excited about the improvements to Neo and its commercial potential in the long term. “The collaboration has been helpful in expanding the research capability of Avidbots,” Molina says. “Working with the University of Waterloo will have a positive impact on our growth because we’ve been able to solve very hard problems that would have otherwise taken a very long time with a significant financial cost.”

Read the full article on the University of Waterloo News page.