Join us for the July talk in the 2021/22 AgriFoRwArdS Seminar Series at 4pm on Wednesday 27^th July 2022, which is being organised in collaboration with Lincoln Agri Robotics. If you are in Lincoln on the 27^th, why not join the talk in person! The seminar will be held in person in seminar room INB1103. Otherwise, join us on Zoom, using the link below:

https://eng-cam.zoom.us/j/86219425749

Presenter: Prof Jacky Baltes, National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU), Taipei, Taiwan (https://sites.google.com/site/jackybaltes/)

Title: Robot Athletes and what we can learn from them

Abstract: This talk focuses on the role of robot competitions as important benchmark problems for advanced research into intelligent robots. The talk introduces the pitfalls and common problems of benchmarking. The talk will introduce the Federation of International Robot Sports Association (FIRA) competition, in particular, the FIRA HuroCup event – a decathlon for fully autonomous humanoid robots. The HuroCup includes sprint, marathon, weight lifting, basketball, mini-drc, archery, triple jump, spartan race, United soccer, and obstacle run and is the most challenging competition for intelligent humanoid robots in the world. A recent research initiative which focuses on robot magic will also be introduced and the different research goals of the events are discussed. The important advances that help to develop robots for versatile low volume automation derived from these competitions will be discussed. In the conclusion of the talk, I will discuss recent research advances in my lab that grew out of work started as part of robot competitions. This includes skating and skiing humanoid robots.