#ERW2016: PAL Robotics’ Open Day, Robots at Your Service & HispaRob Day!

Posted on December 2, 2016 by Judith Viladomat

This year’s European Robotics Week broke all records in terms of organized events and participation. At PAL Robotics we also broke records of the assistance at our Open Day, last Friday 25th of November. Two tours were held at our offices, gathering together more than 150 people that were interested in robotics and wanted to know more about PAL Robotics’ projects and platforms.

Attendees could discover our mission, origins, robots and the projects we are involved in. The most exciting part came with the live demonstrations of the humanoids REEM-C and REEM, TIAGo and StockBot, where people could control the robots, play with their applications and ask any doubt to their Product Managers.

At the end of the tour the visitors and the PAL Robotics’ team shared a catering where they could exchange opinions and ask more questions about the company. We hope you enjoyed the visit as much as us. Looking forward to receiving you next year at PAL Robotics!

PAL Robotics at Robots at your Service and HispaRob Day

PAL Robotics also attended to the EU Robotics Week central event in Amsterdam, the Robots at your Service conference about assistive robotics, where TIAGo was presented as one useful platform for Ambient-Assisted Living environments, and the EU Project GrowMeUp was introduced too. Very interesting debates took place at the Maritime Museum. You can find some of the panel discussions ideas given by robotics experts on this RoboHub article.

The first HispaRob Day was also celebrated in Madrid, bringing together the main robotics universities, companies and institutions. HispaRob Day analyzed the robotics sector in Spain and debated on how robots are going to transform our lives in both domestic and industrial environments.

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A robot localization system solely based on distance sensors

Posted on November 28, 2016 by Judith Viladomat

A robust localization system that uses only distances to a small set of non-synchronized radio beacons at very small update rates. This innovative location system has been developed by Professor Fernando Caballero (Universidad de Sevilla) and Professor Luis Merino (Universidad Pablo de Olavide) with the collaboration of PAL Robotics, in a successful example of the benefits of University/Industry cooperation. We had the pleasure to receive both Professors at PAL Robotics’ offices, where they gave us a presentation on their achievements.

The localization system’s code is open-source and ROS-based, it is publicly available at GitHub. During the visit Prof. Caballero, Prof. Merino and our team successfully integrated the location system with StockBot, using PAL Robotics’ radio beacons from Idolink.

Even without synchronization of the radio beacons, and at a low measure frequency of 0.1Hz, the localization system proved to be very robust and efficient, successfully replacing AMCL. The video shows Stockbot using the range_only_localization system for navigation (no AMCL) and how this localization system can recover the robot from a wrong initial position.

Possible applications of this system are countless, as localizing the robot in very dynamic and cluttered environments or as a recovery tool for AMCL, for example. We are confident that this is an important and very useful contribution to the robotics community.

Prof. Fernando Caballero and Luis Merino with StockBot team for localization system integration ROS

Prof. Fernando Caballero (University of Sevilla) and Luis Merino (University Pablo Olavide) with StockBot team after the integration of the localization system to StockBot.

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EU Robotics Week 2016: Find PAL Robotics in Amsterdam, Madrid and Barcelona!

Posted on November 18, 2016 by Judith Viladomat

This Friday the European Robotics Week begins! Europe will be full of robotics events with more than 500 activities registered, which make sure that robots are the continent’s focus. PAL Robotics will be present in Amsterdam, Madrid and Barcelona, where you can meet us and interact with our robots.

PAL Robotics with the EU Robotics Week 2016

 

  • Robots at your service: ERW2016 Central Event (Amsterdam, Nov 18-22)

The ERW2016 Central Event, Robots at your service, is starting today in Amsterdam. Robots at your service is debating about the role of assistant robots in our future and how they can benefit people by taking care of the elderly, ill and disabled people at home. The event brings robots closer to society with Meet the robots exhibition. PAL Robotics’ TIAGo will be there, a robot suitable for Ambient Assisted Living applications which is used for different EU Projects on this area.

Since the event is focused in healthcare and robotic assistance, it will also be a good moment to present the EU Project GrowMeUp, which has the goal of creating a robot companion to assist the elderly at home. The robot, called GrowMu, is aimed to encourage old people to stay longer active, live independently and be socially involved.

The panel discussion Our Robotics Future (14h) will count on the participation of PAL Robotics’ CEO, Francesco Ferro. Debate will be focused on what we can expect of robots, Europe’s role in the robotics evolution and the effects that this transformation will bring.

  • Jornada HispaRob (Madrid, Nov 22)

Are you in Madrid next week? Meet PAL Robotics’ team and TIAGo collaborative robot at the HispaRob Robotics Day, held in the Carlos III University (Leganés campus) on Tuesday 22nd. The event highlights the Spanish role in robotics and will discuss about assistive and collaborative robots, as well as its function contributing with education and society’s cohesion.

TIAGo’s Product Manager, PhD Jordi Pagès will also participate on a panel discussion about collaborative robotics. TIAGo will perform live demonstrations at the collaborative robots demo time, showing how easy it is to command this modular robot for Industry 4.0.

  • PAL Robotics Open Day (Barcelona, Nov 25)

PAL Robotics Open Day ERW2016

The week will end with PAL Robotics’ Open Day on Friday 25th. We are opening our doors to everyone who wants to discover our passion!  We want to share with you our vision regarding the role of robotics, and the knowledge and expertise we have gathered in this field since 2004. The humanoids REEM-C and REEM, the collaborative robot TIAGo and the inventory-taking robot StockBot will perform live demos for all the attendees.

Join us by sending an e-mail at marketing@pal-robotics.com and let us know which tour you would be interested in:

  • Technical tour (12:00-14:00h)
  • General tour (16:30-18:00h)

Looking forward to receiving you at PAL Robotics!

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TIAGo ROS Simulation Tutorial 1 – How to control the cobot?

Posted on November 15, 2016 by Judith Viladomat

TIAGo’s ROS open tutorials for its open-source simulation in the Gazebo start with TIAGo’s control. This collaborative robot is open in simulation to anyone who has an idea for him. PAL Robotics describes everything needed to use TIAGo in simulation, from the basic steps to control it to more complex motions and commands. Tutorial blocks will be detailed periodically at the blog, starting with the robot’s control.

How can TIAGo cobot be controlled?

Three tutorials show different options to command TIAGo’s Degrees of Freedom:

move_joints_title_PAL_Robotics

 

Make TIAGo wave, shake hands… even lift weights!

TIAGo_gazebo_play_motion_reach_max

TIAGo reaching its maximum in a pre-recorded motion in Gazebo.

PAL Robotics makes available a list of pre-defined upper body motions of TIAGo, based on simultaneous trajectories in multiple groups of joints. TIAGo can play various movements with the hand besides closing and opening it, like pinch, point or put the thumb up. Other motions show its large manipulation workspace, reaching the floor or lifting the arm up to 1.75 m high. On this tutorial you can also command TIAGo to make movements such as TIAGo waving, shaking hands, or even lifting weights!

Find other tutorials on Navigation, MoveIt!, Open CV and PCL at TIAGo’s ROS Wiki, which will be detailed soon in our blog as well.

PAL Robotics TIAGo robot controlled by velocity commands.

TIAGo robot controlled by velocity commands leftwards.

PAL Robotics Open Day 2016

Remember that on Friday, November 25th PAL Robotics opens its doors to everyone! Two tours will take place at our offices, with a presentation of the company and some demos with REEM-C, TIAGo and StockBot. The tours are divided according to the attendee’s profile:

  • Technical tour (12:00-14:00h)
  • General tour (16:30-18:00h)

Register to the Open Day tour you would like to attend by sending an e-mail at marketing@pal-robotics.com. Don’t miss the opportunity!

PAL Robotics Open Day

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PAL Robotics at 2016 ROS-Industrial Conference

Posted on November 9, 2016 by Judith Viladomat

ROS-Industrial project aims to apply ROS (Robot Operating System), the de facto standard in robotics, to the industry. Having a shared open operative system in robotics gains relevance when it is applied to manufacturing applications and opens new possibilities for robots to be integrated in assembly chains.

PAL Robotics was invited to the annual ROS-Industrial Conference held last week in Fraunhofer IPA (Stuttgart, Germany) as a company that successfully bases all of its robots in ROS and uses tools such as Rviz or ros_control. PAL Robotics’ CTO Luca Marchionni shared our expertise in the field and explained the advantages and challenges of applying open-source software to the robots we develop and commercialize.

TIAGo robot in simulation performing a pick&place task.

TIAGo robot in the open-source simulation performing a pick&place task.

The active community that contributes to ROS is key for creating a common reference and share the knowledge in robotics to push its evolution. At PAL Robotics we believe on a general-purpose robot operating system that can benefit multiple fields, industry among them. That is why we base all of our robots in ROS and provide their simulation packages in freely available on github. The new open TIAGo tutorials are the latest initiatives we are doing in the direction of extending ROS usage to absolutely everyone.

Come to the PAL Robotics Open Day!

The EU Robotics Week is coming and PAL Robotics is preparing many different activities in Amsterdam, Madrid and Barcelona! On Friday, Nov 25th, we are opening the doors to everyone who has the same passion as us. Our team wants to share with you our vision, knowledge and expertise in robotics, and REEM-C, TIAGo and StockBot will perform live demos. Join us by sending an e-mail at marketing@pal-robotics.com and let us know in which tour you would be interested in:

  • Technical tour (12:00-14:00h)
  • General tour (16:30-18:00h)

We are waiting for you at PAL Robotics!

PAL Robotics Open Day

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PAL Robotics, host of the Factory in a Day Project meeting

Posted on October 26, 2016 by Judith Viladomat

Factory in a Day EU FP7 Project continues to move forward! Last week PAL Robotics held the project meeting of Factory in a Day. All European partners were gathered in Barcelona to discuss about the next steps to follow during the project’s final year. Great progress has been made towards the goal of the project: to reduce the system integration time of a robotics solution to one single day for dynamic assembly chains.

Factory in a Day is focused on making profitable the automatization of temporary product lines for SMEs that constantly need to modify or change the production, and find it difficult to capitalize the investment. Very simple modular robots that can be quickly modified and rapidly adjusted to the new needs – in both hardware and software – are ideal for that. Find more about the project here!

Factory in a Day project consortium at PAL Robotics

Factory in a Day project consortium at PAL Robotics

Advances on use cases, integration steps and business-related issues were made during the meeting. Partners could also meet and experience demos with PAL Robotics’ robots and the team behind. PAL Robotics was glad to receive Factory in a Day team and will keep working hard to contribute to this common objective. More information about the meeting at Factory in a Day webpage!

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New ROS tutorials to simulate with TIAGo easily!

Posted on October 25, 2016 by Judith Viladomat

Would you like to try to command a robot? Do you have in mind robotics applications but don’t have a robot? Want to try TIAGo? PAL Robotics puts an accessible tool available for anyone that wants to try TIAGo, a collaborative robot highly skilled for accomplishing complex tasks. TIAGo’s official ROS Wiki has been completely reshaped and a comprehensive set of TIAGo tutorials in ROS and Gazebo can be found there too.TIAGo is designed to be a useful companion in many contexts thanks to its combination of abilities.

Simulate with TIAGo, the collaborative robot

Simulate with TIAGo, the collaborative robot

The tutorials are distributed in the following areas:

  • Control
  • Navigation
  • MoveIt!
  • Open CV
  • PCL

TIAGo’s tutorials include how to apply two of the biggest standard perception libraries to a robot in ROS: Open CV and PCL. This list will be extended in the future and is also open to anyone’s proposals and suggestions! As easy as sending an e-mail to: tiago-support@pal-robotics.com.

Don’t have TIAGo physically? That’s not a limit!

TIAGo’s simulation is open-source, perfect for anyone that would like to make developments with a collaborative robot in navigation, manipulation, perception or Human-Robot Interactions. The simulation also enables to test TIAGo’s capabilities in order to evaluate if it fits any research needs or its abilities to perform complex tasks.

PAL Robotics: dedicated to ROS since the very beginning

The Robot Operating System (ROS) has become a de facto standard to join efforts and expand robotics, making it accessible for everyone. In PAL Robotics we are very glad with this evolution, since we believe ROS has a huge potential to universalize and democratize robotics, with the final goal of closing the gap that exists between research and real life. That is why PAL Robotics team is a ROS supporter and contributor since the very beginning, and makes available the open-source simulations of all robots online on their official ROS Wiki.

Everybody can simulate with TIAGo robot

From robotics engineers that want to try TIAGo’s capabilities to people who is new in this world: TIAGo tutorials are open to anyone willing to easy learn and try! Tutorials have detailed explanations and will improve over time.

Share your work with us and we will publish any cool development you are capable of! Send it by e-mail to: tiago-support@pal-robotics.com.

TIAGo robot in simulation

TIAGo robot in simulation

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PAL Robotics’ TIAGo is awarded as the Best Project of the year at the II Nit de la Robòtica

Posted on October 6, 2016 by Judith Viladomat

The Industrial Engineering Association of Catalonia (Col·legi d’Enginyers) has recognized PAL Robotics’ TIAGo with the Award to the Best Project of the year at the II Nit de la Robòtica celebration. The “Night of Robotics” annual meeting gathers together all the main actors of the Barcelona and Catalonia robotics sector. PAL Robotics is recognized for the contribution in humanoid robotics and for the development of the mobile manipulator TIAGo, a collaborative robot with applications in domestic and industrial environments.

PAL Robotics CEO, Francesco Ferro, receives the Award to the Best Project of the year at II Nit de la Robòtica

PAL Robotics CEO, Francesco Ferro, receives the Award to the Best Project of the year at II Nit de la Robòtica

TIAGo integrates the cutting-edge technology of the team in complex robots in a platform that is flexible and easy to customize. Its modularity makes TIAGo suitable for any research in AAL and Industry 4.0 fields. TIAGo has evolved capabilities on manipulation, navigation, perception and interaction, and is 100% ROS based.

It is a great honor for PAL Robotics’ team to be recognized with such award and would like to thank the Col·legi d’Enginyers for that.

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TALOS: the next step in humanoid robots from PAL Robotics

Posted on October 4, 2016 by Judith Viladomat

PAL Robotics is launching a new humanoid robot: TALOS, a collaborative robot for industrial complex tasks. TALOS will be an advanced electrical high-performance humanoid robot due to the cutting-edge technology integrated. Stay tuned, TALOS will be released soon!

This humanoid robot is conceived for industrial Human-Robot collaboration. TALOS’ goal is to assist workers in factory assembly lines with physically demanding tasks that need high accuracy, and which are performed in hostile or uncomfortable industrial settings.

TALOS Robot by PAL Robotics.

TALOS Robot by PAL Robotics.

This new humanoid robot was born from a tender granted by the French research lab LAAS-CNRS. The first platform will be delivered to the LAAS-CNRS’ Gepetto team, under the direction of Philippe Souères, PhD. The humanoid will be released in November. The Gepetto team will name it PYRENE.

Want to know a bit about TALOS?

  • TALOS is a fully electrical human-sized robot
  • It has sensored torque control in all joints
  • The platform uses EtherCAT communicationsTALOS robot from PAL Robotics

The robot can walk dynamically at a maximum speed of 3Km/h, and is able to navigate through uneven ground. Each arm has a 6Kg payload when fully extended, and it has dexterous and flexible manipulation skills. Therefore it can nimbly handle heavy industrial tools with its customized 3-fingered grippers.

TALOS is 100% ROS capable as all of PAL Robotics’ platforms. PAL Robotics has made a huge effort to integrate the best hardware components and sensors on this humanoid robot.

The tendency of collaborative robots in Industry 4.0

Collaborative robots like TALOS are conceived to take part in industrial activities that are manual, arduous, and require accuracy or strength. TALOS’ mission is to assist in those tasks that are susceptible to damage the worker’s health.

With TALOS, PAL Robotics makes available a flexible and accessible platform to go beyond the limits of Industry 4.0.

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PAL Robotics was distinguished with the Excellence award for Technology Innovation

Posted on September 30, 2016 by Judith Viladomat

Yesterday 29th of September 2016 PAL Robotics received the Business Excellence award for Technology Innovation at the Day of TelecommunicationsInterview to Francesco Ferro at Onda Radio. The award recognizes the enterprise’s trajectory for contributing to the technological expansion. At PAL Robotics we work to make life better through robotics. Our R&D in humanoids is constantly expanding the limits towards the improvement of the robotics technology that we believe one day will make our life easier. Other robots have born from the know-how accumulated along the way, such as TIAGo or StockBot, that solve specific problems of society.

The Excellence award was dedicated to the exceptional team which makes possible the creation of such cutting-edge robots. We would like to sincerely thank GrausTIC for this valuable recognition.

The robotics transformation

At the event, PAL Robotics’ CEO Francesco Ferro participated in a panel discussion that debated on Robotics and how the market is evolving. The highlight was put on how robotics and digitalization are going to change our lives. Some relevant fields where robots can provide a service were stated:

Discussion Panel about Robotics, with Francesco Ferro

  • Healthcare with surgical and rehabilitation robots.
  • Retail with inventory-taking systems, like StockBot.
  • Education, with multiple applications and platforms.
  • Domestic environments, with assistant robots that help in daily tasks and even might be able to extend the autonomy of the elderly or disabled people.

This new reality is already opening many ethical and legal challenges that require of an exhaustive discussion.

Industry 4.0 and the need for collaborative robots

The debate stated that the digital transformation is changing how people consume goods. The market is being transformed from mass producing the same product, to answering to every customer’s demand. Classic and static supply chains need to evolve towards flexible and agile processes that are fast and meet the dynamic demand.

This is where collaborative robots can be very useful: platforms that are modular,interactive and easy to use for the operator. Collaborative robots like TIAGo are designed to be safe and share workspace with people at a supply chain, in order to provide daily assistance to the workers. The EU Project Factory in a Day is also focused on solving these new needs.

Interview to Francesco Ferro at Onda Radio

The XV Day of Telecommunications gathered over a thousand people that work or are interested in the field at the CosmoCaixa museum of Barcelona. [Spanish] Listen to the interview to Francesco Ferro at Onda Cero Radio’s programme “La Ciutat” for the Day of Telecommunications! (min. 41:35)

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