Press Kit

on 06 February 2012.

INNOVATION ROBOTIC SUMMIT

Cité Internationale – Congress Centre
50 Quai Charles de Gaulle – 69006 LYON – France

With extremely strong growth of up to 100 billion dollars on the horizon of 20201, the service robotics market addresses multiple sectors of activity and fields of application (medical, domestic, transport, entertainment, security, maintenance, etc.). Due to existing and future technological progress in the areas of man-machine interface, artificial intelligence, miniaturization, etc., service robots represent a crucial factor of performance improvement and tools that are particularly adapted to the challenges already apparent: sustainable development, urbanization, the intensifying need for personal assistance…
Which is why service robotics will be one of the major economic drivers of this century.
Bruno Bonnell, SYROBO President

While industrial robotics is recovering from the economic crisis, Service robotics benefit from major societal trends and provide innovative solutions to solve worldwide issues such as medical assistance to seniors for an aging population, energy monitoring and saving for planetary sustainable development, well-being and quality of life, assisting people in their daily chores and safety, traffic congestion and urban sprawl in megacities through autonomous transport solutions and robots in the cities.
Service robotics technologies can help us shape a better future.
Catherine Simon, INNOECHO President

Organization

Founding partner
Syrobo is the French Federation of service robotics. Its goal is to unite all European business players engaged in the field of service robotics, whether economic firms, educational institutions, research laboratories or renowned individuals. Syrobo participates actively in the scattering of information and the visibility of this innovating sector in France and Europe. Official representative of the service robotic industry towards the French government, SYROBO intends to contribute for Europe to seize the multiple opportunities of economic development opened by service robotics. The fields of applications of Service robotics will expand over the years in sectors so varied as health, education, transport, household appliances, entertainment, assistance to people, energy savings, telecommunications...SYROBO is committed to accompany European economic growth through this major societal change.
More information on www.syrobo.org

Organization body
INNOECHO, revealing emerging innovative ecosystems
INNOECHO is dedicated to the animation and acceleration of emerging ecosystems, driving growth through innovation.
It serves as a catalyst of collaborative and open innovation via
- the organization of professional (ecosystems) and public (information, communication) events,
- the publishing of new market analysis and consulting services to « coach » pioneering companies and inform financial investors
- and the animation of communities of interest with networking of students, researchers, entrepreneurs, investors and large companies so to accelerate the emergence of these new markets.

BIGGEST INTERNATIONAL ROBOTIC EVENT IN EUROPE

14 -15 – 16 MARCH 2012, Lyon, France
Participate to Innovation !

INNOROBO, the innovation robotic summit, is gathering a thorough representation of the international service robotics community and targeted professionals interested in the various fields of applications of this fast emerging industry, through a cycle of high end conferences and a dedicated exhibition hall. During 3 days, professionals and visionaries will come and share their expertise and knowledge on how tomorrow’s robots from the service robotics industry could be our companion, care taker, assistant and prolong the human abilities to help us solve societal issues we already have and will face soon.

INNOROBO 2011 has set the standard, becoming in its very first edition, an immense success and the biggest International Robotic dedicated event in Europe. In 2011, the event gathered 85+ exhibitors from 9 different countries, high level internationally renowned speakers whether from the research area or from leading robotic companies, meaningful partners who integrated robotics as a dynamic in their strategy for growth through innovation and 10.000 + visitors from 35 different nationalities. Visitors were mainly business professionals but included also 20% students and academics, 9% of institutional representatives from the different continents and 5% from Media and Press. INNOROBO 2011 reached an exceptional media coverage with more than 300 articles in high tech trends, technical, economy and generalist media. Innorobo was present on every single French TV channel at prime time. Each exhibitor and personality had its share of voice.
-    Wired : “The inaugural INNOROBO summit in Lyon was abuzz with exoskeletons, football-playing humanoïds, educational androids for children and highly precise industrial robot arms. Check out the gallery to see some of the amazing robots on show. It’s a robotic conference in Lyon. It’s ace. Check it out.”
-    Metro (UK): “Robots strut their stuff at Innorobo. Whether they have a serious use or are just for fun, robots at the cutting edge of robotics have been on show in France at the Innorobo summit.”
-    The Robot report: “At Innorobo 2011 held in Lyon, France, the crowd was youthful, energetic, enthousiastic and eager to make contacts and make robots. In a discussion amongst business executives, research people and governmental officials at the Innorobo forum, one could easily see and feel the supporting and encouraging of the entrepreneurial flare of start-ups, research and business growth challenges and scaling up of emerging robotic systems”

Through 100+ exhibitors of 11 nationalities, more than 150 exceptional robots can be discovered at INNOROBO, some of them for the first time in Europe. Major announcements from leading companies will be made at the occasion of INNOROBO, Start-ups will reveal their technologies, Research labs will open their program results to visitors…
Asia is our guest of honor continent with delegations from Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.
Conferences will cover the most promising thematic of robotics and unpublished market figures and data will be revealed.

THE STRENGTHS OF INNOROBO 2012

Meaningful content with know-how and expertise
International renowned speakers deliver high end keynotes for three days and a spécial publication issue will be distributed to participants with articles on the market and its perspectives, stratégies and visions of leading robotic firms and worldwide experts. The main thematics of this publication are :
- Health and médical robotics
- Urban robots for citizens
- Worldwide market data with a focus on the synergies between industrial and service
robotics
- Human-Robot interactions with a panorama of new interfaces
- Cloud Robotics
- and more to discover at INNOROBO

Share and Exchange with decision makers
The exhibition hall is kept at « human size », hence the decision makers are on their booths and meaningful conversations can take place on the floor. INNOROBO is providing a business convention service for visitors and exhibitors so everyone can best prepare its attendance with the setting of meetings prior to the event. More than 100 exhibitors from 11 different countries will provide a thorough représentation of the overall service robotics numerous fields of applications.
Exceptional robots
For the first time ever out of its country (South Korea) discover KIBO, an Advanced humanoid robot developed by KIST (Korea Institute of Science and Technology). Experiment Robot Suit HAL, an exoskeleton from Japan, developed by the team of the renowned Professor Sankai ; Winglet, will be demonstrated, raising new standards for the individual mobility thanks to Toyota Motor Corporation ; Scitos from Metralabs will introduce its different potential applications ; iRobot will launch its new range of domestic robots at INNOROBO with an amazing Mini-Scooba and reveal its vision on Human-Robot interfaces with AVA ;
Fun and Experience
Robot Education, a French association, in cooperation with VEX Robotics organizes a competition for students ; The bar area will be filled with animations thanks to the LIE (laboratory of the Uncanny) ; INDUCT (France) will put at your disposal an autonomous vehicle for you to experience transportation in the future
International summit with Asia as guest of honor continent
International delegations with official representatives from all over the world are gathering at Innorobo. Reputed researchers and Executives from Japanese international groups, Professors and leading companies from South Korea, an official delegation of Taiwan, etc, represent the expertise and know-how of Asian robotics so this continent is to be our guest of honor for INNOROBO 2012.

Conference Cycles

3 days of conferences covering the latest technological breakthrough in robotics with high-end researchers, market analysis and data for the main fields of applications of service robotics, but also perspectives and foresight to identify the changes ahead and turn them into opportunities.

SYNERGIES AND CONVERGENCE BETWEEN INDUSTRIAL AND SERVICE ROBOTICS:

Industrial robotics is known for its applications in welding, soldering, handling, painting and assembling, for the automotive, electronics, metal, plastic and chemical industries. But industrial robotics is evolving towards new industries as well as smaller firms. It needs to reinvent itself and produce more flexible, mobile, easily trainable robots to work hand in hand with human workers. The human robot interactions (HRI) in factories and Cobotics are hot topics demonstrating the synergies and convergence that are likely to happen between industrial and service robotics technologies and solutions.

More about the speakers here...

COBOTIC : FROM THE ROBOT ASSISTANT TO THE ROBOT COWORKER

CNRS Research Director
LAAS Robotics and Artificial intelligence Group.
Full bio soon on this web site...

HUMAN-ROBOT INTERACTIONS

User-centered design is a must for robots to truly become a mass market. Although technologies progress rapidly, and despite the impressive demonstrations of humanoid robots from Japan or elsewhere, we are not there yet. Hence the shape of robots has to be driven both by its functions and by our human expectations. A robotic dog which doesn’t sense my approach remains a gadget, a humanoid robot which cannot engage in a natural conversation will be a disappointment. What is the correct level of interactions with a robot? What is the ideal form factor associated to the functions it performs? What kind of robots are we ready to accept and cooperate with in our daily life? These major questions will be dealt with at InnoRobo.

More about the speakers here...

CLOUD ROBOTICS:

Every file, document, database and digital information is now going through the “Cloud” (distant servers). What does it mean for our future, with machine to machine communication, connectivity for each and every of our daily life object? The imaginary world of Matrix is not so far away: your personal robot can learn with a simple download from the Cloud how to fly an helicopter or cook the perfect dinner.
More about the speakers here...

HEALTH AND MEDICAL ROBOTICS:

The growth of medical robots and surgeon/doctor augmentation devices since the mid-80s has been overwhelming, both as a field of innovation and research but also as a market for new products and services. Medical robotics is considered one of the success-stories of service robotics. It is a prominent segment of growth driven by demographic shifts, rising prosperity in developing countries and advances in medical technology.

More about the speakers here...

URBAN ROBOTS FOR CITIZENS:

One vision for the future features a generation of robots designed to play various roles in urban society. Some robots will be guides, others will help the elderly, some will make sure megacities are safe and others will collect our rubbish and do various daily chores. Beyond this we envision intelligent robotics to solve our major societal challenges: mobility with an overwhelming urbanization, and sustainable development for our planet to survive our demanding energy consumption.
More about the speakers here...

SLAM - SIMULTANEOUS LOCAZATION & MAPPING

On Friday the 16th of March, GDR , the open French Research Group in Robotics established by the CNRS will hold a technical conference on SLAM – Simultaneous Localization and Mapping.

Youcef Mezouar
received the MS. and Ph.D. degrees in automation and computer science from the Blaise Pascal University, Clermont-Ferrand, France, in 1998 and from the University of Rennes 1, France in 2001 respectively. He spent one year as Postdoctoral Associate in the Robotic Lab of the Computer Science Department of Columbia University, New York. He is assistant professor since 2002 in the Physics Department of Blaise Pascal University, Clermont-Ferrand, France. He is performing research at the ROSACE (RObotic and Autonomous ComplEx System) team of the Robotics and Vision Research Group (GRAVIR : http://gravir.univ-bpclermont.fr) of LASMEA-CNRS, Clermont-Ferrand, France, since 2002. He currently co-leads the GRAVIR reseach group (over 80 persons) and the ROSACE (RObotic and Autonomous ComplEx System) team (around 20 persons). His research interests include computer vision, omnidirectional vision, active perception, visual servoing, multi-sensor based control, force-vision coupling, visual navigation of wheeled and aerial vehicules. He co-authored more than 80 papers on the topics of robotics and computer vision.

Stay tuned for other information on our conference program and keynote speakers on www.innorobo.com.

An Exhibition Center

Revealing international service robotics ecosystem
100 exhibitors with exceptional robots coming from Korea, Japan, USA and of course Europe
11 nationalities

More about the exhibitors here

There is only one KIBO in the world !

This exceptional humanoid robot from South Korea, travels for the first time ever out of its country, to perform at INNOROBO

KIST ( Korea Institute of Science and Technology) unveils KIBO, a unique Humanoïd robot. For the first time ever, KIBO is travelling away from its country of origin – South Korea- to come at INNOROBO
KIST ( Korea Institute of Science and Technology) will reveal at INNOROBO, its sole example of humanoid robot. For the 1st time, KIBO will travel outside its country to visit us in Lyon.
This robot is 1m20, weights 43 kgs and has 43 degrees of freedom, conceived to perform autonomously interaction with Human being while displaying more than 10 different kinds of emotion.
While Asimo (Honda, Japan) succeed in « mechanical » performances such as walking, running, climbing stairs, KIBO has been conceived in order to interact and be in relation with Human beings.
Doted of a facial recognition system, mapping & sound localization system, including moving objects, KIBO can realize complex actions with humans such as bringing them an object or hugging them. KIBO is the center of intense researches and constant improvements (Real time analysis of the context, movements imitation of the user, accurate facial expression thanks to 3D captation, ...).
KIBO will be our guest during the official opening ceremony, held on Thursday the 15th of March at 11h30.