Austrian Robotics Summit

ACIN - Automation and Control Institute employs 53 persons most of them researchers graduated in the fields of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science. ACIN strongly emphasises the close co-operation with industry and 76% of the employees are funded by national, European, and American industry or research projects. ACIN researches cognitive vision techniques specifically suited for robotic tasks to achieve a robot executing commands like "James, please bring me my cup". Key vision methods have been developed for object tracking and detection of object structures that are robust under lighting situations encountered during a full day and suited to real-time processing.

 The research and teaching activities of the Institute of Navigation and Satellite Geodesy (INAS) at the Graz University of Technology cover navigational tasks like positioning, routing, and guidance. The focus is put on multi-sensor systems (e.g., integration of GNSS and INS) and applications on land, at sea, and in the air. Furthermore, the Institute is strongly involved in international geodetic satellite missions (e.g., GOCE - Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer) and the modeling of the earth's gravity field. All these activities are based on methods of physical, mathematical and numerical geodesy.

The Institute of Networked and Embedded Systems (NES) of Klagenfurt University, Austria, works on the design, modeling, and analysis of future networked and embedded systems. We are engaged in research on algorithms and protocols, architectures, networking theory, signal processing, and hardware-oriented issues, with a strong focus on wireless and mobile networks of embedded, pervasive devices and sensors. Current interests include self-organization in networks, networked cameras, cooperative wireless communications, localization and synchronization, and sensor fusion. Our project portfolio includes long-term and short-term research, both in close cooperation with industrial and academic partners. Potential application areas include telecommunications, mobile computing, automotive, and disaster management.

Our teaching activities cover bachelor, master, and PhD courses for the study programs ‚Information Technology‘ and ‚Informatics‘. We are committed to giving high-quality lectures, seminars, labs in the areas of signals and systems, circuits and electronics, mobile and wireless systems, pervasive computing, and embedded systems.

Established in the Lakeside Science & Technology Park in January 2007, the institute consists of three research groups: Mobile Systems (Prof. Bettstetter), Embedded Systems and Signal Processing (Prof. Huemer), and Pervasive Computing (Prof. Rinner). It currently employs 37 people.

IHRT deals, in the field of robotics, mainly with cooperative, intelligent, mobile robots. Special emphasis is the development of mobile minirobots ( soccerrobots, robots for space applications,......) position control, path planning including collision avoidance and cooperative multi robot systems. Currently a humanoid robot is in realisation. IHRT is involved in projects with the industry as well as from the EU.

The Institute of Computer Graphics and Vision, Prof. H. Bischof, Prof. F. Leberl and Prof. D. Schmalstieg (ICG, http://www.icg.tugraz.at), is the only Austrian academic group with the charter to address both Computer Vision and Computer Graphics. ICG is carefully nurturing a culture of Digital Visual Information Processing. The research of ICG is ocused on following topics: Computer Graphics, Industrial Machine andRobot Vision, Medical Image Analysis, Object Reconstruction, and Object Recognition. The Institute is home to 11 civil service positions and about another 60 "soft money" positions.

The faculty of Systems Engineering at the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences is located in Villach, Carinthia, and consists of both, bachelor and master degree programs. The six semester bachelor degree program Systems Engineering focuses mainly on a general technical education. After the first year of study, the students can choose between five different fields of interest: Embedded Electronics, Embedded Software, Mechatronics, Equipment Engineering, and Business Engineering. The bachelor degree program Mechanical Engineering focuses only on the discipline itself. The four semester master degree program Systems Design is divided into four different fields of interest: Embedded Systems, Control Systems, Remote Systems and Mechatronic Systems. The four semester master degree program Integrated Systems and Circuits Design focuses mainly on the development and implementation of integrated.

The research and development activities concentrate on "Embedded Systems", i.e. electronic systems that are integrated into systems which can be controlled or monitored. A further point of focus is the design of "Remote Laboratories" for e-learning or blended-learning course material. These projects should help to increase the amount of e-learning applied in technical lectures in the future.

The Austrian Space ForumASF (Österreichisches Weltraum Forum, ÖWF) is a national network for aerospace specialists and space enthusiasts. Our organization serves as a communication platform between the space sector and the public; it is embedded in a global network of specialists from the space industry, research and policy. Hence, the ASF facilitates a strengthening of the Austrian space sector through enhancing the public visibility of space activities, technical workshops and conferences as well as Forum-related projects.

The Forum has a small, but highly active pool of professional members contributing to space endeavours, mostly in cooperation with other national as well as international space organizations. The spectrum of our activities ranges from simple classroom presentations to 15.000-visitor space exhibitions, from expert reports for the Austrian federal ministry for technology to space technology transfer activities for terrestrial applications: we are Austria's space network.

The Institute for Software Technology (IST) of TU Graz applied research in testing, verification, debugging, and diverse areas related to correctness of software and software-enabled systems. Among its staff, about 10 researchers deal with correctness of complex systems, and the IST takes part in European as well as domestic projects dealing with the increasing software complexity.

IST is also active in several areas of robotics including autonomous mobile robots, sensor fusion, world modeling, and RoboCup.Particularly IST is interested in inteligent robust control of autonomous mobile robots. IST is the organizor of RoboCup 2009 held from June 29 to the July 5, 2009 at the Stadthalle Graz. 

The Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences is one of the leading Austrian Universities of Applied Sciences. We offer an internationally recognized, well-established, practice-oriented education at university level at four locations in the central region of Upper Austria. Our second area of competence is to provide the economy with cutting-edge products from our research and development centers.

The School of Engineering and Environmental Sciences offers 8 different programmes for a Bachelor's degree, one Diploma degree and 7 programmes for a Master's degree.

In 2006 the Robo-Racing-Team was founded. The aim was to build robots and participate in robot competitions. The students start to build robots for the RobotChallenge in the 3rd und 4th term, for Eurobot in the 5th und 6th term of Bachelor's degree and for the Rescue League of Robocup in the Master's degree.

The Institute of Computer Languages focuses on theory of programming languages and compilers, theoretical computer science, and logic. Its research comprises the theory and practice of all aspects of the design, the implementation, and application of programming languages. Particular fields of interests include programming paradigms, compilers, interpreters, program analysis, verification, and optimization, and compilation techniques for dependable and robust embedded systems and high-performant systems. Current trends in robotics are well covered by the institute's expertise in program analysis and verification of embedded systems software, the design of programming languages and models for parallelism and concurrency, and extensive know-how in software architecture for distributed embedded real-time systems.  

Modern technology is increasingly leading to complex artifacts with high demands on performance and availability. Examples are, for instance, modern production plants, automotive systems and autonomous mobile robots. As a consequence, advanced automation and control methods play an important role in achieving given specifications. To approach these challenges, the Members of the Institute of Automation and Control pursue synergetic research themes in basic and applied research with focus on the following topics: Modelling and control of automotive and industrial systems, model-based fault diagnosis and fault localisation, computer aided control system design, advanced automation and robotics. 

The Unit Geometry and CAD is part of the Institute of Basic Sciences in Engineering of the Engineering faculty of University Innsbruck. Since more than 15 years this unit concerns itself - among other topics - mainly with applied research in computational kinematics. We deal with direct and inverse kinematics of different types of robotic mechanical systems, the description of their singularities and develop algorithms to compute their kinematic features.

The unit is associated with the center of intelligent machines (CIM) of McGill University Montreal and has close research collaborations with many robotic research units all over the world. 

With over 2,000 alumni and more than 2,500 students currently taking its eleven bachelor's and sixteen master's degree programs, UAS Technikum Wien is the largest university of applied sciences for technical studies in Austria. It offers an extremely diverse range of bachelor's and master's degree programs that can be individually combined, all of which are based on a solid theoretical foundation, while also being practice-oriented. The programs are offered as full-time and/or part-time degree programs in thefour following technical areas:

Communication Technologies & Electronic Engineering
Information Technologies & Business Solutions
Engineering & Environmental Technologies
Life Science Technologies

At UAS Technikum Wien, emphasis is not only placed on providing a
high-quality technical education, but also on language training and subjects
with a focus on business and personal development. Close ties with business and industry give students and graduates excellent career opportunities.

UAS Technikum Wien was founded in 1994 and became Vienna's first university f applied sciences in 2000. It is a network partner of the Association of the Austrian Electrical and Electronics Industries (FEEI).

The Center for Advanced Studies and Research in Information and Communication Technologies & Society (ICT&S) is established as independent interfaculty research and study center within the University of Salzburg to drive interdisciplinary work and activities. The central vision is to face the challenges of the interrelationship between technology and society and deliver interdisciplinary solutions for the fields of business, technology,

science, and policy. The Human-Computer Interaction & Usability Unit of the ICT&S Center deals with specific questions related to design, development, and evaluation of existing and emerging interaction systems and interaction

environments. Staff members with various interdisciplinary backgrounds e.g. computer science, psychology, communication science, design, information management) are working on several research priorities.

PROFACTOR GmbH has been founded in 1994 with the main goal to stimulate advanced research in manufacturing sciences. In addition to its competence in industrial robotic applications and manufacturing technology PROFACTOR has gained rich experience in the research area of Medical Robotics during the last couple of years. Current projects in this area are dealing with the development of a playing assistant for severe physically handicapped children, of a modular versatile mobility enhancement system, of a 9DOF exoskeleton for physical therapy for post-stroke rehabilitation, as well as of a modular robotic platform for interventional radiology. PROFACTOR has rich experience in national and international research projects and is strongly connected to research initiatives (IFAC, EUROP research network, SMIT, CURAC, AAATE, etc).