Platin++ Sponsors

KUKA Aktiengesellschaft is a global group with sales of around € 2.1 billion and a global workforce of about 12,000. As one of the world's leading suppliers of intelligent automation solutions, KUKA offers its customers everything they need from a single source: from the core component - the robot - to cells and fully automated systems. The company is headquartered in Augsburg. KUKA operates internationally for customers from the automotive industry and general industry.

Gold Sponsors

DJI is the global leader in developing and manufacturing innovative flight platforms for commercial and recreational use. We are dedicated to making aerial photography and filmmaking easier and more accessible to creators around the world. Beyond that, DJI products are redefining industries. Professionals in filmmaking, agriculture, conservation, search and rescue, energy infrastructure, and more trust DJI to bring new perspectives to their work and help them accomplish feats safer, faster, and with greater efficiency than ever before.

Rethink Robotics has pioneered the development of smart, collaborative robots that can operate safely next to people in a wide range of research & education, manufacturing, and production environments. Founded in 2008 by renowned roboticist Rodney Brooks, the company is successfully introducing robots into organizations and applications for which robots have historically been impractical. The Baxter Research Robot is safe and affordable with an open source SDK, making it the choice platform for researchers. Just as the PC revolutionized the way computers were used by office workers in the era of mainframes, Rethink Robotics is revolutionizing the way people in research and education can access and use robots for their work.

Silver Sponsors

The Bosch Group is a leading global supplier of technology and services. Bosch in recent years came across with robotics and related topics. In 2012 an autonomous lawnmower Indego which uses probabilistic algorithms for navigation was introduced on the market. In 2014 APAS robot, a first certified, collision-free collaborative robot system was launched. Bosch also develops systems for automated driving, was part of the PR2 Beta Program and produces a vast array of low-cost and automotive grade quality sensors such as inertial measurement systems, sonar sensors, pressure sensors, etc. The company employs roughly 360,000 associates worldwide (as per April 1, 2015), and generated sales of 49 billion euros in 2014. Its operations are divided into four business sectors: Mobility Solutions, Industrial Technology, Consumer Goods, and Energy and Building Technology.

Bozhong (Suzhou) Precision Industry Technology Co.,Ltd. (BZ Group) founded in 2001, is an automation system integrator specializing in sales, R&D, precision machining, assembling, and all-round after sales service. With its headquarter located in Suzhou city, Jiangsu Province China and branches spread over China (east, north, south, west), America (R&D center), Japan and other countries, BZ provide customers with customized automated equipment and automation solution including automated control integration, vision system technology, laser, industrial robot, and combining software programming development. Automation Business Sector: Consumer electronics, automotive, household appliances, daily necessities, Cosmetic industry.

The Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) comprise five institutes and numerous other labs and facilities. SIAT was jointly established by CAS, the Shenzhen municipal government and the Chinese University of Hong Kong in February 2006. SIAT aims to enhance the innovative capacity of the equipment manufacturing and service industries in the Guangdong-Hong Kong region, promote the development of emerging industries possessing their own proprietary intellectual property, and become a world-class industrial research institute. Over the past seven years, SIAT has made significant achievements in human resource development, academic research and technology commercialization. To meet the nation’s needs in healthcare and manufacturing, SIAT focuses on emerging industries such as low-cost healthcare, service robots, electric vehicles, cloud computing, digital cities, nanomedicine, new energy and new materials. SIAT has established partnerships with more than 500 firms including Huawei, Midea and China International Marine Containers (Group) Ltd., among others. It has attracted over 80 million yuan of industrial investment and incubated 60 high-technology companies.

Bronze Sponsors

Since 1995 when we launched the first Pioneer robot, Adept MobileRobots (previously known as ActivMedia Robotics and MobileRobots, Inc.) has grown to be a global leader in the design and manufacture of intelligent mobile robots. In 2010, MobileRobots Inc. was acquired by the largest industrial robotics company in the US, Adept Technology. The Adept MobileRobots academic and research division continues to provide the world's leading mobile robot platforms for mobile robotics research. Adept Technology's commercial and industrial mobile robot systems are revolutionizing the way materials and processes are handled in factories, warehouses, hospitals, laboratories and other facilities. Adept mobile robots have logged millions of miles per year at installations ranging from a single robot to large fleets.

Ascending Technologies is leading developer and manu­facturer of micro UAS for professional, civil and research use. With over 1,000 flight systems sold worldwide, they provide unique technology solutions. The German high-tech company was founded in Krailling (near Munich) in 2007. In 2010 they set the world record for long flights of mini UAVs with 12 hours 26 minutes and 56.9 seconds. Ascending Technologies accomplishes pioneering work in the area of sensor data processing and flight attitude stabilization with a clear focus on professional applications of the flight systems in the civilian sector. Their main goal is to permanently work on intelligent, cost-effective solutions for today and the future with compelling quality – made in Germany!

Messe München International is one of the world´s leading trade show companies. In Munich alone it organizes around 40 trade shows for capital and consumer goods, and key high tech industries. Each year more than 30,000 exhibitors and around two million visitors take part in the events held at the Messe München exhibition center, the ICM – International Congress Center München, and in the MOC Veranstaltungscenter München. The leading international trade fairs of Messe München International are all independently audited. In addition, Messe München International organizes trade shows in China, India, Turkey and South Africa. With a combination of affiliates abroad – in Europe, Asia and in Africa – and over 60 foreign representatives actively serving over 100 countries, Messe München International has a worldwide business network. The Group also takes a pioneering role as regards sustainability: It is the first trade-fair company to be awarded energy-efficiency certification from the technical inspection authorities TÜV SÜD.

BA SYSTEMES is the most active French player in the field of internal logistic systems with automated vehicles or AGVs. Specialized in automated handling and storage, BA SYSTEMES has expertise based on specific skills: logistic analysis, integration of "turnkey" systems, design and manufacturing of AGVs, development of supervision software, rental, maintenance and "full service". BA SYSTEMES is one of the leading French companies in research and open innovation. The company won the IERA award of the IEEE and the IFR in 2014 for its activities in mobile robotics applied to the medical sector.

Clearpath Robotics Inc. is a global robotics company dedicated to automating the world's dullest, dirtiest, and deadliest jobs with intelligent service robots. The Company provides robot hardware, software and services to enable robot development, deployment and operation. Clearpath works with over 500 of the world's most innovative brands in over 40 countries, serving markets that span industrial materials handling, mining, military, agriculture, aerospace and academia. Clearpath is an award-winning company with recent awards, including Robotics Business Review Top 50 Company, Edison Award for Innovation, Business Insider Top 40 under 40, and Canada's Top 100 Employers. Visit Clearpath Robotics here.

Founded in 1999, DST Robot always strive to realize vision of "Providing convenient robot service to lead the age of robot convergence". DST Robot provides specialized, cost-effective industrial robot to our valued customers. And, our products and services are the solutions of choice for many a manufacturing company. Furthermore, We mainly focus on education, home service, and other robots, along with their integration solutions such as home service robot HOVIS, entertainment robot Genibo, mobile platform TETRA-DS, and other robot parts & accessories. DST Robot strategy is to provide a broad range of Value Creation, Technology Development & Innovation and Highest Quality along with world-class service to allow manufacturer's to maximize the productivity, flexibility and quality of the products they manufacture.

A third of the 2,950 people at Dyson are engineers or scientists. We started with vacuum cleaners, but we also develop hand dryers, fans and motors ? all of which solve a problem long-forgotten (or long-ignored) by other manufacturers. But this is only the start. Now we're searching for the next generation to work on developing future Dyson technologies. People with bright ideas and a healthy dose of frustration. Perseverance. Ingenuity. Wrong thinking. Passion. These are Dyson traits. We want creative, tenacious and unconditioned problem solvers who are unafraid to explore the unknown.

ECHORD++ aims at strengthening the knowledge transfer between scientific research, industry and users in robotics and at stimulating their cooperation. The EU-funded project with a runtime of five years (2013 – 2018) implemented three instruments: small-scale research projects called Experiments, Public end-user Driven Technological Innovation (PDTI), where public bodies drive technology development from the demand side and Robotics Innovation Facilities (RIFs), open labs, which provide state-of-the-art robotic hardware and software as well as scientific and technical support. ECHORD++ is a joint project of Technische Universität München (project coordinator), Blue Ocean Robotics, Bristol Robotics Laboratory, Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives, R.U. Robots limited, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna and Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.

The focus of the Institute for Cognitive Systems (ICS) at Technische Universität München is to understand and create cognitive systems that can function effectively in the real world. The ICS is a partner in the EU-funded project Factory-in-a-day. Its goal is to develop plug&work robot-systems for SMEs by removing the primary obstacle for robot automation: installation time and cost. The robotic skin – CellulA.R.Skin – demonstrated at IROS consists of multi-modal skin sensors, which can be adapted to any robot arm in order to improve safe human- robot collaboration and rapid configuration.

Force Dimension is a Swiss company that specializes in advanced force-feedback (haptic) technology. Established in 2001, Force Dimension develops and supplies dedicated haptic hardware and software solutions for both commercial and research applications. The company also provides technology integration assistance and technical support to its partners and customers worldwide. Through industrial partnerships and licensing agreements, Force Dimension haptics technology is used in a wide range of products, including consumer electronics (Novint Falcon), surgical robotics (Hansen Medical Sensei Robotic System), medical simulation (Medaphor Trans-Abdominal Ultrasound Simulator) and industrial teleoperation (Vulcan Engineering Tactile System VTS).

Founded in 1958, Fuzhou University is one of the national key universities that are selected into the “211 Project”, a Chinese government programme for the 21st century to support 100 selected universities for their further rapid development. Since its establishment, Fuzhou University has developed into a key comprehensive university in Fujian Province, giving priority to engineering courses and also enjoying a reputation for excellence in other fields including sciences, economics, management, liberal arts, law, arts and design, etc.

Google's Mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Big Challenges, Big Resources, Big Impact: The challenges of realizing this mission, and of operating Google's global computing system, span the breadth of computer science and engineering. The research activities that we undertake in the areas of search, software engineering, algorithms, machine learning, programming languages, systems infrastructure, back our major products. Google has a tremendous number of exciting challenges that only arise through the vast amount of data and sheer scale of systems we build. Research happens across the company, on many different teams, making the line between research and development at Google wonderfully blurred. We actively engage with academics through various initiatives such as our Research Awards Program, Visiting Faculty Program, and PhD Fellowship Program. We understand the value of a collaborative ecosystem; we launch products that demonstrate progress and functionality, and have a strong culture of releasing code as open source.

Founded in 1920, Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), with science, engineering and research as its core, encompassing management and liberal arts, economy and law, is now developing into an open, multi-disciplinary and world-class university.

Founded in 1987, Huawei is an entirely employee-owned private company and a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider with a vision to enrich life through communication. Through the company’s 150,000 employees and dedication to customer-centric innovation and strong partnerships, Huawei has established end-to-end capabilities across the carrier networks, enterprise and consumer markets by providing competitive solutions and services, which have been deployed in over 170 countries and regions, serving more than one-third of the world’s population.

Founded in 1990 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology roboticists, iRobot designs and builds some of the world’s most important robots. The company’s home robots help people find smarter ways to clean, its defense & security robots protect those in harm’s way, and its remote presence robots enable virtual presence from anywhere in the world. iRobot’s consumer, enterprise and military robots feature proprietary technologies incorporating advanced concepts in navigation, mobility, manipulation, cloud robotics and artificial intelligence.

Khalifa University is a leading science and technology focused university based in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The University is dedicated to the advancement of learning through teaching and research and to the discovery and application of knowledge. It endeavors to be an internationally recognized research university, with a world class reputation for interdisciplinary teaching and research and a tradition of partnering with leading academic institutions from around the world. The university offers undergraduate degrees across all major fields of engineering in addition to graduate programs that include masters and PhD programs with a number of specializations that contribute directly to Abu Dhabi's 2030 vision for a knowledge-based economy.

Kinova designs and manufactures robotics platforms and components that are simple, sexy and safe under two divisions: Assistive Robotics empowers people with disabilities to push beyond their current boundaries and limitations while Service Robotics empowers people in industry to interact with their environment more efficiently and safely.

The National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Robotics is a nationwide centre consisting of 19 research groups across four Swiss academic institutions (EPFL, ETH Zurich, University of Zurich and Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence Lugano (IDSIA)) with the common objective of developing innovative, human-oriented robotic technology. To this end, NCCR Robotics is advancing fundamental insights in terms of technology, materials and control mechanisms along with offering unique opportunities for technology transfer towards high-tech companies and start-ups.

OptoForce is designing, producing and selling multi-axial force and force/torque sensors. Our goal is to improve robots' capabilities to interact with their environment, especially through force and torque sensing. We work with developers and manufacturers from automation industry to academia to build more interactive and smarter robots and manipulators. Our sensors are light, durable and easy to integrate - just as you wish all sensors were!

PAL Robotics is an R&D company settled in Barcelona (Spain), focused on the development of robotic solutions. Our most renowned robots have been our humanoids: the family began in 2004 with REEM-A, and evolved continuously to the most advanced REEM, a service humanoid robot, and REEM-C, a biped platform. Our wide experience in navigation and research platforms has led us to create TIAGo, a mobile manipulator specifically crafted for research. TIAGo?s prototype will be first shown in public at IROS, where it will perform some demonstrations.

The PAN-Robots project aims to improve the technology for the design and deployment of robotic fleets to the warehouse management in smart factories. In fact, today, automation is only marginally applied to factory logistics. The use of manual forklifts results in low efficiency and high energy consumption. Furthermore, the operation of forklifts is not safe for workers. Automatic guided vehicles (AGVs) is an emerging technology in this area, but there are still many weak points to solve, such as safety, cost, flexibility, etc. The PAN-Robots consortium is developing new technologies to improve the technology of AGV for smart factories in terms of higher flexibility, cost efficient logistics, low energy consumption, enhanced work safety, decrease installation and set-up time.

NVIDIA® is the world leader in visual computing. The GPU, our invention, serves as the visual cortex of modern computers and is at the heart of our products and services. Beginning as a standard PC graphics chip company, NVIDIA has transformed into a specialized platform company that targets four very large markets - Gaming, Enterprise Graphics, Datacenter and Auto - where visual computing is essential and deeply valued.

Rainbow Robotics is a South Korean company specializing in the development of humanoid robots. It was founded by the researchers who participated in the development of Korea's first bipedal robot called "Hubo" by Humanoid Robot Research Center of KAIST. Founded in 2011, Rainbow Robotics has been recognized for its leading-edge technology in the field of humanoid robotics and its main product, "Hubo" has been studied at over 20 universities and research institutes worldwide. In particular, We took the first place in the DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals of 2015 using DRC-Hubo. We have developed not only a bipedal robot platform but also various other robots such as a service robot, a military robot, an industrial robot, an entertainment robot and so on. We are trying hard to commercialize the mobile-based services robot, motor controllers, power controllers, sensors and a real-time robot operating system.

Roboception offers innovative navigation, real-time perception and manipulation solutions for robotic systems. Customer-specific software products for a variety of hardware platforms are developed in compliance with the customer's individual plug-and-produce requirements.
Roboception's innovative sensor solutions enable customers across all robotic domains to generate real-time, time and location-dependent 3D data products and to equip robotic systems with robust and seamless infrastructure-free navigation. Following the concept of "Sense - Reason - Act", 3D technologies such as object localization, recognition and scene analysis, robotic manipulation and application development complete the portfolio.
The solutions include highly intuitive, user-friendly interfaces, parametrization and programming, hence a detailed robotic knowledge is not required for their setup and operation.

SCHUNK GmbH & Co. KG of Lauffen/Neckar is a German family-owned company and global player all in one. More than 2,300 employees in 8 plants, and 30 directly owned subsidiar- ies and distribution partners in more than 50 countries all over the world ensure an inten- sive market presence. SCHUNK offers the world’s largest assortment of clamping technol- ogy and gripping systems and with 2,500 SCHUNK grippers the largest product range of standard grippers. The complete program of gripping systems comprises more than 4,000 components. Its customer base includes the Who’s Who of mechanical engineering, robot- ics, automation and assembly handling, and all the renowned automotive brands and their suppliers.

SICK is one of the world's leading manufacturers of sensors and sensor solutions for industrial applications. Founded in 1946 by Dr.-Ing. h. c. Erwin Sick, the company with headquarters in Waldkirch im Breisgau near Freiburg ranks among the technological market leaders. With more than 50 subsidiaries and equity investments as well as numerous representative offices, SICK maintains a presence all around the globe. In the fiscal year 2014, SICK had around 7,000 employees worldwide and achieved Group sales of EUR 1,099.8 million.

Smokie Robotics, Inc. was founded to develop versatile, lightweight, and modularized open unit robots (OUR's) featuring low cost and high positional repeatability. Smokie Robotics offers OUR's that can be readily reconfigured from 3 to 7 DOFs. The company?s expertise is focused on reliable and compact mechanical and electrical designs, open software at all levels and intuitive human-robot interfaces for users and developers. The open source architecture allows users to readily integrate OUR's into existing production lines. Our vision is to contribute to the increased pervasiveness of robots in all types of industrial applications by providing affordable, reliable, reconfigurable and open architecture robots to end users and researchers

Multi-Disciplinarity, Internationality and Passion - Synapticon is a dynamic international company based in Stuttgart, Germany, with offices in Redwood City, California, and Belgrade, Serbia. Our mission is to rethink and deliver solutions for embedded computing and control systems to improve the future progression of robotics, industrial automation, special machinery, electric vehicles and the internet of things. We are committed to expediting technical progress and integrate it into components and services that enable our customers to provide bleeding-edge, high-quality products. Our team is comprised of technology enthusiasts from all over the world, with expertise in various areas of engineering and management. Our common passion is to develop advanced technologies, sophisticated products, serve customers in challenging projects and to build an innovative as well as sustainable corporation.

The focus of the Institute for Cognitive Systems (ICS) at Technische Universität München is to understand and create cognitive systems that can function effectively in the real world. The ICS is a partner in the EU-funded project Factory-in-a-day. Its goal is to develop plug&work robot-systems for SMEs by removing the primary obstacle for robot automation: installation time and cost. The robotic skin – CellulA.R.Skin – demonstrated at IROS consists of multi-modal skin sensors, which can be adapted to any robot arm in order to improve safe human- robot collaboration and rapid configuration.

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