BRICS · Best Practice in Robotics

BRICS addresses a very urgent need of the research community, namely the need for common research platforms, which support integration of research results and which support the evaluation, comparison and benchmarking of result and the promotion of best practice in robotics. In a poll in the robotics research community in December 2007 95% of the participants have voted for such platforms.<br/>Such common research platform would be beneficial for the robotics community, both for the academic community as much as for the industrial community. The academic community would save a significant amount of resources, which typically have to be invested in from scratch developments" and "me-too approaches". Furthermore the scientific results would become better comparable which might promote a culture of sound experimentation and comparative evaluation. Jointly specified platforms will foster a rapid technology transfer. A rapid technology transfer will support the development of new systems and applications, which is to the benefit of the industrial community.<br/>To achieve the our objectives we propose the development of a design methodology which focuses on three fundamental major research and development issues, which will be implemented in three highly interwoven lines of technical activities:<br/>•\tIdentification of best practice in robotics hardware and software components•\tDevelopment of a tool chain that supports a rapid and flexible configuration ofnew robot platforms•\tCross-sectional activities addressing robust autonomy, system openness, and harmonisation and benchmarking<br/>Kuka in BRICS takes the leadership in a community initiative, which is not free of risk for the company, but which is badly needed for a convergence of technology in the field of robotics. This endeavour is of fundamental importance to ensure the success and competitiveness of the European robotics industry as well as research."