Two months ago, we announced our PartnerBot Grant program with the aim of enabling innovative robotics research during these unprecedented and challenging times. This year, we developed two funding categories for our grant: academic and corporate research. The former focused on researchers, teams, or individuals that are a part of academic institutions such as universities or colleges. The latter category was aimed at robotic startups and other corporations with robotics labs. The grant prizes came in the form of two Dingo-D Indoor Research Platforms, two Husky UGV Starter Kits, as well as discounts on mobile robotic platforms and a wide range of robotics sensors and components.
Husky UGV is a medium-sized and rugged robotic development platform that is easily customizable for research needs with its large payload capacity, ROS support, and power systems. The platform has seen a large variety of different applications in various fields including teleoperation in hazardous environments, construction project monitoring, autonomous cotton picking, nuclear waste retrieval, and more.
Dingo is our newest addition to the Clearpath family. This little guy is a light-weight, compact indoor mobile robot available in two drive systems, differential and omnidirectional, with expandable power and computing options. It is fully customizable due to its modular design and comes ROS ready, all of which allows researchers to get started on their projects quickly. We are excited to see what kind of work the community will be getting up to with Dingo in the future.
We were blown away by the breadth and technical quality of all the applications. After carefully reviewing all the submissions and learning how each organization is advancing the state of robotics, we had to make a tough decision. It was incredibly difficult to narrow it down to just 5 winners.
PartnerBot 2020 Award Recipients
Corporate Category
Award 1: Husky UGV Starter Kit
Winner: Kim Matthew, Nokia Bell Labs
This team is actively researching ways to innovate remote control driving to vastly reduce end-to-end delays as well as control impairments. They intend to tackle this problem with a robotic system that will incorporate a three-dimensional model of the scene, multiple processes to maintain real-time positioning, and finally a synthesized view of the remote scene for a driver.
Corporate Category
Award 2: Dingo-D Indoor Research Platform
Winner: Kevin DeMarco, RIF Robotics Corp
The problem that this team is looking to tackle is the logistical nightmare that is resource and tool allocation and management in healthcare. With Dingo, the company plans on creating a robotic system that will autonomously track, organize, and assemble such supplies, lightening the workload and stress of healthcare workers.
Corporate Category
Award 3: 15% discount off robot sensors and accessories from the Clearpath Components Store
Winner: Jens Lambrecht, Gestalt Robotics
This team is ambitiously working to bridge the gap between indoor and outdoor autonomous robotics navigation through edge and cloud computing.
Academic Category
Award 1: Husky UGV Starter Kit
Winner: Daniel Zitterbart, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
This facility works to mitigate the human effect on biodiversity by monitoring and tracking special populations of animals. Their proposed solution includes a robot that will monitor an emperor penguin colony to keep a close and unobtrusive eye on them. Woods Hole will be awarded the Husky UGV Starter Kit.
Academic Category
Award 2: Dingo-D Indoor Research Platform
Winner: Wilco Bonestroo, Saxion University of Applied Sciences
This research team is working to facilitate the integration of mobile robots into automation ecosystems such as Enterprise Research Planning (ERP) and Manufacturing Execution and Control System (MES) which they plan to achieve through ROS2 and Navigation 2 integration.
Academic Category
Award 3: 50% off a Dingo-D or Dingo-O Indoor Research Platform
Winner: Ehsan Asadi, RMIT University
This team is tackling concerns around rail transport safety and quality in the pursuit of interior cleaning and inspection of trains. Their proposed solution included a robotic system that would automatically scan and proactively monitor trains to keep things running smoothly.
We want to thank everyone who applied to our grant program. The ideas brought forward will change the world, and we wish we could support nearly 100 winners to help every project progress.
If you’d like to discuss how Clearpath might be able to move your work forward, feel free to contact us.
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