Schedule
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November The student Ander Loidi has been the winner of the scholarship awarded by the UVa Social Council for collaboration in research tasks at the institute during the 2018/2019 academic year. |
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January One more member in the senior residence Researchers from Valladolid design social interaction strategies: Robot to develop the physical and cognitive abilities of the elderly. See more… |
February Research projects of the Junta de Castilla y León “Analysis of energy-efficient technologies for the sustainability of buildings” and “Robots with the capacity for interaction and adaptation in healthcare environments” , respectively, for an amount of €120,000 each. Congratulations!
Congratulations Congratulations to the new professors. Recently (February 2019) ITAP members Eloy Velasco and Jaime Gómez have passed the competitive examination for the University Professors body. Congratulations!! Postdoctoral contract offer ROASIS Project ROBOTS WITH CAPACITY FOR INTERACTION AND ADAPTATION IN CARE ENVIRONMENTS More information: https://www2.eii.uva.es/GIR-TAP/OfertaTrabajo.pdf |
March ITAP has collaborated with CITECH in dissemination tasks within the “Industry and Technology Summit” that was held on March 28, 29 and 30, 2019 in Gijón. See more… Seminar on experimental techniques in structural dynamics Organized by the Structural Dynamics group of the School of Itineraries of the UPM and by the ITAP, the seminar on modal analysis techniques, signal processing and vibration cancellation has been held (from March 18 to 22, 2019) aimed at doctoral students, taught by professors Iván Muñoz and Emiliano Pereira. See more… |
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May Conference: “Detection of faults in electrical machines” Dr. Lucía Frosini Department of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Pavia, Italy. Wednesday, May 22, 10:30 -12:30, Lecture Hall of the School of Industrial Engineering, Paseo del Cauce. Abstract: Introduction to fault detection of electrical machines: meaning of diagnostics, types of faults that can occur in induction motors, possible fault indicators. Motor Current Signature Analysis (MCSA) for detection of broken rotor bars and the effects of rotor bar tilt on inter-bar currents. MCSA for detection of air gap eccentricity (static and dynamic). MCSA for detection of short circuits in stator windings supplied at low voltage. Bio: Lucia Frosini obtained a Master's degree (1994) and a PhD (2000) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pavia, where she is an assistant professor and lecturer on “Diagnostic systems for electrical machines and drives” and “Design and technology of electrical machines and drives”. Organizers: GIR ADIRE, ITAP and the INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING DOCTORATE PROGRAM For more information: daniel.morinigo@eii.uva.es (Department of Electrical Engineering) A UVa research group will collaborate with MIT in the design of a device to reduce the risk of thrombosis See more… |
June UVa Research Supplement “El Norte de Castilla” La Oficina de Comunicación de la UVa y el Vicerrectorado de Extensión Universitaria, junto con los Institutos Universitarios de Investigación, han elaborado este suplemento donde se presentan los institutos y se resumen algunos de sus proyectos recientes. |
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September Seminar: “Therapeutic strategies for cardiac disease using soft materials, structures and devices” (Download PDF) Seminar: “Therapeutic strategies for cardiac disease using soft materials, structures and devices” (Download PDF) Professor Roche is a biomedical engineer and has developed new cardiac assistance devices and therapeutic treatments. The visit is funded by a project of the Fundación la Caixa – MISTI – MIT Spain in which we participated with her from the IBD Fluid Mechanics Group. Ellen is a pioneer in the use of “soft robotics” applied to bioengineering, working in this area together with the head of cardiac surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital, surgeon Pedro del Nido. |
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| November |
December Conference: “An Adaptive Neural Harmonic Compensator for Inverter-Fed Distributed Generation” (Download PDF) |
| January |
| February |
March We will stop this virus together #StayHome |
April We will stop this virus together #StayHome13/04/2020 |
| May |
June 30/06/2020 We would like to express our appreciation to all the staff involved in the fight against Covid-19, especially those who have contracted the disease and in particular to our colleague Carlos Vaquero, who has happily recovered. |
July 10/07/2020 Members of ITAP / University of Valladolid, as partners of PTEC, can participate in the third edition of Sacyr iChallenges, an open innovation and co-creation program aimed at solving, jointly with the innovative community, four business challenges posed by Sacyr. |
August 03/08/2020 Graduates (Bachelor's + Master's) interested in beginning PhD studies in research topics at the institute can apply for one of the predoctoral contracts offered by the university. To do so, they should contact the director/coordinator of the corresponding research team to focus their request. |
| September |
October 01/10/2020 ITAP is currently immersed in the periodic evaluation process carried out by the Agency for the Quality of the University System of Castilla y León. Started in November 2019, and having submitted the application and the renewal report in March 2020, the last phase of this process remains in which the panel of experts proposed by ACSUCyL, made up of professors Mr. Francisco Tirado, Mr. Juan Ignacio Garcés and Mr. Robert Griñó, will interview different members of the institute, as well as representatives of the university itself, researchers in training and collaborating companies. 30/10/2020 Promoting energy efficiency in buildings is one of the pillars necessary to comply with the EU Green Deal. The Termotecnia group has just published the book “Design and Management of Nearly Zero Energy Buildings” with the aim of providing practical and current tools to the designer and energy manager of new or refurbished buildings. (More information) |
November 07/11/2020 Professor Daniel Moríñigo, together with professors René Romero and Joan Pons, is organizing a special issue in the indexed journal Energies (MDPI) dedicated to new techniques for early detection of faults in induction motors. Those researchers working in this field are invited to prepare a manuscript and send it before June 2021. For more information, consult here. |
December 04/12/2020 According to the statutes of the University of Valladolid, once the term of the current director has expired, elections must be called in accordance with the electoral calendar. The electoral rolls for each of the three bodies that will elect the new director coincide with the lists of the 32 academic members, 17 student representatives, and 4 members of the PAS. Academic members interested in submitting their candidacy may do so between 15 and 22 December. Voting will take place on 27 January 2021. |
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| February |
March 25/03/2021 On March 24, 2021, our colleague Ana Tejero González, from the Thermotechnology group, passed the competitive examination for the position of University Professor in the Department of Energy Engineering and Fluid Mechanics. The management of the institute congratulates her on her achievement. 08/03/2021 Thanks to the co – Expected date of submission of the paper to the journal. 03/03/2021 The professor |
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June 07/06/2021 Following the director elections held on 27/01/2021, the candidate, Mr. Juan Carlos Fraile Marinero, has gained the trust of the majority of the members. By rectoral resolution he takes possession of his new position on February 11, 2021 and on 23/02/2021 he appoints Mr. Antolín Lorenzana Ibán as secretary. Congratulations to the new management team of the institute! |
July Jul 2021 Professor Tomislav Jarak, from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, has been awarded one of the 10 post-doctoral researcher contracts offered by the University of Valladolid in the 2020 call for applications. During his 3-year stay, he will work in the Structures Laboratory of the School of Industrial Engineering. His research topics include those related to mechanical fatigue and stress concentrations in new resistant materials, treated with a computational approach. |
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November 15/11/2021 On the occasion of its tenth anniversary, the Iberian Photocatalysis Association will present 10 awards to as many entities and people who have distinguished themselves by their support for the research and application of photocatalysis solutions as tools to improve air quality. One of the awards goes to our colleague Javier Rey, from the Thermotechnology group. Congratulations, Javier! More information is available at this link. 12/11/2021
CMMoST Congress The sixth edition of the international CMMOST congress will be held on December 1, 2 and 3, organized by ITAP, at the Escuelas de Ingenierías Industriales. During these days, 12 sessions will be held where more than 60 speakers will discuss aspects of computational mechanics such as “Simulation models for the analysis of structures”, “Sensorization for the characterization of actions on structures”, “Experimental methodology for the characterization of materials and structures”, “Models for the evaluation of structural damage”, “Models for structural interventions”, “Control of structures”, “Calibration of models” and “Structural Health Monitoring”. More information can be found on the website https://www.cmmost21.uva.es/ 11/11/2021 ITAP is participating in the First Conference on e-Health and Associated Technologies organised by the Oviedo City Council at the Health Sciences Incubator (Vivarium). The conference will be held on 11 and 12 November and will be attended by three technology companies and six universities. The topics to be addressed will include first aid platforms, risk prevention and health education. These conferences take place in a context of change in the relationship between technology and services and products in the health field, a change that has been accelerated following the health crisis suffered in recent months. |
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laboration of professor 
Luis Hernández Callejo is guest editor of the special issue
| January |
| February |
March
9/Mar/2022 Since March, ITAP has been collaborating with the recognized research group Array Processing, based at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Telecomunicaciones. Coordinated by Professor Alberto Izquierdo, the group is specialized in discrete processing of multiple signals, including acoustic biometry and vehicle and pedestrian detection and tracking systems. Detailed information about the activities of its members is available on its website. |
April  4/Apr/2022 In order to adapt the Institute's Regulations to the legal modifications of recent years, in particular to the Statutes of the UVa, according to agreement 111/2020 of December 30 of the Junta de Castilla y León, on March 28, 2022, the Permanent Commission of the Governing Council of the UVa approves the new regulations of the Institute, which can be consulted here |
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September 15/Sep/2022 Stay of Professor Amgad Abazeed Within the KA107 Erasmus+ programme, ITAP will host Professor Amgad Abazeed, from the School of Engineering and Technology in Aswan, Egypt, belonging to the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Marine Transport, for 6 months. A specialist in monitoring systems for large structures, he will work in the Structures laboratory, joining Professor Antolín Lorenzana's team. |
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| November |
December 16/Dec/2022 Projects with Collaborative Robots In this article from El Norte de Castilla the director of the institute comments on some recent success stories developed by different ITAP researchers in the field of collaborative robotics, including social robots, surgical robots, rehabilitation robots, service robots, hospital robots, etc. |
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March
9/3/2023 Professors Jaime Duque, Jaime Gómez and Eduardo Zalama have just published the book entitled “Artificial Vision through Machine Learning with Tensorflow and Pytorch” aimed at students, researchers and professionals eager to delve deeper into the field of artificial vision and supervised and unsupervised learning algorithms. It also contains numerous examples that allow solving current problems.
9/3/2023 (PID2021-123020OB-I00, MCIN/ AEI / 10.13039/501100011033 / FEDER, EU). This project seeks to advance the care and entertainment of the elderly through a precise combination of social robots, robotic navigation and manipulation systems, monitoring, control and telepresence systems and ambient intelligence. The research will be approached from a user-centred point of view, with many users and a significant effort of experimentation in real operating environments. To do so, it will have the support of entities and companies that provide social services with which we are collaborating.
9/3/2023 (Consejería de Familia de la Junta de Castilla y León – Next Generation EU). 1.- Ambient Intelligence System to support independent living. The project is being developed jointly with the CARTIF Technology Centre and various entities and associations that care for the elderly. | ||||||||
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August
25/Ago/2023 Five research staff positions are on offer, with references CP23/159, CP23/163, CP23/166, CP23/174 and CP23/186. With a deadline of 31 August, those who meet the requirements and are interested in collaborating in the different groups of the institute in the areas of health, ecological transition, green economy, digitalization of services and "data science" must formalize their application following the instructions available on the electronic site. https://portal.sede.uva.es/tablon/investigacion/f6463e93-4950-45a2-b4ea-434ef5e1696d. Important: a commitment to stay for 2 years is required. | ||||||||
September 25/Sep/2023 Premio en congresoMembers of the GIR ADIRE have received the award for the best paper presented at the Congress: IEEE International Symposium on Diagnostics for Electric Machines, Power Electronics and Drives (Sdemped 23) for the work: 'Broken rotor bar fault detection using odd triplets harmonics in delta-connected induction motors' | ||||||||
October
3/10/2023 The paper entitled “Energy Management of a Renewable District Heating (DH), through the Analysis of Indicators (KPI) for the Decarbonisation of a Building on a University Campus” presented by the PhD student Ms. Rosaura Sastre Zamora has won first prize at the First Latin American Congress on District heating and cooling, recently held in Cartagena, Colombia. Congratulations to both the co-authors and the GIR de Termotecnia research group of which they are part.
3/10/2023 Revolutionary study of mobility recovery. As a result of the collaboration between the ITAP institute and the Benito Menni Hospital, patients with functional deterioration due to Covid recover 70% of their movement capacity with the new RobHand exoskeleton. The advances will be presented this Tuesday, October 3, at the hospital itself. More information in this link.
27/10/2023 Professor Dr. Luis Morales, visiting professor at UVa during this academic year from the Autonomous University of Querétaro (Mexico), will give two lectures this November, on the 10th and 24th. The first, entitled The Internet of Things (IoT) in the digitalization of processes is aimed at all EII students (degree, master's), while the second, entitled Design of mixed signal systems for data acquisition is more geared towards researchers and PhD students. It will take place in Degree Room 2304 at the Mergelina Campus. Click on the links for more information.
31/10/2023 The paper entitled “Broken rotor bar fault detection using odd triple harmonics in delta-connected induction motors” presented by R.P. Policarlo de Souza, D. Moriñigo Sotelo, V. Fernández Cavero, O. Duque Pérez, C. Marcos Agulhari and A. Goedtel, has been awarded at the fourteenth edition of the IEEE congress: International Symposium on Diagnostics for Electric Machines, Power Electronics and Drives, SDEMPED_2023, recently held in Crete, Greece. Congratulations to both the co-authors and the GIR ADIRE research group of which they are part.
31/10/2023 Last Thursday, October 26, in the Degree Hall of the Faculty of Medicine, Professor Carlos Vaquero, honorary member of ITAP, presented his new book entitled “Technological support for surgery”. | ||||||||
November
6/11/2023 In addition to the recent international award achieved in theDistrict Energy LATAM Conference 2023 held in Cartagena/Colombia, the research group GIR de Termotecnia maintains intense international activity. Last October, the professor and director of the group, Dr. Fco. Javier Rey, gave a keynote lecture on the energy transition in efficiency and renewable energies, invited by the College of Mechanical Engineers of Peru. Also, now in November activities will take place in Brazil in the context of the research project in which they collaborate, coinciding with the invited participation in a plenary session at the international congress.
22/Nov/2023 ITAP participates, through the Termotecnia GIR, together with 21 other groups from Latin American, Andorran, Portuguese and Spanish countries, in the thematic network on ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES FOR NEAR-ZERO BUILDINGS IN IBERO-AMERICA, financed by the Ibero-American Program for Science and Technology for Development (CYTED) in the 2023 call for proposals for the next 4 years. The project director is Rodrigo Ramirez Pisco, from the Universitat CARLEMANY of Andorra, and the coordinator at the UVa is the professor of AgroForestal Engineering Dr. Manuel Navas, with the person responsible on behalf of ITAP being professor Javier Rey. More information at: https://cyted.org/conteudo.php?idnoticia=892 | ||||||||
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| April
04/04/2024
News published in the newspaper “El Norte de Castilla”
On April 4, the following news was published in the newspaper “El Norte de Castilla” (click on the image to enlarge):
 
07/04/2023
News published in the newspaper “El Norte de Castilla”
El pasado 7 de abril, se publicó en el periódico “El Norte de Castilla» la siguiente noticia (pulsar sobre la imagen para ampliar): La rehabilitación asistida por robot logra recuperar atrofias en las manos por covid grave
A magazine of international prestige collects the research from UVA and Benito Menni that supports the exoskeleton to rescue mobility and reduce the lack of autonomy. 
17/04/2023
José Ramón Perán González, winner of the “XI Best Director Award of the magazine Castilla y León Económica“
Felicitamos a José Ramón Perán González, director general de Cartif, profesor emérito de la UVa, exdirector de la EII y miembro de ITAP, quien ha sido galardonado con el “XI Premio al Mejor Directivo de Castilla y León Económica», por la puesta en marcha hace 30 años de Cartif, que en la actualidad se posiciona como el primer centro tecnológico de Castilla y León y segundo de España en cuanto a su participación en proyectos financiados por el programa Horizonte Europa. La entrega de premios tendrá lugar el próximo día 9 de mayo a las 18:15 en el Auditorio I de la Feria de Valladolid.
Más información en este enlace. |
May
May/2024
Course on “Introduction to spectral signal analysis”
Organizado por el grupo ADIRE, los profesores Dr. René de Jesús Romero, de la Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro y Dr. Tomás A. García de la Universidad de Valladolid impartirán el próximo 13 de junio de 2024 en la Sala de Grados 2304 de la Sede Mergelina/EII un curso introductorio al análisis espectral de señales en la industria. Se ha dividido en dos partes: La primera parte está dedicada a realizar una introducción teórica al análisis espectral de señales estacionarias con la FFT. La segunda parte aborda el análisis tiempo-frecuencia de señales no estacionarias con la Short-Time Fourier Transform. En ambos bloques, se mostrarán ejemplos prácticos de señales tomadas en la industria e instalaciones eléctricas. Más información en este enlace. |
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Sep 5, 2024 GT Bioengineering Award for the best Doctoral Thesis in Bioengineering and publication in STAR 2024
Ana Cisnal receives the GT Bioengineering 2024 award for the best doctoral thesis in Bioengineering and publication in STAR
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February
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March
March 19, 2025RESEARCH DISSEMINATION CONFERENCE CONDUCTED BY RECOGNIZED RESEARCH INSTITUTES AND GROUPS AT THE VALLADOLID SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING Presentations of the different ITAP groups: |
| April |
May
19/May/2025 Curso sobre «Instrumentación, medición y procesamiento de señales«The GIR ADIRE (Department of Electrical Engineering) and the Doctoral Program in Industrial Engineering, in collaboration with the ITAP, are organizing the following course:
May 28, 2025 Recognition of Javier Rey with the 2025 Roger Lèron AwardOur colleague Javier Rey, a professor in the Department of Energy Engineering and Fluid Mechanics and a member of the Thermotechnics group, has been awarded second place in the 2025 Roger Lèron Prize, with which the European Federation of Agencies and Regions for Energy and the Environment (FEDARENE) recognizes his professional career in the fields of energy and sustainability in the European Union. The professor received this recognition in the “Longstanding Achievement Award” category last May 15 at an event held in Brussels. |
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July
9/Jul/2025 Taller práctico sobre el flujo en la aurícula derechaEstudiantes de la clase 2024/25 del Máster en Ingeniería Biomédica participaron en un taller práctico que les introdujo a la investigación en hemodinámica. Específicamente, trabajaron con un montaje experimental desarrollado como parte del proyecto de innovación docente ‘I+D+I en el aula’: El uso de métodos numéricos, analíticos y experimentales para el diseño de equipos biomédicos. Más información en: Hands-on workshop on flow in the right atrium. |
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September
Sep 24, 2025 HEAT PUMP TECHNOLOGY FORUM AS A SUSTAINABLE SYSTEM IN HVAC INSTALLATIONSThe TERMOTECNIA GIR of UVa organizes this activity within the industrial engineering doctoral program and with the collaboration of the international companies CARRIER and DAIKIN in the auditorium of the School of Industrial Engineering of Valladolid. We want to give this forum an open character to any professional, company, and of course, doctoral and undergraduate students. |
October
Oct 9, 2025 Inaugural lesson at the Millán Santos Permanent University led by our director Dr. Juan Carlos Fraile MarineroLast Thursday, October 9th, Dr. Juan Carlos Fraile Marinero, director of our institute, had the honor of giving the inaugural lecture at the opening ceremony of the Millán Santos Permanent University. Event program |
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04/Feb/2025 Elección a director| January |
February Feb 6, 2026 The Structural Dynamics Group achieves its recognition as GIRFollowing the positive evaluation by ACSUCyL dated 12/01/2025, the UVa Governing Council, in its meeting on 02/06/2026, approves the creation of the Recognized Research Group named Structural Dynamics Group, composed of Antolín Lorenzana Ibán (coordinator), José María Garcia Terán, Mariano Cacho Pérez, Álvaro Magdaleno González, Ismael García Garcia, and Tomislav Jarak. On the page https://www.strudyn.uva.es/ their lines of research, projects, and academic activities are detailed. |
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April
The Industrial Engineering PhD Program is organizing some technical sessions next week (specifically on the afternoons of Tuesday, April 14, and Thursday, April 16, from 4:30 PM to 7:00 PM in Room B5.2 of the School of Industrial Engineering, Paseo del Cauce campus). The theme of the sessions is: "Heat pump for the production of Domestic Hot Water (DHW)." We encourage you to save this time in your schedules to attend the Conference if the topic interests you. Additionally, there will be the option to attend the conference remotely. People interested in attending online should send an email to this email address asking for the connection link. 29/Abr/2026 Concurso «Three Minute Thesis»Researcher Celia Sánchez-Girón Coca won third prize in the final round of the Three Minute Thesis contest, presenting her doctoral research in just three minutes. |
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June Jun 17, 2026 The Agency for the Quality of the University System of Castilla y León (ACSUCyL) will evaluate ITAP's activity from 2020 to 2025Law 3/2003 of March 28 on Universities of Castilla y León establishes that University Research Institutes must be evaluated every five years by ACSUCyL. Currently, the ITAP Institute is in its third evaluation process. More information at: Jun 12, 2026 CEA Symposium on Robotics, Bioengineering, Computer Vision, and Marine Automation in BilbaoOur three researchers Sergio Merino, Miguel García, and Celia Sánchez-Girón receive the 2026 award and runner-up prize from the Computer Vision thematic group at the CEA Symposium on Robotics, Bioengineering, Computer Vision, and Marine Automation in Bilbao. Simposio CEA de Robótica, Bioingeniería, Visión Artificial y Automática marina en Bilbao |
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October A robot serving the elderly at homeA paper, which describes research from UVa on the use of a robot with two robotic arms controlled with virtual and augmented reality, has been selected as “Paper of the Month” by the company Kinova Robotics The work has been carried out in the Robotics and Artificial Vision Research Group at the Institute of Advanced Production Technologies (ITAP), in the School of Industrial Engineering Two robotic arms use a highly precise gripping system assisted and controlled through augmented and virtual reality. It's designed to help around the home, and the person operating it doesn't need to be an expert—just a caregiver, a family member, or a support worker. This is the work that has been described and chosen as “Article of the Month” by Kinova Robotics, one of the most recognized and respected manufacturers worldwide in collaborative robotics, research, and assistive technology. The article describes part of the research work of PhD student Miguel García Gómez, carried out in the Robotics and Computer Vision research group at the School of Industrial Engineering, and which includes professors and researchers Eduardo Zalama, Jaime Gómez García-Bermejo, and Jaime Duque Domingo, who are co-authors of the article along with Miguel García Gómez. The interesting thing about the research they describe is the possibility of pointing at an object from virtual reality 'as if it were a gun,' they explain, 'with which you shoot.' In fact, they studied several methods to operate a two-armed robot in the simplest way possible, so it could be handled by someone without prior knowledge and in an intuitive way. After testing the model with a total of twenty people and different control technologies, they observed that virtual reality was the best method, the simplest and most intuitive. On top of that, they added an algorithm so the robot could 'think' and move toward the object without the person controlling it. "What might seem obvious to us isn't for a robot. If you point at an object in virtual reality, the robot has to interpret it and calculate the distance or depth, among other things, before starting the grabbing process. That's what makes the system we use simple, since the algorithm it includes automatically points to an object in virtual reality and the picking or grabbing process is automatic," the researchers add. The process of getting this robot model has been long, since two years have passed since the first trials, which started with a small robot and eventually reached teleoperation. Miguel García Gómez thinks that the hardest part has not only been developing the algorithm but also putting all the components of the robotic platform together so that they work as a whole and making the project compatible with virtual reality glasses. A group dedicated to social robotics The research group where this project was developed has been working in the field of robotics for more than thirty years. Robots designed for hotels or the Science Museum are some of the destinations of their early projects, although in recent years they have focused on social robotics for caring for elderly people. One of these was the project funded by the Ministry of Family in collaboration with CARTIF and the Intras and ASPRODES foundations, from which this two-armed robot, described in the article, emerged. And it continues with a new knowledge generation project, funded by the State Research Agency, with a very clear goal: the use of these robots for physically assisting an elderly person at home, that is, being able to give or prepare food for them or help with household chores, among other services. These activities will be what humanoid robots carry out in the coming years. "We'll see a robot that is fully autonomous and capable of handling things in the next few years, but until then, telepresence technology is important, because, for example, a caregiver could feed or help a person at home remotely and could even take care of several people at the same time," explains Eduardo Zalama. A robot to fight unwanted loneliness in older people They are also working with a second robot, which doesn't have arms, that can help elderly people with physical and cognitive stimulation or combat unwanted loneliness, among other functions. For this, they have developed software consisting of a series of games that engage people, suggest physical activities, and have communication capabilities, as it has integrated artificial intelligence language, allowing for conversations and information requests, just like interacting with a person. Additionally, it has a series of sensors that detect activity in the home, so it can determine if any accident or fall has occurred and communicate with the caregiver. They haven't just worked on this software, but they're already developing their own creation platform in collaboration with CARTIF, to build their own robot, since “our philosophy is that the software shouldn't depend on a specific platform and should be usable on different types of robots,” they add. Learning by imitation One of the most innovative lines of research is “learning by imitation,” that is, a human teaches the robot, and just by observing, the robot is able to imitate them. In fact, one of the researchers, Jaime Duque, has just presented this line of work in Japan, which is being studied with Kinova's two-armed robot. “For now, they are basic activities, like filling a glass, which the robot learns by watching and then reproduces, but let’s suppose that later it could learn, for example, to make a Spanish omelette just by observation or any other activity.” At the moment, all the activities these humanoid robots perform are preprogrammed, “but the challenge is that they can learn autonomously to carry out different actions depending on the situation in their environment.”  The research group along with some of the robots they are currently working with  PhD student Miguel García Gómez operates the two-arm robot thanks to virtual reality  The co-authors of the article and members of the Robotics and Computer Vision Research Group at ITAP. From left to right: Eduardo Zalama, Jaime Gómez García-Bermejo, and Jaime Duque Domingo  One of the robots that is worked with at the Institute, located in the School of Industrial Engineering |
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