Russian Robot “Butterfly” Took Silver at ICRA

A project by “Educational Robotics,” a company established with participation of ITMO University, took second place at the prestigious IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA – 2015) in Seattle, USA. It was the only team representing Russia.

The event that took place on May 26 – 30 at the Washington Convention center featured a series of plenary sessions, seminars, workshops and exhibitions. The organizers got over 5,000 applications for participation and granted only about half of them.

The only Russian participant of the conference were “Educational Robotics,” a small innovative enterprise and a Skolkovo resident created with participation of ITMO University. It’s presented international under Robotikum brand.

Company’s experts delivered a presentation on non-prehensile manipulation: planning and orbital stabilization in one-directional rollings. The researchers also showed a prototype of such system – a “Butterfly” robot that can push a Ping-Pong all around a rotating closed loop. The demo video can be found on YouTube.

The authors of the project note that their work was well accepted even before the opening of the event. “Educational Robotics” stand was among 70 brands presented at the ICRA -2015 trade show, which included such industry leaders as KUKA Robotics, Google, Amazon, Tesla Motors, Mathworks and others. Their presentation was named one of the best of the year and got silver in the nomination “Best Conference Paper.”

“Academic society is conservative but during the two and a half days of the show there was interest towards our project not just to replicate our experience, but also to complexity of the task and the originality of the solution,” said Roman Usatov – Shiryaev, “Educational Robotics” CEO. “We’re receiving requests from various universities in USA, France, and Italy to supply and support equipment as well as form joint research project and educational projects.”

According to the creators of “Butterfly,” their robot is intended for leading Russian and foreign technical universities and colleges looking to train specialists and engineers in “Mechatronics, “Robotics,” and “Management Systems.” “Butterfly” can be used for basic lab research in mathematical modeling and robotics as well as advanced research in movement stabilization and management system sensitivity.

Russian Robot “Butterfly” Took Silver at ICRA – 2015