R E G I O N A L
Report on Robotics and Automation Activities in Singapore Danwei Wang
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ingapore is a city nation located in Southeast Asia with a land area of 682.7 km2 and a population close to 5 million. Singapore’s tertiary education system consists of three universities and four polytechnics. Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and National University of Singapore (NUS) host major engineering faculties with comprehensive and intensive research programs. A STAR is a national research agency and oversees 14 research institutes (RIs) and seven consortia/centers. Since the 1960s, manufacturing and industrial technologies have been the key contributors to Singapore’s economic growth. Now, knowledge-based economy is a goal in government’s policy, planning, and management. Academics, industries, and defense are actively involved in R&D and work together to stay ahead with technology advancement. Besides universities, robotics education and activities are well established at high schools and polytechnics and are met with enthusiasm by students. Most of the 48 active IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) members in Singapore are from academics and RIs. The rest of this report provides some snapshots of the local robotics and automation (RA) activities.
Robotics Research In NTU, robotics research activities are hosted by the Robotics Research Centre (RRC) and the Centre for Intelligent Machines (CIM). RRC is organized into research groups in the following areas: 1) modular reconfigurable robotic systems; 2) intelligent vehicle systems; 3) underwater robotics inspection and manipulation; 3) medical robotics; 4) adaptive locomotion; 5) sensing and laser imaging; 6) applied optics; and 7) biomechanics. The research directions remain focused toward intelligent robotic systems in specialized application (http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/ mae/Centres/RRC/index.html). CIM is hosted by the Division of Control and Instrumentation, with participation from other divisions in EEE and other schools of NTU. Its mission is to spearhead R&D activities in the areas of robotics, sensor networks, control systems technology, and machine learning. Its robotics research activities focus on the autonomy of outdoor robots—mobile and underwater robots. Research projects include autonomous heavy-duty container transport vehicles; intelligent transportation systems; platooning and fault-tolerant platooning; vehicle motion in the presence of slipping and skidding; health monitoring and fault diagnosis for mobile robot systems; vision-based and LIDAR-based perception and navigation; navigation in urban environments; SLAM; localization, mapping and navigation in Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2010.935807
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underwater environments; and multiagent systems (http://www3. ntu.edu.sg/eee/cim). At NUS, the Social Robotics Lab develops three types of robots for personal care: 1) Carine for children, 2) Nancy for nursing care, and 3) Dominic for diagnostic assistance. The robots are built to learn, interact, and communicate with human as well as among themselves for better information sharing and personal care. In the Mechanical Engineering Department, a legged robotics project aims to develop humanoid robots that can achieve dynamic walking on level and rough-terrain walking. The project ‘‘Robust Mobile Manipulation in Unstructured and Human Environments’’ aims to achieve mobile manipulation capabilities, where the motion of the arm and mobile base are tightly controlled taking into account their full dynamics. The project ‘‘Cooperative and Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems’’ studies the use of a sensor and actuator network to monitor and actively control an environment (http://robotics.nus.edu.sg/; http://guppy.mpe.nus.edu.sg/legged_group/). At A STAR, the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology develops high-value manufacturing technology and human capital to enhance the competitiveness of Singapore’s manufacturing industry. Its mechatronics group focuses on robotics and automation research with more than 30 research scientists and engineers. The group has established three research themes: high-throughput machines, ultraprecision systems, and robotic automation systems. Through collaboration with Rolls Royce, the group has developed robotic surface finishing technologies for aerospace and marine industries (http://www. simtech.a-star.edu.sg/simcorp/index.do). At Singapore Polytechnic, the Advanced Robotics and Intelligent Control Centre (ARICC) focuses on commercialization of robotics and intelligent systems. ARICC has won many medals at international robotic competitions (http://aricc. sp.edu.sg/).
IEEE Singapore RA Chapter committee members. From left: Guilin Yang, Shuzhi Sam GE, Danwei Wang, I-Ming Chen, and Louis S.J. Phee.
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Conferences and Workshops RA researchers in Singapore have organized many reputable conferences and symposiums in relevant fields. The longest-lasting series is the International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics, and Vision (ICARCV) organized by the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, NTU. Inaugurated in 1990, ICARCV is a biennial event and has proven to be a premium forum. Most ICARCVs were held in Singapore, except for ICARCV 2004 and ICARCV 2008 which were held successfully in China and Vietnam, respectively. ICARCV 2010 will be held in Singapore, 7–10 December 2010 (http://www.icarcv.org/2010/). Since 2004, IEEE Singapore RA and SMC Chapters have successfully coorganized a series of joint events of IEEE Conference on Robotics, Automation, and Mechatronics (RAM) and IEEE Conference on Cybernetics and Intelligent Systems (CIS) on a biennial basis. The first three CIS-RAM events were held in Singapore, Thailand, and China, respectively. CIS-RAM 2010 will move back to Singapore 28–30 June 2010 (http://www.cis-ram.org/2010/). The 2009 IEEE/American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics was successfully held in Singapore, 14–17 July 2009 (http://www.aim2009.org/).
Robot Competition and Games TechX Challenge was a competition organized by Singapore DSTA in 2008 for testing the limits of robot autonomy in urban environments. The competition requires that an autonomous
robot be integrated with the capabilities of indoor and outdoor mobility and navigation, obstacle avoidance, environmental exploration, climbing staircase, operating lifts, target search, identification, and engagement, as well as robot retrieval. Twenty-six teams registered for the competition and six teams (three teams from NTU, one team from NUS, and two teams from polytechnics) succeeded in the qualifying round. The prize of US$1 million was not taken in the final competition. However, participants appreciated the experience and are proud of their achievements (http://www.dsta.gov.sg/index.php/TechX-Challenge/). Singapore robotic games (SRGs) have been held annually since 1993, and it is now coorganized by IEEE Singapore RA Chapter. The key objectives of SRG are as follows: 1) to inculcate in the general public an understanding and appreciation of robotics and automation and 2) to encourage innovation in design among young engineers and provide them with a forum to display their works. In the last year event, there were 17 games, 428 robots, and 893 contestants from primary schools to tertiary institutions and local to international organizations. The 2010 SRG will be held 26–28 January 2010 (http://guppy.mpe.nus.edu.sg/srg/). Robocup2010 will be held 19–25 June 2010 in Singapore. It is expected to have more than 3,000 participants from more than 40 countries (http://www.robocup2010.org/index.php).
Danwei Wang is the current chair of the IEEE Singapore Robotics and Automation Chapter. He is also a professor and division head in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, NTU, Singapore.
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(continued from page 2) open-source initiative. With Bram Vandenborght as Web editor, we are also working on raising the magazine’s online presence. Our Web site http://www.ieee-ras.org/ram is undergoing a facelift, and we are making some of our archival content to be available online. More timely information related to our columns will also be available, which helps to overcome the limitations of quarterly publication. We have started a YouTube channel edited by Jonathan Roberts. We hope this channel will become the place to publish video clips about research and industrial robots; see the notice in ‘‘Society News’’ on page 124. You can also keep up with what is happening in the Society MARCH 2010
through Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter, and RSS. Finally, I would like to welcome three new associate editors Raffaella Carloni, Srikanth Saripalli, and You-Fu Li to the team. If you have comments about the magazine, compliments or complaints, or ideas for new content, please contact me. I will be at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Anchorage and would be very happy to chat with you about the magazine. Enjoy the issue! Peter Corke E-mail:
[email protected] IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine 119
