Hi everybody,
At the end of December, I was talking about delivering the Nao Academics edition to laboratories and universities. Today, I’m proud to tell you that we have sold more than 200 Naos.
Our Nao has allowed Aldebaran Robotics to become the European leader of humanoid robotics.
I am also glad to note that robotics is on the rise in France and that our project is drawing the appreciation of the public authorities. Actually, beyond the pleasure we had to introduce Nao to Jean-Paul Huchon and Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet as soon as she took office, we succeeded in
formalizing the creation of Cap Robotique, a new Cap Digital business cluster. These two excellent indicators highlight the will of France to become one of the leaders in the field of service robots.
Enjoy reading!
Nao successively met Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, the Secretary of State for Strategic Studies and the Development of the Digital Economy, and Jean-Paul Huchon, the President of the Ile de France region, which shows the interest of the French public authorities in robotics.
On the 20th of January, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet met the Cap Digital members in La Cantine numérique, a collaborative space for contributors to the digital economy in Paris. It allowed her to be introduced to Nao before hugging it in front of the flashes of the journalists, which was one of the strongest moments of the day.
The whole Aldebaran team also proudly welcomed Jean-Paul Huchon, in our capacity of a company who benefited from the PM’up plan - a grant from the Ile de France region dedicated to assist the growth of small businesses. Bruno Maisonnier presented Aldebaran Robotics and Nao to the President of the region, who was instantaneously charmed by the famous little robot, which inevitably played the fool.
We are proud to announce the creation of Cap Robotique, the first business cluster dedicated to robotics and communicating objects in France, within Cap Digital.
Cap Robotique is open to every company or laboratory which wants to bring its skills to the French industry of domestic robots. The cluster gathers prestigious institutions like the CEA LIST and the CNRS LAAS, plus various innovative start-ups, recognized experts of their field, like Gostai, Spir.Ops or also Voxler.
The Romeo project is the first founding and federative project of Cap Robotique. Its objective is to design an autonomous robot, dedicated to assist persons suffering from loss of autonomy. The first prototype will be available within 3 years. Officially launched on the 22nd of January, 2009, the project is mainly financed by the Ile de France region, the General Directorate for Competitiveness, Industry and Services (DGE) and the City of Paris. Aldebaran Robotics led the consortium in charge of its development, composed of twelve world-renowned companies and French laboratories.
RoboCup and Academics Nao are now present on 5 continents. We decided to share the experience of its first users, researchers and professors. Her we present you a first feedback from Luca Iocchi, the SPQR Italian team manager, and professor at the Roma University, who uses Nao for the competition but also within the framework of his research on Artificial Intelligence.
BioVision is a major meeting of the world scientific community, presenting debates and exchanges between body and life sciences.
It gathers the researchers, industry, organizations and institutions from around the world.
The 2009 Edition took place in France, in the conference center of Lyon, from the 8th to the 10th of March, 2009.
As part of the plenary session about the booming Bio robotics, Bruno Maisonnier represented the industrial dimension, though Aldebaran Robotics and a presentation about Nao.
This presentation took place with eminent professors: Paolo Dario from the Scuola Superior Sant’Anna of Italy, who presented his research on Bio-inspired robotics, and Hiroshi Ishiguro from the Osaka University of Japan, famous for his Geminoid. These topics were suggested by Ismail Serageldin, the manager of the Library of Alexandria, in Egypt.
BioVision also allowed Nao to appear on TV, respectively in the 12|13 and 19|20 news TV of France 3 Lyon.
Warning : The video is not in streaming, the opening could take few time.
Mid-January, a major event took place for Aldebaran Robotics. Over four days, the whole team received 50 RoboCupers coming from 15 different countries. It was the 1st Aldebaran workshop dedicated to preparing the 2009 edition of the competition.
In a room especially equipped for the occasion, our engineers, converted into teachers for a few days, gave various presentations to the participants of the standard platform league.
A lot of programming advice and a presentation of the standard league platform new rules were also set out to facilitate the introduction of the Nao RoboCup Edition version 3. Many of the suggestions given were tested on two football fields installed for the participants.
The 2009 RoboCup Edition will take place in Graz, Austria, from the 29th of June to the 5th of July, and the standard league platform will gather 25 teams instead of the 15 of the past year.
We thank the RoboCup Chinese teams that produced a 10m high inflatable Nao for the China Open back in December 08. We received one which floated on the roof of the Aldebaran building during the workshop.
It has been exactly 1 year since the Aldebaran production team first began assembling Naos. Now, hundreds of robots are used daily by researchers around the world, of course in Europe, but also in the United States, Australia, Chile and Mexico, even in Japan and China.
We are also celebrating the 4th birthday of the creation of Aldebaran Robotics. Four years, during which the company has evolved in terms of structure to become a dynamic small business, composed of more than 70 people.
To end this Newsletter Spring Edition with a flourish, here are some new wallpapers, created from the amazing work of Light Painting Artist : Jadikan. A warm thank you to him!
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See you soon !
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