A.U.Th.

The Automation & Robotics Lab (ARL) belongs to the Department of the Electric and Engineering of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh), the biggest university in Greece.

The Special Account for Research Funds (SARF) of the AUTh is the legal person, responsible for the research projects of the AUTh. In The last 3 years, the SARF has cooperated with 17,00 institutions (universities, research centers, companies) for the realization of 3,500 research projects. The total budget of these projects reaches 150 million euros.

The project would be implemented in ARL which has experience in robotics and system controlling. To be more specific, in robotics the lab is expertised in human-robot collaboration, in the handling of objects, in the controlling of robotic arms, and the control of systems out of models with prescribed performance. In automatic control, the lab is expertised in the controlling of composed and non-linear systems.

The research team of the lab has taken part in more than 220 research projects funded by Greece, the European Union and the excellency networkings. Some of the most recent complete ones are: the PIROS (Excellency I), RAMCIP & SARAFun (Horizon 2020), which concern the cooperation between humans and robots.

That current period the lab participates in CoLLaboratE and BACCHUS (Horizon 2020) as a coordinating body. The first one concerns the cooperation between humans and robots at the stage of assembling while the second one is about the development of self-propelled robots for the supervision and harvesting of crops.

Several members of the research team have been awarded by scholarships by the State Scholarships Foundation (IKY) for their research at the level of candidates of doctor of philosophy or post-doctoral scientists. The research that would be carried out for the ProgHRC project consists a normal sequel of the 15-month project “Automatic programming of repeated motions by the robotic arm under the sensational human guide” funded by the program “Researchers support with the emphasis on young researchers – A’ cycle” through which the mathematical context -that may be used for- is developed.

The ARL has a significant experience – among others – in the development of the controlling systems for robots that achieve the desired motion profiles, within pre-described limits, as well as in the safe human-robot cooperation, in the production of robotic motion according to the human indication and the handling of objects.

Infrastructure

The ARL disposes robotic arms KUKA, IIWA, KUKA, LWR4, UR5e, robotic arms of two and three fingers (Barrett BH8), power/torque sensors of 6 directions and 3D cameras Kinect, Xton, ZED Camera. The research team has excellent usage experience of that specific infrastructure, having already brought out outcomes for numerous researching projects and publications.

Researchers

Prof. Zoe Doulgeri is the Director of Automation & Robotics Lab (ARL) of ECE-AUTH. She is a graduate with Masters (MSc) at the same department in the field of Control Systems and Social and Economic Studies. He holds a Ph.D. in production scheduling of flexible manufacturing from the Imperial College, London UK.

She has authored more than 120 research papers published in international scientific conferences and journals. She had the role of the Associate Editor at the Journal of intelligent and Robotic Systems (2012-2015) and Frontiers in Robotics and AI. She has served as Associate Editor at the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters magazine.

She has participated in several research projects (co)funded by national and European resources in the field of robotics and human-robot interaction, such as Piros (Excellency I), RAMCIP (H2020), SARAFun (H2020), SMARTsurg (H2020).

Also, her experience has to do with the coordination of research projects as well as she served as coordinator and scientific responsible for CoLLaboratE and BACCHUS (H2020). She has also carried out evaluator in proposals of national and European research projects. Her research interests are focused on human-robot interaction, hold and handling of items, controlling robotic systems with prescribed performance. She is a Senior member of IEEE (RAC, CS) and a representative of Greece in the European Control Association (EUCA).

Dr. Fotis Dimeas received his diploma in Mechanical Engineering in 2012 and holds a Ph.D. in robotics in 2016 from the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering & Aeronautics of the University of Patras. His main researching interests include the human-robot relationship.

He has received two scholarships for Ph.D. and PostDoc research from the State Scholarship Foundation.

During his postdoc research in the ARL of AUTH, he received a research grant from the program “Support researchers with an emphasis on young researchers – Circle A” in order to develop along with the rest of the team of this project the mathematics context of achieving a gradual automatization. He has worked as a researcher in the projects SARAFun and CoLLaboratE. His research has been published in 14 scientific conferences (e.g. ICRA, IROS, SMC) and 7 journals (e.g. IEEE Transactions on Haptics, Robotics & Computer Integrated Manufacturing).

Dr. Dimitrios Papageorgiou is a graduate of ECE-AUTH in 2013 and holds a Ph.D. in 2019 in the same department.

His Ph.D. concerns the control of cooperative robots by using powerful systems and the imposition of restrictions, while his research interests include mainly the natural interaction of human-robots and the motion production in real-time with the usage of powerful systems.

He has participated in 3 European and national projects related to the cooperation of humans with robots: PIROS, SARAFun, SMArtsURG. His instructive experience includes the assisting courses “Systems of Automatic Control I’ and “Robotics” of the ECE-AUTH. He is co-author of 15 projects international and scientific magazines and conferences.

Theodora Kastritsi is a graduate of the ECE-AUTH in April 2016 and since December 2016 she is a Ph.D. candidate in the same department. Since July 2016 until September 2018 she worked as an assistant researcher in Information Technologies Institutes of the Centre of Research and Technology Hellas in the research projects SARAFun and SMARTsurg. She got funding as a member of the research team under the program “Researchers support with the emphasis on young researchers – A’ cycle” for the project “Automatic programming of repeating motions of the robotic arm under the sensational guide of the human”. Her research which is mainly related to the natural human-robot interaction has been publicized in international scientific conferences (ICRA, IROS, ECC, MED) as well as in the magazine (RAL). Gradual Automatisation of projects with the human-robot relationship ProgHRC.

Theofanis Papavesis Semetzidis is a graduate of Information in 2014 and he got a master in Advanced Computer and Communication Systems in 2019, from ECE-AUTH respectively. The main interests include coding efficiency and the techniques of machine learning. In his research interests are included the cooperation of human-robot and the avoidance of burdens/collisions of robotic systems. She has worked as a software engineer, creating controlling and automatization systems that are executed in industrial environments. As a researcher participated in researching projects SARAFun and CoLLaboratE of the Horizon 2020.