http://www.nifti.eu Site News daily 1 2009-12-11T12:21:19Z http://www.nifti.eu/news/nifti-achieves-excellent-with-exceeding-expectations-at-year-2-review The NIFTi consortium recently presented its latest results in science & technology for human-robot collaboration in USAR, at the Year 2 review. The review was hosted by the Istituto Superiore Antincendi in Rome (Italy), and the Scuola di Formazione Operativa at Montelibretti (Italy). No publisher gjmanager 2012-03-20T09:07:38Z News Item http://www.nifti.eu/news/nifti-creates-new-robot-arm To provide a better view on or into large objects, NIFTi created a KOHGA3-style arm to lift a camera platform up to 1.50m. Using this arm, the robot and its operator can look for example into cars or trucks, or onto larger rubble piles. The new arm was demonstrated at the recent Year 2 review, at SFO in Montelibretti (Italy). No publisher gjmanager 2012-03-20T08:53:43Z News Item http://www.nifti.eu/news/nifti-year-2-summary-available In Year 2 the project focused on "human-assisted joint exploration" of a tunnel accident disaster site. We approached the problem from the viewpoint of a human-robot team, involving several humans at a remote command post, one in-field human to pilot a UAV, and a UGV (operated from the remote command post). No publisher gjmanager 2012-02-15T14:46:33Z News Item http://www.nifti.eu/news/nifti-mission-statement-translated-into-haitian-creole The NIFTi mission statement recently got translated into Haitian Creole, for Web Geeks Science. No publisher gjmanager 2012-01-25T08:44:39Z News Item http://www.nifti.eu/news/nifti-in-the-media-ct-article-interview-cover-of-a-magazine NIFTi made an appearance in a recent article on rescue robotics, published in c’t (2/2012, “Autonome Vorhut: Neue Techniken bei Rettungsrobotern”). The article was followed by a two-page interview with Geert-Jan Kruijff (DFKI LT, coordinator NIFTi). Also, the NIFTi robot recently made the cover of a magazine - the Journal of Field Robotics (Jan/Feb 2012). No publisher gjmanager 2012-01-25T08:42:28Z News Item http://www.nifti.eu/news/happy-holidays-and-a-safe-2012 The NIFTi consortium wishes you all happy holidays, anywhere and everywhere in the world, and a safe 2012! Courtesy of the ASL lab at ETH Zurich, we even have a video of a NIFTi robot acting as Santa-helper ... No publisher gjmanager 2011-12-21T08:11:11Z News Item http://www.nifti.eu/news/end-user-evaluations-2011 We have just successfully finished our end user evaluations for this year, at the SFO training area of Vigili del Fuoco in Montelibretti (Italy). The evaluations were set in the "tunnel accident" use case. Now, a team of three people used a semi-autonomous UGV, and a tele-operated UAV, to explore the disaster site. The human team-members performed the roles of Mission Commander, UGV Operator (both at a remote command post), and UAV Operator (in-field). The evaluation focused on the situation awareness of the UGV operator, and the ways in which the Operator and the UGV collaborated. No publisher gjmanager 2011-12-20T14:31:32Z News Item http://www.nifti.eu/news/the-nifti-aaai-fall-symposium-on-human-robot-teaming NIFTi organized a AAAI fall symposium in November this year, on the theme of human-robot teaming. The symposium included invited talks by Ron Arkin, Jeffrey Bradshaw, and Satoshi Tadokoro. One of the main lessons: Think of making robot intelligence as acceptable intelligence, to make a robot a real team player. No publisher gjmanager 2011-12-09T10:52:51Z News Item http://www.nifti.eu/news/nifti-organizes-autumn-school In November, NIFTi organizes an autumn school around the theme of human-robot cooperation. No publisher gjmanager 2011-09-26T12:23:40Z News Item http://www.nifti.eu/news/nifti-in-die-zeit Recently, DIE ZEIT published an article about the use of micro-UAVs in emergency responses. This article mentions in detail the efforts of NIFTi, illustrated on the demonstration scenario at the Industry Day we recently organized at the Training Center of the Fire Brigade of Dortmund. No publisher gjmanager 2011-09-06T12:08:32Z News Item http://www.nifti.eu/news/nifti-industry-day-in-the-press Several written and "video'd" reports of the NIFTi Industry Day appeared in the (German) press. No publisher gjmanager 2011-07-29T09:00:59Z News Item http://www.nifti.eu/news/nifti-joint-exercises-2011-studying-human-robot-teaming-1 Early July, NIFTi met at the Training Center of the Fire Department of Dortmund (FDDO) for the NIFTi Joint Exercises 2011. The goal: Study human-robot teaming. Given a team of humans (researchers, end users), a microcopter, and the new NIFTi robot - how could and should they interact to jointly explore a disaster site, like a multi-story apartment building on fire? No publisher gjmanager 2011-07-27T12:52:12Z News Item http://www.nifti.eu/news/the-new-nifti-robot-platform After a year of close cooperation with the end user organizations involved in NIFTi, the new NIFTi robot platform has arrived! BlueBotics has built 6 platforms "to specification," and at the recent NIFTi Joint Exercises in Dortmund they (the robots ...) have been put to the test ... No publisher gjmanager 2011-07-27T09:59:09Z News Item http://www.nifti.eu/news/nifti-industry-day-2011-in-dortmund NIFTi organized its first Industry Day this July, at the Dortmund Fire Brigade Training Center. Over 25 invited members of industry, end user organizations, and research institutions attended the event to learn more about practical progress made in NIFTi over the last year. No publisher gjmanager 2011-07-26T16:10:43Z News Item http://www.nifti.eu/news/nifti-organizes-aaai-fall-symposium NIFTi organizes a AAAI 2011 Fall Symposium on robot-human team-work in dynamic adverse environments. The goal of the symposium is to discuss collaboration between humans and robots in situations which require all to continuously adapt to developing events. Examples are adverse circumstances encountered during emergency responses in various types of search & rescue missions, or security or military deployments. Adaptation needs to reflect changes both in what is to be done by human and robot (the tasks), and in how they are supposed to do so (the roles). It needs to explicitly couple the task-work with the social aspects of team-work for the human-robot team to maintain cohesive, effective operations. What makes this difficult is that humans are performing under stress. And that robots, so far, are far from being well- tuned to the human factor in human-robot collaboration. No publisher gjmanager 2011-05-13T16:19:12Z News Item