IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2015 - 117

13-16 October
ICCAS 2015: International Conference on Control, Automation and
Systems. BEXCO, Busan, Korea.
http://2015.iccas.org/
18-20 October
SSRR 2015: IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics. Purdue University,
Indiana, USA. https://robotics.purdue.
edu/SSRR2015/index.html
3-5 November
Humanoids 2015. Seoul, South Korea.
Call for Papers Deadline: 30 June 2015.
http://www.humanoids2015.org/main/

Turning Point

6-9 December
ROBIO 2015: IEEE International
Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics. Zhuhai, China. Call for Papers
Deadline: 25 July 2015. http://ieeerobio.org/2015/
12-13 December
SII 2015: IEEE/SICE International
Symposium on System Integration.
Nagoya, Japan. Call for Papers Deadline: 31 August 2015. http://www.si-sice.
org/SII2015/

2016

16-21 May
ICRA 2016: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.
Stockholm, Sweden. Call for Papers
Deadline: 31 August 2015. http://www.
icra2016.org/
8-11 July
AIM 2016: IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics. Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada.

(continued from p. 120)

them is focused on digital manufacturing. How do we streamline the tool
chain from computer-aided design
(CAD) to the factory floor? This will be
a major push for integration of systems
engineering, automation, and robotics.

EG: Since you worked for a long
time in Europe before moving to the
United States, what are the main differences in the way automation
research and industry are developing
in these two regions?
HC: The big difference is probably
in how industry and academia collaborate. There are much more significant
collaborations in the United States.
A company based in the United States
can sponsor university research and get
a tax break, whereas that is much harder
in Europe. The European Union (EU),
on the other hand, has massive programs such as Horizon 2020, which fos-

ters multi-institution collaborations and
community integration. Such programs
are sorely missing in the United States.
However, we do see parallel programs
in the EU and the United States, such as
Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet.
Through collaborations I think we
could be even more successful.

EG: Based on your experience, why
would you tell a young Ph.D. student to
invest his/her professional, academic,
or industrial career in automation?
HC: There are so many cool applications in industry, and I would encourage young researchers to actively engage
with a few companies to make sure they
work on problems that have a true longterm impact. So much research is never
transitioned to the real world. If you can
demonstrate a real-world impact, getting funding is easy. The same applies to
industry. Results that show up on the

bottom line make life much easier. We
need to solve hard problems, but we
also need to demonstrate that the new
research makes a difference.

EG: What is the next important
research development that we will
hear from you and your research
group in the near future?
HC: Right now we are working on
methods for automated programming
directly from CAD models without
using traditional programming. We
have a new model based on a vision system that allows control of robots with a
global accuracy better than 0.1 mm,
which will allow new types of automation. Finally, we are trying to embrace
the cloud as a new paradigm for sharing
and processing.
We live in a very exciting time for
automation and manufacturing.

June 2015

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

117

http://2015.iccas.org/ http://ieee http://www.robio.org/2015/ http://www http://www.icra2016.org/ https://www.robotics.purdue http://www.si-sice http://www.humanoids2015.org/main/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2015