IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2019 - 107

INDUSTRY ACTIVITIES

Looking Back at IROS 2018
By Tamás Haidegger and Dominik Boesl

T

observe the continuation of these
trends at our upcoming major events,
the 2019 IEEE International Confer-
ence on Robotics Automation (ICRA)
in Montréal (https://icra2019.org)
and IROS 2019 in Macao (https://
iros2019.org).
Again this year, the IEEE Robotics
and Automation Society's (RAS) Indus-
trial Activities Board (IAB) was respon-
sible for a variety of IROS activities
apart from the regular committee and
board meetings. In addition to num-
erous other seminars, the Industry
Forum featured speakers from several
companies (including PAL Robotics,

Barcelona, Spain; KUKA, Augsburg,
Germany; Bosch, Gerlingen, Germany;
and MathWorks, Natick, Massachu-
setts) and eminent institutions (such as
the Odense Robotics Startup Hub,
Denmark, and the Technical University
of Cartagena, Spain). KUKA offered a
special space for project demos as part
of the exhibition.
Erwin Prassler, Jon Agirre, Fabio
Bonsignorio, and Renaud Champion
brought to life the 2018 edition of the
Entrepreneurship Forum and Startup
Contest to foster entrepreneurial spirit
within RAS and provide a platform to
encourage researchers and practitioners

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2019.2908572
Date of publication: 12 June 2019

Figure 1. Young and old alike had the opportunity to interact with robots on the
exhibition floor at IROS 2018.

T. HAIDEGGER

he 2018 IEEE/Robotics Society
of Japan International Con-
ference on Intelligent Robots
and Systems (IROS) broke
many records. Not only did the number
of submissions and attendees reach an
all-time high; the variety of robotics-
industry representatives present was
also unprecedented. The exhibition
space was crowded, with nearly 130
booths showcasing industry partners
large and small (Figure 1). It was
particularly welcome that, together
with the 10 startups present, larger
companies chose IROS to launch some
of their new products. It has been clear
over the past several years that small
and medium-sized robotics enterprises
have grown significantly in terms of
number and competence.
The affordability of robot compo-
nents allows for a diversity of alterna-
tive solutions across the industry.
Previously, only a few companies tried
to develop products based on work
from the research community, but that
domain has apparently strengthened a
great deal. Another interesting trend is
the appearance of large companies
diversifying their portfolios toward
robotics technologies and, therefore,
showing growing interest in attending
our conferences.
It is also worth noting that 29
booths were dedicated to European
projects, showcasing attendees' achieve-
ments and facilitating further network
building. It will be most interesting to

JUNE 2019

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IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

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107
https://www.icra2019.org http://iros2019.org http://iros2019.org
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2019

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