IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2013 - 6

President's Message

Robotics and Automation
for Humanitarian Activities
By David E. Orin

he IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) was held in
Karlsruhe, Germany, 6-10
May 2013. This was the first time that
ICRA was held in Germany, which has
the largest IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) membership in
Europe, and the technical and social
programs were outstanding. I would
like to thank General Chair Rüdiger
Dillmann, Program Chair Markus
Vincze, Local Arrangements Chair
Tamim Asfour, and the organizational
team for a truly memorable conference in the heart of Europe.
This year, we were pleased to have
IEEE President Peter Staecker as a guest.
At the awards ceremony, he presented
the Robotics and Automation Technical
Field Award and participated in many
other RAS activities, including the Student's Lunch with Leaders and the IEEE
Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD)
Lunch. President Staecker and I are
shown in Figure 1 with past presidents
of RAS and other IEEE Society and
Council presidents.
The Administrative Committee of
RAS held its first meeting in 2013 at
ICRA and approved many new programs. Among these were two programs, with a total funding of nearly
US$25,000, to support humanitarian
activities in robotics and automation
(R&A). We were the first IEEE Society to form a Special Interest Group in
Humanitarian Technology (SIGHT)
in 2012, after which our activities
continue to grow. The organizer and
chair of IEEE RAS SIGHT is Raj MadDigital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2013.2271589
Date of publication: 11 September 2013

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

Figure 1. IEEE President Peter Staecker and IEEE RAS President David Orin with past
presidents of RAS and other IEEE Society/Council presidents at ICRA 2013 in Karlsruhe,
Germany. From left, Ning Xi (past president, Nanotechnology Council), Kazuhiro Kosuge
(junior past president, RAS), Peter Staecker, T. J. Tarn (past president, RAS), Vladimir
Lumelsky (president, Sensors Council), David Orin, Christoph Stiller (president, Intelligent
Transportation Systems Society), Ren Luo (past president, Industrial Electronics Society),
Bruno Siciliano (senior past president, RAS), Toshio Fukuda (past president, RAS),
Paolo Dario (past president, RAS), and Raja Chatila (president-elect, RAS).

havan of the University of Maryland,
College Park.
The IEEE and RAS are both focused
on advancing technology for humanity.
While this may involve a broad array of
activities, one particular area of interest
to many of our officers and members is
the area of humanitarian technology:
how R&A technologies can make a significant difference in raising the quality
of life for humanity. This includes a
strong interest in technologies that can
have an impact in underserved, underdeveloped regions of the world.
The first major program for IEEE
RAS SIGHT was to support an educational activity with the African Robotics
Network (AFRON). AFRON is a community of institutions, organizations,
and individuals formed to support
robotics research and education in
Africa (www.robotics-africa.org). It was
cofounded by Ayorkor Korsah of Ashesi
University, Ghana, and Ken Goldberg of
the University of California, Berkeley.
IEEE RAS SIGHT funded the prizes for

september 2013

AFRON's "10-Dollar Robot Design
Challenge" to design an educational
robot using less than US$10 for parts.
The challenge was meant to get students
interested in robotics and, more broadly,
in engineering. We funded prizes for ten
very creative designs. The winner in the
tethered category is based on surplus
Sony PlayStation game controllers
(http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/
robotics/diy/winners-of-10-robotchallenge-announced). At US$8.96 in
parts, it indeed came in with a cost
under US$10.
In 2013, IEEE RAS SIGHT is supporting a new AFRON robotics competition with the aim of developing an
ultra-affordable educational robot to
collaboratively design robots that can
inspire young children worldwide
about science, technology, engineering, and math. The project engages
interested students and engineers, in
Africa and worldwide, in designing
robots that are an order of magnitude
less expensive than existing products.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/ http://www.robotics-africa.org

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