GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

Proposals will address as appropriate the following:

• Develop enabling technologies, both new and existing, that extend the current state of the art in robotics perception, cognition, interaction and action as well as develop novel or advanced tools for the design and configuration of robots and robot systems that speed up the process of integration thereby reducing the time taken to deploy robot solutions.
• There is also a need to address concepts such as trustworthiness, privacy, security and ethics already at the technology design phase.
• Develop lifelong autonomous robotics able to tackle unknown situations and adapt in the long term in pushing the state of the art of AI-based robots that combine monitoring, learning, planning and acting in order to evolve in difficult environments over long period of time.
• Increase robot acceptance by handling adequately both human and robotic actions, with human-centric, advanced behavioural and elaborated planning models, and adopting multidisciplinary approaches including SSH, as well as end-user involvement in the design of solutions addressing human factors and interaction.
• Push the limits of robotics interaction, adopting an interdisciplinary approach to integrate methods and techniques that allow the machines to engage in physical interactions with people or the environment, safely and intelligently, through specific enabling technologies: intuitiveness and responsive human-robot interfaces; integration of robot perception with natural and artificial intelligence; ability to physically, stably, dependably and safely interact with the environment, including users and surrounding people; development of advanced control tools fully integrating the human in the loop when performing a task; development of advanced control tools for dexterous and safe manipulation, assistance, and locomotion in diverse environments, for improved performance of robots; energy autonomy and resilience to highly limited and imperfect communication networks in on-field applications.

Proposals should make use of connections to the Digital Innovation Hub networks, particularly those in Robotics, Data and AI. Two types of proposals are expected, either focusing on higher level of autonomy, expecting less reliance on human supervision, or focusing on human-machine collaboration: 1. The first type of proposals will further develop the level of autonomy (p.235 of the work programme) 2. The second type of proposals will further develop and integrate physical human-robot interaction. (p.235 of the work programme)