to you what you probably have in mind is
something like this you man you eat
robots or famous robots from movies like
Star Wars or maybe actual robots was
developed in Japan is the under Asimov
this robot is table to serve to welcome
you to serve your coffee the majority of
the robots are designed in the US or in
Japan but actually robots are designed
everywhere around the world even here in
Belgium and maybe it’s why we are here
yes I said we I mean me and my partner’s
colleague co-founders if you want so let
me first quickly introduce us so
everything started somehow five years
ago for engineering students passionate
about robotics what you probably have in
mind is something like this a bunch of
geek stuck behind computers designing
robots all day well I can agree it was
what it’s what we were but a bit
different so we starting by
participating to a Belgian competition
robotics gap and we want three times in
a row actually and then we decided to go
a step further and to go to the
international competition we ended who
we end up in Russia competing against
the best sorry competing against against
the best and finishing in the top tier
at that time what we did was working on
this robots so I guess all of you all of
you see directly what is it for no okay
I agree can be challenging
so actually long story short this robot
is able to play chess
in less than 90 seconds on a square
table but I guess nobody will never
spend more than 20,000 euros just to get
the robots like this in your living room
playing chess if it’s the case you may
interests us actually so no I agree it’s
not usual but it was and still is our
passion and so as you can imagine we
turn this passion into our day to day
job so we created a company called kim
aziz we started that two years ago and
guess what today we are 15 engineers
working every day on designing robots
with a full schedule for the coming year
so this shows that there is a will in
change in a robotics environment so i
could talk about my passion all right
now all night long but we have to keep
it short
so we will start to talk about some
autonomous robots completely independent
that you can use in your data in your
daily life that you and me can use and
then we will go a step further we will
see our robotics can really be a life
changer for disabled people by
connecting that to the nerves or even to
the brain so are you ready for this are
you ready for this
okay right so let’s start change is
everywhere even if you’re in a forest so
a forest owner has to keep track of his
forests so to achieve that he has to
manually measure all the trees and then
write that on a notebook so what we were
asked to do is to design a device which
is able to do that automatically so we
thought about it and Kate came out with
a solution here it is so this device is
able to measure any tree in a forest
automatically and this is how it works
so you start by measuring the ends of
your tree and then you simply measure
the circumference of the trunk
so it works with a 3d camera embedded on
the device then with all those data the
it processes the volume of your of your
trunk and then you just have to select
the kind of tree that you measured and
we have you have a complete track of
your forest with a GPS position spaces
and the volume of your tree back home
you just have to upload everything on
your computer and then you can keep
track of the growth of your forest or if
you want to sell your trees just to know
the amount of foods that you get so our
next topic is related to golf so I guess
all of you recognize that it’s a golf
driving range what’s nice in a girl
driving range is that you can hit the
ball as far as you want but the bad
thing is that when you need to get the
ball back so it’s exactly what we were
asked to do to design a robot which is
able to get the ball back all the way
down from the fields to the tee in front
of the player so nowadays you can see on
driving range those fancy tractor which
are actually
often the the target for every player so
we designed it we design a robot to
achieve that who’s here tonight actually
why would thing goes well when it can be
wrong when it can fail so I will just
pull it and show you it so this robot is
able to move autonomously on a driving
range it collects the balls thanks to
two plastic to plastic discs that you
can see here and when the ball are
collected they are just collected in a
tank but when the tank is is full the
robots simply goes back to its base to
unload no yes it’s here you can see a
picture I agree it’s a it’s a bit
different but it’s the the it’s still a
prototype so it’s evolving all the time
and then the robot just unload his tank
and research the battery at its base and
so after that the balls are cleaned and
then with that kind of machine machine
for example they are bring back they are
brought back in front of player in front
of the T so unfortunately it’s tough
working anymore so I have to put it back
whoops now we are going to talk about
something completely different so I
guess all of you remember those sad
events weapons in Boston 2013 the
bombing attack during Boston Marathon
which sadly remind me those in Brussels
I’m going to tell you the story about
this long lady professional dancer
called Adrienne who run the marathon
this night did is that here sorry
unfortunately she was injured and the
doctor had to amputee or left leg now
imagine yourself without a leg she
thought she would never dance again but
she was wrong less than a year after
that she was back on stage
sometimes you love it
sometimes you don’t sometimes you need
it you don’t sometimes we rush it
so let’s get serious again maybe you can
wonder why I’m talking about this sad
story actually I work on in the team who
develops that prosthesis that she was
wearing here can see me on the right on
the left sorry with all my fellow PhD
students at MIT in the middle you can
see you her my professor at that time I
was working on the next generation of
bionics legs robotics prosthesis as part
of of my PhD I did that work a spider as
part of my PhD but something that maybe
you didn’t notice is that you heard my
professor is himself wearing both of
those prosthesis he’s himself two feet
amputee so when he was 17 he decided to
hike on Washington in New Hampshire and
unfortunately he was stuck in a blizzard
during four days so that he had to be
amputated to frostbite so I decided to
work in technology became an engineer
and at the end he became a MIT professor
now his lab is one of the world leader
in the design of robotics legs and it
took more than 20 years to get there
those prosthesis are completely
autonomous so they automatically adapts
when the passion want to walk run climb
stairs sit down as you can see here on
this video it will decide to accelerate
and the prosthesis will just accelerate
then we stopped and the prosthetics
instantly stopped also the prosthesis
has no idea in advance on what he wants
to do
if he wants to climb stairs it just has
to start to do it and then can make a
u-turn and coming back without changing
anything on his prosthesis everything is
fully autonomous and that kind of
technology can really be a life changer
I don’t know about you but I think it’s
just amazing this lady can walk again
like you and me so now with so
autonomous devices so I mean that all
the control is embedded inside the
device meaning that everything is
managed by the device but if you think
it can maybe try to go further and to
connect directly the device to the human
body when you are amputee there are
still nerves which are there and through
those nerves the brain can still send
signals and so if we are able to detect
those signals is then possible to
control prosthesis just by the mind by
connecting it directly to the neural
system some research group did that as
you can see on this video the prosthesis
is directly connected to the passion arm
it can move it just by thinking about it
it’s directly connected to its nerve and
for example here you can cook again you
can carry some eggs with
breaking it yes I agree at the end is
breaking it better yeah
you can cook again it’s it changes life
and for beer lovers look here you can
easily open a beer and hang out with
friends imagine if you have to open this
beer without the arm you will put the B
here try to do like this maybe you will
drop a lot on the on the floor now
with that technology you can just drink
a bit like you and me but now imagine
that you are victim of a heavy accident
you wake up at the hospital you cannot
move anymore you cannot feel anything
you are quadriplegic you are fully
dependent on other people the previous
technology we saw cannot work anymore
because when you’re quadriplegic is the
connection between your brain and your
nerve which is broken and so if we want
to detect those signals we have to take
them directly into the brain so some
research group did that with a monkey
you can see this small monkey has wires
connected connected in his head and
those wire are connected to a robotic
arm and here just by thinking about it
the monkey has full control of the arm
and can reach a target and grab it so to
achieve that it took approximately 6
months because the the neural connection
have to to adapt like a baby learn how
to all but actually to achieve that we
they just implant it in implanted a chip
in the good area of the brain and then
this chip can send the the neural
signals to a computer which is which is
processing them
which is perfect yeah which is pressing
them and cool and then can control arm
this research has been made on animals
because it’s quite dangerous it’s a
heavy surgery you have to physically
open the brain to put the chip but
imagine if one day we can do that with
human with quadriplegic people it could
really change their life well they did
it they did it here you can see the
robotic arm grabbing a bottle of soda a
bottle of soda and this arm is
controlled by this lady which is courage
Plesac and now you are seeing her taking
a sip in his bottle on her home and the
first time it happened for 20 years
look at her smile it’s incredible and I
think this is priceless so what we saw
tonight it’s not only robotics it’s not
only technology but a whole lot more
from fully autonomous devices like the
ball picker the tree scanner or the
prosthesis from MIT to robotic arm
robotics arm connected directly to the
human body to the nurse or even to the
brain so we showed that the change can
improve a lot or life human beings has
the power to turn this knowledge into
something good or the opposite to our
most but we are convinced that this
technology can bring a lot of
improvement and a lot of good things
it’s why we are not participating in any
what I want you to remember tonight just
one thing is that robotic technology can
really improve and facilitate our all of
us all our daily life but soon it will
be a life changer for disabled people thank you