The DLS lab is partnering up with DFKI (prime) and Airbus to work on the ANT project financed by the European Space Agency (ESA). The Autonomous Non-wheeled all-Terrain (ANT) rover will be a rover system tasked to explore difficult-to-access areas of the Moon and Mars such as high inclinations lopes, cliffs, craters, caves and lava tubes. More details will follow soon.

The TELEOPERAZIONE project, in collaboration with INAIL (“Istituto Nazionale per l'Assicurazione contro gli Infortuni sul Lavoro” - National Institute for Insurance against Workplace Injuries, Italy) CUP J32F17000950005, is aimed at the development of a novel, collaborative teleoperation hardware and software system dedicated to operating in certain hazard-prone industries, reducing the risks to the workers’ safety and well-being. It will utilize, develop, and integrate advanced technologies in tele-locomotion, tele-manipulation, and human-machine interaction. The project seeks to build on the existing technological expertise and capabilities at the Department of Advanced Robotics (ADVR) of the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) acquired through the successful, and continuing, implementation of high-technology projects in this field. The technical know-how from these earlier projects, including HyQReal, WearHap, μRALP, and Walk-Man, shall contribute to the progress of the project towards an innovative and unique teleoperation system.

Although mechanization has lowered management costs and precision viticulture is shyly bursting, selective practices still require time-consuming manual operations. This project, namely VINUM-ROBOT (2017-2022) tackles the emerging challenge of the dramatic shortage in skilled labor and lower grape price using robotic solutions. Robots are a revolutionary upscaling in the Agri-Food sector for their precision and efficiency. The main goal of this project is to develop and test innovative robotic mobile manipulation technologies for grapevine winter pruning automation. Deep learning processes and pruning skills will be merged into a robot with advanced control capabilities. Multi-modal sensing system, in particular stereo vision, will be developed and integrated to a full torque controled robotic manipulator for grapevine recognition, manipulation, and pruning. This robotic arm will be mounted on a legged locomotion platform forming a mobile manipulator prototype that will be demonstrated in comparison with hand pruning in vineyard. Robot manipulation performance as pruning efficiency, locomotion as related to different terrain as well as vine growth features the following season will be assessed. Impacts of the project embrace the still unreached goal of selective and fully automation of winter pruning.

IIT has collaborated with Vodafone on several use cases for 5G experiments of which two have been worked on by the DLS lab. With this project Vodafone was able to demonstrate and test the effectiveness and power of the new Vodafone 5G network.

Disaster response and other tasks in dangerous and dirty environments can put human operators at risk. Today’s remote-controlled vehicles with wheels and tracks have limited use in such missions due to their reduced mobility on rough terrain. In the wake of recent disasters (e.g. Fukushima power plants) we have witnessed how tracked robots can struggle and eventually get stuck in unstructured environments, such as stairs with rubble. A new generation of all-terrain vehicles, with legs instead of wheels and tracks, is finally reaching performance levels that show superior mobility on rough terrain.