AI and data-driven methods have seen widespread application and exponential growth in various sectors over the past few years, becoming a recurring part of media stories and of public awareness. However, the production and medical industries have been slower to adopt these new technologies, due perhaps in part to stricter accuracy and safety requirements. 

With manufacturing in the west and in Denmark moving towards more flexible product-lines, the adoption of new AI, robotics and manipulation technologies is needed to meet the industry’s needs for reconfigurability and quality, and for the handling of custom parts. Likewise, the emergence of new areas of application for robotics, such as the medical and healthcare industries, come with a different set of requirements than traditional manufacturing. AI technologies are expected to be an integral element to solving these new challenges.

This session will focus on current applications and future avenues for AI, robotics, and manipulation in different applications and industries. 

This session will cover the following speakers and topics:

• Iñigo Iturrate (SDU) will discuss research into learning from demonstration for quick setup of industrial tasks by non-expert users, and behavioral cloning for future automated robotic surgery.
• Lilita Kiforenko (Nordbo Robotics A/S) will discuss AI-based quality inspection for industrial production, including opportunities for future online integration of quality inspection directly in robot production lines.
• Thiusius Rajeeth Savarimuthu (ROPCA A/S) will present a robotic and AI-driven platform for automatic ultrasound scanning and diagnostic of rheumatoid arthritis.
• Silvia Tolu (DTU) will introduce research into brain-inspired control for robotic medical rehabilitation and neural control for robotic grasping and manipulation. 
• Kasper Støy (ITU) will present research into hardware alternatives to traditional robot manipulators in the form of surface-based manipulators that can manipulate objects resting on their surface and discuss the implications and potential of this novel technology.