Technical University of Catalonia
The Technical University of Catalonia, also called the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), is a public Spanish university established in 1971 that specializes in the fields of architecture and engineering. The school is also the country’s largest engineering university and incorporates other disciplines which include Mathematics and Architecture.
Sometimes referred to as UPC-BarcelonaTech, the university is composed of 42 departments. These include: the Department of Electrical Engineering, Department of Electronic Engineering, Department of Electronic System Design and Programming, epartment of Engineering Design, Department of Engineering Presentation, Department of Fluid Mechanics, Department of Geotechnical Engineering and Geo-Sciences, Department of Heat Engines, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Department of History and Theory of Architecture, and Department of Hydraulic, Maritime and Environmental Engineering among others.
True to its vision to provide high-quality training and education that will lead to prestigious degrees, giving students not just a full education but also preparing them for new technologies, the Technical University of Catalonia through the Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial, which is a joint research center between the university and the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), has been actively promoting basic research in robotics and applied informatics.
Through this center, students are provided with scientific education through graduate courses, and cooperate with the community in industrial technological projects. Here student’s rsearch activities are divided into four major research areas: automatic control, kinematics and robot design, mobile robotics, and perception and manipulation. Under mobile robotics are two laboratories: the Mobile Robotics Laboratory and Barcelona Robot Laboratory.
At the Mobile Robotics Lab (MRL), two service robots intended for urban robotics research based on the Segway platofrm are readily available. Also included in this lab are three Pioneer platforms, one 4-wheeled rough outdoor mobile robot and one six-legged LAURON-III walking machine.
As an experimental area which is basically dedicated to hands-on research with mobile robot devices, the lab is basically filled with sensors and cameras for students to research on.
