JKU Linz
JKU Linz, short for Johannes Kepler University of Linz, is a public institution of higher education situated in the capital of Upper Austria, Linz. It was named in honor of a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, Johannes Kepler.
This university was established back in 1966 and was known as the College of Social Sciences, Economics and Business, “Hochschule für Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften” in German. In 1969 it added the Faculty of Sciences and Engineering, and was elevated to university status in 1975 and the faculty of Law was also added on its program.
Today the university has three faculties with 110 institutes to serve the students. Among the notable faculties that JKU Linz offers are: Faculty of Social Sciences, Economics and Business, the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, and the Faculty of Law.
The university also offers several distance learning centers in the country that provides degrees and courses at FernUniversität Hagen of Germany, British Open University and their own distance law degree program.
The university has also offered various courses that deal with today’s world. One department for this is the Mechatronics Engineering Department. For those who are into the world of robotics, the Institute for Robotics (ROBIN) at JKU Linz provides such knowledge.
Among the projects that they have developed was a pneumatic actuator; force and position sensors that are actually one actuator and force sensor rolled into one used by a robot that has force and touch sensitivity. Another is the university’s own Bipedal Robot which was developed in collaboration with SCHUNK and dSPACE. This robot is capable of walking at .5km/hr and can also climb stairs due to the presence of the human like degrees of freedom found in its legs.
Currently, ROBIN is looking at a better technology and robotics platform that can be beneficial not only for the school but also for the community in general.
