RoboNED

RoboNED is the Dutch robotics organization that aims at strengthening the robotics market in The Netherlands. It is especially committed to stimulate the development of robots that can provide solutions for future healthcare problems.

With RoboNED as the Dutch robotics platform, it focuses on aligning the Dutch robotics Research & Development activities with the market as well as with politics.

Robots play an important role in industrial automation today. From assembling cars to milking cows, robots have various industrial purposes that the general public is already familiar with.

Due to the aging of the population with less and less young people to support them, the future healthcare system faces some interesting challenges. For this reason more and more attention is given to the development of service robots.

These Service robots can help reduce the workload with daily chores, such as maintenance, cleaning and providing care to the elderly. The acceptance of these robots, however, prove to be a significant challenge since the general public does not yet accept robots in their direct environment or so close to home.

Goals

In order to stimulate the robot development and align the Dutch robotics Research & Development activities with the market and politics, the Dutch platform focuses on three goals:

• RoboNED brings together the different disciplines and fields involved in robotics.
• Stimulating the Dutch innovation ecosystem by bringing together stakeholders from the education, research, government, society, and industry.
• Stimulating the acceptance of robotics in the Dutch society.

Strategic Agenda

In order to accomplish these goals a Dutch Robotics Strategic Agenda, or Roadmap, has been developed. This Dutch Robotics Agenda involves a short, middle and long term vision of the current status of robotics development in the Netherlands and how to move forward. 

To cover all the required areas of expertise and to organize activities, groups are formed that cover the technology to psychology sector, including robot ethics.

To read the roadmap you can download the Strategic Agenda

Organization

The organization of RoboNED consists of a network, a steering group, and organizers.

RoboNED’s steering group consists of a small group of the top people in Dutch robotics from industrial, governmental and knowledge institutions and defines the high level strategy.

The RoboNED network consists of clusters having specific responsibilities and goals.

Dutch Robotics Database:

To see which robotics activities take place in The Netherlands, Robotics Today created an inventory, which includes a robotics Database.

• Robots
  A list of all robots that were either built in The Netherlands or are related to Dutch Robotics projects, companies or R&D facilities
• Robotics Projects
  A list of Robotics Projects from The Netherlands or where Dutch institutions are part of.
• Robotics Research & Development Facilities
  All Dutch institutions involved in robotics research and development. This can vary from the development of robots or robotic devices to robot parts, sensors and software.
• Robotics Companies
  Commercial institutions involved in the creating, selling or manufacturing of robot related products and services