With more than 15,000 students and 8 different faculties, the TU Delft is one of the three technological universities in the Netherlands. TU Delft has installed a special permanent robotics institute where 6 faculties work together on three robotica research themes: the development of swarm robots, robots that can perform tasks similar to, or together with, humans and interactive robots. The partnership between the “hard*” and “soft*” robot disciplines has placed TU Delft in the top segment of robotics research.
TU Delft is involved in a number of different robotics projects, both nationally and internationally, such as NeuroSIPE, PITON, X-Arm, FireSwarm and Zebro.
Project Zebro is involved in the development of a small six legged robot. This project is a follow up project for an earlier attempt to make a six legged robot that can move on difficult terrain and work upside down.
The development of such a robot can prove to be very helpful in search and rescue situations that involve rough terrain. This project goes hand in hand with the vision of the TU Delft to introduce new robot technologies that can work together with humans “beyond confined industrial environments.”
* Explanations:
‘hard’ robot disciplines : mechatronics, artificial intelligence, embedded systems, control, etc.
‘soft’ robot disciplines : man-machine systems, user interaction, architecture and living environments, ethics, etc.
