U of T Robotics News

A Q&A With the Canadian Robotics Council About its Conference and Canada’s Future

September 14, 2022

Hallie Siegel, Managing Director, Strategy & Partnerships, University of Toronto Robotics Institute & Co-Chair, Canadian Robotics Council (CRC), talks to SpaceQ about the upcoming CRC Symposium in Ottawa on September 22, 2022 and the CRC vision of Canadians leveraging robotics to enhance their health, global competitiveness, productivity, safety, and quality of work.

Congratulations to Prof Yu Sun, IEEE Technical Achievement Award

August 2, 2022

Congratulations to Prof Yu Sun on the Technical Achievement Award from the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. Prof Sun’s award “For foundational contributions to robotics and automation at micro-nano scales and pioneering contributions to robotic cell manipulation”.

Prof Yu Sun Co-Chairs Symposium to Honour Leading Robotics Researcher Prof Brad Nelson

July 19, 2022

Prof Yu Sun, Director, University of Toronto Robotics Institute, and Prof Richard Voyles, Daniel C. Lewis Professor of the Purdue Polytechnic Institute at Purdue University, (left and right in the photo) together organized the ETH MSRL Robotics Symposium: The Fantastic Voyage of Robotics – 20th anniversary of the Multi- Scale Robotics Lab.

Mihai Duduta receives a 2022 Discovery Award from the Banting Research Foundation

July 19, 2022

Professor Mihai “Mishu” Duduta (MIE) is among the recipients of the Banting Research Foundation’s 2022 Discovery Award.

Robotics Institute Prof Raquel Urtasun shares prestigious Longuet-Higgins prize for “KITTI Vision Benchmark” work in development since 2012

July 12, 2022

Andreas Geiger, professor of computer vision and machine learning at the University of Tübingen, is part of a team of researchers honoured with the prestigious Longuet-Higgins prize at this year’s IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR). In addition to Geiger, Philip Lenz and Raquel Urtasun received the prestigious award for their joint work on the “KITTI Vision Benchmark,” which they have been running and developing since 2012.

PAIR Lab places as a finalist for the L4DC Best Paper Award

July 4, 2022

Congratulations to the PAIR group members Animesh Garg and Samarth Sinha!

Another top prize for aUToronto in the first competition of the AutoDrive Challenge™ II

June 13, 2022

U of T Engineering’s self-driving vehicle team, aUToronto, has taken the top spot overall in the first competition of the four-year AutoDrive Challenge™ II.

Prof Jessica Burgner-Kahrs Gives TEDx Talk

June 13, 2022

Watch Prof Jessica Burgner-Kahrs’ TEDx Toronto Renew 2022 talk to find out what obstacles she overcame to create tiny robots that move like an elephant’s trunk.

2022 IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics Best Paper Award goes to UofT Robotics Institute Prof Eric Diller et al for the innovative simple design of a magnetically actuated capsule for microbiome fluid sampling in the gastrointestinal tract.

June 6, 2022

2022 IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics Best Paper Award goes to UofT Robotics Institute Prof Eric Diller et al for the innovative simple design of a magnetically actuated capsule for microbiome fluid sampling in the gastrointestinal tract.

Mobility Network presents ‘Harnessing intelligence in transportation systems’

May 30, 2022

Event happening May 31, 2022 at 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm If you use a wayfinding app, if you idle at centrally controlled traffic lights, if your license plate is read as […]

Cultivating Robotics Leadership

May 26, 2022

We just launched the Institute’s Robotics Leadership Program – learn more about why we started it.

Researchers design ‘socially aware’ robots that can anticipate – and safely avoid – people on the move

May 24, 2022

A team of researchers led by University of Toronto Professor Tim Barfoot is using a new strategy that allows robots to avoid colliding with people by predicting the future locations of dynamic obstacles in their path.

Reveries of a UofT Robotics Trailblazer

May 17, 2022

Time travel with this control systems math prodigy and find out how a “three-legged pedagogical stool” approach helped him become an award-winning scientist who made the “first real space robotics” possible.

Watch: Better Robotics through Artificial Intelligence | Angela Schoellig is Humboldt Professor for AI

March 21, 2022

How can we push back the limits of machine learning? And, at the same time, what limits do we need to set to robots’ autonomous decision-making to prevent them from becoming a threat. Angela Schoellig is searching for the answers.

Apple Machine Learning Research: Learning Spatiotemporal Occupancy Grid Maps for Lifelong Navigation in Dynamic Scenes

March 10, 2022

We present a novel method for generating, predicting, and using Spatiotemporal Occupancy Grid Maps (SOGM), which embed future information of dynamic scenes.

UofT Robotics Institute at ICRA 2022 Workshops

March 10, 2022

Once again, the University of Toronto Robotics Institute will have a strong presence at the 2022  International Conference of Robotics and Automation with workshops by Jessica Burgner-Kahrs, Mishu Duduta, Angela Schoellig, and Goldie Nejat

‘My dream job’: How a PEY Co-op student is helping develop a new generation of autonomous space robots

March 4, 2022

PEY Co-op student Erin Richardson (Year 3 EngSci) is spending 16 months at Canadian space engineering firm MDA, where she is working on a new generation of autonomous robots for the forthcoming Lunar Gateway space station. 

Soft Robot

CFI funding for soft robotics

February 22, 2022

This soft robot is made of a common polymer combined with carbon nanotubes, and acts like an ‘artificial muscle’ that contracts in response to electric currents.

UTIAS is hiring faculty positions – deadline to apply March 31

February 14, 2022

University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) is hiring for two robotics-related faculty positions, deadline to apply March 31.

Raquel Urtasun, Waabi Launch Revolutionary Simulator Waabi World

February 10, 2022

Video and Blog of announcement: Welcome to Waabi World (blog) How Waabi World works (blog) Waabi World video In the news: Canadian AI simulator maker Waabi aims to recharge the quest for […]

How robots can make aging in place more enjoyable (via The Globe and Mail)

February 1, 2022

Pepper isn’t your average seniors’ residence care worker. That was immediately evident when the diminutive robot arrived at the Yee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care in Scarborough, Ont. to lead weekly exercises, call bingo numbers and take visitors’ temperatures during the pandemic.

Goldie Nejat MScAC Talks

27.01.22 Goldie Nejat: “Hi, How Can I Help You?“: Intelligent Robots as a Part of our Everyday Lives — From our Workplaces to our Homes

January 24, 2022

Join us on January 27, 2022 at 4 pm ET for Dr. Goldie Nejat’s MScAC talk entitled “Hi, How Can I Help You?”: Intelligent Robots as a Part of our Everyday Lives — From our Workplaces to our Homes

SRI Seminar Series: Rosalie Wang, “The future of our everyday lives: Older adults, caregivers, and AI-enabled health and social care”

January 10, 2022

Want to know why intelligent wheelchairs, personal assistive robots, and smart homes are in rapid development? Watch the video with Robotics Institute affiliate Prof. Rosalie Wang.

Steve Waslander in front of Autonomous Vehicle

Why autonomous vehicles won’t be taking over Ontario’s city streets in 2022 (CBC News)

January 3, 2022

To have fully autonomous vehicles means replicating processes of the human brain, and that’s not easy.