Directeur de Recherche, LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse Member of the French Academy of Sciences
Title: Robotics: the embodied physical intelligence
Summary: Robots are moving machines that are subject to the laws of physics. This statement may appear obvious. However, its consequences for research organization are underestimated. Robotics research requires to explore the computational foundations of the relationship between the machine and its environment. The expected actions a robot has to perform are expressed in the physical world. Robots —like any living being— access the physical space through its body space made of its sensory space and its motor space. The degree of autonomy of the machine depends on its ability to translate the action expressed in the physical space into its sensory-motor space. Regardless of the type of approach —model-based or model-free— research assessment must be based on real physical platforms. Managing such platforms requires a level of man-power, which is most of the time out of reach of public research teams. In this presentation we will argue in favor of a public research organisation built on investments that allow to gather technicians, engineers and researchers around a single platform. Public institutions should be convinced that the level of investment in this area has to be far greater than the efforts required by the development of the research in AI. Promoting such physical platforms is a condition of success for French-German collaborations in Robotics.
Bio: Jean-Paul Laumond is a roboticist. He is Directeur de Recherche at LAAS-CNRS (team Gepetto) in Toulouse, France. His research is robot motion planning and control. In 2001 and 2002 he created and managed Kineo CAM, a spin-off company from LAAS-CNRS devoted to develop and market motion planning technology. Siemens acquired Kineo CAM in 2012. In 2006, he launched the research team Gepetto dedicated to Human Motion studies along three perspectives: artificial motion for humanoid robots, virtual motion for digital actors and mannequins, and natural motions of human beings. He has published more than 150 papers in international journals and conferences in Robotics, Computer Science, Automatic Control and Neurosciences. His current project Actanthrope (ERC-ADG 340050) is devoted to the computational foundations of anthropomorphic action. He teaches Robotics at Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. He is IEEE Fellow. He has been the 2011-2012 recipient of the Chaire Innovation technologique Liliane Bettencourt at Collège de France in Paris. He is the 2016 recipient of the IEEE Inaba Technical Award for Innovation Leading to Production. He is a member of the French Academy of Technologies and of the French Academy of Sciences.
