The reward comes when it all makes sense

The winner of the Robotdalen Scientific Award 2010 is Matei Ciocarlie from Columbia University, USA, for his thesis on robotic grasping. He wants to reduce the complexity and develop robotic hands that function in a reliable way in human environments.

- I want to development robots with the ability to grasp all kinds of different objects in any natural environments such as a kitchen or an office space, says Matei. Using that kind of robotic grasping on prosthetic human hands would give people the possibility to handle everyday life much more self-sufficiently.

Matei’s interest in robotics derived from his interest in computer programming, which led him to computer science and on to writing algorithms for autonomous robots. After completing his PhD-thesis Low-Dimensional Robotic Grasping: Eigengrasp Subspaces and Optimized Underactuation at Columbia University in February 2010 Matei now works at Willow Garage in Silicon Valley. The company develops hardware and open source software for personal robotics applications for everyday life. At Willow Garage Matei focuses on grasping, manipulation and perception.

- It’s a really exciting research field and working at Willow Garage gives me the opportunity to still be involved in the academic community with immediate access to other experts in the field just down the hall.

The reward comes when it all makes sense
The most rewarding part of his work is the results: seeing robots performing tasks they weren’t able to perform before; being amazed by the contrast between the complexity inside the robot and how easy and natural it looks for the robot to conduct the task; seeing abstract theory converted into concrete result; the sense of achievement - the notion that it all makes sense.

The future lies open for Matei who now studies a new generation of robotic hands. Hand design optimized for particular sets of tasks with only enough complexity to perform them and to make sure that the performance is reliable in human environments.

- It means a lot for a young researcher to win an award like the Robotdalen Scientific Award. It boosts my confidence. Finalizing a PhD-thesis is a long process and takes a lot of hard work and it’s great to get recognition and feel that it was time well spent.

Dynamic key word for Robotdalen
He had high expectations coming to Sweden, seeing the country as a leader in industrial robotics. During his visit the expectations were met and he had the opportunity to see interesting products and solutions. The cooperation and interaction between the academia, industry and public institutions, involved in Robotdalen, affected the young researcher.

– I believe that joining forces and collaborating rather than competing is the key for future robotic solutions, says Matei. If I should describe Robotdalen with just one word after this visit it would be dynamic. I will continue to follow Robotdalen and the development of new applications and companies and hopefully see some research collaboration in the future.