Robotics

Goal and motivation for robotics at IMS Lab

Robots are developed for improving the quality of our lives. Human-Robot Collaboration encompasses developing usable robots that make our everyday lives easier. Collaborative robots share their autonomy with human partners, thus improving the efficiency and quality of work in areas such as flexible manufacturing, logistics, domestic assistance, healthcare, and teleoperation in hazardous environments. We have extensive experience in research and technology of every aspect of robotics: designing electronics, mechanical engineering, software development, system integration, device building, education, and training.

Highlights

• TeMoto, framework for dependable robotics,
• omnidirectional robotont platform for education and research in ROS,
• SemuBot - Estonia's first socially-assistive humanoid robot
• Self-deployable Habitat for Extreme Environments (SHEE),
• Massive open online courses (MOOC) about robotics in Estonia (https://sisu.ut.ee/robot & https://sisu.ut.ee/rosak/).

Jump to portfolio

Capabilities

Equipment

Our inventory includes but is not limited to:

• 

  KUKA youBot

• 

  Universal Robot UR5

• 

  Franka Emika Panda

• 

  Clearpath Jackal

• 

  Kinova 3-finger gripper

• 

  UFACTORY xArm7

• 

  robotont

• 

  TurtleBot3

• 

  Parrot Bebop 2

• PAL Robotics TIAGo
• MiR100
• Robotiq 2F
• ClearBot
• OSVR
• Oculus Rift
• Intel RealSense, Kinect, Leap Motion Controller, Ouster OS-1

Skills

• ROS (Robot Operating System)
• Full robotics system development
• Hardware integration
• Process automation
• Motion planning and control theory
• System identification
• Data fusion
• Electronics design
• Simulations and digital twins
• Algorithm development
• Scientific publication
• ROS and engineering trainings

Primary contact

Karl Kruusamäeassociate professor of robotics engineering

Alvo Aablooprofessor, head of the IMS lab

Student projects

We always welcome new motivated students who are interested in robotics to join our team. We offer student projects on the following general topics:

• intuitive teleoperation interfaces,
• collaborative robotics for flexible manufacturing,
• social robotics,
• autonomous ground vehicles,
• autonomous drones,
• robotics education.

A list of potential student projects in robotics or soft robotics.

Portfolio

Selected projects

• TeMoto - framework for building dependable robotic applications for facilitating human-robot collaboration and autonomy (in collaboration with the Nuclear and Applied Robotics Group at UT-Austin).
• SemuBot - Estonia's first socially-assistive humanoid robot
• Yanu - fully autonomous robot empowered bartending unit
• robotont - open source omnidirectional mobile robot platform
• SHEE - Self-deployable Habitat for Extreme Environments, aka "the Mars house"

Selected publications

• Dāvis Krūmiņš, Sandra Schumann, Veiko Vunder, Rauno Põlluäär, Kristjan Laht, Renno Raudmäe, Alvo Aabloo, Karl Kruusamäe (2024) Open remote web lab for learning robotics and ROS with physical and simulated robots in an authentic developer environment, IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies 17, 1325 - 1338.
• Selma Wanna, Fabian Parra, Robert Valner, Karl Kruusamäe, Mitch Pryor (2024) Unlocking underrepresented use-cases for large language model-driven human-robot task planning, Advanced Robotics 38(18), 1335-1348.
• Houman Masnavi, Jatan Shrestha, Karl Kruusamäe, Arun Kumar Singh (2023) VACNA: Visibility-Aware Cooperative Navigation with Application in Inventory Management, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters 8(11), 7114 - 7121.
• Renno Raudmäe, Sandra Schumann, Veiko Vunder, Maarika Oidekivi, Madis Kaspar Nigol, Robert Valner, Houman Masnavi, Arun Kumar Singh, Alvo Aabloo, Karl Kruusamäe (2023) ROBOTONT–Open-source and ROS-supported omnidirectional mobile robot for education and research, HardwareX 14, e00436.
• Robert Valner, Houman Masnavi, Igor Rybalskii, Rauno Põlluäär, Erik Kõiv, Alvo Aabloo, Karl Kruusamäe, Arun Kumar Singh (2022) Scalable and heterogenous mobile robot fleet-based task automation in crowded hospital environments—a field test, Frontiers in Robotics and AI 9, 922835.
• Robert Valner, Veiko Vunder, Alvo Aabloo, Mitch Pryor, Karl Kruusamäe (2022) TeMoto: A Software Framework for Adaptive and Dependable Robotic Autonomy With Dynamic Resource Management, IEEE Access 10, 51889 - 51907.
• Robert Valner, Jason Mario Dydynski, Sookyung Cho, Karl Kruusamäe (2021) Communication of Hazards in Mixed-Reality Telerobotic Systems: The Usage of Naturalistic Avoidance Cues in Driving Tasks, Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 63(4), 619-634.
• Veiko Vunder, Robert Valner, Conor McMahon, Karl Kruusamäe, Mitch Pryor (2018) Improved Situational Awareness in ROS using Panospheric Vision and Virtual Reality, 2018 11th International Conference on Human System Interaction (HSI), 471 - 477.

Full list of publications

Outreach

• Massive open online course (MOOC) about ROS (Robot Operating System) robotics in Estonian (https://sisu.ut.ee/rosak).
• Massive open online course (MOOC) about robotics in Estonian (https://sisu.ut.ee/robot).
• Professional ROS trainings in Estonia
• School Robotics