CRL attends IROS in Kyoto, 2022

The IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) was held in Kyoto, Japan this year from October 23rd - 27th. IROS is one of the two flagship robotics conferences worldwide, providing a forum for the international robotics community to come together in the exploration of science and technology. This year, IROS celebrated its 35th annivarsary in bringing together scientists and ideas from all over the world.

CRL members Chloe Pogue, Priyanka Rao and Reinhard Grassmann flew to Kyoto to represent the lab and present their research. The studies presented were “Shape Representation and Modeling of Tendon-Driven Continuum Robots Using Euler Arc Splines”, “A Dataset and Benchmark for Learning the Kinematics of Concentric Tube Continuum Robots” and “Multiple Curvatures in a Tendon-Driven Continuum Robot Using a Novel Magnetic Locking Mechanism” by Priyanka, Reinhard and Chloe respectively. Their work and presentations at IROS help to bring continuum robots to the forefront of the scientific community, and you can learn more about their research through the linked publications!

Left to right: Priyanka Rao, Chloe Pogue and Reinhard Grassmann presenting their research

Other notable keynotes at the event were Marc Raibert from Boston Dynamics who showed a group of Spot minis (the yellow dog-like robot) dancing to K-Pop music and talks by Shigeo Hirose on hyper-redundant robots and Brad Nelson on nano and micro robots. IROS also provided traditional Japanese bento boxes and sweets to attendees and the farewell show featured fireworks and drummers in the Japanese gardens behind the event venue, the Kyoto International Conference Center.

IROS is a great opportunity for researchers and scientists to connect face to face with their peers. Priyanka, Reinhard and Chloe reunited with CRL former postdoc alumni Quentin Peyron and Jonwgoo Kim, as well as UofT students Frederike Dümbgen and Arthur Allshire and many others!

The CRL team also explored Japanese heritage sites like the 1350 year old Yasaka shrine and the landmark orange gates of Torii to the Fushimi Inari Shrine. IROS continues to be a highlight in the robotics community and CRL looks forward to presenting their ideas and research for the years to come!

Left to right: Priyanka, Chloe and Reinhard meet Jonwgoo and Quentin / Yasaka Shrine