BioLAGO's EU funded TraceBot project presents the developers

Dr. Héctor Herrero Cueva is a robotic engineer and researcher from the project partner TECNALIA Research & Innovation in San Sebastián, Spain (Donostia in Basque language).

Héctor is member of Tecnalia's work package 3 team led by Dr. Anthony Remazeilles and is especially focused on the development of the control framework by integrating and harmonizing all project partner's and Tecnalia's developments. On top, he is an expert in translating human behavior into robotic skills and to put this in practice which is vital for the functionality of our lab robot.

He first took a bachelor in computer science/software development at the Basque University in Donostia (San Sebastián) and holds a master in Robotics from the Basque University in Bilbao. Once foused in this promising field, Héctor also took his PhD in Robotics at the Basque University so that he is a true expert when it comes to profound knowledge in the research of how to model human skills for robots.

Maike Neumann is a project and marketing manager at our German project partner BioLAGO e.V. – the health network, located in Constance, Germany. Maike leads work package 8, being responsible for the entire coordination of the TraceBot project. In genereal, BioLAGO is taking care of the whole administration, coordination and dissemination of this 7 million Euros EU funded project.
Maike holds a bachelor degree in "Media Didactics" from the Pedagogical University of Freiburg and one in "Media and Information Technology" from the Offenburg Polytechnic and is very experienced in the field of andragogy which is mainly about lifelong learning, a field which brings her together with people of all ages. Her project based work helped her to gain profound knowledge in the areas of project management, coordination, concept design and communication.
What's the profile of a Project Coordinator in such a big project?
Maike is in charge of supervising all coordination and internal communication, contractual and cost calculation aspects of the project being the link between the work package leaders of the consortium with their respective teams and the assigned Project Officer at the European Commission in Strassburg.
Being closely in touch with the Technical and Science Manager of the project, Dr. Anthony Remazeilles, Maike makes sure that all deadlines within the project are met, particularly the ones set for the deliverables which she officially submits on the portal of the Europen Commission. She is always up-to-date if the scienticif goals such as the different milestones are being met and is also in charge of organizing the regular meetings with the Advisory Board. Apart from that she organizes all big meetings of the TraceBot Consortium (the so called TMC meetings) in line with the Technical and Science Manager and is the link between the consortium and the European Commsission when it comes to preparing and executing the official project reviews which are a fundemental part of the project, above all, its compliance and progress.

Carlos Lange-Prollius is a project manager at our German project partner BioLAGO e.V. – the health network, located in Constance, Germany. Carlos leads work package 7 being responsible for all communication and dissemination activities within the TraceBot project. Furthermore, BioLAGO is taking care of the whole administration and coordination of this 7 million Euros EU funded project.

Carlos holds a master degree in translation studies from Heidelberg University and has been working as an editor and editor-in-chief for several trade and special interest magazines in Germany and abroad for more than 20 years.

What's behind the position of a Dissemination Manager in such a big project? Here's some insight: Carlos is in charge of the corporate project design, the project website, the TraceBot LinkedIn and YouTube channels, the "TraceBot HEROES"-video series, the print material and is responsible for the posts and content of the project's social media channels and for making sure that the public deliverables are being published along with other results of the project which can be generic or scientific articles on the project. The latter ones are either published in scientific or trade print magazines, daily newspapers or on online platforms. The communication and dissemination tools grow with the project. All communication and dissemination activities are always in line with all eight work package leaders and the Technical and Science Manager of the project. As Carlos is totally convinced that the traceable lab robot with the vanguard Digital Twin technology will be a quantum leap in the future production of sterile liquid medicaments, he puts all his commitment and experience as a public relation expert into the project.

Dr. Jean-Baptiste Weibel works for the project partner TUW - Technische Universität Wien (Technical University of Vienna). He is a post-doctoral student in Professor Markus Vincze's team at the Automation and Control Institute (ACIN) which belongs to the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology in Vienna.

Jean-Baptiste holds a master in Computer Science from the French Engineer School located in the suburbs of Paris and also spent some time at the renowned Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta (founded in 1885!), Georgia, also known as Giorgiatech.

As Jean-Baptiste has already taken his PhD at the ACIN, he is a true expert in Computer Vision aspects and therefore a very experienced member of Professor Markus Vincze's team. Apart from that he is a very smart and likeable colleague in the TraceBot team.

Along with all his colleagues from the TraceBot team in Vienna, he presently is investigating and working in the field of detection of small and transparent objects.

Mr. Asier Fernández is a robotic engineer and researcher from our project partner TECNALIA Research & Innovation in San Sebastián, Spain (Donostia in Basque language). Asier is member of Tecnalia's work package 3 team led by Dr. Anthony Remazeilles and is especially focused on the development of the control framework and integration of the arms of the TraceBot. He took his bachelor in Electronics at the University of the Basque Country in Donostia (San Sebastián) and holds a master in Robotics from the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao. As he started working with Tecnalia right after his master, he is already part of the Tecnalia staff for more than 15 years now which makes him a very experienced Robotic Engineer in the TraceBot team. Asier is very passionate about robotics and loves the opportunities Tecnalia offers to him to "play" with robots and motors in order to find the best solutions for every branch. Apart from his crucial involvement in the development of our future lab robot, he also brings a lot of expertise in the development of a surgical robot into the project which Tecnalia carried out some years ago in another successful project.

Philipp is a doctoral student in Professor Markus Vincze's team at the Automation and Control Institute (ACIN) which belongs to the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology in Vienna.

Philipp holds a master in physics from the University of Innsbruck (Austria) and presently works in the TraceBot project on the detection of small objects.

To him and his colleagues from the ACIN the perception of a robot's environment is crucial for the programming and training of the skills of a robot. Particularly the fact that the robot actually needs to detect really tiny objects makes Philipp very passionate about his role in the TraceBot project. He is quite well prepared for this occupation as he already has experience in a project which dealt with vision and detection of tree logs in which he worked on at the Austrian Institute of Technology before he started at the ACIN.
In the TraceBot object he just "swapped" the tree logs for the tiny needle of the sterility kit as the sterility kit is the use case for project. In a nutshell: the detection and handling of the needle executed by our lab robot "TraceBot" is Philipp's very personal and individual challenge to overcome and his contribution and the commitment of all his other colleagues from the TUW are crucial. Without their findings on perception and vision, our TraceBot literally remains blind!

Miguel Prada Sarasola is a robotic engineer and researcher from our project partner TECNALIA Research & Innovation in San Sebastián, Spain (Donostia in Basque language). Miguel is member of Tecnalia's work package 3 team led by Dr. Anthony Remazeilles and is especially focused on the development and integration of the arms of the TraceBot. He holds a master in Robotics from the University of Barcelona and has been working with Tecnalia for 13 years which makes him an experienced member in the TraceBot team. After the first period with single arm action of the robot, he now looks forward to the next steps, particularly the introduction of the bimanual operations like the handling of a flexible cable and to hold it tight with both robot arms as it is described in the use case with the sterility kit.

Michael works for the University of Bremen, located in Northern Germany. He is part of the work package 5 team at the "Institute for Artificial Intelligence" led by Prof. Dr. Michael Beetz. The institute belongs to our project partner, the University of Bremen.
Michael is well trained for his job at the Institute for Artificial Intelligence as he holds a master mechatronics from the German University of Ilmenau which is a combination of Elctronical and Mechanical Engineering with Computer Science. He now is a doctoral student working on the Digital Twin that is essential for the robot simulation of the TraceBot. Michael and his fellows from the Institute for Artificial Inelligence want robots to be smart and able to reason over why they do things and what they expect the result to be which is of particular importance in the handling of sterile liquid medicaments.

In the sixth part of the "TraceBot HEROES - Meet the Developers" series we are proud to introduce Dr. Torben Cichon to you. Torben works for the German project partner INVITE GmbH located in Leverkusen near Cologne. The company is a PPP of the BAYER AG and some Universities in Western Germany as Düsseldorf and Dortmund and bridges the gap between research and the applicability of the research's results in the pharmaceutical industriy.

Torben is part of Dr. Carl-Helmut Coulon's work package 1 team and as a true electronic and robotic engineer he is the perfect person to define the use case specifiication for the TraceBot and break down the action of a human being working on the glove box into what our TraceBot should be able to do in the lab and - on top - to make the different actions traceable. He also takes care of the industrial exploitation of the final system and its components for the pharmaceutical industry. Torben took his master in electronic and robotic engineering at the Technical University of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) and holds a PhD in robotics and MMI (Man Machine Interaction) so he is a very valuable expert and member to the whole TraceBot team in the consortium as he has a profound knowledge on how humans and machines interact.

In the fifth part of our "TraceBot HEROES - Meet the Developers" series we are very proud to introduce you to Clémence Dubois who is one of the few heroines in the TraceBot project. We therefore regard her as one of our solitaires among the colleagues.

Clémence holds a degree from the French Engineer School and took her bachelor at the University of Nantes and crowned it with a research master degree from the University of Montréal, Canada.

Clémence is part of Dr. Mathieu Grossard's Work Package 2 team at CEA in France and, despite her young age, brings a lot of state-of-the-art laboratory know-how into the development of the multifingered gripper hand. Her work mainly contributes to the control of the gripper.

In the fourth part of our "TRACEBOT HEROES - Meet the Developers!" series you will get to know Dr. Jonatan Escorcia Hernández from our French project partner CEA (Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et energies alternatives) who are the experts in developing the multifingered hand of our lab robot.

Jonatan is a Mexican postdoctoral student at CEA in France and among other tasks, he is part of Dr. Mathieu Grossard’s work package 2 team in the TraceBot project. With his big experience in mechatronics and computer science, Jonatan brings enormous expertise to the dynamic and kinematic modelling and to the programming of the algorithms for the gripper. As he states in the video, one of the biggest challenges when designing the gripper and its abilities is the estimation of the forces needed to perform by the gripper so that the multifingered hand is able to execute dexterous action such as the insertion of objects or the plugging and unplugging of the tube of the sterility kit which is the use case of the project. In order to counterbalance external perturbations and to assure that the gripper performs with a certain amount of force, Jonatan’s focus is very much concentrated on the estimation of forces needed by the TraceBot’s hand so that it can execute the handling smoothly and securely.

Jonatan and the whole Work Package 2 team from CEA will make our TraceBot extremely dexterous and thus generate a quantum leap in the future handling of liquid and sterile medicaments!caments as described in our use case, the handling of a sterility kit, and beyond.

In the third part of our "TRACEBOT HEROES - Meet the Developers!" series you will get to know Dr. Mathieu Grossard from our French project partner CEA (Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et energies alternatives) who are the experts in developing the multifingered hand of our lab robot.
Mathieu is not only the leader of work package 2, he is a true eminence when it comes to give robotic hands the abilities of a human hand by equipping them with numerous tactile sensors. He and his fantastic team are very keen on making the TraceBot as dexterous as possible so that it can perform all tasks needed in the handling of sterile, liquid medicaments as described in our use case, the handling of a sterility kit, and beyond.

This is Prof. Dr. Markus Vincze from our project partner TUW - Technical University of Vienna. Markus is the director of the Automation and Control Institute (ACIN) which belongs to the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology. The institute is divided into the research areas industrial automation and complex dynamical systems.
Markus and his team are extremely important to the TraceBot project as they will make our lab robot see! In our case it is a particular challenge as the TraceBot needs to grasp transparent objects. According to our use case, the dexterous handling of a sterility kit is the benchmark which we want to set and Markus describes in the video how crucial vision is in Meet Markus and get to know his approach, how he and his team devise machine vision methods to perceive structures and objects such that robots act in and learn from every day situations. This approach leads to smart automated manufacturing and robots performing household tasks. Core expertise is safe navigation, 2D and 3D attention, object modelling, object class detection, affordance-based grasping, and manipulation of objects in relation to object functions.
So, in case you have any query about, Markus Vincze and his team from the ACIN are one of the top addresses in Europe when it comes to robotic vision and we are very happy to count on them as part of the TraceBot developer's team!

In the first video we introduce you to Dr. Anthony Remazeilles from our project partner TECNALIA Research & Innovation in San Sebastián, Spain. He is not only the leader of work package 2 at Tecnalia's, but also the "Technical and Science Manager"of the whole project which makes him one of the most important, if not the crucial colleague, in this project. He is a true eminence as he has a profound knowledge of the project on all levels and therefore a very complete overview of its structure and the stage of the development. The interview with him will give you a deep insight in his vital position and his approach to the project.