Workshop Overview

Group photo of the participants

Other photos.

PROCEEDINGS

The proceedings of the workshop are available in pdf here.
As the file is about 24 Mb, it is better to right-click on the link and to select download.

WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS

Nicolas Andreff, LASMEA, Clermont-Ferrand, France
Olivier Company, LIRMM, Montpellier, France
Marc Gouttefarde, LIRMM, Montpellier, France
Sébastien Krut, LIRMM, Montpellier, France
François Pierrot, LIRMM, Montpellier, France

LIST OF PARTICPANTS

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP

This event was the second workshop devoted to Fundamental Issues and Future Research Directions for Parallel Mechanisms and Manipulators. The first edition, organized by Clément Gosselin and Imme Ebert-Uphoff, took place in Laval University (Québec, Canada) in 2002. It was a real success bringing together experts in the area of parallel manipulators from around the globe; we recreated such an atmosphere in Montpellier in 2008.
This workshop brought together experts in order to disseminate recent research progress and to identify the most promising future research directions for parallel manipulators. This meeting is not a routine conference, wherein the primary responsibility of the participant is to present his or her paper. Instead, through a series of focused keynote presentations, focused paper sessions and in-depth discussions sessions we sought convergence on key issues related to parallel manipulators.
By focusing on workshop activities, this event really seeks to complement other conferences and meetings dealing with parallel manipulators.

The workshop took place in Montpellier, France in September 2008.

WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES

1. Develop awareness of the current state-of-the-art research in all areas of parallel manipulators and cable-driven manipulators, including kinematics, dynamics, control, design and novel applications;
2. Identify roadblocks that must be resolved in order to increase the industrial use of parallel manipulators;
3. Identify open problems in the theoretical framework;
4. Identify promising approaches that may yield significant advances in the theoretical framework;
5. Establish and reinforce international collaboration and collaboration between academia and industry;
6. Develop a strategy for the research community as a whole to accelerate the development and use of parallel manipulators.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Clément Gosselin
Laval University, Québec, Canada

Clément GOSSELIN received the B. Eng. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Université de Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada, in 1985, at which time he was presented with the Gold Medal of the Governor General of Canada. He then completed a Ph.D. at McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada and received the D. W. Ambridge Award from McGill for the best thesis of the year in Physical Sciences and Engineering in 1988. In 1988 he accepted a post-doctoral fellowship from the French government in order to pursue work at the Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (INRIA) in Sophia-Antipolis, France for a year. In 1989 he was appointed by the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Université Laval, Québec where he is now a Full Professor since 1997. He is currently holding a Canada Research Chair on Robotics and Mechatronics since January 2001. He also received, in 1993, the I. Ω. Smith award from the Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineering, for creative engineering. In 1995, he received a fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt foundation which allowed him to spend 6 months as a visiting researcher in the Institut für Getriebetechnik und Maschinendynamik of the Technische Hochschule in Aachen, Germany. In 1996, he spent 3 months at the University of Victoria, for which he received a fellowship from the BC Advanced Systems Institute. In 1999, he also spent 2 months as a visiting professor in the Institut de Recherche en Communications et Cybernétique de Nantes (IRCCyN) in Nantes, France. His research interests are kinematics, dynamics and control of robotic mechanical systems with a particular emphasis on the mechanics of grasping and the kinematics and dynamics of parallel manipulators and complex mechanisms. His work in the aforementioned areas has been the subject of numerous publications in International Conferences and Journals. He is the French language editor for the International Journal Mechanism and Machine Theory. Dr. Gosselin is a member of IEEE and CCToMM as well as a fellow of the ASME.

Reymond Clavel
EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland

Reymond CLAVEL, Swiss citizen, obtained his degree in mechanical engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, in 1973. After nine years of gathered experience in industrial plants at Hermes Precisa International (research and development), he was appointed professor at the EPFL, where he obtained his Ph.D. degree in parallel robotics in 1991. He was then consecutively entrusted with the following positions: Head of the department, President (dean) of the lecturers’ board of micro engineering and, in 1993, Director of the Laboratory of robotics systems (LSRO). His present research topics are high speed and high precision robotics, medical robotics applications, surgical instrumentation and precision mechanisms. Reymond Clavel’s research successes in parallel, industrial and medical robotics received worldwide special mentions among which the Award for the DELTA concept (Japan Industrial Robot Association), 1989, the ABB Sonderpreise, 1996, the European Grand Prix for Innovation, Monaco, 1998, the Golden Robot Award, 1999, for the Delta concept and for the perseverance to support the success of new robot applications in industries with large volume potential, and the “Sonderpreis 2005” from the Vontobel Foundation for the new research projects 3D touch probe. Reymond Clavel is at the origin of 22 patents. His research results are continuously transferred to the industry, through licensing or through creating start-up companies. Up to now, Prof. Clavel’s research activity has lead to the foundation of six start-up companies. During his academic career, Prof. Clavel has led successfully 22 students to their Ph.D. He is currently supervising seven new Ph.D. students. Download Reymond Clavel's keynotes: slides, kheops, minangle, wt.

René Motro
LMGC, Montpellier, France

René MOTRO received the B.Eng. degree in civil engineering form the Institut National Supérieur des Sciences Appliqués, Lyon, France, in 1968, and the Ph.D. degree from the Université Paul Sabatier in 1975. Doctor es Sciences since 1983 at Montpellier University, he is now Full Professor. He has been the head of the Laboratoire de Mécanique et de Génie Civil (LMGC), Montpellier, France until december 2003. He was a scientific advisor for the “Art de l’ingénieur” exhibition, held at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, in 1997. In 2004, he organized the annual symposium of the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS). He received several distinctions including the “Tsuboi Award” from the IASS in 1998 and 2007, and the “pioneer Award” from the Research Centre for Space Structures, Guildford, U.K., for his work on tensegrity structures and other space structures. He authored more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers, 19 chapters in collective books, and he also authored the book Tensegrity: Structural Systems for the Future (Hermes Penton Sciences, 2003). During his academic career, Prof. Motro has successfully led 19 students to their Ph.D.

SPONSORS

FATRONIK	www.fatronik.com
Symétrie	www.symetrie.fr
Adept	www.adept.com
European Commission	ec.europa.eu
LIRMM	www.lirmm.fr
CNRS	www.cnrs.fr
Université Montpellier 2	www.univ-montp2.fr

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