With the establishment of the non-profit foundation 'Humanoid Robotics and Embodied AI', SCHUNK, Hochschule Offenburg, and BURGER GROUP aim to significantly accelerate the transfer of humanoid robotics into industrial practice. Through educational and research projects, competencies are to be systematically expanded and results transferred more quickly into industry-related applications. For SCHUNK, the initiative is another building block on the path to establishing itself long-term as a globally leading technology partner and supplier for humanoid robotic hands.
The foundation is aimed at promoting education, applied research, and transfer in the fields of humanoid robotics and embodied artificial intelligence (Embodied AI). Specifically planned are application-oriented research and transfer projects, the establishment and maintenance of an expert network from science and industry, as well as formats for promoting young talent in STEM fields to strengthen professionals in the region. The foundation is supported by funding from the state of Baden-Württemberg. This is intended to bundle competencies, strengthen transfer structures, and further develop the robotics ecosystem along the entire value chain in the country.
Hochschule Offenburg as Foundation Sponsor
The foundation sponsor is Hochschule Offenburg. It has a unique research center for robotics and cobotics in southern Germany, which develops innovative robotics applications for the industrial environment in collaboration with companies. The focus is clearly application-oriented: Through research in close cooperation with industry, the competitiveness of particularly medium-sized companies is to be strengthened. This will specifically advance teaching, research, and development in areas such as industrial robotics, collaborative robotics, and care robotics.
With the foundation, the university is consistently continuing its expansion of research fields in artificial intelligence and robotics.
SCHUNK strategically expands humanoid robotics
The founding council includes three organizations: SCHUNK, BURGER GROUP, and Hochschule Offenburg, which complement each other in their roles: research competence and talent development on one side, industrial requirements, market access, as well as engineering and implementation experience on the other. The foundation complements SCHUNK's long-term strategy in humanoid robotics. The company brings around 20 years of experience in the development of humanoid hands and aims to deploy these in demanding industrial application fields. The path to this is designed to be collaborative: with research institutions such as the German Aerospace Center (DLR) for technology access and with industrial companies like Bosch for scaling and industrialization.
'Humanoid robotics is the next development step for highly flexible automation. However, it will only succeed if solutions are developed close to industry and scaled together. Therefore, we are specifically expanding technology transfer and combining it with our many years of automation experience,' says Timo Gessmann, CTO of SCHUNK. In parallel with the foundation's establishment, SCHUNK is also advancing its activities organizationally – among other things, through the establishment of SCHUNK Humanoid Robotics GmbH to accelerate the development of a new hand platform for different robotic systems.
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