Within the framework of the “Higher Education and Research” call for projects, ESIGELEC has received the support of Metropole Rouen Normandie to launch the “ROOC Platform” project. This project aims at developing an online platform allowing the provision of complex cyber-physical systems (mobile robots, manipulators, embedded systems, connected objects…) via the Internet for scientific research, distance learning and partnership innovation.

ESIGELEC, a private school under non-profit association status, trains every year about 400 general engineers in the field of Intelligent and Connected Systems. It is located on the Madrillet Technopole, in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen. It is one of the few private engineering schools in France to have its own research laboratory: IRSEEM (Institute for Research in EMbarking Systems), which has been awarded the label of “host team” by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation.

This integration between the engineering school and the research laboratory allows it to have large technological platforms (vehicle test bench, laboratory for autonomous navigation of cars and mobile robots, anechoic chambers for electromagnetic compatibility …) and a team competent in many areas (AI, electronics, computing, automation, instrumentation, embedded systems, robotics, autonomous vehicle …).

The ROOC platform

The idea is to apply cloud computing technologies on robots to allow students to use them autonomously on site and remotely, via the Internet (engineering program or continuing education) but also for partnership research, industrial innovation and technology transfer.

The particularity of this platform is the provision of cyber-physical systems, thus interacting with their environment. As visual feedback is essential, it will be equipped with a telepresence system with 20 video cameras and an image processing server equipped with vision algorithms developed in the IRSEEM research laboratory of ESIGELEC. This system will provide users with complete views of the system they are programming and testing, allowing them to interact efficiently.

Each robot accessible via the ROOC platform will be placed in a dedicated physical environment allowing a wide variety of applications, while guaranteeing the safety of the systems. All the equipment (robots, embedded systems and computer servers) is hosted at ESIGELEC.

Creation of four laboratories: AI, Edge Computing, Industrial Robotics and Mobile Robotics

The ” AI” and ” Edge Computing” laboratories, which should be operational by the end of 2022, will provide access to computing resources for AI work and to “Beagle Bone” and “Nvidia Jetson TX2” single-board computers for training in programming embedded systems under Linux.

For their part, the two other laboratories, which will be commissioned in 2023, will have fifteen educational robots:

• The ” Industrial Robotics” laboratory will have 3 “Universal Robots UR3” robots equipped with a gripper and an industrial camera;
• The ” Mobile Robotics” laboratory will be equipped with 12 mobile holonomous robots “DJI RoboMaster EP” equipped with an embedded camera and a gripper.

ESIGELEC does not exclude the addition of new laboratories offering different systems according to future needs.

Translated from ESIGELEC lance la plateforme de formation ROOC (Robotique et objets connectés)