personalrobotics.nl

The personalrobotics.nl site is initiated by Albert van Breemen to promote and further popularize personal robots. Over the last few years various personal robots came to market. Some of these robots, such as the robotic vacuum cleaner Roomba or robotic toys RoboSapiens and AIBO, were sold in large numbers to consumers. Other personal robots were merely developed by companies to show their technological advancedness. The development of new personal robots keeps accelerating every year and new personal robotics related companies are entering the market.

This site should help visitors, ranging from consumers to researchers and companies, to find relevant and up-to-date information on personal robots.

Biography A.J.N. van Breemen

Albert van Breemen is a Senior Projectleader at Philips Research Laboratories Eindhoven, The Netherlands. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Twente (Enschede, The Netherlands). His thesis describes an agent-based software architecture for integrating multiple control algorithms into an overall well performing system and it has been applied to systems such as room thermostats and mobile robots. In 2001 he started working at Philips Research where he has been active for almost 5 years in the field of Ambient Intelligence. He is the motivator behind the robotic research activities at Philips Research and he is a pioneer on robot middleware architectures and human-robot interaction research. In 2004 he initiated the development of the iCat user-interface robot, which he turned into a commercial product one year later. The iCat user-interface robot is sold to universities and research laboratories in order to stimulate human-robot interaction research. His current focus is on setting up a worldwide iCat Research Community and preparing the development of a robotic consumer product. In 2005 Time Magazine labelled the iCat as one of "The Coolest Inventions". From 2004 till 2006 Albert van Breemen helped establishing the EUropean Robotics Platform (EUROP) and he did hold the Service Robotics chair within the Executive Board of EUROP.