Meet Our Partner

The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) is the largest University in Greece and is located in the city of Thessaloniki in Northern Greece. The Research Committee of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH/RC) is a law body of the University, exclusively responsible for the contractual research within Aristotle University. In the last 3 years the RC has collaborated with 1,700 partners (Universities, Research Centers and Companies) for the implementation of 3,500 RTD projects. The overall budget of these projects reached 150 M€. The annual turnover of the Research Committee of AUTH is round 50 M€. The work of this project will be carried out by Automation and Robotics Laboratory of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE).

The Automation and Robotics Laboratory (ARL) within ECE has a long standing research record in the areas of robotics and control systems. In the field of robotics the lab has an expertise in the area of physical human–robot interaction, object grasping and manipulation, redundant and flexible joint manipulators, and model free control of robotic systems with prescribed performance guarantees. In the automatic control field ARL is specializing in the control of complex and uncertain systems with prescribed performance guarantees. ARL is also active in the field of computational intelligence. The ARL is equipped with state of the art robotic lightweight manipulators, robotic hands and sensors, while it is continuously expanding its equipment.

The ARL research group has participated in over 20 research projects funded or co-funded by EU and two EU networks of excellence, namely, EVONET (Network of excellence in Evolutionary Computing) and EURON (European Robotics Network). Related to the proposal is the completed project PIROS (Physically Interactive Robot Services), co-financed by the EU-ESF and Greece via the Education and Lifelong Learning program of the NSRF – Research Funding Program ARISTEIA I. Currently, key personnel from ARL is involved in the RAMCIP, SARAFUN and SMARTSurg H2020 projects as CERTH ITI associates, with tasks involving research on physical human-robot interaction, robotic motion generation and robotic grasping and control for assembly tasks. Current members of the ARL have received scholarships by National States Foundation for PhD and PostDoc studies on related topics. The ARL is currently involved in Young Researchers Grant (207-2019) funded by the Ministry of Education to conduct research on progressive automation in robot programming by demonstration. The lab has also been granted a “Support of Public Research and Innovation Infrastructure Grant” (2018), funded by Region of Central Macedonia for acquiring state of the art robotic equipment.

Professor Zoe Doulgeri, is a Professor in Robotics and Control of Manufacturing Systems in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and the director of the Automation and Robotics Lab within the same department. She has led or participated in more than 12 projects funded by the EU or jointly the EU and Greek government including projects. She has served as an EU proposal evaluator and as a national proposal evaluator for Greece and Portugal in many occasions. She has published more than 120 papers in international peer-reviewed conferences and journals with more than 1500 citations.