On 22 November GMV took part in the Annual HispaRob Conference (Jornada Anual HispaRob), an event organized by the Spanish Technological Robotics Platform (Plataforma Tecnológica Española de Robótica: HispaRob) and held in the Universidad Carlos III of Leganés.

This event, which aims to provide a meeting point between robotics professionals and the public at large, was divided into several types of activities: an educational/awareness-raising program, an exhibition- and demo-zone, chats, lectures and panel discussions.

The opening ceremony was chaired by Carmen Pérez Melguizo, President of HispaRob, in the company of José Manuel Torralba Castelló, Director General of Universities and Research of Madrid Region; María Ángeles Ferre González, Head of the Subdivision of Technical-Scientific Programs of the Ministry of Economics, Industry and Competitiveness; Daniel Segovia Vargas, Director of the Higher Polytechnic School of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid; and Francisco Javier Prieto, vice-rector of the university’s science policy.

GMV, as supplier of robotics solutions and integrator of systems, ran demos in the exhibition area to showcase its inhouse developments in such robotics sectors as maritime robotics, security and defense robotics, aerial robotics and collaborative robotics and also presented the activities currently underway in the international robotics competitions ARGOS and MBZIRC.

Juan Carlos Llorente, GMV’s head of robotics business development, also took part in the panel discussion “Spain’s robotics sector in figures”, which took stock of the current situation in the robotics sector.

Some of the keynote events in the agenda were the exhibition of the state-of-the-art models of collaborative robots, such as ABB’s Yumi; PAL Robotics’s TIAGo; the Universal Robots arm, recently acquired by GMV for its new robotics program; Kuka’s collaborative robot, IIWa; as well as various mobile platforms used in logistics. In this part of the exhibition, GMV together with Madrid Polytechnic University, showcased the handling skills of the robot used in the MBZIRC competition, demoing a complete exercise of manual prowess: grabbing the right wrench from a panel of tools, bringing it up to the right valve and applying just the right torque to turn it.

The Hisparob conference formed part of European Robotics Week (18–27 November, 2016), an annual week-long program of various types of robotics-related events, which in 2016 clocked up an all-time high of 830 events held in more than 30 countries.

The organizers of this event hailed a very complete day in which both professionals and the public at large plus students of all levels were given an excellent idea of robotics activities in Spain.