LyonTech

LyonTech

Robocup LyonTech Team

LyonTech : a smart convergence of academic actors in the field of robotics in Lyon

The Robocup LyonTech Team

The Robocup LyonTech Team or consortium consists of highly qualified researchers in computer science (AI, vision, navigation) working in research and teaching environments together with groups of highly skilled students.

La Doua - LyonTech is the main technology campus of Lyon, France. This campus is home to 25000 students, 1500 researchers and 1200 PhD students, spread out over a 100 hectare area. Different organizations inside the campus gathered to create the LyonTech team in order to participate to the Robocup@home challenge. The LyonTech team members belong to two teaching entities, two research laboratories, and mainly to the Chroma research team from INRIA :

  • CPE Lyon, Engineering school, former robocup team in 2013 and 2016
  • INSA Lyon, Engineering school, candidate for robocup 2016 organization
  • CITI Lab., Centre of Innovation in Telecommunications and Integration of Service (INRIA)
  • INRIA, Computer science and Mathematics laboratory

Teaching involvement

The 2 teaching entities mentioned in introduction are very active in the robotic field.

  • CPE Lyon is a 130 years old engineering school (chemistry and computer science diplomas) that offers a “service robotics” speciality (fourth and fifth year), based on software development for robotics (the robotic framework ROS), embedded systems, and a bit of mechatronics. The courses are based on a lot of practical work on different platforms (custom ROS plateforms, Youbot, Baxter, Naos, Peppers, Turtlebots, UAVs …). To finish their training, students have to work on a robotic project. Robocup@home is a convenient opportunity for students to work on a challenging global project, so we decided to keep working on this Robocup@home project for the following years.

  • INSA Lyon is a leading engineering school belonging to the French INSA institute (National Institute of Applied Sciences). INSA Lyon boasts 23 research laboratories, more than 600 researchers and teacher-researchers, 650 PhD students and over 1,000 industrial contracts with the socio-economic world. It has been now 4 years that the Telecom Department has been offering a “Robotics & A.I.” specialization during the fifth year. Students are trained to autonomous navigation (perception, mapping, planning) and multi-robot cooperation. They also carry out a project, under ROS system, with mobile robots among one Pepper humanoid, 20 Turtlebot robots and 5 Parrot Bibop UAVs. Since 2017 some of them are working on human-aware navigation with Pepper for the Robocup@home project.

Research competences

Research on robotics and application are well developed and structured. Two laboratories are involved in the LyonTech team.

  • CITI is an academic laboratory associated with INSA Lyon and INRIA. The CITI Laboratory develops research activities bringing together computer science, networking, and digital communications to address the challenging issues related to the development of IoT, eet of connected vehicles and robots. The Lab. houses around 100 people, who are organized in 6 teams (see http://www.citi-lab.fr/). Among these teams, Chroma is an INRIA team-project dedicated to human-aware navigation and multi-robot systems (https://team.inria.fr/chroma). Jacques Saraydaryan, Fabrice Jumel and Olivier Simonin are members of the Chroma team (led by Prof. O. Simonin), which researchs focus on human-aware robot navigation and cooperation in dynamic environments.

The Robocup@home challenge is an opportunity for team members to work on their specialties (image analysis, navigation, robot management). It helps them to define use cases to drive research focus. For example the cases of robot waiter and tour guide robot are directly considered in our study benchmarks for navigation.

Members of Robocup LyonTech Team

  • Raphael Leber is an assistant professor at CPE Lyon (Engineering School) since 2014. He develops robotic platorms and teaches in the “service robotics” major. Before working as an academic, he gained a relevant experience in a Korean robotic laboratory, in a former french robotic company and in a company specialized in embedded systems (R&D and then R&I). He holds a Master’s Degree in Embedded Electronics from the University of Technology of Belfort-Montbéliard, 2010.

  • Sébastien ALTOUNIAN (team leader) is a professor and former student at CPE Lyon (engineering school). He combines skills in mechatronics: mechanics (modelling and 3D printing), electronics and embedded systems, robotic integration tools (ROS), high-level development (web) and various craft skills (carpentry, metallurgy, automotive mechanics…). Curious, proactive, eager to learn, he also completed a double degree at emlyon business school in strategy and innovation management. He therefore has a hybrid profile of engineer-technician-manager-maker which he combines in project management, R&D and prototyping. He created the makerspace IDIoTsLab, a collaborative design and prototyping workshop.

  • Fabrice Jumel (team leader in 2018) is assistant professor in CPE Lyon (Engineering School). He is at the head of the “service robotics” major. He is a member of the CHROMA INRIA team of the CITI Lab (Cooperative and Human-aware Robot Navigation in Dynamic Environments). He likes Robocup and Robocup like competitions. He was previously the team leader of a robocup@home team and was previously the team leader of a robocup@work one. He’s more precisely involved in social navigation, fleet of robots, robot assistant for elder or disease peoples.

  • Jacques Saraydaryan (team leader in 2019) hold a Master’s Degree in Telecoms and Networks from Télécom Saint-Etienne, France in 2005, and a Ph.D. in computer sciences from National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA), Lyon France in 2009. He was a Research Engineer at the Exaprotect Company, France during seven years. His research focus began on IS Security especially on Anomaly intrusion detection system. Currently, he’s a member of the engineers School of CPE Lyon as associate professor. His experience into behavior modeling helps him to integrate the robotic research team of the school. He joins the CITI Lab in 2015 and becomes associate members of the CHROMA INRIA team. Research interests are focused on Human and Robot Interaction and especially on managing robot fleet to deliver service to human into crowed environment.

  • Olivier Simonin is Professor at INSA Lyon, Université de Lyon. He is the leader of the CHROMA INRIA team. He received his B.Sc., M.Sc. and PhD in Computer Science in 1995, 1997 and 2001 respectively, from Université Montpellier II (LIRMM Laboratory), France. From 2002 to 2006 he was an Associate Professor at UTBM “Université de Technologie de Belfort-Montbeliard” (France) and member of the SET Lab. Then he moved to Université de Lorraine and to LORIA Lab. in Nancy as a member of the INRIA project-team MaIA (Autonomous and Intelligent Machines). In 2010, he completed his habilitation (French HDR diploma). In 2013, he became full Professor at INSA Lyon and CITI-Inria Lab. In 2015, he created the INRIA team CHROMA (Cooperative and Human-aware Robot Navigation in Dynamic Environments), gathering some members from the CITI Lab and from Inria Grenoble Center (eMotion team). His main research topics are decentralized decision making, autonomous navigation, multi-agent systems (MAS) and multi-robot systems (MRS). Since 2002, he has published 12 articles in international journals and books and about 35 international conference long papers (in IROS, ICRA, AAMAS, IJCAI, etc.). He was the initiator of three european PHC projects (with Czech Rep., Slovenia and Romania) and an active member of several international and national projects (e.g. “InTraDe” european project, STIC-Asie “Scout”, the ANR “Cartomatic” project winning the French robotic “Carotte” challenge in 2012). WebSite

  • Simon ERNST is a software engineer working for PALO IT and a former student at CPE Lyon (Engineering School). With various experiences from small company to international companies in Europe, he developed his skills in software development, electronics, prototyping and project management. Developing low level embedded systems, creating new designs (3D printing, electronics), he is also embracing strong challenges, he often participates at hackathons and exhibitions in order to maintain his innovation awareness.

Former team partners and members

  • LIRIS is a laboratory of the French Center of National Research (CNRS) with more than 300 researchers (140 researchers staff) from University of Lyon working in a variety of computer science fields: Computer Vision, Machine Learning and AI, geometry and modeling, data science, services, distributed systems, security, simulation, virtuality, computational sciences, interactions and cognition. The members involved in the LyonTech project are part of two different work groups, namely the Computer Vision Group (Imagine) and the Multi Agent Systems Group (SMA).

  • Christian Wolf is associate professor (Maitre de Conférences, HDR) at INSA de Lyon and LIRIS UMR 5205, a CNRS laboratory, since 2005. Since sept. 2017 he is on leave at INRIA at the Chroma robotics work group and the CITI Laboratory. He is interested in computer vision and machine learning, deep learning, especially in the visual analysis of complex scenes in motion: gesture and activity recognition and pose estimation. In his work he puts an emphasis on models of complex interactions, on Deep Learning and on structured models. He received his MSc in computer science from Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) in 2000, and a PhD in computer science from INSA de Lyon, France, in 2003. In 2012 he obtained the habilitation diploma, also from INSA de Lyon.

  • Benoit Renault is a PhD Student at the INRIA-INSA Lyon CITI Lab, and a member of the CHROMA Team. He is supervised by Jacques Saraydaryan and Olivier Simonin. He got his computer science engineering degree in 2018 at the INSA Lyon. He has first been involved with robotics and competitions with the Clubelek, the INSA Lyon mechatronics club and Eurobot. He now works on Social and Cooperative Navigation Among Movable Obstacles (NAMO) as part of his thesis, and participates in the Lyontech Robocup@Home team.