The 4nd Future of Robotics in Finland Seminar was successfully held on Friday 25.11.2016 at Aalto University, Espoo, Finland, organized by the IEEE Finland Joint Chapter of the Control System Society, Robotics and Automation Society and Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society. This year the main theme was on Big Data in Robotics and Automation, which attracted near 100 participants from 38 organizations, including 24 companies and key players such as TEKES, Confederation of Finnish Industries, VTT, ABB, Nokia, Metso, etc..

The morning session is organized by keynote talks and pitch talks. Prof. Quan Zhou started the seminar at 9:00 and introduced the IEEE, the chapter and standing officers, followed by four keynote talks by IEEE RAS distinguished lecturer Prof. Michael Beetz from University of Bremen, Dr. Johan Pensar from Valmet Automation, Dr. Emil Ackerman from Quva Oy, and Dr. Heikki Huttunen from Tampere University of Technology on topics such as openEASE, big data in Finnish industry, and the consequences of machine learning on robotics. There is a coffee break and a lunch break during the keynote talks, which are organized together with the industry demonstration and poster sessions. The seminar is then followed by 6 pitch talks, four from industry and two from academia.

The seminar ended with a panel discussion, featuring panelist Prof. Michael Beetz, Dr. Emil Ackerman, Dr. Heikki Huttunen, and Dr. Juha Orivuori, and moderator Prof. Ville Kyrki, on various aspects of the impact of big data on robotics and automation.

The standing officers of IEEE Finland Joint Chapter of the Control System Society, Robotics and Automation Society and Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society organizing the event are Quan Zhou, chair, Ville Kyrki, vice chair, Juha Orivuori, treasurer and Peter Jakubik, secretory. Quan Zhou was responsible of the organization of the seminar in general, assisted by other officers.

Reported by Quan Zhou, Email: quan.zhou@aalto.fi
Chair of IEEE Finland Joint Chapter of the Control System Society, Robotics and Automation Society and Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society