We are an European partnership
Seven partners from England, France, Germany and Switzerland collaborate to CrowdBot Projet. The consortium is composed of 1 large companies (SoftBank Robotics), 1 SME (Locomotec), 1 research organization (INRIA) and 4 academics (EPFL, ETHZ, RWTH and UCL). The CrowdBot partners have individual and complementary roles to meet the project's objectives.







Our partners
Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology and is located in Lausanne, Switzerland.
EPFL is leader of WP 6 on ethical and safety issues. It will also highly contribute to WP3 (navigation) on the design of control architecture for fast and adaptive motion upon close encounters.

Aude Billard
Principal Investigator, Professor doctor
Team's members
- Diego Paez
Post doctoral researcher - David Gonon
PhD student - Joanna Erfani
Financial officer
Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich
ETH Zurich is a swiss academic institution with excellent track record of research and teaching since 1885.
ETHZ is WP3 leader on navigation and will contribute to all other research and dissemination WPs.

Jen Jen Chung
Post doctoral researcher
Team's members
- Roland Siegwart
Professor doctor - Daniel Dugas
PhD student - Cornelia Della Casa
Financial officer
Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique
The Institut national de recherche en informatique et en automatique (Inria) is the only French public research body fully dedicated to computational sciences.
Inria is coordinator of the project, WP8 (management) and WP4 (Simulation tools for robot navigation in crowds ) leader. Inria will also contribute to all the other WPs.

Julien Pettre
Project Coordinator, Inria Senior Researcher
Team's members
- Solenne Fortun
Project manager - Philippe Martinet
Senior researcher - Marie Babel
Associate professor - Fabien Spindler
Senior Engineer - Fabien Grzeskowiak
PhD student - Javad Amirianl
PhD student - Heidi Van Herbruggenk
In charge of International Relations and European Affairs - Béatrice Guillaume
Financial officer - Caroline Surquain
Contract & partnerships lawyer
Locomotec
Locomotec GmbH was founded in March 2010. Its business objective is to develop and commercialize technology in the domain of mobility and locomotion.
Locomotec is WP7 leader on exploitation, dissemination and communication and will contribute to all other research WPs.

Erwin Prassler
Principal Investigator, Professor
Team's members
- Walter Nowak
Senior Engineer
Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen University
RWTH Aachen University is one of Germany’s major technical universities with more than 44,000 students enrolled in over 152 academic programmes.
RWTH is WP2 leader on sensing and will contribute to all other research and dissemination WPs.

Bastian Leibe
Principal Investigator, Professor doctor
Team's members
- Sabarinath Mahadevan
PhD student - Dan Jia
PhD student - Istvan Sarandi
PhD student - Claudia Oertker (Prast)
Financial officer
SoftBank Robotics
Softbank Robotics Europe (formerly Aldebaran Robotics) is part of SoftBank Robotics Holdings Corp. SBR designs humanoid robots and is today the worldwide leader in humanoid robotics.
SBR is WP5 leader on integration and will contribute to all other research and dissemination WPs.

Alexandre Mazel
Innovation Software Director
Team's members
- Arturo Cruz Maya
Research Engineer - Tom Khalaf
Financial officer
University College London
University College London was founded in 1826 and nowadays has around 38,300 students and 12,420 staff. UCL is ranked 1st in the UK for research strength (REF2014).
UCL is WP1 leader on Scenarios Co-Design and Evaluation. UCL will also lead all of the investigation into shared control navigation as well as the implementation and validation of the CROWDBOT system on the smart wheelchair platform. UCL will contribute to all other research and dissemination WPs.
UCL will also help facilitate conversations with disabled persons’ groups for any exploitable application which arises from the CrowdBot. This aspect will be facilitated through the GDI Hub Innovation Board, which is predominantly composed of disabled people and is chaired by Lord Chris Holmes.

Tom Carlson
Principal Investigator, Associate Professor
Team's members
- Catherine Holloway
Associate professor - Bonolo Mathibela
Post doctoral researcher - Bingqing Zhang
PhD student - George Walker
Research Engineer - Harry Eberle
Post doctoral researcher - Rue M’Tandari
Financial officer - Chris Long
Financial officer