news archive
PhD defence of Rembert Daems
Jun 19, 2025
Rembert Daems successfully defended his PhD thesis, which explores how machines can learn to understand the world from video alone.
Robotic bartenders in human-driven environments
May 19, 2025
The imec ITF World event is a conference that brings more than 2000 technology experts together. This year, we are present with not one but two booths. We show our intelligent tactile fingertips, which use infrared technology to trace objects with complex shapes. Our robot butler, previously featured by Flanders News (VRT NWS), will serve drinks to attendees. It will do this fully autonomously, from grabbing bottles from the fridge, to detecting glasses and estimating their volume, pouring drinks, and discarding empty bottles. If you are a visitor at ITF World, do come and grab a drink!
Unveiling the Mechanics of the Seahorse Tail - A Cross-Disciplinary Study in J. R. Soc. Interface
May 7, 2025
Our latest research has just been published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface! In this interdisciplinary study, we uncover the biomechanical and evolutionary advantages of the seahorse’s unique tail musculature—work that bridges biological insight and bio-inspired robotics.
Dag van de Wetenschap 2024
Nov 13, 2024
AIRO is presenting at the Dag van de Wetenschap 2024 (Day of Science), an annual event organised across Flanders during which science and technology is celebrated with hands-on activities, demonstration, lab visits and lectures.
Best paper award at ICSR2024
Oct 25, 2024
Qiaoqiao Ren wins best paper award at the International Conference on Social Robotics
Introducing MOBI - A Mobile Butler for Improved Elderly Care
Oct 6, 2024
Healthcare personnel spend significant time and effort on repetitive tasks that imply physical labor. This leaves them with less time for social interaction with residents of, for example, elderly care homes.
IDLab-AIRO students awarded for exceptional achievements
Sep 29, 2024
We are thrilled to congratulate Matthias Pex, Louis Adriaens and Ward Goossens, for each being awarded a prestigious prize at their graduation!
Dwengo Social Robot Competition
Sep 15, 2024
IDLab - AIRO is a proud partner in the social robot competition for secondary schools organized by Dwengo. In this competition students ages 12 to 16 take on the challenge to solve a societally relevant problem using a social robot. The competition is supported by the excellence fund of the Flemish ministry of education.
Four IEEE RA-L papers in the last year
May 25, 2024
At AIRO we published four IEEE RA-L papers in the last 12 months! While IEEE RA-L doesn’t have the highest impact factor, it is a well-received journal in the robotics and automation community. The publication of four papers in RA-L is a confirmation of our research efforts in the domain of robotics and AI.
Manipulating Challenging Objects with Collaborative Robots
May 22, 2024
The imec 40 year anniversary celebration ITF World event is a conference that brings more than 2000 technology experts together. We were present with our work on robotic manipulation of challenging objects in the context of a biotechnology lab.
Our cloth (un)folding competition was a success
May 20, 2024
The ICRA 2024 Cloth Manipulation Competition was a big success! Thanks to the 11 participating teams that took on the challenge of unfolding cloth! More details, code and datasets can be found on our competition page.
Talking Heads at Flanders Technology and Innovation
Mar 24, 2024
IDLab-AIRO showcased two social robots arguing about contentious topics at the 2024 edition of Flanders Technology and Innovation in Antwerp.
ICRA 2024 - Cloth Competition
Jan 9, 2024
The ICRA 2024 Cloth Competition, held as part of the 9th RGMC, focused on grasp point localization for robotic cloth unfolding. Eleven teams competed with their perception systems on a standardized dual-arm robot setup, with evaluations conducted live at ICRA 2024 in Yokohama, Japan.
AIRO at Dag Van De Wetenschap 2023
Nov 30, 2023
IDLab-AIRO was present at the yearly dag van de wetenschap (science day) event at the Ghent city library. We presented a prototype of the dictionary search system for Flemish Sign Language (VGT) developed based on our research.
AI Op School (AI At School) wins Vlaanderen Digitaal Award
Oct 28, 2023
Last Wednesday, our project AI At School won the Flanders Digital Award.
Wat gebaar jij? AMAI project
Oct 19, 2023
IDLab-AIRO and VGTC are collaborating on a project to bring search functionality to the Flemish Sign Language dictionary. (Dutch text)
Talk by Tom Williams (Colorado School of Mines), Monday 9/10/2023, 15:00
Oct 2, 2023
On Monday 9 October 2023 at 15:00, Tom Williams (Colorado School of Mines) will talk on Powerplay :Dismantling the White Patriarchal origins of robotics.
PhD Position - Bio-inspired research on seahorse tails
Sep 22, 2023
We are seeking a passionate PhD candidate to explore bio-inspired research, focusing on seahorse tails and its application potentials in robotics.
PhD position - AI-models for Computer analysis of Sign language communication
Jun 20, 2023
We have a vacancy for a PhD student to work on sign language technologies.
PhD Position - Research on an AI Buddy for Instructional Feedback
Jun 11, 2023
We offer a fully funded PhD Scholarship for Research on an AI Buddy for Instructional Feedback.
We won the ICRA 2023 cloth folding competition
Jun 1, 2023
In May, we won the cloth folding competition at ICRA 2023. We were the only team who completed all three tasks of the competition.
Robotic folding at imec ITF 2023
May 17, 2023
World ITF World is a conference that brings 2000 technology experts together. We were present with our work on robotic manipulation of challenging objects.
ESANN 2023 special session - Machine Learning Applied to Sign Language
Jan 16, 2023
A special session on “Machine Learning Applied to Sign Language” will be held at the 31st European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks, Computational Intelligence and Machine Learning (ESANN 2023). This session is co-organized by IDLab-AIRO.
Winning the IROS 2022 Cloth Folding Competition
Nov 1, 2022
In October we participated in, and won, the folding task of the first-ever edition of the Robotic Cloth Manipulation competition!
HRI Winter school on Embodied AI, 5-7 December 2022
Oct 25, 2022
HRI Winter school on Embodied AI: three days of interdisciplinary talks, workshops and tutorials on HRI.
PhD defence of Tom Neutens
Sep 9, 2022
Recently, Computer Science has become part of the Flemish compulsory education. In his Phd, Tom contributed to the integration of Computer Science in education by comparing teaching strategies, formulating guidelines for assessment, and developing digital tools tailored to the current needs in schools.
Summer school Ghent
Aug 23, 2022
The Ghent University Summer School, an event co-organised by IDLAB-AIRO, was once again an immense success. In total, 160 children visited our campus to partake in STEM-field related activities.
PhD position - Overcoming the data limitation in sign language translation
Jun 21, 2022
We offer a fully funded PhD Scholarship on Sign Language Recognition with Deep Learning.
PhD defence of Andreas Verleysen
May 23, 2022
Do we need to do the laundry? Or can robots help us with this task? Teaching robots to do the laundry is what Andreas Verleysen explored in his PhD which he defended today!
Two PhD studentships on social robots, consciousness and value-aware AI
May 20, 2022
The AIRO group (Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, airo.ugent.be) of IDLab-imec (idlab.technology) at Ghent University are excited to be offering two fully-funded PhD studentships to help with our research on social robotics under the supervision of Tony Belpaeme.
Value-Aware AI
May 19, 2022
AIRO is joining the VALAWAI project (short for Value-Aware AI) which we look into how consciousness and AI. Specifically, the project will look at how AI can become aware of the value of its decisions. How can an AI system know what is right and wrong? How can we give AI a moral compass?
HRI2022 meet-up - Human-Robot Interaction in Barcelona
Mar 10, 2022
As the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction 2022, or HRI2022 for short, was forced to move from an in-person conference to a virtual only conference, we decided to offer an opportunity for the HRI community to physically meet in Barcelona on Wednesday 9 and Thursday 10 March 2022.
PlantComp - Workshop on plant sensing and computing
Feb 11, 2022
We are happy to announce the 2nd workshop on plant sensing and computing: PlantComp! In October 2022, PlantComp will bring together young researchers in plant physiology, sensing and modelling.
PhD defence of Olivier Pieters
Feb 8, 2022
Can plants compute? How can we quantify the computational power of plants? That is what Olivier Pieters explored in his PhD which he defended today!
The AIRO family is growing
Sep 23, 2021
The AIRO team looking very vibrant, happy and healthy. As of September 2021 we are a 30-strong team, with ten new people joining us to work on Human-Robot Interaction, robotic manipulation, unconventional computing, machine learning and sign language understanding.
PhD defence of Gabriel Urbain
Sep 15, 2021
In the future, can robots move as smoothly as animals? That is what Gabriel Urbain is investigating in his PhD which he defended today!
Summer school for children of Ghent
Aug 24, 2021
The summer school “zomerwijs” is organised for children from various cultural backgrounds in Ghent. 150 chidren visited a two-day science and technology event on our campus that was co-organised by IDLAB-AIRO.
PhD Vacancy on Social Robotics
Aug 17, 2021
AI At School wins M-Award
Dec 27, 2020
In 2020 the Flemish Knowledge Center for digital and media literacy awarded several projects for the fifth time in a row. In the category Media Literacy Educative project ‘AI At School’ wins the M-Award.
Agoria Public Award won by Rembrandt Perneel
Dec 15, 2020
With his master thesis on the design and modelling of a modular robotic system to improve weed management, Rembrandt Perneel has won the Agoria Public Award 2020.
PhD vacancy – Biologically inspired feature learning in neural networks
Dec 13, 2020
We are looking for a PhD student to study the mechanisms of information transfer and feature learning in biological neural networks.
PhD Vacancy on Paradigms for POST-digital computing Deep Learning
Dec 13, 2020
We are looking for a PhD student to study the mechanisms of information transfer and feature learning in biological neural networks.
PhD Vacancy on Sign Language Translation with Deep Learning
Nov 16, 2020
We offer a fully funded PhD Scholarship on Sign Language Translation with Deep Learning.
Queen Paola Award for Education won by the KIKS Project
Oct 25, 2020
KIKS, a STEM project on climate change, biology and artificial intelligence (AI), won the Queen Paola Award for Education. KIKS was developed in a unique collaboration between the Sint-Bavohumaniora, UGent, the Botanic Garden Meise, and Dwengo vzw. KIKS is part of an umbrella project ‘AI At School’ in which the basic concepts of artificial intelligence are applied from a social context.