We are pleased to announce the Fourth International Workshop on Value Engineering in AI (VALE ‘26), which will take place in Bremen, Germany, as part of the 35th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 15-17 August 2026.
Workshop on Local Generative AI for Education in Tanzania
Eva Verhelst and Mathieu De Coster recently travelled to Mzumbe University in Morogoro, Tanzania, to install a new GPU workstation and deliver a two-day workshop on running generative AI models locally for educational applications.
The visit marks a small but meaningful anniversary: the server room that now houses the workstation was inaugurated almost exactly ten years ago by the Belgian ambassador at the time, Paul Cartier. A decade later, the same room is hosting a new generation of hardware, this time dedicated to generative AI research and teaching in Tanzania.
Seminar on Artificial Intelligence for Socially Intelligent and Cognitively Inspired Robots
How can artificial intelligence empower robots that are socially intelligent? Can human cognition be an inspiration for technical advances-or vice versa? And how can robots be developed to be beneficial for society? These questions require an interdisciplinary approach, on the boundary between artificial intelligence, cognitive science, linguistics and design.
Search Functionality in the Flemish Sign Language Dictionary
Flemish Sign Language (VGT) is used daily by thousands of people in Flanders (Belgium). The Flemish Sign Language dictionary records over 11,000 signs of the VGT dictionary. In a world first, VGTC and IDLab-AIRO (UGent-imec) have introduced search functionality for this dictionary.
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. In this second edition of the competition, students get challenged to create a robot that supports parents with the upbringing of their children.
The bar and language robots at Trefdag Digitaal Vlaanderen 2025
IDLab-AIRO was present at the Trefdag Digitaal Vlaanderen 2025 event with two robot demos: a language robot and a bar robot. These demos demonstrated the state-of-the-art AI and robotics algorithms developed by our PhD students for their research, and integrated into robust demos for science dissemination.
Event: Social Robotics at the Crossroads of AI and Cognitive Science
On 7 November 2025 at 13:30, join us for a thought-provoking exploration of how artificial intelligence and cognitive science are shaping the future of social robotics. At this event, Dr. Emilia Barakova (TU/e) and Dr. Alessandra Sciutti (IIT) will explore embodied, adaptive robotics that respond to human needs and emotions through physical interaction, non-verbal cues, and personalised engagement. Join us to discover the future of socially attuned robotics.
For anyone who thinks computational thinking is only for computer scientists… think again. We live in a world full of “smart” devices — but do we still understand why they are smart? This new book, Active Computational Thinking by Natacha Gesquière, published by Uitgeverij Van In, invites readers to rediscover how insight, logic, and creativity come together in human and machine reasoning alike.
Our offer Ghent University is an international top 100 university in Belgium situated in the historical city of Ghent. With 41,000 students and 9,000 staff, the university is one of the largest universities in the wide region. Ghent University’s mission is to combine high-quality education with internationally leading research and a pluralistic social responsibility. You will join the AIRO group, a group of 25 PhD students exploring the edges of AI and robotics, supervised by Tony Belpaeme, Francis wyffels and Joni Dambre.
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
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.
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.
Introducing MOBI - A Mobile Butler for Improved Elderly Care
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 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Talk by Tom Williams (Colorado School of Mines), Monday 9/10/2023, 15:00
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.
ESANN 2023 special session - Machine Learning Applied to Sign Language
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.
In October we participated in, and won, the folding task of the first-ever edition of the Robotic Cloth Manipulation competition! Cloth manipulation researchers worldwide were challenged to show off their robot’s dexterity on a live stream. Due to this, there was no way to hide defects or malfunctions. Consequently, this is the closest thing to a fair and open comparison of real-world cloth folding the robotics community has ever seen! And we were thrilled to get the opportunity to participate!
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
Social robots are robots that interact with people in a natural manner by, for example, using speech, gestures, facial expressions and language. By using natural communication, these robots are easier to interact with and have many applications in entertainment, services, education, collaborative robotics and therapy [1].
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.
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.
Queen Paola Award for Education won by the KIKS Project
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.