National research programme Organic Robotics (PEPR O2R)

Reshaping robotics to serve humanity and society

Despite constant evolution robotics must nowadays answer new challenges adapted to social, environmental and economic expectations, while offering more natural and useful interactions with citizens. The O2R research programme offers a new approach to designing robots that are truly dedicated to human’s needs. The aim is to rethink their principles, behaviours and uses in order to make them more responsive, more adaptable and better integrated into our daily lives.

This exploratory programme is based on a new interdisciplinary approach combining social sciences and humanities, engineering sciences, robotics, digital technology, arts and design. The research focuses on three major challenges: understanding determining factors of social adaptation of robots, creating integrated hardware and software architectures that promote embodied intelligence, and developing capabilities for fluid and natural interactions with users. By combining technological design with thoughts on uses, O2R offers a new way of thinking about the co-evolution of humans, machines and environment.

The first fields of application are health and personal assistance, two areas where trust and human proximity are essential. Eventually this work could be extended to other fields, such as education, agriculture and industry, promoting robots as everyday partners that support autonomy as well as life quality in the private sphere and at work.

PEPR O2R website

PEPR O2R LinkedIn page