Programme

CYBATHLON Challenges on 29 March 2023

Challenges 2023

Programme of the CYBATHLON Challenges in March 2023

The CYBATHLON Challenges offer development teams the opportunity to involve people with disabilities in their development process from the very beginning and to test their assistance systems in a competitive situation. The Challenges is of course the build-up on the Road to 2024, the CYBATHLON global edition, which is to take place in October 2024.

The Streams of the CYBATHLON Challenges are hosted and commented on by Nick Fellows and co-commentated on by Christian Bermes, Chiara Basla, Patrick Pfreundschuh, Robert Riener and Adrian Esser.

Live Stream On

Programme

Wednesday, March 29

11:00 CET

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ARM Prosthesis Race

Grasp. Move. Feel

13:00 CET

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Assistance Robot Race

Connect. Control. Perform

14:00 CET

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LEG Prosthesis Race

Balance. Walk. Climb

15:00 CET

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Wheelchair Race

Navigate. Overcome. Revolve

16:00 CET

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Vision Assistance Race

Sense. Locate. Explore

Host and Commentators

Nick Fellows

Nick Fellows will host the CYBATHLON Challenges in March 2023 from Zurich. The former sports professional already commentated on the CYBATHLON 2020 Global Edition and the CYBATHLON Challenges in May 2022. He has over 30 years of experience in television and film documentaries across sports, lifestyle and entertainment genres.

Christian Bermes (Wheelchair Races)

Christian studied at the Technical University of Hamburg, the University of Stuttgart and the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA) from 2001-2006. He graduated as Diplom-Ingenieur Technische Kybernetik and a Master of Science in Engineering Science and Mechanics.

During his doctoral studies at the Autonomous Systems Lab of ETH Zurich, Christian worked on the development of a microdrone as part of the EU research project muFly and graduated as Dr. sc. ETH in 2010.

After several years in the industry as a corporate researcher (Alstom Power AG) and as a product developer (Robert Bosch Power Tools), Christian started as a professor of automation and mechatronics at the University of Applied Sciences Rapperswil (HSR) in 2014. As part of his research projects, his team has developed drones and land robots for search and rescue missions. In addition, his team HSR enhanced succeeded in winning the gold medal at the CYBATHLON 2016 in Zurich, at the CYBATHLON Powered Wheelchair Series 2019 in Kawasaki (Japan), as well as at the CYBATHLON 2020.

Since September 2020, Christian Bermes has been teaching and researching at the UAS Graubunden. He leads the Mobile Robotics field of study and develops robots with the IPR research team in the newly founded Mobile Robotics Lab.

Chiara Basla (Leg Prosthesis Race)

Chiara received her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano, with a specialization in Technologies for Electronics, graduating in 2020. She carried out her master’s thesis at the Neuroengineering Laboratory, ETH Zürich, under the supervision of Prof. Stanisa Raspopovic during which she tackled the design and development of a mechatronic system for the restoration of sensory-feedback in lower-limb amputees and diabetic patients. Chiara joined the SMS Lab as a doctoral student in January 2021 and she works on a lightweight wearable exosuit to help patients with muscle weakness across activities of daily living.

Patrick Pfreundschuh (Vision Assistance Race)

Patrick’s journey as a roboticist started in 2015 as a member of the VariLeg project, which participated in the CYBATHLON 2016 as the only student team in the exoskeleton race. After completing his master’s in Robotics at ETH Zurich, he joined the Autonomous Systems Lab in the autumn of 2020. He gained extensive experience in field robotics as a member of Team CERBERUS which won the DARPA SubT Challenge in 2021. Since February 2022 he is working on his PhD with a focus on robust LiDAR localisation in challenging environments. As a member of Team SightGuide, he will also contribute to the first edition of the Vision Assistance Race at the CYBATHLON in 2024.

Professor Robert Riener (Assistance Robot Race)

Robert Riener is a full professor for Sensory-Motor Systems at the Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, and a full professor of medicine at the University Hospital Balgrist, University of Zurich. His work focuses on the investigation of the sensory-motor interactions between humans and machines and the development of user-cooperative rehabilitation robots, exoskeletons, and virtual reality technologies. Riener is the initiator and organizer of the CYBATHLON, which was awarded the European Excellence Award, the Yahoo Sports Technology Award and with two categories of the REIMAGINE Education Award. Riener has published more than 500 peer-reviewed journal and conference articles; 36 books and book chapters and he filed 26 patents. He has received 26 personal distinctions and awards. In 2018 Riener obtained an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Basel.

Adrian Esser (ARM Prosthesis Race)

Adrian Esser was born in 1993 in Toronto, Canada. He received his bachelor’s degree in Engineering Science from the University of Toronto in 2017 where he specialized in aerospace engineering. His Bachelor's Thesis was with Prof. Angela Schoellig of the Dynamic Systems Lab where he developed control systems for the autonomous navigation and surveying of nuclear reactors with quadcopters.

Adrian moved to Zürich in 2017 to pursue a Master’s in Robotics, Systems, and Control at ETH. For his master’s Thesis, he worked with the SMS Lab developing a controller for an exoskeleton such that motion of the upper arm would be coordinated with the shoulder joint in a physiologically meaningful way. Adrian graduated from ETH in August 2020.
In April 2021, he joined the SMS Lab as a PhD student. Adrian's research focuses on upper extremity biomechanics and textile-based assistive robotic devices.

When not working Adrian can almost certainly be found either tinkering with something or outdoors. He enjoys fixing things, gardening, cycling, rock climbing, and trail running.