Running Code on Real Robots

Udacity, KUKA, and KIT have partnered to develop an innovative new way for Robotics Software Engineer Nanodegree program students to remotely run their code on a robotic arm

At Udacity, partnerships help make extraordinary opportunities available for our students. Our partnership with KUKA and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) will make it possible for students in our Robotics Software Engineer Nanodegree program to remotely run their code on a robotic arm. The result is that our graduates will enter the robotics job market with a unique combination of practical experience in both software and hardware.

Through the partnership, our students will be able to write code, test their code in simulation, then watch as their code is deployed to a real industrial robot, in a real lab, via video feed.

This innovative learning approach is what makes our partnership with KUKA and KIT such an incredible opportunity for our students, as Erica Tiberia, Udacity’s Robotics Engineer, explains:

“You’re going to get the chance to test code in simulation, and then move that code into the real world on these state-of-the-art robots that you’d normally never have a chance to interact with unless you already work in robotics engineering. We formed this partnership with KIT and KUKA to bring this rare practical experience to Udacity students, and give them a chance to apply the knowledge they’re building in their course in a new and innovative way.”

Erica was part of the Udacity team that presented at NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conference earlier this year. The team presented a session on “Learning Robotics on the Jetson TX2,” providing attendees with the opportunity to experience one of our student projects—wiring up and running an actual robot! The KUKA Udacity Robot Learning Lab at KIT takes this practical, hands-on learning even further for our students.

KUKA is a leading player in the global robotics industry. Their research team, based in Augsburg, Germany, has been responsible for technological innovations in areas such as industrial manufacturing and service robotics. They are world-leading experts on areas such as mechatronics, operator control and programming, and autonomy, and they work with some of the most advanced robotics hardware in the world.

KIT is one of the world’s foremost universities focused on computer science and technological developments. It has some of the best equipped labs and testing centers in Europe, and it has an incredible record of producing research and results in groundbreaking areas of cutting-edge technology.

By bringing together two world-leading robotics specialists to work alongside Udacity in these innovative capacities, we are able to offer real-world robotics experience in a way that no other online robotics course can do—this gives our graduates a significant advantage as they work to advance their careers in this exciting field.

Dr. Rainer Bischoff, head of corporate research at KUKA, describes our efforts together in powerful terms:

And there’s still much more to come from this partnership. Stay tuned for an exciting announcement about KUKA and the Robotics Software Engineer Nanodegree program very soon!