July 11, 2025

Festival of the Future: RM Institute presents the latest developments in space robotics

Festival of the Future 2025
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Idefix at the Festival of the Future 2025
MMX – Martian Moons eXploration: Rover IDEFIX The two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, are the target of the Japanese exploration mission Martian Moons eXploration, or MMX for short. The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) and the French space agency CNES (Centre national d'études spatiales) are contributing the rover IDEFIX that will spend several weeks exploring the surface of Phobos. The expected findings should help us to better understand the formation of the martian moons and the planets in the Solar System. The ambitious project is expected to be launched from the Japanese spaceport Tanegashima in 2026.
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Festival of the Future 2025
Presenting Enabling Robotics. Annette Hagengruber is a research engineer and the Team Lead of the DLR team re-enabling robotics, a team working on assistive technology for people with physical disabilities. With their prototype EDAN, she and her team recently won the Cybathlon 2024, an international competition of the ETH Zürich for assistive devices. Right now she is working with her colleagues on a technology transfer to spin off the EDAN technology into the startup Enabling Robotics. The goal of the company is to empower people with severe physical disabilities to lead more independent lives through an AI-based assistive robot. The team follow a human-in-the-loop approach to gradually and reliably enhance the robot's autonomous capabilities in collaboration with the user. DeepTech Start-up Competition 2025 (Part 1), Theater Stage, Festival der Zukunft, 03.07.2025
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"Improving the world - but how?" This year's Festival of the Future at the Deutsches Museum in Munich was dedicated to this question and discussed with political start-up founders and researchers how technology, science and creativity can jointly open up paths to a future worth living. The event took place from 3 July to 6 July 2025 in Munich.

Two exhibits were presented at the Institute's exhibition stand: The rover Idefix, which will be used as part of the MMX mission, and the robotic saddle seat rosi. Idefix is to land on the Martian moon Phobos and explore it. The Japanese Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission is aimed at both Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos. The probe is to collect samples and send them back to Earth.

The saddle seat is intended to promote scientific exchange on robot-assisted exploration, ergonomic design and interdisciplinary innovation processes.

 Both applications met with great interest from the specialist audience and visitors.

In the festival's lecture programme, Institute Director Prof. Dr Alin Albu-Schäffer gave a keynote speech on the topic of space robotics and Head of Department Prof. Dr Rudolph Triebel on the role and influence of generative AI on robotics development. In addition, Annette Hagengruber presented the start-up project "Enabling Robotics" and provided insights into the business model, objectives and technological implementation.