PAL Robotics | Interview with Georgia Chalvatzaki - full version

In this talk

1. 0:25

   From a school project to robotics

   After studying electrical engineering in Athens and completing a PhD in assistive robotics, Chalvatzaki joined TU Darmstadt in 2019 as a postdoctoral researcher focused on robot learning. A high-school project on robotics helped set her career direction. She says supporting her family while studying made the path difficult, but she continued toward a research career.

2. 5:56

   Building an independent research group

   Chalvatzaki received a six-year Emmy Noether grant from the German Research Foundation to establish her research direction, hire PhD students, and work with a TIAGo robot. Her group studies mobile manipulation by coordinating a robot’s base, arms, torso, and head for tasks such as opening doors and drawers. It also investigates predicting human intentions and making handovers safe and trustworthy.

3. 17:20

   Learning skills and working with people

   In Skills for Robots, she worked on speeding up how robots learn manipulation tasks that have not been programmed in advance. RoboTrust introduced her to mobile manipulation in settings such as warehouses, while HEROS explores teleoperation and shared control with TIAGo. She describes TIAGo++’s two arms as useful for studying bimanual tasks and how human hand movements can guide a robot.

4. 26:22

   Challenges for useful home robots

   Chalvatzaki sees potential for mobile assistants to deliver medicine, help with care, and disinfect spaces, including during staff shortages or periods of isolation. Household tasks such as setting a table require both physical skills and decisions about task order. She identifies uncertainty, embodied perception, and the many possible ways to act in open environments as key challenges for the field.