In the first episode of the new season, Claire chatted to Roopika Ravikanna from the University of Lincoln all about farm robots, fruit-picking and human-robot interaction.

To celebrate the new season, we’re running a competition to win one of our awesome Robot Talk t-shirts! For a chance to win, all you have to do is share the latest episode of Robot Talk on Twitter and tag @UKRobotics. Five lucky listeners will be randomly selected at the end of October to receive a free t-shirt – we’ve got a unisex version and a fitted version for ladies. To find out more and read the terms and conditions, click here.

Roopika Ravikanna is a second year PhD student at the University of Lincoln pursuing research under 'AgriForwards' Centre for Doctoral training. Her research interests include Human Robot Interaction and Multi Robot Systems. She focuses on developing a fully autonomous system of agricultural transportation robots for assisting farm workers in horticulture and commercial fruit growing environments. She is passionate about taking part in STEM outreach activities, to help inspire young people take up a main stream education in Science.