One of the most fundamental things a robot can do is to move around in its environment, and engineers have developed lots of different solutions to robotic locomotion – legs, wheels, rotors, and everything in between.

In this episode, I’m joined by Dr Romeo Orsolino (Dynamic Robot Systems Group, University of Oxford), Chris Cieslak (BladeBUG), and Dr Chengxu Zhou (Real Robotics Lab, University of Leeds) to talk about the amazing and sometimes surprising ways that robots get moving.

Dr Romeo Orsolino is a postdoctoral researcher at the Oxford Robotics Institute (ORI) focusing on the development of efficient locomotion strategies that allow humanoid and quadruped robots to walk and navigate across complex environments. He has a master’s degree in robotics engineering and a PhD in advanced and humanoid robotics. Romeo's research interests encompass a wide range of topics such as artificial intelligence, optimization, dynamics and computer science.

Chris Cieslak is a Chartered Engineer with a Mechanical Engineering degree from Sussex University and a master’s degree in Composite Materials from Imperial College. He is a former wind turbine blade designer with over a decade of experience in the industry. Chris firmly believes that now is the time to bring blade maintenance into the 21st century with the BladeBUG robot, applying the deep knowledge and understanding he has gained to ensure that wind farms perform at their maximum efficiency and last the full life span for which they are designed.

Dr Chengxu Zhou is a lecturer in Mobile Robotics at the University of Leeds working on intelligent motion generation for legged robots. He received his PhD degree in Robotics in 2016 from the Italian Institute of Technology. His research focusses on dynamic locomotion of humanoid robots using machine learning technologies and is interested in whole-body coordination in complex environments. His work on humanoid robots as part of the DARPA Robotics Challenge was highlighted by the Journal of Bionic Engineering in 2017.