Robot Talk

One of the most familiar types of robot are drones – we've seen them replace fireworks at Olympic opening ceremonies and you might have even seen people flying their own. But this is one method of locomotion we haven't yet covered on Robot Talk, so for episode 14 we're taking to the skies to find out more about the challenges and opportunities of aerial robotics.

I'll be chatting to two roboticists: Dr Stephen Prior (University of Southampton) and Dr. Jinya Su (University of Essex).

Stephen Prior gained a BEng Mechanical Engineering degree and a PhD in Robotics from Middlesex University. He is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer, Corporate Member of the IMechE and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. His research interests are in Aeronautics, Autonomous Unmanned Systems, Robotics and Design Engineering. He was Project Lead for the MoD Grand Challenge i-Spy team in 2008 and led Team HALO, winner of the DARPA UAVForge Competition 2012. He is non-executive director of Tethered Drone Systems Ltd and CEO of Hybrid Drones Ltd.

Jinya Su is a Lecturer in Computer Science and AI in the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering at University of Essex. He has published more than 50 journal and conference papers in Control Engineering, AI/UAV and their applications in industrial inspection. He has been working at the University of Essex since 2019 on several projects on UAV for agriculture and solar inspection.

Unlike the characteristics of most robots, the adaptations of living organisms weren't designed - they evolved through natural selection over millions of years. Evolutionary robotics takes inspiration from this process of natural selection to create new robot designs, and allow robots to adapt to their environment over many generations.

In the first episode of 2022, I'll be chatting to three roboticists about robot evolution and adaptation: Dr Edgar Buchanan (University of York), Prof Fumiya Iida (University of Cambridge), and Dr Hemma Philamore (University of Bristol).

Edgar Buchanan is a Research Associate in Evolutionary Robotics working as part of the Autonomous Robot Evolution project at the University of York. He is conducting research into the autonomous design and fabrication of robots through the use of evolutionary algorithms. He has a master's degree in Autonomous Robot Engineering and a PhD degree in Swarm Robotics from the University of York. In 2016, he won "Kathleen Mary Stott Memorial Prize for excellence in scientific research" at the University of York.

Fumiya Iida is a Professor of Robotics at the University of Cambridge. While he worked as a postdoctoral associate at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was awarded the Fellowship for Prospective Researchers from the Swiss National Science Foundation, and then, the Swiss National Science Foundation Professorship hosted by ETH Zurich. In 2014 he moved to the University of Cambridge as the director of Bio-Inspired Robotics Laboratory.

Hemma Philamore is a Lecturer in Robotics at the University of Bristol and is based at the Bristol Robotics Lab. Her research is about environmental robots that function as part of natural ecosystems and the social ecosystems we create as humans. Her work includes soft robotics, bio-inspired and bio-hybrid robots, bio-electrical systems for power and sensing and human-robot-interaction.

The manufacturing industry's need for accuracy and repeatability in repetitive manual tasks made it an early adopter of robotics technology. Now, as machines become more intelligent and more autonomous, manufacturing robots are taking on more challenging tasks and working more closely with humans.

In this episode, I'll be chatting to three roboticists researching and working in manufacturing and automation: Dr Gilbert Tang (Cranfield University), Dr Paul Shepherd (University of Bath) and Dr Prasad Manorathna (Siemens).

Gilbert Tang is the Course Director for the MSc in Robotics at Cranfield University and he is the Robotics Course Development Lead for MK:U. He has been conducting robotics research for over 10 years and he has worked with a range of companies including manufacturers and users of automation systems. Gilbert is a Chartered Engineer and a Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Prasad Manorathna is a leading industrialist in the Robotics, Automation and Digitalisation sector in the UK. He currently leads the Robotics and Automation team at Siemens, in Congleton. Since completion of his PhD at Loughborough University, he has gained experience in the automation industry in various sectors including automotive, aerospace and electronics manufacturing. Prasad has a growing interest in industrial robotics, automation, digital transformation, smart manufacturing, artificial intelligence and machine learning

Paul Shepherd is a Chartered Mathematician, Scientist and Engineer with over 20 years' experience in the Construction Industry. Paul worked for international Engineering consultancy BuroHappold, developing software to overcome the challenges posed by working with high-profile architects & clients on some iconic buildings. Now in academia, the aim of his research team is to facilitate the creation of complex geometry forms, and to use computational techniques to improve the structural and environmental performance, and the constructability, of the resulting shapes.

In the last decade, autonomous cars have gone from being SciFi fantasy to a commercial reality on our roads, and as with most major technological developments, self-driving cars have been met with a mixture of excitement and fear. Autonomous vehicles have the potential to improve safety on the roads and take over time-consuming and difficult tasks off road, but researchers must be able to demonstrate their safety if we are to entrust these vehicles with more responsibility.

In this episode, I'm talking to two roboticists working to make these vehicles safer, smarter, and more reliable: Dr Richard Hawkins (University of York) and Dr Frederic Labrosse (Aberystwyth University).

Richard Hawkins is Senior Research Fellow working as part of the Assuring Autonomy International Programme at the University of York. He is conducting research into safety assurance for autonomous systems across a range of different application domains. Richard has been a lecturer in safety critical systems engineering at the University of York and also worked for BAE Systems as a software safety engineer.

Frederic Labrosse has been working in the field of robotics and computer vision (mainly in the context of robotics) for many years. His interests are mainly about field robotics, in other words having robots operating in real, unconstrained environments. This spans having off-road robots operating in the hills of Wales (and elsewhere) as well as automated wheelchairs in people's homes.

Welcome to a brand-new season of Robot Talk, hosted by Dr Claire Asher!

In season 1 we talked about many different types of robot, working alone or directly with humans. One thing we didn't get to touch upon very much is when robots work together with other robots, for example, as part of a swarm. In the first episode of the new season, Claire chats to two roboticists working on swarm robotics: Merihan Alhafnawi (University of Bristol) and Dr John Oyekan (The University of Sheffield).

Merihan Alhafnawi is a Robotics and Autonomous Systems PhD researcher at the University of Bristol. Working in the Bristol Robotics Laboratory under the supervision of Professor Sabine Hauert and Dr Paul O'Dowd, she researches swarm robotic systems, particularly how we can build swarm systems that are expressive so we can enhance the interaction between humans and robot swarms.

John Oyekan is a Lecturer in Digital Manufacturing in the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering at The University of Sheffield, with expertise in sensing, AI, human-robot collaboration and swarm robotics. His work is characterised by both fundamental and applied research in collaboration with partners in the automotive, aerospace and manufacturing sectors. He is researching various novel algorithms that would enable robots to swarm and perform tasks such as mapping of hazardous environments and collaborating with humans to transport bulky materials.

We often hear about robots working in controlled, predictable environments, like an assembly line or an operating theatre, but as a former field biologist, Claire is most interested in what happens when we take robots outside into wild environments, where everything — from the elements to the local wildlife — seems to be against you.

In this special live recording for the UK Festival of Robotics, Claire chatted to Sophie Armanini (TU Munich / Imperial College London), Ben Scott-Robinson (Small Robot Company) and Matthew Ryan Tucker (University of Bristol). Find out more about the UK Festival of Robotics here: https://www.ukras.org/robotics-festival/

Dr Sophie Armanini is an assistant professor at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, and a guest researcher at Imperial College London, where she previously worked as a research associate. She obtained her PhD from Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands), and has been a visiting researcher at Cranfield University and Cornell University (USA). Sophie's research focuses on the dynamics and control of unconventional and bioinspired aerial vehicles, including flapping-wing and aerial-aquatic robots.

Ben Scott-Robinson is an accomplished digital entrepreneur focused on geospatial and mobility technologies. Ben co-founded the Small Robot Company in 2017 which endeavours to replace tractors with accurate, smart, lightweight robots. With 20 years experience in digital innovation, including the digital transformation of Ordnance Survey, Ben is also an experienced technology entrepreneur having founded two agencies, two consultancies, an app start-up and a phone for the blind.

Matthew Ryan Tucker is a Physics PhD Student at the University of Bristol, researching the use of ground based mobile robots for mapping radiation and finding radiation hotspots. Last year he was part of a University field trip to the Chernobyl Exclusion zone, where he deployed a Boston Dynamics Spot robot in a variety of different locations, including beneath the New Safe Confinement at the Chernobyl Power plant.

Throughout the series so far, soft robotics has come up over and over in different areas, from medicine to agriculture. In this episode, I'll be chatting to three roboticists working on different applications of this fascinating and fast-developing area of robotics: Dr Thomas Thuruthel (University of Cambridge), Angus Clark (Imperial College London) and Dr Jelizaveta Konstantinova (Ocado Technology).

Get your ticket for Robot Talk Live: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/149424567905

Dr Thomas George Thuruthel is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Cambridge. He has a BTech in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, India and a Master's in Biorobotics from Waseda University, Japan. He received a PhD in Biorobotics from Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy in 2019. His research focuses on the modelling and control of soft-bodied robotics systems using machine learning techniques.

Angus Clark is a researcher in the Robotic manipulation: Engineering, Design, and Science Lab, focussing on the development of Malleable Robotics – a new type of reconfigurable serial robot arms. He received the M.Eng. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Southampton in 2017 and is currently pursuing a PhD in Design Engineering Research at Imperial College London. His research interests include manipulation and grasping, soft robotics, extreme environment robotics, and exoskeletons and prosthetics.

Dr Jelizaveta Konstantinova is a research coordinator at Ocado Technology. She holds a PhD in Robotics from King's College London, and her previous academic research was focused on medical robotics, force and tactile sensing for grasping, sensor fusion and intelligent grasping. Jelizaveta is currently working on developing external and internal collaborative research projects and connections with the focus on robotics and cutting-edge innovation.

Although as consumers we may sometimes feel quite detached from food production, agriculture is central to all our lives. As an industry, agriculture has often been at the forefront of technological development, and today researchers are developing robots that can lighten the load at virtually every stage of the growing process.

In this episode, I'll be striding into the muddy world of agricultural robotics with help from Petra Bosilj (University of Lincoln) and Chris Chavasse (MuddyMachines).

We've also just launched tickets for a special live online recording of Episode 9 in June - find out more here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/robot-talk-live-robots-into-the-wild-tickets-149424567905

Dr Petra Bosilj is a Senior Lecturer in Agri-Robotics at the Lincoln Institute for Agri-Technology, University of Lincoln, and specialises in robotic vision for agriculture. Her research focuses on visual scene analysis and interpretation, and has been applied to different agricultural processes such as robotic weeding, assessing soil quality and estimating yields from crop counts. The goal of her research is not only to improve the efficacy of agricultural practices, but to ensure the food production chain has a sustainable and even a regenerative effect on our environment.

Chris Chavasse has spent his entire career in robotics innovation. At school, he was involved with the First Lego League robotics competitions and RoboCup Junior. He went on to complete his Masters in Electronics Engineering at the University of Warwick, developing new UAVs and Search & Rescue Robots. Upon graduating, he spent four years at Dyson, inventing the next generation of household robots, followed by two years leading the development of novel commercial kitchen robots at Deliveroo, before founding Muddy Machines, where he is now focused on solving domestic growers most pressing issues.

Although robots have been in our lives for decades, they have often been kept quite separate from the humans they help, whether that's huge industrial manufacturing robots that operate behind fences on the factory floor or remote handling robots in nuclear and surgical settings. But increasingly, we want to design robots that work with us in close collaboration.

In this episode, I take a look at the rapidly-developing world of human-robot collaboration — from nimble robotic assistants in the smart factories of the future, to robotic toys and assistants in homes, classrooms, and hospital wards — with the help of Javier Chiyah (Heriot-Watt University), Dr Helena Webb (University of Oxford) and Dr Lola Cañamero (University of Hertfordshire).

Javier Chiyah is a PhD student at Heriot-Watt University working on human-robot collaboration using conversational agents. He is exploring new methods of interaction for robots in smart factories with Siemens. Previously, he worked on the development of a system for remote operation of autonomous underwater vehicles, funded by the Ministry of Defence. One of his goals is to make robots more intuitive to use through speech, and he is very excited about all the amazing things that human-robot teams can achieve together.

Dr Helena Webb is a Senior Researcher in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford. She specialises in detailed, qualitative research that explores the lived experience of technology and the different ways in which users interact with technological systems. She is currently part of a project called RoboTIPS, a collaboration between Oxford and Bristol Robotics Lab to develop an innovative safety mechanism for social robots – the Ethical Black Box.

Dr Lola Cañamero is Head of the Embodied Emotion, Cognition and (Inter-)Action Lab at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK. Following an undergraduate degree in Philosophy, she turned to Embodied AI and robotics as a postdoctoral fellow. Her research investigates the interactions between motivation, emotion and embodied cognition and action from the perspectives of adaptation, development and evolution, using autonomous and social robots and artificial life simulations.

One way in which robots can be put to particularly good use is for performing tasks in environments that are too dangerous for humans to work, for example deep below ground or underwater, or in industrial environments like nuclear power plants.

In this episode, I'm joined by Dr Simon Watson (University of Manchester) and Jonathon Witty (UK Atomic Energy Authority) to chat about some of the ways robotics is being used in hazardous places like these.

Dr Simon Watson is a Senior Lecturer in Robotic Systems in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Manchester. His research focus is on mobile robots for the exploration and characterisation of hazardous and extreme environments, such as those found in the nuclear, offshore energy and mining industries. He has led the development of aquatic, aerial and ground robots and works closely with industry to take robotic platforms from University prototypes through to commercially viable systems.

Jonathon Witty is a mechatronics engineer in the cybernetics group of RACE, a department of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), having completed their graduate scheme after his engineering science degree at Oxford University. He largely works on integrating sensors with robotic systems, supporting maintenance, upgrades, and research for fusion energy devices. One key project has been supporting upgrades to the remote handling system for JET - the world's most powerful active fusion machine - based in Oxfordshire.