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02 Mar 2015

UK research aims for pervasive mobile robotics

Scientists are developing situation-aware mobile robotic systems for use in applications such as transport, logistics, space, defence, agriculture and infrastructure management.

Led by Prof Paul Newman of Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science, the programme – which has been awarded a £5m EPSRC grant - will include numerous partners including Ricardo, Network Rail, the Fraunhofer Institute, Amey, the UK Space Agency, BP Global and Nissan.

The project’s aim is to create the world’s leading research programme in mobile autonomy. To do this, it will have to overcome some of the fundamental technical issues which have so far prevented the large scale adoption of mobile robotics by industry and society, such as a need for them to be cheap, work cooperatively with people in large, complex and time-changing environments and do so for long periods of time, all while remaining safe and trusted.

Using the mathematics of probability and estimation, computers in robots will be enabled to interpret data from sensors like cameras, radars and lasers in order to form a map of their surroundings.

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