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Socially intelligent robot helps autistic Somerset pupils 

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PhD Opportunity with Centre for Machine Vision in collaboration with Zenotech

10 November 2022
There's an opportunity to apply for a funded full-time PhD in the Centre for Machine Vision (CMV), School of Engineering, UWE Bristol. This studentship, titled "Three-dimensional object detection and segmentation in point clouds in the context of aerospace CFD meshing" will be jointly funded by UWE Bristol and Zenotech Ltd.

UK-RAS Network Robot Talk Podcast with Mickey Li

31 October 2022
Tune in to episode 23 of Robot Talk featuring our BRL colleague and FARSCOPE PhD candidate Mickey Li

PHD Opportunity: Centre For Machine Vision seeking a suitable PhD candidate for a newly funded project

26 October 2022
Centre For Machine Vision at Bristol Robotics Laboratory has been successful in securing funding from SWBio for a new PhD position for a project titled “Vision‐based artificial intelligence and social network analysis for early prediction of disease from cattle behaviours and interactions”.

Socially intelligent robot helps autistic Somerset pupils

by BBC • 8 July 2021
A robot has been helping autistic pupils with regulating their emotions in a three-week long research project. Pepper the robot based at The Mendip School in Somerset has been taking part in social activities designed to help autistic pupils with their wellbeing. Children at the school have been able to approach the robot for help in the three-week project. The Mendip School said autistic pupils have now found a new "confidence" to socially interact with others. The Bristol Robotics lab based at the University of the West of England helped to develop the technology using pupils and teachers input to decide how it would best support students in need. Mendip School's assistant headteacher, Iian Conley, said: ''Since Pepper arrived at the school there has been a lot of dancing and the children have also really enjoyed the robot's jokes. "Children who wouldn't normally socially interact with others are now choosing to interact with their peers. "It's great to see students willing to communicate with the robot where they might struggle with adults and children, and to see them opening up their friendship groups.'' Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) - its medical name - is the name for a range of conditions which affect how a person communicates and interacts with the world around them, as well as their interests and behaviour. It is estimated that about one in every 100 people in the UK is autistic. Read the full article here

An approach to achieve compliant robotic manipulation inspired by human adaptive control strategies

by TechXplore • 1 July 2021
Over the past few decades, roboticists have created increasingly advanced and sophisticated robotics systems. While some of these systems are highly efficient and achieved remarkable results, they still perform far poorly than humans on several tasks, including those that involve grasping and manipulating objects. Researchers from Guangdong University of Technology, Politecnico di Milano, University of Sussex and Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) at University of the West of England have recently developed a model that could help to improve robot manipulation. This model, presented in a paper published in IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, draws inspiration from how humans adapt their manipulation strategies based on the task they are trying to complete. "Humans have the remarkable ability to deal with physical contact and complete dynamic tasks, such as curving, cutting and assembly, optimally and compliantly," Professor Chenguang Yang, the corresponding author for the paper working at BRL, told TechXplore. "Although these tasks are easy for humans, they are quite challenging for robots to perform, even advanced ones." According to Professor Yang and his colleagues, one of the reasons that many robots struggle with manipulation tasks is that they lack an innate human skill called adaptable compliance. This skill allows humans to adapt their movements and manipulation strategies according to the interactive force with the object they are trying to manipulate. Read the full article here

Bristol Robotics Laboratory hosts virtual conference to showcase cutting-edge research

by Mirage News • 24 June 2021
The conference brings together leading robotics researchers and business leaders to explore the benefits of robotics, smart automation, AI and machine-learning. Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) will host a virtual conference on Wednesday 30 June, showcasing cutting-edge research and opportunities for organisations to engage with the UK’s largest robotics research laboratory. The conference brings together leading robotics researchers and business leaders to explore how robotics, smart automation, AI and machine learning can benefit organisations, from start-ups to large corporations. BRL will be presenting over 50 talks, a series of which will take place live from within the laboratory, on topics ranging from smart automation, assistive robotics and human-robot interaction to unmanned aerial vehicles. There will also be live demonstrations, industrial case studies and opportunities to discover current research from the community of PhD students. Read the full article here

Pepper the robot helps autistic pupils make human friends

by The Times • 24 June 2021
Why did the robot cross the road? To tell jokes and lead dances in the corridors of a special needs school. Pepper, a socially intelligent robot, has spent the past three weeks helping pupils at the Mendip School in Somerset, in a first project of its kind to embed a humanoid robot in a school. Programmed at the University of the West of England’s (UWE) Bristol Robotics Laboratory, Pepper can take part in social and physical activities with children, such as storytelling, dancing, and using relaxation techniques such as t’ai chi and cuddles to help autistic pupils manage their wellbeing. “One of the great things we’ve seen already is children gathering in groups to engage with Pepper,” Iian Conley, an assistant head teacher, said. Read the full article here
BBiC

Robot stomachs: powering machines with garbage and pee

by Robohub • 14 May 2021
The Seinfeld idiom, “worlds are colliding,” is probably the best description of work in the age of Corona. Pre-pandemic, it was easy to departmentalize one’s professional life from one’s home existence. Clearly, my dishpan hands have hindered my writing schedule. Thank goodness for the robots in my life, scrubbing and vacuuming my floors; if only they could power themselves with the crumbs they suck up. The World Bank estimates that 3.5 million tons of solid waste is produced by humans everyday, with America accounting for more than 250 million tons a year or over 4 pounds of trash per citizen. This figure does not include the 34 billion gallons of human organic materials that is processed in water treatment centers across the country each year. To the fictional Dr. Emmett Brown, this garbage is akin to “black gold” – ecologically powering cities, cars, and machines. In reality, the movie, “Back to The Future II” was inspired by the biomass gasification movement of 20th century in powering cars with wood during World War II when petroleum was scarce. The technology has advanced so much that a few years ago the GENeco water treatment plant in the United Kingdom built a biomethane gas bus that relied solely on sewage. In reflecting on the importance of the technology, Collin Field of Bath Bus Company declared, “We will never, ever, ever, while we are on this planet, run out of human waste.”

Evolving, self-replicating robots are here — but don’t worry about an uprising

by digitaltrends • 17 April 2021
“We are trying to, if you like, invent a completely new way of designing robots that doesn’t require humans to actually do the designing,” said Alan Winfield. “We’re developing the machine or robot equivalent of artificial selection in the way that farmers have been doing for not just centuries, but for millennia … What we’re interested in is breeding robots. I mean that literally.” Winfield, who has been working with software and robotic systems since the early 1980s, is a professor of Cognitive Robotics in the Bristol Robotics Lab at the University of the West of England (UWE). He’s also one of the brains behind the Autonomous Robot Evolution (ARE) project, a multiyear effort carried out by UWE, the University of York, Edinburgh Napier University, and University of Amsterdam. It will, its creators hope, change the way that robots are designed and built. And it’s all thanks to borrowing a page from evolutionary biology.

Documenatry: The Secret Science of Sewage

by BRL • 18 March 2021
A new two part TV documentary, "The Secret Life of Sewage" featuring the Bristol BioEnergy Centre, airs on BBC Two tonight, 18th March. Dr George McGavin and Dr Zoe Laughlin set up base camp at one of the UK’s biggest Sewage Works to investigate the revolutionary science finding vital renewable resources and undiscovered life in human waste. Teaming up with world class scientists, they search for biological entities in sewage with potentially lifesaving medical properties, find out how pee can generate electricity, gas from poo can fuel a car and how nutrients in waste can help solve the soil crisis. They follow each stage of the sewage treatment process, revealing what the stuff we flush can tell us about how we live today, and the mindboggling biotechnology being harnessed to clean it, making the wastewater safe enough to return to the environment. Read the full entry here BRL Research: Bristol BioEnergy Centre
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