Heriot-Watt University’s reputation for AI and robotics has been bolstered after it was selected as the UK’s only entrant in this year’s $3.5 million Amazon Alexa Prize.
A seven-strong group of PhD students – named Team Alana - will once again go head-to-head with universities from around the world to develop an artificial intelligence software that can understand and respond to human conversation.
Heriot-Watt University Dubai welcomed Professor David Lane to the annual Vice-Chancellor Distinguished Lecture. The prestigious Vice-Chancellor’s Distinguished Lectures invite global leaders of industry, business and academia to share their knowledge and vision with students, colleagues and guests.
Professor Lane FREng FRSE CBE, Founding Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, discussed some of the exciting advances underway in research and innovation, as well as recent successes in commercialisation and international challenge competitions.
Europe’s most advanced assisted living robots were showcased in an international tournament at Heriot-Watt University, this week.
Academic teams from across the continent battled it out in the European Robotics League Service Robot Challenge (ERL), testing robots which aim to assist older people in a care setting.
The competition took place in the University’s custom built 60 square metre real life living laboratory, with researchers testing robots which could revolutionise the healthcare and social care sectors.
On January 17th an interview with Prof Sethu Vijayakumar will air as part of BBC Radio Scotland's Brainwaves series.
It will be boadcast at 13:30 on Janurary 17th and again on Sunday the 21st at 06:00, with ability to replay on their website by following the link here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09m17xr
"What role will robots play in our lives in the future? We already interact with robots on a daily basis but with the development of intelligent, free-thinking robots our relationship with them will change.
ORCA Hub (Offshore Robotics for Certification of Assets) is a £36M programme aimed at addressing the offshore energy industry vision for a completely autonomous offshore energy field. The Hub brings together internationally leading experts from five UK universities with over thirty industry partners led by the Edinburgh Centre of Robotics in collaboration with Imperial College, Oxford and Liverpool Universities.
Three of our RAS CDT students exhibited some of our robots at the IET headquarters in London as part of the Festival of Engineering in October. Siobhan Duncan has written about the experience:
Vibhav Bharti, James Horn and I travelled to the Institute of Engineering and Technology’s headquarters in London to represent the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics at their recent Festival of Engineering.
Academics and students from the Centre along with guests from industry attended a reception hosted by Gordon MacDonald, MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands, at the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday 8th November to celebrate Heriot-Watt’s ‘Year of Robotics’.
Professor Oliver Lemon, Director of the Interaction Lab at Heriot-Watt University, outlined how the Centre’s research is contributing towards the UK’s drive to realise its industrial potential in the rapidly evolving robotic sector. He also shared the University’s success in the Amazon Alexa Challenge to date.
Our annual conference took place on Wednesday 11th October at the Informatics Forum at the University of Edinburgh. It was attended by over 100 students, academics and industry partners.
Professor Sethu Vijayakumar will be a keynote speaker at the IGD Leaders Forum on 18th October in London. The topic for discussion will be Artificial Intelligence in the food industry and will comprise of the following:
Automation is accelerating in food and grocery. Will this promote productivity and prosperity or will it feed the fires of discontent and rebellion?
- Is AI about to transform the business world?
- Is it any different to previous waves of technology?
- What ethical challenges will it present?
We are delighted to announce the arrival of three new academics to our fast-growing centre. We would like to welcome Dr Lynne Baillie, Dr Hakan Bilen and Dr Thusha Rajendran and all of the experience and expertise they will bring to the Centre.
Dr Lynne Baillie
Lynne is based in the department of MACS at Heriot-Watt University. Her reseach interests are Health and Rehabilitation Technologies & Robotics, Mobile Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Human Robotic Interaction (HRI).