News

Verena Rieser Promoted to Professor

Submitted by Colette Bush on Thu, 06/07/2017 - 14:35

Congratulations to Verena Rieser who has recently been appointed Professor in the School of Mathematics and Computer Sciences (MACS). Verena was promoted to full Professor at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, where she leads the NLP research group on Spoken Dialogue Systems and Natural Language Generation. She received her PhD in 2008 from Saarland University and joined Heriot-Watt University in 2011 as Assistant Professor/ Lecturer. She currently serves as a faculty advisor for the Amazon Alexa Challenge and as an area chair for ACL 2017.

International Workshop on Robotics, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Submitted by Colette Bush on Thu, 06/07/2017 - 14:25

Researchers, end users and technology developers attended the International Workshop on Robotics (IWR 2017) which took place on 30th and 31st March at the University of Campinas (Unicamp), São Paulo, Brazil.

 

This workshop, with a theme of “Robotics and automation: uncovering recent developments and applications on energy, industry, environment, agriculture, health and social settings” was organised jointly by Dr Patricia Vargas from Edinburgh Centre for Robotics and Professor Ely Carneiro de Paiva, from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Unicamp. 

Heriot-Watt Robotics and Interaction Labs host an Open Day

Submitted by Anne Murphy on Wed, 28/06/2017 - 11:02

The Robotics and Interaction Labs at Heriot-Watt University hosted a joint Open Day on Wednesday 21st June. The Open Day included two keynote speakers: Dr Verena Rieser from the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences at Heriot-Watt and Dr Mary-Ellen Foster, a Lecturer in the School of Computing Science at the University of Glasgow.

Dr Rieser discussed "Data-driven methods for spoken dialogue systems" and Dr Foster presented on "Face-to-face conversation with socially intelligent robots". 

Delegation from China visits Robotarium-East

Submitted by Zoe McGonigle on Mon, 19/06/2017 - 16:13

The Centre was delighted to welcome Mr. Hu Chunhua, Party Secretary of CPC Guangdong Committee, and Mr. Wen Guohui, Mayor of Guangzhou City, as part of a delegation visiting our facilities at Robotarium-East on Monday the 12th of June.  Our Centre Director, Professor Sethu Vijayakumar, gave our distinguished guests a presentation including an overview of our research at the ECR and there were demonstrations of Valkyrie, our Humanoid Robot from our NASA partnership, our Husky UGV and our PR2 Humanoid.

Spirit of Heriot-Watt Award: Outward Looking

Submitted by Colette Bush on Wed, 07/06/2017 - 15:23

The ERF2017 Organising Team is very proud to announce that they have been awarded the Outward Looking category in the 2017 Spirit of Heriot-Watt Awards. This award recognises the huge amount of effort the team put into organising and delivering the highly successful 2017 European Robotics Forum which reached over 800 delegates from academia and industry.

ERF2017 Organising Team:

European Robotics Forum 2017

Submitted by Colette Bush on Wed, 10/05/2017 - 16:17

After many months of planning it was with a great sense of achievement that we welcomed over 800 delegates to ERF2017 which took place at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre from 22-24 March.  This three day conference, featuring seminars, workshops and an exhibition, is the premier European Robotics forum; a meeting place for robotics in Europe, bringing together researchers, engineers, managers, and a growing number of entrepreneurs and business people from all over Europe.

Smart Robots for Intelligent Warehousing: from Research to Translation

Submitted by Colette Bush on Wed, 10/05/2017 - 15:35

Researchers from Statistical Machine Learning and Motor Control Group have recently received boost in funding from various sources to further their study on novel solutions for automated supermarkets and warehouses.

Three grants awarded to the group will support the work to tackle challenges in dynamic motion planning in pick and place tasks in such cluttered environments.

Recruiting now for September 2017

Submitted by Anne Murphy on Wed, 16/11/2016 - 10:04

Are you passionate about robotics?

Would you like to work on exciting robotic platforms in our world-class facilities?

Do you have, or expect to obtain, a first-class degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or related subjects?

We are now recruiting for September 2017.

If you would like to join our ambitious CDT, please apply here : http://www.edinburgh-robotics.org/apply

 

 

Centre Director David Lane to be guest of honour at Policy UK event

Submitted by Cat Andrade on Wed, 02/11/2016 - 12:51

Our centre director David Lane will be the guest of honour at Policy UK's event - The Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Future: Putting Britain at the Forefront of the 4th Industrial Revolution. The event will be held in London on November 23rd and will see David, lead author on the RAS2020 UK Robotics and Autonomous Systems Strategy  speak on Next Steps for Implementing the Robotics and Automated Systems 2020 Strategy.