Congratulations to Dr Patricia Vargas’s IEEE Ontologies for Robotics and Automation working group.  They were awarded the IEEE-SA Emerging Technology Award at a ceremony on Sunday 6th December. 

The Edinburgh Centre for Robotics featured strongly in the Heriot-Watt University showcase of Laser-based Manufacturing, Marine Science and Robotics at the Scottish Government reception celebrating ‘Scotland's Science - Past, Present and Future’. The event was held on Tuesday 8th December at Our Dynamic Earth and was hosted by Dr Alasdair Allan MSP, Minister for Science, Learning and Scotland’s Languages; the guests included the Principal, Professor Richard A. Williams. 

On 1st December 2015, Professor Sethu Vijayakumar, Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics Professor of Robotics in the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, concluded a contract signing with Hitachi's Central Research Labs (CRL-CER) in Tokyo, with support from UKTI and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This marks the beginning of an exciting collaboration in the domain of intelligent warehousing and autonomous manipulation robots between the School of Informatics and one of the leading manufacturing giants of Japan.

We are delighted to publish our last Newsletter of the year. Some of the highlights in this issue are:

*Inauguration of our ECR student blog
*Exciting updates on Robotarium equipment
*A brief report on our Edinburgh Centre for Robotics first annual Conference

Happy reading!
 

Useful links

Edinburgh Centre for Robotics students' blog

Earlier today, Prof Sethu Vijayakumar, co-director of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, was interviewed by BBC World Service radio about the NASA Valkyrie robot project. He explained why Valkyrie resembles human beings and talked about its use in space exploration, as well as its applications on Earth.

To hear the full interview, please visit: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p038f64b

Useful links

Professor Sethu Vijayakumar's website

On 3rd and 4th November 2015, researchers from the groups of Nicolas Mansard (LAAS, Toulouse), Jeremy Wyatt (U. of Birmingham) and Matt Howard (Kings College London) visited for two days to discuss avenues for potential collaboration in the area of humanoid control and manipulation. After a presentions from the visiting groups, Edinburgh research staff and PhD students gave a tutorial session demonstrating their humanoid simulation environment, research in whole-body motion planning and locomotion.