On 13th November 2015, Professors David Lane and Sethu Vijayakumar, Directors of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, both talked at The Royal Society event: "Robotics and Autonomous Systems – Vision Challenges and Actions".

Professor David Lane gave a lecture on 'Creating Innovation from Invention: the UK RAS strategy and lessons from marine robotics'. Professor Sethu Vijayakumar's lecture was on ‘Shared autonomy for interactive robotics: closing the loop’.

On 7th October 2015, Professor David Lane, Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, talked about "Persistently autonomous robots – from invention to innovation and lessons from marine robotics" as a keynote speaker at the "Robotics in Extreme Environments: The fundamentals of developing advanced robotics applications". The Conference was held at the University of Birmingham. Professor David Lane talked about

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