Heriot-Watt University

Modem network for underwater localisation and communication.

10DOF underwater arm: HDT Adroit arm.

Autonomous Surface Vehicle for long endurance missions: ASV Enduro.

Autonomous Underwater Vehicle: IVER 3 AUV with Klein Interferometric Sonar and INS.

This is a standard Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) training platform used by training surgeons. It is used in ECR for robotic assistant development for MIS operations. This equipment allows us to replicate the actual training conditions of professional surgeons and therefore renders our robotic assistance studies to be realistic and to comply with the actual practices in medical MIS training.

This equipment enables force and torque sensing in order for robot manipulators to interact either with humans or with the physical environment. In ECR, we are developing physically interactive assistant robots to help people with finely skilled manipulations. The robotic assistants are usually admittance controlled, which means that the force/torque sensor attached to the end-effector captures the force/torque impact on the robot and then the end-point position/orientation is updated according to this force/torque reading.