2nd September 2009

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The future role of robots in industry, healthcare, the entertainment and service industries is under the spotlight at a leading scientific conference in the University of Ulster. 

International experts have gathered at the Magee campus for a closer look at the latest developments in the design and operation of mobile “intelligent robots”. 

The Cognitive Robotics Team (CRT), based at Magee’s £20 million Intelligent Systems Research Centre (ISRC), has been bringing the once futuristic world of robots into the present by combining professional expertise and premier range research facilities that are the UK’s best. 

Around 70 scientists, researchers and students from a dozen countries have travelled to the Londonderry campus for the 10th conference of TAROS (Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems), the UK’s foremost forum on the subject which is being held for the first time in Northern Ireland. 

With keynote speeches from world-renowned speakers, they are exploring scientific advances and future directions for robotics during the three day event. 

CRT, which is hosting the conference at the ultra modern ISRC complex, is one of nine ISRC teams researching intelligent systems – developing software that enables robots, smart devices and sensor-based computer applications to mimic aspects of the brain and, so, replicate human reasoning, learning and autonomous behaviour. 

Professor Ulrich Nehmzow, who leads the CRT, explained: “We are not trying to build artificial human beings.   

“Our robots are machines that will stay machines but they have the ability to function on the basis of programmed biological behavioural coding that mirrors elements of human activity.” 

The CRT’s purpose-built laboratory has a fleet of more than 30 mobile robots, the world’s largest robot electric floor – which charges the robots -- and a state-of-the-art motion tracking system in the Intelligent Systems Research Centre. 

IRSC Director Professor Martin McGinnity said the choice of Magee for TAROS ’09 was recognition of the CRT’s leading role in the science of robotics and also reflected the ISRC’s growing stature and importance to efforts to boost Derry’s economy. 

He added: “International links are pivotal to maintaining the ISRC’s momentum in helping to build a knowledge intensive, high technology focus for the North-West’s economy and to develop job opportunities by creating a strong research base in selected strategic areas.” 

CRG researchers are developing robotic devices that will have a variety of applications in industry, healthcare, service and entertainment sectors. 

They could be used to explore remote or dangerous locations, replace repetitive work processes, save labour in a home-care or hospital setting or assist the elderly or disabled people by navigating autonomously and transporting household items between rooms. 

Professor Nehmzow said: “In terms of manpower, the CRT has the largest mobile robotics laboratory in the UK -- and the best equipped. “We have 19 researchers on the team, eight of whom are academics. That’s huge compared to the typical UK research unit in this field, which is about just three or four people housed in some small corner of a university. 

“The ISRC represents a £20 million investment and a significant part of that has been devoted to designing and fitting out our custom-made robotics research laboratory.

”The electric powered laboratory floor on the second storey of the ISRC building at the Strand Road entrance to the campus measures approximately 100 sq meters and its surface is made of special prepared metal tiles wired in a diagonal grid pattern. 

“It gives us a leading edge in research,” Professor Nehmzow said. “Robot batteries last only about two or three hours, but our robots pick up their energy continuously from the floor.  

“So, it provides us with a ‘continuous learning’ facility that allows us to measure the operation of our applications uninterrupted over long periods rather than having to make do with a cumbersome and less reliable a stop-start process. “More importantly, if we want to mimic learning processes in living beings, we need to operate over long periods because that is how biological learning happens. Short-term learning is quite different.” 

A total of 39 research papers are being presented during the conference and keynote speeches are being delivered by three leading scientists – Munich-based Nobel laureate Bert Sakmann who is also a Professor of Biomedical Science at Ulster; Roger Hubbold, Professor of Virtual Environments at the University of Manchester and Raymond Tallis, gerontologist, philosopher, poet, novelist and cultural critic and Emeritus Professor of Geriatric medicine at the University of Manchester. 

For further information, please contact:

Martin Cowley
Telephone: 028 71675083
Email: Martin Cowley