Intelligent Robotics Group, Aberystwyth
Robotics research at Aberystwyth was established around 1980 and since that time the group has undertaken innovative research in collaboration with a variety of industrial and academic partners in the U.K. and overseas. Areas of expertise include space and planetary robotics, flying robots, biologically inspired robotics, and machine vision.
Dr David Barnes
Dave Barnes' research interests involve the study of self-sustaining robotic ecosystems, aiming to create self-sustaining robotic communities for long-term or continuous robotic presence on planetary surfaces or in space. Dave Barnes was a member of the Beagle 2 Mars lander consortium and is contributing to the ESA ExoMars Rover and BeagleNET programmes. He has also been appointed by PPARC to help shape the ESA's Aurora Programme of space exploration.
- Website: http://users.aber.ac.uk/dpb/
Dr Mark Neal
Mark Neal's research into robotics began on an EPSRC funded project developing intelligent algorithms for grasp-site detection. His current research interests involve SRIF funded mobile robotic experiments. He is particularly interested in issues of longevity and is developing a method of building robot controllers that uses neural networks, artificial endocrine systems and artificial immune systems.
- Website: http://users.aber.ac.uk/mjn/
Colin Sauze
Colin Sauze is currently conducting doctoral research into highly autonomous, biologically inspired, control and survival mechanisms for robots operating in harsh environments. He is developing an autonomous sailing robot to race across the Atlantic Ocean in 2008 as part of the Microtransat Competition.
Dr Frederic Labrosse
Fred's robotics research is concerned with building and using visual representations of mobile robot environments, as perceived by the robot, in order to improve semi-autonomous robot navigation. He has had success with building topological maps of the environment, on visual homing, route following and on using images to simulate a compass. He sees potential future applications as including planetary exploration.
Dr Joanne Walker
Jo is currently working as a research associate on an EPSRC funded project called 'Lifelong Adaptation and Failure Recovery by Evolutionary Computation for Multiple Heterogeneous Robots.' Her previous research has included a multidisciplinary approach to the application of artificial intelligence to geographical data analysis.
Alan Woodland
Alan Woodland is studying for a PhD at Aberystwyth University, under the supervision of Fred Labrosse. Alan is interested in exploring new ways of working with 'collections' of related images, which might range from multiple views of a single object to a camera on a robot moving freely through different environments. His aim is to develop ways of efficiently representing the appearance of these collections for use as part of a robot vision system or as part of a virtual reality system. Alan recently took part in the 'National Science Week' and 'Robots in the Bandstand' events.