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Robot Talk Episode 103 – Keenan Wyrobek

Claire chatted to Keenan Wyrobek from Zipline about drones for delivering life-saving medicine to remote locations. Keenan Wyrobek is co-founder and head of product and engineering at Zipline, the world’s first drone delivery service whose focus is delivering life-saving medicine to the most difficult to reach places on earth. Prior to Zipline, Keenan was a co-founder and director of the Personal Robotics Program at Willow Garage. He was involved in launching the Robot Operating System (ROS) a

Robot Talk Episode 102 – Isabella Fiorello

Claire chatted to Isabella Fiorello from the University of Freiburg about plant-inspired robots made from living materials. Isabella Fiorello is a Junior Group Leader and Principal Investigator of the Bioinspired Plant-hybrid Materials group at the University of Freiburg in Germany. She has a Master’s Degree in Industrial Biotechnology from the University of Turin in Italy and a PhD in Biorobotics from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Italy. Her research focusses on the development of biolo

Robot Talk Episode 101 – Christos Bergeles

Claire chatted to Christos Bergeles from King’s College London about micro-surgical robots to deliver therapies deep inside the body. Christos Bergeles received his PhD in Robotics from ETH Zurich in Switzerland in 2011. As a Professor at King’s College London, he directs the “Robotics and Vision in Medicine Lab” whose mission is to develop micro-surgical robots that deliver regenerative therapies deep inside the human body. He holds funding for the development of instrumentation that de

Robot Talk Episode 100 – Mini Rai

Claire chatted to Mini Rai from Orbit Rise about orbital and planetary robots. Mini Rai is the founding Director of Orbit Rise Ltd and an honorary Professor at the University of Lincoln. Previously, she was the Global Chair in Robotic Engineering at the University of Lincoln and an Associate Professor at the Surrey Space Centre. Mini has over 27 years of research and innovation experience in Space Engineering and Technology. With deep-rooted expertise in robotics, automation, control and syste

Robot Talk Episode 99 – Joe Wolfel

Claire chatted to Joe Wolfel from Terradepth about autonomous submersible robots for collecting ocean data. Joe Wolfel is the CEO and founder of Terradepth. He is passionate about helping people make better and faster decisions regarding what we do (and don’t do) in the ocean. Terradepth designs and builds ocean-going robots at scale, deploys them, and delivers data through an ocean data platform tailored for the maritime community. Prior to Terradepth, Joe has helped start a couple other comp

Robot Talk Episode 98 – Gabriella Pizzuto

Claire chatted to Gabriella Pizzuto from the University of Liverpool about intelligent robotic manipulators for laboratory automation. Gabriella Pizzuto is a Lecturer in Robotics and Chemistry Automation at the University of Liverpool. She is also a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow and ECR Co-Chair on the EPSRC AI Hub in Chemistry. She has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Manchester, where she was also a Marie-Sklodowska Curie early stage researcher and a visiting

Online hands-on science communication training – sign up here!

On Friday 22 November, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society will be hosting an online science communication training session for robotics and AI researchers. The tutorial will introduce you to science communication and help you create your own story through hands-on activities. Date: 22 November 2024 Time: 10:00 – 13:00 EST (07:00 – 10:00 PST, 15:00 – 18:00 GMT, 16:00 – 19:00 CET) Location: Online – worldwide Registration Website Science communication is essential. It helps demystify robotics

Robot Talk Episode 97 – Pratap Tokekar

Claire chatted to Pratap Tokekar from the University of Maryland about how teams of robots with different capabilities can work together. Pratap Tokekar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies at the University of Maryland, and an Amazon Scholar. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the GRASP lab of University of Pennsylvania and later, an Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech. He has a degree in Electronics and

Robot Talk Episode 96 – Maria Elena Giannaccini

Claire chatted to Maria Elena Giannaccini from the University of Aberdeen about soft and bioinspired robotics for healthcare and beyond. Maria Elena Giannaccini has a degree in Biomedical Engineering from the Università di Pisa in Italy. She conducted her Master’s thesis at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna as part of the EU-funded OCTOPUS project. In 2015, she obtained her PhD in Robotics at the Bristol Robotics, where she focussed on developing safe, variable stiffness robotic devices. She worked a

Robot Talk Episode 95 – Jonathan Walker

Claire chatted to Jonathan Walker from Innovate UK about translating robotics research into the commercial sector. Jonathan Walker is the Innovation Lead for Robotics and Sensors at Innovate UK. He is working with government, universities, businesses and cross-sector teams to accelerate the development and uptake of robotics in the UK. Areas of particular interest are the built environment, circular economy, and helping people live independently for longer. Jonathan wants to support these them

Robot Talk Episode 94 – Esyin Chew

Claire chatted to Esyin Chew from Cardiff Metropolitan University about service and social humanoid robots in healthcare and education. Esyin Chew is the Director of the EUREKA Robotics Centre, one of 11 specialist robotics centres in the UK, impacting underprivileged communities with over 120 humanoid robots. She has led million-pound government or industrial-funded global projects across the UK, EU, Australia, Malaysia, China and Indonesia, including the British Council award-winning Global

Robot Talk Episode 93 – Matt Beane

Claire chatted to Matt Beane from the University of California, Santa Barbara about how humans can learn to work with intelligent machines. Matt Beane conducts field research on robots and AI in the workplace, focusing on positive exceptions applicable to the broader world of work. He has published his award-winning research in top management journals and presented on the TED stage. He’s been recognized as a Human-Robot Interaction Pioneer and named to the Thinkers50 Radar list. Matt is an ass

Robot Talk Episode 92 – Gisela Reyes-Cruz

Claire chatted to Gisela Reyes-Cruz from the University of Nottingham about how humans interact with, trust and accept robots. Gisela Reyes-Cruz investigates human-computer and human-robot interaction to understand everyday life interactions with technologies, as well as trust in them and public acceptance. These technologies include autonomous and robotic systems: from mobile apps that have, or may have, a component that works autonomously, to robots that can navigate a physical space on thei

Robot Talk Episode 91 – John Leonard

Claire chatted to John Leonard from Massachusetts Institute of Technology about autonomous navigation for underwater vehicles and self-driving cars. John Leonard is a Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a member of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). His research addresses the problems of navigation and mapping for autonomous underwater vehicles, self-driving vehicles, and other types of mobile ro

Interview with Jerry Tan: Service robot development for education

At the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) 2023, I had the opportunity to interview Jerry Tan from Lattel Robotics, a company dedicated to promoting AI-focused robotics education and training. They work closely with the RoboCup@Home Education initiative, supporting schools and institutions in introducing AI and service robot development to students. Their goal is to equip learners with practical AI application skills in computer vision, autonomous navigation, objec

#RoboCup2024 – daily digest: 21 July

A break in play during a Small Size League match. Today, 21 July, saw the competitions draw to a close in a thrilling finale. In the third and final of our round-up articles, we provide a flavour of the action from this last day. If you missed them, you can find our first two digests here: 19 July | 20 July. My first port of call this morning was the Standard Platform League, where Dr Timothy Wiley and Tom Ellis from Team RedbackBots, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, demonstrated an exciti

#RoboCup2024 – daily digest: 20 July

The Standard Platform Soccer League in action. This is the second of our daily digests from RoboCup2024 in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. If you missed the first digest, which gives some background to RoboCup, you can find it here. Competitions continued across all the leagues today, with participants vying for a place in Sunday’s finals. The RoboCup@Work league focusses on robots in work-related scenarios, utilizing ideas and concepts from other RoboCup competitions to tackle open research challe

#RoboCup2024 – daily digest: 19 July

The main soccer arena. RoboCup is an international scientific initiative with the goal to advance the state of the art of intelligent robots. As part of this initiative, a series of competitions and events are held throughout the year. The main showcase event is an international affair with teams travelling from far and wide to put their machines through their paces. This year, RoboCup is being held in three arenas in the Genneper Parken, Eindhoven, The Netherlands. The organisers are expecting

Robot Talk Episode 90 – Robotically Augmented People

Robotics is helping to rehabilitate and increase human abilities in areas like mobility and stamina. Innovations in robotic devices, exoskeletons, and wearable tech aim to offer disabled people different perspectives and new experiences, as well as supporting humans more widely to access, inhabit and work safely in dangerous and extreme conditions. What does the future hold for these technologies and the people they will become a part of? In this special live recording at the Victoria

Robot Talk Episode 89 – Simone Schuerle

Claire chatted to Simone Schuerle from ETH Zürich all about microrobots, medicine and science. Simone Schuerle is Assistant Professor at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, where she heads the Responsive Biomedical System Lab. With her team, she develops diagnostic and therapeutic systems at the nano- and microscale with the aim of tackling a range of challenging problems in medicine. One major focus of her current research is addressing limitations in drug delivery through scalable magnetically enhanc