Intentionally, we combine and apply expertise from multiple robotics specialities that normally act in isolation. This includes more traditional and well-established research in perception, communication and control, as well as more advanced and pioneering topics such as machine learning, deep learning and reinforcement learning for autonomous decision making. It also includes bio-inspired, self-organised and evolutionary systems with the potential to achieve life-long and adaptable autonomy.
Cross-fertilisation across these fields produces cutting-edge new technologies and intellectual property that will enable our autonomous systems to perform operations in non-trivial environments such as unstructured land, air, and water. Some of these operations include:
- Three-dimensional mapping and navigation of cluttered multi-floor environments to locate victims of disaster
- Area coverage with single- and multi-robot systems for surveillance and monitoring of large indoor or outdoor locations
- Autonomous driving off-road with minimal signalling and infrastructures and potentially non-perfect perception
- Reactive and deliberative autonomous control of large swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles that perform patrolling and scans of large territories
- Large-scale sensor networks with limited connectivity requirements
- Bio-inspired robotic solutions to restore damaged eco-systems on land, on water and under water.
Our research extends from fundamental and theoretical studies to prototype development and production of intellectual property. We use mathematical and conceptual models. We then move to simple or more sophisticated and detailed simulations. We use existing robotic platforms, integrated with novel sensing and actuation mechanisms, and develop novel hardware and software platforms for different needs.
We develop prototypes to benefit the worldwide robotics community, and we participate in international robotics competitions and challenges. Our institute has access to world-leading infrastructure and laboratories to support all these activities.