News 2004

October 2004

Opening of the Mobile Robotics Laboratory

The Essex advertising robot AdXBot, just about to "cut the ribbon" to open the new £4m Networks Centre, housing the new state-of-the-art mobile robotics laboratory with the world's largest powered floor.

The Robotics Research Group in the Computer Science Department at the University of Essex is the largest and most diverse research team in Autonomous Robotics in the country. During the last 12 months new state-of-the-art research laboratories have been constructed and grounding breaking research projects have begun …

When we think about robots we may first imagine the remote controlled vehicles to be seen on “Robot Wars” or the fixed machines which assemble and paint on a car production line. This is odd, because the robots of science fiction are unlike both of these; the robots we read about in novels and watch at the movies are autonomous: they operate under their own control, without intervention; they can adapt to a changing environment and they can interact with that environment in a sophisticated fashion. If robots are going to play a significant role in our future, then they will have to be autonomous: independent, cooperative, adaptable and reflective.

Developing this advanced form of robotics brings together science and engineering of many forms. Clearly, mechanical engineering plays a significant part, as it does in all forms of robotics, but integrating this with computer engineering and with discoveries and developments in artificial intelligence is a major challenge. The Department has, since its very inception in 1967, been a world leader in these two areas, and their intellectual collision resulted in the formation of the Robotics Group as it is today.

Professor Huosheng Hu is working closely with the London Aquarium on a project which will bring robotics to the attention of the general public. Fish have an astonishing ability to swim: the tuna swims with high speed and high efficiency, the pike accelerates in a flash and the eel can swim skilfully into a narrow hole. Certainly this kind of propulsion is more or less noiseless, more effective and manoeuvrable than propeller-based propulsion. This unique project will not only result in raising the public understanding of science through exposure to thousands of visitors in London, but solving the technical problems will be useful in many other applications of underwater robotics in the future.

In order to operate in a fully autonomous fashion, a robot will have to be able to “imagine” the consequences of possible actions, before actually performing them. This is close to the idea of self-awareness or consciousness for human beings. Professor Owen Holland secured, with colleagues at Bristol University, nearly £500,000 from the EPSRC Adventure Fund, to study these issues. He says: “Whether we succeed in detecting consciousness or not, this project will certainly allow us to learn more about the operation of complex human-like visual systems, and will enable ourselves and others to build robots with better-developed artificial intelligence in the future.”

There are many applications of robotics in healthcare, and a recent project involves utilising such technology to develop a high performance and low-cost RoboChair. This enables the elderly and disabled to gain mobility and to live more independently. The RoboChair has a user-friendly interface and the ability to avoid collisions and to plan a route. Equipped with a new vision system and with wireless communication, a carer or a relative can monitor and tele-operate the vehicle when necessary. Here research fundamental research in navigation links with expertise in tele- and internet robotics to address a topic which can significantly improve the quality of life of the disabled.

The University has recently completed building a multi-million pound research facility which includes two new laboratories for robotics research and within which projects such as those described, will be undertaken. The huge, circular Robot Arena boasts the largest “powered floor” in Europe: the surface on which the robots operate can supply electricity directly to the vehicles; in this way the important task of experimenting with robots which operate almost perpetually (as they must in many applications) can be studied.

July 2004

10th rank in Prisoner's Dilemma Tournament
The Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma is a well studied problem in game theory. It has been over 20 years since Axelrod organized the famous tournaments in 1980 and 1984, which were described in Axelrod, Robert "Effective choice in the Prisoner's Dilemma", Journal of Conflict Resolution 24:379-403 (1980) and "The Evolution of Cooperation", (1984). This year (2004), IEEE has organized a new tournament http://www.prisoners-dilemma.com/.  All together 223 entries joined the tournament "Competition 1", which was a rerun of Axelrod's original experiment. Results of the competition were published in http://www.prisoners-dilemma.com/results/cec04/ipd_cec04_full_run.html.  The entry by Nanlin Jin, a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science, was ranked 10th in this competition.

GECCO Competition
Professor Riccardo Poli won the Tiny GP Competition associated with the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference 2004.

His tiny yet well designed implementation of genetic programming (a method for automatically evolving computer programs) squeezed into under 3kb, and was judged to be the winner by a panel of independent experts. [more details]

 

Vodafone recruit through TWUF
Vodafone have recruited Ben Wang from the University of Essex and Xin Guo from the University of Northumbria for their summer work placements scheme. The recruitment opportunity was run exclusively through TWUF with interested students submitting their applications via a secure area on twuf.com.

Both students will be working on demonstrator project in the M-Commerce department of R&D-UK and Ben, a PhD student studying Computer Science, told us how he was looking forward to the placement. "The application of the placement is to demonstrate how a mobile can be used to access and pay for a public transport journey over a contactless/radio interface. This task will require knowledge of JAVA both for the client and server. I hope that I can have a deep involvement in the system design and also do some coding work during the placement and get wonderful experiences for the future."

The placements run from the start of July through until the end of August and due to the number and quality of the applicants Vodafone will be pursuing future recruitment for other departments through TWUF. This news delighted TWUF Account Director Gabrielle Scott, who sees the TWUF recruitment as providing an opportunity for an increased number of students: "The response was phenomenal and with Vodafone inviting responses from all TWUF university members it opened up the playing field for all applicants. The two placement students were selected from Essex and Northumbria, two universities that without TWUF they may not have otherwise dealt with."

May 2004

Researchers to develop intelligent wheelchair
Computer scientists at the University of Essex have been awarded a grant to develop an intelligent robotic wheelchair.

March 2004

A proven Recipe for Success
An Ipswich-based company, A Recipe for Success (ARFS), has almost completed a successful software development project with the Department of Computer Science at the University of Essex and cannot wait to start another one...[more details]

January 2004

The BBC2 programme "Inventions that Changed the World", featured the 'Essex Rovers' Robocup bid.

A newly Project funded by the Art council for East of England for the Junction Art Centre in Cambridge started in January. The project is described in the following link http://www.greyworld.org/presentation/.  For more details contact Dr Hani Hagras.

Previous years news: [2003]  [2002]  [2001]