Smart Solutions Towards Cellular-Connected Unmanned Aerial Vehicles System

Lead Research Organisation: University of Southampton
Department Name: Sch of Electronics and Computer Sci

Abstract

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
 
Description Automation in military operations
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Citation in other policy documents
URL https://post.parliament.uk/research-briefings/post-pn-0681/
 
Description Connected tech: smart or sinister? A call for evidence from Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
URL https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/connected-tech-smart-or-sinister-a-call-for-evidenc...
 
Description Response to The future of connected and automated mobility in the UK: call for evidence
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
URL https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/450228/
 
Description BAE Systems 
Organisation BAE Systems
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Discussions around the identification of research challenges and synergies.
Collaborator Contribution Discussions around the identification of research challenges and synergies.
Impact None yet.
Start Year 2020
 
Description Boeing 
Organisation Boeing
Country United States 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Discussions around the identification of research challenges and synergies.
Collaborator Contribution Discussions around the identification of research challenges and synergies. Membership of the TAS Strategic Advisory Network.
Impact Identification of research challenges via the TAS Strategic Advisory Network.
Start Year 2020
 
Description Dstl 
Organisation Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL)
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Discussions and identification of research challenges and synergies. Access to the wider TAS network and events.
Collaborator Contribution Discussions and identification of research challenges and synergies. Co-chairing the TAS Skills Committee. Membership of the TAS Sector Leads Committee. Membership of the TAS Strategic Advisory Network. Participation in TAS events such as the TAS AHM 21 and Trusting Machines? Access to AIFest Project Partner: Trustworthy human-swarm partnerships in extreme environments
Impact Development of TAS Skills Programme via co-chairing of the TAS Skills Committee and participation in the TAS DTN seminar series. Membership of the TAS Strategic Advisory Network. Trusting Machines? Cross sector lessons in healthcare and defence event. TAS participation in AIFest. Project:Trustworthy human-swarm partnerships in extreme environments.
Start Year 2020
 
Description Northrup Grumman 
Organisation Northrop Grumman
Country United States 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution A number of discussions have taken place around research challenges.
Collaborator Contribution A number of discussions have taken place around research challenges and a financial contribution has been offered to the TAS Hub. Membership of the TAS Strategic Advisory Network.
Impact Membership of the TAS Strategic Advisory Network.
Start Year 2020
 
Description Open-Source Interaction Interface for Human-Swarm Teaming 
Organisation University of Southampton
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution TAS pump priming award
Collaborator Contribution Motivated by RRI, this project aims at providing an open-source platform that is suitable for experimentation with a large group of semi-autonomous systems that can be monitored and controlled by a few human operators. Establishing an efficient human-machine teaming is a challenging task that can be enabled through a highly usable and efficient interaction interface. It is necessary for such an interface to be: (1) understandable: so that operators can monitor the state of the autonomous systems with minimal effort and training, (2) scalable: such that the performance of the system is not bound to any specific number of agents, (3) highly usable: so that the platform can easily be used for online experimentation, and (4) maintainable: such that researchers and developers can build upon the existing code or tailor the platform to their specific needs and domains of application.
Impact None yet.
Start Year 2022
 
Description UK RAS 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
Department UK-RAS Network
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Discussion of research challenges and synergies. Cross-network support and promotion of events.
Collaborator Contribution Discussion of research challenges and synergies. Cross-network support and promotion of events.
Impact Support and involvement of both TAS and UK-RAS members in events and joint outputs.
Start Year 2020
 
Description University of Texas @ Austin 
Organisation University of Texas at Austin
Country United States 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Introduction of sandpit methodology for co-creating research projects. Research expertise.
Collaborator Contribution Research expertise.
Impact This multi-disciplinary collaboration is bringing together TAS and Good Systems (University of Texas at Austin) together to co-create research projects. Horizon Researcher Pepi Barnard facilitated RRI educational workshops for City of Austin's office of innovation in Oct 2023. Additionally a number of workshops with academics, post docs and lecturers also took place during the visit.
Start Year 2022
 
Description AAMAS 2023 Demo 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact We presented a demo of our research on the performance benefits of human-swarm teaming to an international academic audience, attendees of the 22nd International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2023) in London, United Kingdom. We were awarded the Best Demo award for AAMAS 2023.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://uos-haris.online/demo/aamas2023/
 
Description AI UK 2023 Demo 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact We presented a demo of our research on the performance benefit of human-swarm teaming at the AI UK 2023 event.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://uos-haris.online/demo/aiuk2023/
 
Description DP World AI in Practice: Challenges and Use cases 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact This was a follow-up event from the Tech Solent PWC event last year. We were invited to DP World Southampton to discuss AI in practice. We presented our research work on Swarm Robotics. They also presented us with use cases for adopting AI in their business and the challenges they are currently facing with deploying AI. We are currently discussing partnership opportunities based on this.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://www.techsolent.org/event-details/ai-in-practice-dp-world
 
Description Dynamic leader election in cellular connected UAV swarms (CMI-TAS event) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This presentation at the CMI-TAS event on dynamic leader election was done to report progress on the AUTONOMY project carried out at the University of Southampton and to engage with members of the local academic community on ideas being explored that may be helpful in actualizing the research goals of this project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Interoperability in Robotics & Autonomous Systems Proving Grounds Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact This workshop was a UKRAS event hosted at the RCA in London. Attendance was strictly by invitation. We had two round table discussions. The first session was focused on the following:
• What are the challenges to maintaining interoperability across multi-vendor fleets of robots?
• How can we produce guidelines for measuring interoperability performance? What regulatory frameworks should be followed?
• How can we encourage the adoption of interoperability standards and practices amongst the robotic systems suppliers?
• How can we facilitate innovation and UK leadership in the area?
The second roundtable discussion was focused on specific use cases such as applications spanning from aerial surveying to underwater construction, assembly line autonomy, and power plant operations; identifying potential stakeholders of relevant interoperability problems, the measurement and implementation challenges, and how relevant solutions can be achieved.

The aim is to publish a white paper based on the roundtable discussions by attendees from academia and the industry, which could inform future UKRI research funding focus.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description SOTSEF 2023 Demo 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact We presented a demo of our research on the performance benefit of human-swarm teaming at the Southampton Science and Engineering Festival (SOTSEF) 2023.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://uos-haris.online/demo/sotsef2023/
 
Description TAS 2024 Showcase Demo on Dynamically Adaptive Human-Swarm Interaction 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact We presented a demo of our research on dynamically adaptive human-swarm interaction at the Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (TAS) 2024 Showcase Event held in London, United Kingdom from the 5th - 6th of March 2024.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://uos-haris.online/demo/tas2024/
 
Description Tech Solent Event (Round Table Discussion) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact This Tech Solent event was hosted at the PWC office in Southampton. We were invited to talk about our work in the areas of responsible AI. We presented some research on human swarm teaming. We led a roundtable discussion session to gather their challenges with the regulation and adoption of artificial intelligence in their businesses.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.techsolent.org/event-details/techsolent-december-event-with-rai-uk
 
Description The future of UAVs: towards trustworthy applications and development tools (Workshop) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact We organised the workshop to bring together experts from academia, government, and industry to establish connections and form groups for future research projects centered around the use of UAVs. The workshop was organised as part of the EPSRC Autonomy Project on Smart Solutions Towards Cellular-Connected Unmanned Aerial Vehicles System (EP/W004364/1). The workshop was organised by Dr Ayodeji O. Abioye, Dr Sergio A. Araujo-Estrada, and Dr Mohammad D. Soorati with the support of Prof Jim Scanlan and Prof Gopal Ramchurn.

The "Future of UAVs: towards trustworthy applications and development tools" workshop was a national event hosted at the University of Southampton, on Monday 20th November 2023, 09:30 - 16:30 Hrs (BST). We invited four speakers to kick start the roundtable sessions with the talks on "Future UAVs" by Prof Jim Scanlan (SOTON UAV), "Trustworthy & Responsible use of AI" by Prof Gopal Ramchurn (TAS Hub and RAI UK), "Future Industry Applications of UAVs" by Prof Henry Tse (Connected Places Catapult), and "Public perception and ethical concerns on using drones" by Prof Christian Enemark (DRONETHICS). The event had three round table sessions to discuss novel applications of UAVs, as well as the ethical use, and development tools. The discussion was guided around themes ranging from agile economy (e.g. parcel delivery), emergency response (e.g. medical delivery), and environment monitoring.

New ideas for potential future applications, such as long-range drones with perch and recharge capability, were identified. Areas for future research and funding such as the development of an all-weather drone and better airspace management were also discussed. Attendees were able to expand their network for future collaborations.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023