Heriot-Watt - Equipment Account
Lead Research Organisation:
Heriot-Watt University
Department Name: Research and Enterprise Services
Abstract
Black holes are incredibly fascinating objects. They largely populate the Universe we live in, attracting whole galaxies around them. They also attract the imagination of novel writers and scientists alike: they represent the ultimate frontier at which our knowledge and intellect can be put to the test. In 1974 Stephen Hawking, building upon suggestions that black holes have a finite temperature, predicted that the event horizon surrounding a black hole separates regions characterized by such an intense space-time distortion that photons and particles are literally ripped out of vacuum state. These photons are then seen from outside the black hole to be emitted as a continuous flux of radiation. Black holes glow, just as if they were light bulbs. Unfortunately, this truly amazing prediction has little hope of being verified directly from astrophysical black holes. The "glow" has an extremely low temperature, of the order of tens of nano-Kelvins and cannot be distinguished amongst the much higher cosmic background temperature. Fortunately, exactly 30 years ago, William Unruh noted that the same arguments that lead to black hole evaporation also predict that a thermal spectrum of sound waves should be given out from a flowing fluid whose velocity is made to vary from sub-sonic to super-sonic velocities. Sound waves will remain blocked at the transition between the sub- and super-sonic regions at what, to all effects, is the analogue of an horizon. It now turns out that horizons are apparently far more common than one may imagine. They appear in flowing tap water as it hits the sink and in a number of water or liquid based scenarios; they appear in flowing Bose-Einstein-Condensates, in polariton condensates and, most importantly for what concerns this project, in moving dielectric media. We may imagine moving a transparent glass sample at velocities close to that of light. We would then have a situation analogous to that of sound waves in a moving fluid: in the presence of a transition from sub-luminal to super-luminal speeds, light waves will not be able to move beyond the horizon point at which the medium velocity is exactly equal to the phase velocity of light. One of the PIs (U. Leonhardt) recently proposed an ingenious method to achieve such horizons in a very simple manner. An intense laser pulse propagating in glass will create a local perturbation in the refractive index that travels together with the pulse, i.e. it naturally travels at light speeds. Any light wave approaching the perturbation will be slowed down by the local increase in refractive index and will eventually be blocked at the horizon beyond which it will be never be able to propagate. Using this very simple proposal, the other project PI (D. Faccio) obtained the first evidence of spontaneous photon emission induced by the dielectric horizon. The perturbation is glowing and evaporating by shedding photons excited from the vacuum state, just as Hawking predicted black holes should do. This project aims at taking forth these results and taking studies on Hawking emission and horizon related effects to the next level. We are now able to plan real experiments that can give us for the first time real data describing how horizons interact with the quantum vacuum. Moreover, at the heart of Hawking emission lies a novel amplification mechanism that, due to the lack of any previous experimental possibilities, has never been truly investigated before. This new amplification channel will be studied and used to amplify light. The goal in mind is to create the first black hole laser in which light is trapped in between two separate horizons. Bouncing back and forth it is amplified at each rebound and finally exponentially explodes in laser-like amplification process. The impact of this project therefore goes well beyond investigation of Hawking effects and invests a number of fields, ranging from quantum field theories to nonlinear optics and photonic technologies.
Planned Impact
The impact of this project extends well beyond the standard academic impact and interest for researchers working in related areas. Most importantly, we note a clear impact on society. Indeed, black holes are a source of continued fascination for the general public. For instance, many school children have not heard about gravitational fields, but most have heard of black holes. Black holes are perceived as awe-inspiring and sinister, as dark stars that may swallow everything in their paths. Our experience is that whenever we say that we create something like the horizon of a black hole in the laboratory, we immediately get the attention of many people. Moreover, names like Einstein and Hawking are familiar to countless people; we can show that their work is not as remote from everyday life as they may think and that they surely can understand some of it. In demystifying black holes we may give people clarity and trust in common sense, even in areas of science far way from our everyday life such as astrophysics. Trust in science and rationality is more important than ever, we can definitely make a contribution towards a more rational understanding of science for the general public. We have already had many interactions with the media, from news bulletins on the internet to the international press and radio and television. We expect that the decisive experiments demonstrating Hawking radiation will create significant media interest. BBC Horizon may fly to Scotland for filming experiments on artificial black holes with light, and to Nice and Vancouver for experiments with water waves. We plan to apply for a contribution to the Royal Society Summer Exhibition that will illustrates the inner workings of black holes. Ulf Leonhardt's exhibit on Geometry and Light: the Science of Invisibility has been accepted for 2011, an exhibit on artificial black holes may follow. Finally, the education of highly qualified people is a very important form of the impact of ambitious research. The research of HORIZONS is strongly interdisciplinary, ranging from general relativity to laser physics and back to quantum electrodynamics. The project will provide opportunities for all researchers involved at the PhD and postdoc level to interact with the very best researchers and scientists of the world in their areas. This is a unique learning and training opportunity that we believe will give the young researchers an open-minded attitude that will, in turn, benefit them in their future careers. The delivery of such high expectations will of course require additional dedication on behalf of the principal investigators in order to ensure that the people involved actually learn and gain from the project rather than being "drowned" by it. It will be our endeavour to ensure that all team members are involved in regular email discussions regarding the details of on-going work in the various areas. These will be backed up by periodic meetings where also the external partners are present, if possible. We strongly believe that the added value of this project derives precisely from the ability to bring together theoreticians and experimentalists alike and, from our experience we have seen that this is possible only through the continuous, even day-by-day, interaction of all partners. What we can achieve in this project is for our young researchers to get a can-do mind-set - if you can build a black hole, you can build anything. People of this calibre are going to make invaluable contribution to the economy and the society as a whole.
Organisations
- Heriot-Watt University (Lead Research Organisation)
- Smarter Grid Solutions Ltd. (Collaboration)
- EmoTech Ltd (Collaboration)
- Queensland University of Technology (QUT) (Collaboration)
- Purdue University (Collaboration)
- University of St Andrews (Collaboration)
- University of Western Australia (Collaboration)
- Adobe Inc. (Collaboration)
- Airbus Group (Collaboration)
- Rolls Royce Group Plc (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE (Collaboration)
- Amazon.com (Collaboration)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (Collaboration)
- euRobotics (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW (Collaboration)
- Heriot-Watt University (Collaboration)
- Independent Data Services UK (Collaboration)
- UNSW Sydney (Collaboration)
- GKN (Collaboration)
- AdeptMind Inc (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF DUNDEE (Collaboration)
- BAE Systems (United Kingdom) (Collaboration)
Publications
Rieser V
(2017)
Special issue on spatial reasoning and interaction for real-world robotics
in Advanced Robotics
Landsiedel C
(2017)
A review of spatial reasoning and interaction for real-world robotics
in Advanced Robotics
Papaioannou Ioannis
(2017)
An Ensemble Model with Ranking for Social Dialogue
in arXiv e-prints
Keller Ingo
(2019)
Multi-Modal Measurements of Mental Load
in arXiv e-prints
De Carolis V
(2016)
Energy-aware fault-mitigation architecture for underwater vehicles
in Autonomous Robots
Maurelli F
(2016)
Guest editorial: special issue on long-term autonomy in marine robotics
in Autonomous Robots
Duncan S
(2022)
Efficient quantitative assessment of robot swarms: coverage and targeting Lévy strategies.
in Bioinspiration & biomimetics
Bacciu D
(2019)
An ambient intelligence approach for learning in smart robotic environments
in Computational Intelligence
Faccio D
(2012)
Laser pulse analogues for gravity and analogue Hawking radiation
in Contemporary Physics
Kyranou I
(2018)
Causes of Performance Degradation in Non-invasive Electromyographic Pattern Recognition in Upper Limb Prostheses.
in Frontiers in neurorobotics
Title | NASA Valkyrie Virtual World Avatar |
Description | NASA Valkyrie Robot Virtual World Avatar for OpenSimulator platform and suitable as a wearable avatar or as the basis for a Non-Player Character (NPC). Available under the NASA Open Source Agreement 1.3. The Valkyrie avatar is available for download in the form of an OpenSimulator Inventory Archive (IAR) file. This IAR may be loaded into the inventory of an OpenSimulator avatar or used as the appearance of an NPC. Obtain the latest Valkyrie IAR at: http://vue.ed.ac.uk/resources/valkyrie/ |
Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
Year Produced | 2015 |
Impact | Useful for making machinima related to projects using the NASA Valkyrie robot in use at the University of Edinburgh School of Informatics and Edinburgh Robotics Centre. |
URL | http://blog.inf.ed.ac.uk/atate/valkyrie-avatar/ |
Description | This is a Capital Grant and research outcomes are reported primarily via project funding. Two capital grants are included: 1. Robotarium - awarded in 2014 and being currently established 2. Femtoscond Laser facility - further RCUK and EU grants and publications listed. 3. CDT in Applied Photonics Capital Equipment |
Exploitation Route | Laser system has been used successfully to address fundamental science on "black holes" but also been put to use for collaborative experiments in information technology and medical science. The interactions between robots, autonomous systems, their environments and people present some of the most sophisticated scientific challenges we must solve to realize productive and useful assistive or remote systems in our homes, workplaces and industries. Such systems work at multiple scales of embodiment, and through a variety of sensing, actuation, visualization and communication modalities. Their ability to interact appropriately is at the heart of building networked systems, able to operate in synergy with each other, their environments and their human operators. The Edinburgh Centre for Robotics ( www.edinburgh-robotics.org ) has procured ROBOTARIUM, a unique and integrated suite of systems, sensors and fabrication equipment to address these challenges for different scales and domains. It will unify and expand our world leading expertise and potential in robot learning, maritime field robotics, anthropomorphic & bio-inspired designs, HRI, embedded control and sensing systems, multi-agent decision making and multimodal interaction that are unique to Universities of Edinburgh (UoE) and Heriot-Watt (HWU). CDT in Applied Photonics Capital Equipment Equipment purchased for the CDT in Applied Photonics has been used for diverse purposes across the centre, benefiting directly about two thirds of the current students. Our students benefit from the equipment either in the laboratories included in our taught technical modules in Glasgow, Strathclyde and St Andrews universities, or in research activities central to their projects and those pursued by other RCUK-funded students (Heriot-Watt and Dundee universities). |
Sectors | Aerospace Defence and Marine Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) Electronics Leisure Activities including Sports Recreation and Tourism Manufacturing including Industrial Biotechology Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology Transport |
Description | The femtosecond laser is pushing the boundaries of laser physics and engineering by setting ambitious goals, creating a fundamental radiating horizon in the laboratory, for stretching technology beyond current limitations, training students at the forefront of this technology. The laser system and science has led to high profile public engagement via the TED organisation and other outlets. CDT in Applied Photonics Capital Equipment The equipment funded for the CDT in Applied Photonics is distributed across the five partner universities of the collaboration (Heriot-Watt, Dundee, Glasgow, St. Andrews and Strathclyde universities) has: (a) enhanced experimental labs underpinning the CDT taught-courses programme, and (b) provided facilities and an equipment pool to support EngD and aligned PhD research at the universities and the Centres industrial partners. Although installed relatively recently, the equipment has already been used to obtain publishable scientific results from a number of projects (see publications). |
First Year Of Impact | 2011 |
Sector | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Electronics,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |
Impact Types | Societal Economic |
Description | Appointed to Chair the UK Robotics Growth Partnership by Minister for Universities, Science and Innovation |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
URL | https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/chris-skidmore-sets-out-the-first-steps-to-establish-the-robo... |
Description | Appointed to working group steering development of Scottish Govt Robotics and Autonomous Systems Strategy, leading to first working paper from Scottish Science Advisory Council giving advice to Scottish Govt in March 2020 |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
URL | https://scottishscience.org.uk/article/robotics-and-autonomous-systems-report |
Description | Gave evidence to House of Lords Inquiry on Autonomous Vehicles |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
Description | Met with Cabinet Secretary and a variety of Civil Servants to inform and demonstrate about potential for Robotics |
Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
Description | Presentation and advice to Cabinet Secretary and Heads of Govt Dept Horizon Scanning on opportunities for Govt productivity with RAS and Smart Procurement |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
Description | Submitted a Draft Sector Deal for RAS to Secretary of State |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
Description | invited by UK Government to stand up and lead a RAS Sector Council and to prepare a RAS Sector Deal as part of the Govt Industrial Strategy |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
URL | https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/building-our-industrial-strategy |
Description | (METRICS) - Metrological Evaluation and Testing of Robots in International CompetitionS |
Amount | € 1,999,747 (EUR) |
Funding ID | 871252 |
Organisation | European Commission |
Sector | Public |
Country | European Union (EU) |
Start | 01/2020 |
End | 12/2022 |
Description | Amazon Alexa Challenge 2018 |
Amount | $250,000 (USD) |
Organisation | Amazon.com |
Sector | Private |
Country | United States |
Start | 02/2018 |
End | 12/2018 |
Description | Cooperative Control of Drilling Equipment |
Amount | £86,080 (GBP) |
Organisation | Schlumberger Limited |
Department | Schlumberger Oilfield UK plc |
Sector | Private |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 08/2015 |
End | 08/2021 |
Description | EPSRC Impact Acceleration |
Amount | £45,000 (GBP) |
Organisation | Heriot-Watt University |
Sector | Academic/University |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 11/2017 |
End | 10/2018 |
Description | EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) Award |
Amount | £67,927 (GBP) |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 01/2018 |
End | 03/2019 |
Description | EPSRC Standard Grant |
Amount | £520,000 (GBP) |
Funding ID | EP/N017536/1 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 05/2016 |
End | 05/2019 |
Description | EUMarineRobots |
Amount | € 4,998,736 (EUR) |
Funding ID | 731103 |
Organisation | European Commission H2020 |
Sector | Public |
Country | Belgium |
Start | 03/2018 |
End | 02/2021 |
Description | Energy Technology Partnership (ETP) |
Amount | £9,991 (GBP) |
Funding ID | PJ0207-PSN |
Organisation | Energy Technology Partnership (ETP) |
Sector | Academic/University |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 04/2018 |
End | 04/2019 |
Description | Inspection and detection of faults on bearings on trains |
Amount | £86,000 (GBP) |
Organisation | Rail Safety and Standards Board Ltd |
Sector | Private |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 08/2018 |
End | 08/2022 |
Description | Interactive robotic inspection strategies using unstructured data |
Amount | £115,400 (GBP) |
Organisation | Renishaw PLC |
Sector | Private |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 08/2015 |
End | 08/2019 |
Description | Mobile inspection units on and under the train |
Amount | £86,000 (GBP) |
Organisation | Rail Safety and Standards Board Ltd |
Sector | Private |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 08/2018 |
End | 08/2022 |
Description | STRONGMAR - STRengthening MARritime Technology Research Center |
Amount | € 999,203 (EUR) |
Funding ID | 692427 |
Organisation | European Commission |
Sector | Public |
Country | European Union (EU) |
Start | 01/2016 |
End | 12/2018 |
Description | The development of multi-sensor fusion algorithms for underwater pipeline position estimation by an AUV at close range |
Amount | £162,540 (GBP) |
Organisation | Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. |
Sector | Private |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 08/2015 |
End | 08/2019 |
Description | direct industry funding |
Amount | £88,000 (GBP) |
Organisation | AdeptMind Inc |
Sector | Private |
Country | Canada |
Start | 08/2017 |
End | 08/2020 |
Description | AdeptMind PhD overseas scholarship |
Organisation | AdeptMind Inc |
Country | Canada |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | We are applying and extending our research in data-driven Natural Language Generation techniques to e-commerce. In particular, we are inverstigating how to translate search results into textual descriptions which support the user in decision making. |
Collaborator Contribution | AdeptMind funds this oversea PhD scholarship with a £88k cash contribution, as well as other in-kind contributions, such as invited research visits (incl. travel costs), student training (incl. summer schools), as well as sharing data sets and sponsoring data collection. |
Impact | This collaboration brings together research on natural language processing and advances machine learning, as well as expertise in e-commerce platforms. |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | Adobe Research |
Organisation | Adobe Inc. |
Country | United States |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | One of my PhD students went for a summer internship to Adobe, where he continued working on a topic related to his PhD. When he came back, we refined the research hypothesis, ran some more experiments, and submitted a paper to ACL (= premier conference in the field). We already received the scores and we think it islikely that the paper will be accepted. This paper would be a very good candidate to submit to REF. My student used high performance computing from the HWU equipment account. |
Collaborator Contribution | Adobe supervised my students work for 3 months during the internship and also paid his flight and salary. Adobe then also sent us a research gift of £7000 and encouraged us to apply for further funding. |
Impact | TBA |
Start Year | 2019 |
Description | Amazon Alexa Challenge 2017, 2018 |
Organisation | Amazon.com |
Country | United States |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | My team was selected to participate in the Amazon Alexa Challenge in two consecutive years: 2017 and 2018. The aim of this challenge is to build a social chat bot that can converse coherently and engagingly with humans on popular topics for 20 minutes. For the 2017 round, we were one of 12 teams selected out of a pool of over 100 applicants. For the 2018 round, we were 1 in eight teams selected out of ca. 200 applicants. |
Collaborator Contribution | We received a generous gift of $100,000 (2017) and $250,000 (2018) and various in-kind contributions worth ca. $100k for both years, e.g. free training and access to Amazon Web services, Alexa-enabled devices, weekly class with one of Amazon senior researchers, invited research visits to Amazon HQ in Seattle (including sponsored travel for the team) etc. We won 3rd prize for the 2017 challenge, which included a $50,000 cash prize for the students. |
Impact | Increased recognition and visibility of my research group and department. |
Start Year | 2016 |
Description | CDT in Applied Photonics Capital Equipment |
Organisation | Heriot-Watt University |
Department | School of Engineering & Physical Sciences |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | A partnership between Heriot-Watt, Dundee, Glasgow, St Andrews and Strathclyde universities and in the region of 30 industrial partners who are listed as follows: Rofin, M-Solv, Leonardo, Renishaw, Powerphotonics, BAE Systems, Holoxica, Gooch & Housego, Taylor Hobson, NPL, Nanoco, STFC, Seebyte, Thales, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Rolls-Royce, Powerlase, Optos, AWE, Fraunhofer UK, Texas Instruments, Optoscribe, NHS Lothian, Toshiba, EFD, Merlin, DSTL, Oxford Lasers. |
Collaborator Contribution | The academic partners draws from a pool of over 100 academic researchers, each a specialist in a unique area of Photonics. The industrial partners contribute financial support to the Centre as well as substantial levels of supervision time and practical resources. |
Impact | This collaboration resulted in a significant numbers of outputs from the collaborations students. |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | CDT in Applied Photonics Capital Equipment |
Organisation | University of Dundee |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | A partnership between Heriot-Watt, Dundee, Glasgow, St Andrews and Strathclyde universities and in the region of 30 industrial partners who are listed as follows: Rofin, M-Solv, Leonardo, Renishaw, Powerphotonics, BAE Systems, Holoxica, Gooch & Housego, Taylor Hobson, NPL, Nanoco, STFC, Seebyte, Thales, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Rolls-Royce, Powerlase, Optos, AWE, Fraunhofer UK, Texas Instruments, Optoscribe, NHS Lothian, Toshiba, EFD, Merlin, DSTL, Oxford Lasers. |
Collaborator Contribution | The academic partners draws from a pool of over 100 academic researchers, each a specialist in a unique area of Photonics. The industrial partners contribute financial support to the Centre as well as substantial levels of supervision time and practical resources. |
Impact | This collaboration resulted in a significant numbers of outputs from the collaborations students. |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | CDT in Applied Photonics Capital Equipment |
Organisation | University of Glasgow |
Department | Urban Big Data Centre |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | A partnership between Heriot-Watt, Dundee, Glasgow, St Andrews and Strathclyde universities and in the region of 30 industrial partners who are listed as follows: Rofin, M-Solv, Leonardo, Renishaw, Powerphotonics, BAE Systems, Holoxica, Gooch & Housego, Taylor Hobson, NPL, Nanoco, STFC, Seebyte, Thales, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Rolls-Royce, Powerlase, Optos, AWE, Fraunhofer UK, Texas Instruments, Optoscribe, NHS Lothian, Toshiba, EFD, Merlin, DSTL, Oxford Lasers. |
Collaborator Contribution | The academic partners draws from a pool of over 100 academic researchers, each a specialist in a unique area of Photonics. The industrial partners contribute financial support to the Centre as well as substantial levels of supervision time and practical resources. |
Impact | This collaboration resulted in a significant numbers of outputs from the collaborations students. |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | CDT in Applied Photonics Capital Equipment |
Organisation | University of St Andrews |
Department | School of Chemistry St Andrews |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | A partnership between Heriot-Watt, Dundee, Glasgow, St Andrews and Strathclyde universities and in the region of 30 industrial partners who are listed as follows: Rofin, M-Solv, Leonardo, Renishaw, Powerphotonics, BAE Systems, Holoxica, Gooch & Housego, Taylor Hobson, NPL, Nanoco, STFC, Seebyte, Thales, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Rolls-Royce, Powerlase, Optos, AWE, Fraunhofer UK, Texas Instruments, Optoscribe, NHS Lothian, Toshiba, EFD, Merlin, DSTL, Oxford Lasers. |
Collaborator Contribution | The academic partners draws from a pool of over 100 academic researchers, each a specialist in a unique area of Photonics. The industrial partners contribute financial support to the Centre as well as substantial levels of supervision time and practical resources. |
Impact | This collaboration resulted in a significant numbers of outputs from the collaborations students. |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | CDT in Applied Photonics Capital Equipment |
Organisation | University of Strathclyde |
Department | Mathematics and Statistics Strathclyde |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | A partnership between Heriot-Watt, Dundee, Glasgow, St Andrews and Strathclyde universities and in the region of 30 industrial partners who are listed as follows: Rofin, M-Solv, Leonardo, Renishaw, Powerphotonics, BAE Systems, Holoxica, Gooch & Housego, Taylor Hobson, NPL, Nanoco, STFC, Seebyte, Thales, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Rolls-Royce, Powerlase, Optos, AWE, Fraunhofer UK, Texas Instruments, Optoscribe, NHS Lothian, Toshiba, EFD, Merlin, DSTL, Oxford Lasers. |
Collaborator Contribution | The academic partners draws from a pool of over 100 academic researchers, each a specialist in a unique area of Photonics. The industrial partners contribute financial support to the Centre as well as substantial levels of supervision time and practical resources. |
Impact | This collaboration resulted in a significant numbers of outputs from the collaborations students. |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | EmoTech North Industry Knowledge Exchange |
Organisation | EmoTech Ltd |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | we collaborate on designing and implementing a conversational interface for Olly the Robot - a product developed by Emotech Ltd, an in-home robot with conversational capabilities. The Olly robot recently won 4 awards for Innovation at the CES showcase. (The CES Innovation Awards is an annual competition honoring outstanding design and engineering in consumer technology products over the world.) Recently showcased at CES '17 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38504512 The project outcome will directly contribute the Olly product of Emotech. Emotech will release 1000-1500 units in June/July via a Kickstarter program to gauge early adopter feedback. Full commercial release is expected in Q3/4 2017 at a retail price of $600-800 per unit. The revenue of Emotech LTD in 2017 is estimated to be £2m, and is expected to grow to £20-40m in 2018. Emotech North Ltd will be a NLP(Natural Language Processing) hub for Emotech. Its growth will create more employment positions, more collaborations with other industry partners and universities in Scotland. |
Collaborator Contribution | Cash contribution of £58k to support RA. Invited research visit to London (1 week) fully supported. |
Impact | Robotics hardware, neuroscience, human-computer interaction |
Start Year | 2016 |
Description | European Robotic League |
Organisation | euRobotics |
Department | European Robotics League |
Country | Belgium |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | The ICT-Robotic for Independent Living Laboratory has been certified as one of the test-bed of the European Robotic League Service Robot competition. |
Collaborator Contribution | The laboratory was equipped with hardware and software to host this type of robot competitions. Heriot-Watt's researchers organised and hosted the 1st ERL-SR competition to be held in Scotland. |
Impact | Heriot-Watt University hosted the 1st Local Tournament of the European Robotics League Service Robot (ERL-SR). The competition was held from January 22nd to 26th, 2018. Three teams from EU-based universities have competed to provide robotics services for home and healthcare applications, such as supporting older persons in their daily lives by welcoming visitors and providing a large variety of general-purpose services. |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | IDS Oil and Gas |
Organisation | Independent Data Services UK |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | IDS has been providing operational reporting solutions to the upstream oil and gas industry for over twenty years. This project provides consultancy how to best use NLP and machine learning methods to mine information available in Oil & Gas data sets. |
Collaborator Contribution | IDS has send one of their employees to work at Heriot-Watt for a week. Also, a cash contribution of £5k was made. |
Impact | This project combines Data Science with NLP and applies it to Oil & Gas. The outcomes of this collaboration will be directly used in IDS services. |
Start Year | 2018 |
Description | Industry collaboration with Smarter grid solutions |
Organisation | Smarter Grid Solutions Ltd. |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | Successful application for a Energy Technology Partnership Award. |
Collaborator Contribution | Successful application for a Energy Technology Partnership Award. |
Impact | Successful application for a Energy Technology Partnership Award. |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | Industry contribution to sub-project CfIM_17-1 - Metallurgical Interactions in advanced laser processing |
Organisation | Airbus Group |
Department | Airbus Operations |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | Industrially relevant research. |
Collaborator Contribution | Studentship support, expertise. |
Impact | n/a |
Start Year | 2015 |
Description | Industry contribution to sub-project CfIM_17-1 - Metallurgical Interactions in advanced laser processing |
Organisation | BAE Systems |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Industrially relevant research. |
Collaborator Contribution | Studentship support, expertise. |
Impact | n/a |
Start Year | 2015 |
Description | Industry contribution to sub-project CfIM_17-1 - Metallurgical Interactions in advanced laser processing |
Organisation | GKN |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | Industrially relevant research. |
Collaborator Contribution | Studentship support, expertise. |
Impact | n/a |
Start Year | 2015 |
Description | Industry contribution to sub-project CfIM_17-1 - Metallurgical Interactions in advanced laser processing |
Organisation | Rolls Royce Group Plc |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | Industrially relevant research. |
Collaborator Contribution | Studentship support, expertise. |
Impact | n/a |
Start Year | 2015 |
Description | Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane |
Organisation | Queensland University of Technology (QUT) |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Research and training collaboration |
Collaborator Contribution | Research and training collaboration |
Impact | Nil. |
Start Year | 2018 |
Description | State Key Laboratory in Robotics, Shenyang Institute of Automation, China |
Organisation | Chinese Academy of Sciences |
Country | China |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | Research and training collaboration. |
Collaborator Contribution | Research and training collaboration. |
Impact | A collaboration Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with the Institute in March 2018. |
Start Year | 2018 |
Description | The Physics of Epsilon-Near-Zero materials |
Organisation | Purdue University |
Country | United States |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | This collaboration is based on the development and exploitation of a series of materials, transparent conductive oxides, that are emerging as a novel platform for photonics and the control of light. These materials exhibit very strong optical nonlinearities and have been hailed as a "game changer" in the field. We have been pioneering this field together with Purdue University. |
Collaborator Contribution | Purdue University (Vlad Shalaev and Alexandra Boltasseva) or the world-wide recognised leaders in the development of new materials and in particular of new transparent conductive oxides. They have been providing us with a continuous stream of samples of various forms and structures. They also supported a US grant application that has been awarded and will support a three month visit for a PhD student from Heriot-Watt University to work with them in Purdue. |
Impact | Enhanced nonlinear refractive index in epsilon-near-zero materials, L. Caspani, R. P. M. Kaipurath, M. Clerici, M. Ferrera, T. Roger, A. Di Falco, J. Kim, N. Kinsey, V. M. Shalaev, A. Boltasseva, D. Faccio, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 233901 (2016) |
Start Year | 2015 |
Description | University of New South Wales, Sydney |
Organisation | University of New South Wales |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Research and training collaboration |
Collaborator Contribution | Research and training collaboration |
Impact | Nil. |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia |
Organisation | University of Western Australia |
Country | Australia |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Research and training collaboration |
Collaborator Contribution | Research and training collaboration |
Impact | Nil |
Start Year | 2017 |
Title | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR DISTANCE METROLOGY |
Description | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR DISTANCE METROLOGY |
IP Reference | 2019025.2 |
Protection | Patent application published |
Year Protection Granted | |
Licensed | Yes |
Impact | Follow on funding from Renishaw PLC to HWU. |
Company Name | Alana |
Description | Alana develops machine learning and natural language processing software for use in a variety of sectors. |
Year Established | 2019 |
Impact | We are currently investigating several potential use cases with the Royal Blind and Education providers. |
Website | https://alanaai.com/ |
Description | Amazon Alexa Summit 2017 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | Invited 3-day visit and presentation at Amazon HQ in Seattle to take part in Alexa Summit/ Symposium directed to industry practitioners and postgrad students. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | BBC The Joy of AI |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | My research was featured in the BBC's documentary "The Joy of AI" |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06jt7j4 |
Description | BBC interview |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | Interview for BBC technology news |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51064369 |
Description | CDT Capital Equipment: Applied Photonics equipment hosted at Glasgow University |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | The devices tested with this equipment have been shown at various public engagement and Knowledge exchange activities. These include CPD event for school teachers, Demo developed for visiting 15 schools (project funded by Royal Academy of Engineering), about 20 keynote/plenary talks in last one year. Further the equipment was used to teach school pupils who spent 6 week in BEST group. This was support by Nuffield foundation. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Co-organiser and lecturer at first SICSA Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) Summer School, a joint initiative with University of St. Andrews, at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, August 2019 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | The SICSA Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) Summer School is Scotland's first ever summer school designed to allow students to explore key concepts for the design of advanced AAL systems. The 3-days summer school is co-organised and facilitated by researchers from Heriot-Watt University and the University of St. Andrews and hosted at the Edinburgh campus of Heriot-Watt University. The summer school has been designed to focus on key areas that are necessary to creating successful AAL projects. Students have attended presentations from industry and care providers in addition to lectures on background theories and practical tutorials covering implementation and integration of sensing, Internet of Things, Linked Data, machine learning, and interactive and robotic technology. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://sites.google.com/site/aalsicsasummerschool/contact_1?authuser=0 |
Description | Co-organiser and speaker ("Internet of Things and Robotics for Ambient Assisted Living") at the Digital Health & Care Fest, Technology & Innovation Centre University of Strathclyde, workshop on "Smart Sensing and Robotic Innovation", 2019 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Our presence sparked interest in the research in assistive robotics and ambient assisted living carried out at Heriot-Watt University / Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, leading to discussions of collaborations and visits to our facilities from representatives from Viewpoint and South Lanarkshire Health and Social Care Partnership. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://book.shsc.scot/shsc/frontend/reg/titem.csp?pageID=101263&eventID=258 |
Description | Diversity and inclusion in academic ICT research |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
Results and Impact | I am taking part in the focus group Diversity and inclusion in academic ICT research run by the EPSRC and organised by Edinburgh Napier University. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | https://www.epsrc.ac.uk/newsevents/news/ictdiversityinclusionresearch/ |
Description | Edinburgh Doors Open Day |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | On Saturday 23 September, Heriot-Watt and the British Geological Survey took part in Edinburgh Doors Open Day. Visitors of the Lyell Centre, the new home of the British Geological Survey and Heriot-Watt University scientists and engineers, were given a chance to visit our new robotic assisted living lab and interact with robots of all shapes and sizes - from landcrawling turtlebots, to Hamilton the hilltop robot, and Pepper the humanoid helper. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | https://robotic-assisted-living.hw.ac.uk/?news=open-door |
Description | Interview for international news (WDR) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | Interview for German national radio - almost whole feature around our group and our research. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
URL | https://www1.wdr.de/mediathek/audio/wdr3/wdr3-kulturfeature/audio-sprich-mit-mir---versuche-mit-masc... |
Description | Interview for national news (Telegraph) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | Interview for the Telegraph about Women in AI |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2019/03/08/artificial-intelligence-has-gender-problem-meet-pi... |
Description | Invited keynote talk |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | Invited keynote talk at Swisstext, an annual conference bringing businesses and academic practitioners together. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | https://www.swisstext.org/2017/index.html |
Description | Lecture "Internet of Robotic Things and the Techno-Care Relationship" at the International Masterclass on Dementia Care, Design and Ageing (IMDDA 2019), University of Stirling, May 2019 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | My lecture sparked interest in the research in assistive robotics and ambient assisted living carried out at Heriot-Watt University / Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, leading to a visit to our facilities by staff from housing associations and ongoing collaborations with experts in dementia care and ageing-friendly housing at the University of Stirling. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://dementia.stir.ac.uk/blogs/dsdc-centred/2019-03-06/international-masterclass-dementia-care-de... |
Description | Media Interviews regarding the Amazon Alexa Challenge |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | Interview at Scottish TV "Live at 5" about the Amazon Alexa Challenge. Several related newspaper articles, e.g. Sunday Herald, the Scotsman, etc. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERSMhGFBxvw |
Description | Media Interviews regarding the European Robotic League |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Interview at Scottish TV "News at 6" about the European Robotic League. Related newspaper article on Herald Scotland. News on EU robotic mailing list and European Robotic League websites. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | https://sites.google.com/site/erlsrhwu2018/photo-video |
Description | Motion in Scottish Parliament recognising Amazon Alexa Prize |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Motion S5M-09326: Parliament congratulates Heriot-Watt University on its success in the Amazon Alexa Prize |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx?SearchType=Advance&ReferenceNumbers=S5M-... |
Description | NESTA interview - 12 women shaping AI |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | Media interview and article published by NESTA (global innovation foundation) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://www.nesta.org.uk/feature/12-women-ai/ |
Description | Native Scientist German School Outreach |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Verena Rieser engaged school children in her research. The half-day event was organised by Alleman Fun (German Saturday School) and Native Scientist. The engagement activity was held in German. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
URL | http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/RoboticsLab/news/german-native-scientist-volunteers-reaching-out-to-childre... |
Description | Plenary keynote at 1st workshop on NLP for Conversational AI (ACL2019, Florence) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Invited plenary keynote at 1st workshop on NLP for Conversational AI (ACL2019, Florence) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://sites.google.com/view/nlp4convai/program?authuser=0 |
Description | Plenary keynote at 2nd workshop on Vocal Interactivity in-and-between Humans, Animals and Robots (VIHAR-2019) (Turing Institute, London) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Invited plenary keynote at 2nd workshop on Vocal Interactivity in-and-between Humans, Animals and Robots (VIHAR-2019) (Turing Institute, London) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | http://vihar-2019.vihar.org/keynotes/ |
Description | Plenary keynote at IVA 2019 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Invited plenary keynote at 19th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA 2019, Paris) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://iva2019.sciencesconf.org/ |
Description | Robotic exhibition at CIH Housing 2019, Europe's largest housing event, Manchester Central, June 2019 |
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 | Our participation sparked interest in the research in assistive robotics and ambient assisted living carried out at Heriot-Watt University / Edinburgh Centre for Robotics and subsequent requests for information about our centre. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://cihhousing.com/exhibitor/exhibitor |
Description | Scottish Minister for Higher Education visit |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Shirley-Anne Somerville, Minister for Higher Education, Further Education and Science, travelled to the Edinburgh Campus to meet with members of the University's 'What's Up Bot' team who recently returned from Amazon's prestigious AI competition, the Alexa Challenge. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | https://www.hw.ac.uk/about/news/minister-given-insight-into-the-future-of-ai.htm |
Description | SigDial panel discussion |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Invited Panel Member at 18th Annual SIGdial Meeting on Discourse and Dialogue Conference discussing "Natural Language Generation for Spoken Dialogue Systems". Other panel members were from Google (Head of NLG), Cambridge University and Bloomberg. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | https://www.superlectures.com/sigdial2017/panel-discussion |
Description | UK RAS Social Care Robot Challenge Workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | 20 participants attended an interactive workshop focused on examining robotic and ICT solutions for healthy ageing and assisted living. The event took place in the newly built "Living Lab" - a space where scientists, end-users and care providers can co-design and test innovative solutions for healthy ageing and assisted living.The workshop included representatives from Innovate UK, healthcare stakeholders from the City of Edinburgh Council (Community Alarm Telecare Service, Community Occupational Therapy Rehabilitation Service), Dumfries & Galloway Health and Social Care Partnership, Social Care Alba, CENSIS (Innovation Centre for Sensor and Imaging Systems), NHS Education for Scotland, NHS Lanarkshire, Stroke Education Lothian and Borders, Stroke Association, LifeCare Edinburgh,as well as experts in cognitive ageing, interaction design and robotics from Heriot-Watt University. The workshop was part of the UK Social Care Robot Challenge 2017 (http://hamlyn.doc.ic.ac.uk/hsmr/events/social-care-robot-challenge-2017), a nation-wide cooperative venture that aims to encourage investigation into how robots can be integrated in the healthcare services of the future, to help address the predicted rising costs and strain on healthcare provision and services in the UK. The challenge aims to draw out ideas of how robotics can be used for different aspects of our healthcare system, working with and supporting health professionals to provide improved physical and cognitive deficit support. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | https://robotic-assisted-living.hw.ac.uk/?news=social-care-robot-challenge-workshop-2 |