Aquatic Micro Aerial Vehicles (AquaMAV): Bio-inspired air-water mobility for robotics
Lead Research Organisation:
Imperial College London
Department Name: Aeronautics
Abstract
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are a step changing technology that allows for fast, low-risk and low- cost environmental sensing with a world-wide market value of $89bn over the next ten years (as estimated by the 2013 Teal Group forecast). However, current UAVs are greatly limited by being able to operate in air only, preventing them to move effectively on the ground or in water. Hybrid air-water mobility would address the societal need for remote water sampling in inaccessible areas such as during floods or after nuclear accidents. For example, UAVs could quickly provide water samples following a nuclear accident to better coordinate response efforts. While some UAVs can land on water, no technologies are available that allow them to both dive and fly, due to dramatic design trade-offs that have to be solved for movement in both air and water, and due to the absence of high-power propulsion systems that would allow a transition from underwater to air.
Expanding on my emerging leader position in aerial robotics, I will develop a novel generation of hybrid flying robots, called Aquatic Micro Aerial Vehicles (AquaMAVs). These robots offer the revolutionary mission capability to fly to a site of interest, dive into the water to take a water sample and provide video footage and retake flight to return to the base station.The engineering approach will build on the analysis of aerial-aquatic animals such as flying fish, diving birds and gliding squid, and the implementation of their key bio-inspired design principles using the best of robotic engineering.
This First Grant Scheme application, leveraged by major strategic investment from Imperial College to the AquaMAV research area and a recent donation of £1.25m for a new flight arena, will allow me to establish scientific leadership in bio-inspired aerial robotics. It will build the basis to deliver the key building blocks for aerial-aquatic robots requiring innovation in propulsion, adaptive morphologies and autonomy that allow for hybrid mobility. The final goal of this first grant is to demonstrate novel propulsion systems and wing folding mechanisms that are tailored to AquaMAV requirements. Following this grant the systems will be integrated in a fully featured AquaMAV that can fly, dive into water, dive while taking water samples and transition back to propeller driven flight. Besides the application oriented impact, this project will also deliver key scientific insights on locomotion modalities for robotics across varied terrain.
Having partnered with five industrial partners, including the National Nuclear Labs and Shell, will provide the pathways to industrial impact and continued research support building on the results from this grant. Major corporate interest in this project is demonstrated by committed resources of more than £65k of in kind benefits from industrial partners and two CASE studentships for higher Technology Readiness Levels of AquaMAV. This grant will provide the bridge in research staff resources that will allow the demonstration of AquaMAV principles and build the basis for future impact. Aerial-aquatic robot mobility is widely unexplored and this project will initiate a novel and high impact area in academia as demonstrated by support from leaders in robotics and biology, including support from Harvard University. Once realised, AquaMAVs will be a major technological stepping stone for new robotic applications, such as search and rescue in flooded buildings, for water sampling during oil spills or after nuclear accidents, and for low cost oceanographic data collection, all of which are areas of vital national importance to the U.K.
Expanding on my emerging leader position in aerial robotics, I will develop a novel generation of hybrid flying robots, called Aquatic Micro Aerial Vehicles (AquaMAVs). These robots offer the revolutionary mission capability to fly to a site of interest, dive into the water to take a water sample and provide video footage and retake flight to return to the base station.The engineering approach will build on the analysis of aerial-aquatic animals such as flying fish, diving birds and gliding squid, and the implementation of their key bio-inspired design principles using the best of robotic engineering.
This First Grant Scheme application, leveraged by major strategic investment from Imperial College to the AquaMAV research area and a recent donation of £1.25m for a new flight arena, will allow me to establish scientific leadership in bio-inspired aerial robotics. It will build the basis to deliver the key building blocks for aerial-aquatic robots requiring innovation in propulsion, adaptive morphologies and autonomy that allow for hybrid mobility. The final goal of this first grant is to demonstrate novel propulsion systems and wing folding mechanisms that are tailored to AquaMAV requirements. Following this grant the systems will be integrated in a fully featured AquaMAV that can fly, dive into water, dive while taking water samples and transition back to propeller driven flight. Besides the application oriented impact, this project will also deliver key scientific insights on locomotion modalities for robotics across varied terrain.
Having partnered with five industrial partners, including the National Nuclear Labs and Shell, will provide the pathways to industrial impact and continued research support building on the results from this grant. Major corporate interest in this project is demonstrated by committed resources of more than £65k of in kind benefits from industrial partners and two CASE studentships for higher Technology Readiness Levels of AquaMAV. This grant will provide the bridge in research staff resources that will allow the demonstration of AquaMAV principles and build the basis for future impact. Aerial-aquatic robot mobility is widely unexplored and this project will initiate a novel and high impact area in academia as demonstrated by support from leaders in robotics and biology, including support from Harvard University. Once realised, AquaMAVs will be a major technological stepping stone for new robotic applications, such as search and rescue in flooded buildings, for water sampling during oil spills or after nuclear accidents, and for low cost oceanographic data collection, all of which are areas of vital national importance to the U.K.
Planned Impact
Impact beneficiaries include industry, marine research centres and the wider public. In this section I will describe who will benefit and how. The pathways to this impact are described in the Pathways to Impact document.
Industrial impact:
I have partnered with five companies that have recognised the impact potential of AquaMAV and are offering more than £65k in in-kind support and two CASE studentships to pull the achievements from this grant to higher technology readiness levels (see support letters). Each of these companies has a distinct role by providing technological expertise or by representing a field of AquaMAV applications. The industrial partners can be broadly classed in two categories; as (i) end-user partners who are interested in using market ready AquaMAVs and (ii) as translation partners who are interested in adopting the AquaMAV technology and developing it to market ready products. The specific expertise of the partners are partially overlapping which is intentional and one pillar of risk mitigation in the development of AquaMAV towards industrial impact.
My primary end user partner and the closest collaborator will be Shell who is interested in applying AquaMAV for emergency response, for oceanographic sampling and for de-risking oil exploration. The pioneering mission capability of AquaMAV will bring a major differentiating technology to the oil industry, in particular to vulnerable areas such as the Arctic Sea where floating ice dramatically limits manual sampling capabilities. AquaMAV will allow for cheap and low-risk monitoring of the ecosystem providing not only cost savings and competitive advantage to Shell but also allowing to protect the environment by reacting quickly to emergencies.
Other areas of AquaMAV applications are represented by the following institutions with whom I will interact regularly to involve a variety of end users in AquaMAV development.
-The National Nuclear Centre for decommissioning and first response after nuclear accidents. -The Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science for monitoring marine infrastructures (Cefas).
-Operation Wallacea for monitoring of corral reefs and other marine ecosystems.
My primary translation partner will be National Instruments (NI) who offers expertise in electronics, control and sensing and who is already an established provider of industrial technology frameworks. The collaboration will consist of using NI electronics on the robots and LabView for the 3D motion tracking environment. The established expertise of NI in these areas and NI's commitment of providing technical assistance and training as a match to this grant will be of great benefit to the project. At the same time, AquaMAV will be an informative application platform for NI robotics solutions that will help to leverage AquaMAV application towards NI's established network of industrial clients.
Societal impact:
Further beneficiaries of impact will include the wider public who will be involved in the research through museum exhibitions, public talks and Hackaton events at Imperial College. Using my established network and track record of public media interaction I will communicate academic findings to society and continue to consult on government policies for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle technologies and opportunities.
The researchers and students working on the AquaMAV project will also be beneficiaries and carriers of impact through their training in interdisciplinary robotics research. Several of my students are already spinning off the technology to promising ventures and will influence society with both, their technological expertise and their transferrable skills that they developed during the work on the AquaMAV project.
Industrial impact:
I have partnered with five companies that have recognised the impact potential of AquaMAV and are offering more than £65k in in-kind support and two CASE studentships to pull the achievements from this grant to higher technology readiness levels (see support letters). Each of these companies has a distinct role by providing technological expertise or by representing a field of AquaMAV applications. The industrial partners can be broadly classed in two categories; as (i) end-user partners who are interested in using market ready AquaMAVs and (ii) as translation partners who are interested in adopting the AquaMAV technology and developing it to market ready products. The specific expertise of the partners are partially overlapping which is intentional and one pillar of risk mitigation in the development of AquaMAV towards industrial impact.
My primary end user partner and the closest collaborator will be Shell who is interested in applying AquaMAV for emergency response, for oceanographic sampling and for de-risking oil exploration. The pioneering mission capability of AquaMAV will bring a major differentiating technology to the oil industry, in particular to vulnerable areas such as the Arctic Sea where floating ice dramatically limits manual sampling capabilities. AquaMAV will allow for cheap and low-risk monitoring of the ecosystem providing not only cost savings and competitive advantage to Shell but also allowing to protect the environment by reacting quickly to emergencies.
Other areas of AquaMAV applications are represented by the following institutions with whom I will interact regularly to involve a variety of end users in AquaMAV development.
-The National Nuclear Centre for decommissioning and first response after nuclear accidents. -The Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science for monitoring marine infrastructures (Cefas).
-Operation Wallacea for monitoring of corral reefs and other marine ecosystems.
My primary translation partner will be National Instruments (NI) who offers expertise in electronics, control and sensing and who is already an established provider of industrial technology frameworks. The collaboration will consist of using NI electronics on the robots and LabView for the 3D motion tracking environment. The established expertise of NI in these areas and NI's commitment of providing technical assistance and training as a match to this grant will be of great benefit to the project. At the same time, AquaMAV will be an informative application platform for NI robotics solutions that will help to leverage AquaMAV application towards NI's established network of industrial clients.
Societal impact:
Further beneficiaries of impact will include the wider public who will be involved in the research through museum exhibitions, public talks and Hackaton events at Imperial College. Using my established network and track record of public media interaction I will communicate academic findings to society and continue to consult on government policies for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle technologies and opportunities.
The researchers and students working on the AquaMAV project will also be beneficiaries and carriers of impact through their training in interdisciplinary robotics research. Several of my students are already spinning off the technology to promising ventures and will influence society with both, their technological expertise and their transferrable skills that they developed during the work on the AquaMAV project.
Organisations
- Imperial College London (Lead Research Organisation)
- Beihang University (Collaboration)
- ETH Zurich (Collaboration)
- Italian Institute of Technology (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia IIT) (Collaboration)
- Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Collaboration)
- Technical University of Munich (Collaboration)
- University of Victoria (Collaboration)
- IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON (Collaboration)
- Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) (Collaboration)
- Empa - Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Collaboration)
- United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (Collaboration)
- National Instruments (United States) (Project Partner)
- National Nuclear Laboratory (Project Partner)
- Harvard University (Project Partner)
- Shell Global Solutions (Project Partner)
- Operation Wallacea (Project Partner)
- Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Project Partner)
People |
ORCID iD |
| Mirko Kovac (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
A. Farinha
(2020)
Unmanned Aerial Sensor Placement for Cluttered Environments
Armanini S
(2019)
Modelling and simulation of a bioinspired aquatic micro aerial vehicle
B.B.Kocer
(2021)
Deep Neuromorphic Controller with Dynamic Topology for Aerial Robots
Buckner C
(2022)
AI reflections in 2021
in Nature Machine Intelligence
Chen Y
(2017)
A biologically inspired, flapping-wing, hybrid aerial-aquatic microrobot.
in Science robotics
Cole JC
(2022)
Social norms explain prioritization of climate policy.
in Climatic change
F. Wiesemuller
(2021)
Self-sensing cellulose structures with design-controlled stiffness
Goldberg B
(2018)
Power and Control Autonomy for High-Speed Locomotion With an Insect-Scale Legged Robot
in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
Hai-Nguyen Nguyen
(2019)
A Passively Adaptive Microspine Grapple for Robust, Controllable Perching
Kovac M
(2021)
Roboter brauchen intelligente Materialien
in maschinenbau
Kovac M
(2016)
ROBOTICS. Learning from nature how to land aerial robots.
in Science (New York, N.Y.)
Pawar VM
(2017)
Toward autonomous architecture: The convergence of digital design, robotics, and the built environment.
in Science robotics
Sareh P
(2018)
Rotorigami: A rotary origami protective system for robotic rotorcraft.
in Science robotics
Schwab F
(2021)
Body Caudal Undulation Measured by Soft Sensors and Emulated by Soft Artificial Muscles.
in Integrative and comparative biology
Schwab F
(2021)
Undulatory Swimming Performance Explored With a Biorobotic Fish and Measured by Soft Sensors and Particle Image Velocimetry.
in Frontiers in robotics and AI
Shepherd P
(2017)
Shell Design Considerations for 3D Printing with Drones
Siddall R
(2017)
Wind and water tunnel testing of a morphing aquatic micro air vehicle.
in Interface focus
Siddall R
(2017)
Fast Aquatic Escape With a Jet Thruster
in IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics
Siddall R
(2020)
Encyclopedia of Robotics
Siddall R
(2018)
Robotics Research
Stefanini C
(2023)
A novel synthesis of two decades of microsatellite studies on European beech reveals decreasing genetic diversity from glacial refugia.
in Tree genetics & genomes
Tan Y
(2017)
Efficient Aerial-Aquatic Locomotion With a Single Propulsion System
in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
Tzoumanikas D
(2018)
Fully autonomous micro air vehicle flight and landing on a moving target using visual-inertial estimation and model-predictive control
in Journal of Field Robotics
Wiesemuller F
(2021)
Zero-footprint eco-robotics: A new perspective on biodegradable robots
Zhang K
(2018)
Bioinspired design of a landing system with soft shock absorbers for autonomous aerial robots
in Journal of Field Robotics
Zufferey R
(2022)
Between Sea and Sky: Aerial Aquatic Locomotion in Miniature Robots
Zufferey R
(2022)
Between Sea and Sky: Aerial Aquatic Locomotion in Miniature Robots
Zufferey R
(2022)
Between Sea and Sky: Aerial Aquatic Locomotion in Miniature Robots
Zufferey R
(2022)
Between Sea and Sky: Aerial Aquatic Locomotion in Miniature Robots
Zufferey R
(2019)
SailMAV: Design and Implementation of a Novel Multi-Modal Flying Sailing Robot
in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
Zufferey R
(2022)
Between Sea and Sky: Aerial Aquatic Locomotion in Miniature Robots
Zufferey R
(2019)
Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel.
in Science robotics
| Title | PhD as art Competition Entry |
| Description | A proposal for an exhibit based on aerial-aquatic locomotion has been accepted for display at the 'PhD as Art' competition sponsored by the Royal College of Art. The exhibition will take place July 2017 |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Impact | Only the proposal has been accepted, the exhibition will take place July 2017 |
| Description | In nature, several animals have evolved design solutions that enable them to successfully transition between water and air, and move in both media. Examples include flying fish, flying squid, diving birds and diving insects. We have reviewed the biological literature on these multimodal animals and abstracted their underlying design principles with the aim of building a robotic equivalent, the Aquatic Micro Air Vehicle (AquaMAV). Our exploration has identified key adaptations from nature and designs from robotics. Based on this evaluation we have proposed key design principles for the design of successful aerial-aquatic robots, i.e. using a plunge diving strategy for water entry, folding wings for diving efficiency, water jet propulsion for water takeoff and hydrophobic surfaces for water shedding and dry flight. Current Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) are greatly limited by being able to operate in air only. Designing multimodal MAVs that can fly effectively, dive into the water and retake flight would enable applications of distributed water quality monitoring, search and rescue operations and underwater exploration. While some aircraft can land on water, no technologies are available that allow them to both dive and fly, due to the dramatic design trade-offs that have to be solved for movement in both air and water, and due to the absence of high-power propulsion systems that would allow a transition from water to air. AquaMAV is a unique robot that can fold its wings to dive into water from the air. Once submerged it records data and collects water samples. A high-pressure water jet then thrusts it back into the air to continue flying. Being capable of locomotion in both air and water, AquaMAV would enable novel mission profiles in complex environments, such as water sampling after floods or underwater structural inspections. |
| Exploitation Route | Compared to manual sampling, AquaMAV can provide much faster and cheaper assessment of the aquatic environment without putting humans at risk. This is of particular importance in vulnerable and inaccessible environments, in case of emergency situation or for periodically monitoring the environment. The impact of the outcomes of the project is demonstrated by the CDE funded project and the interest of TV/radio/press and environmental agencies. The researchers are currently looking to collaborate with oceanographers and various water authorities to take their testing to the next stage. The aim is to deploy the robot in a wide variety of scenarios, to test the robot's limits in waves, wind and weather, and examine the physics of high speed dives into water. An additional propulsion system is also under development to make the AquaMAV fully aquatic, capable of long periods of submarine operation. |
| Sectors | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Communities and Social Services/Policy,Environment,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Security and Diplomacy,Transport |
| URL | http://www.imperial.ac.uk/aerial-robotics/research/aquamav/ |
| Description | AquaMAV has ability to transition autonomously from flight to water and vice versa. Combining the advantageous features of flight and underwater operation - would allow for many new applications, such as water sampling (e.g. to monitor disaster scenarios or perform scientific measurements), or inspection of underwater infrastructure. The project delivered novel principles for multi-terrain aerial-aquatic transitions for miniature mobile robotics. One of the major scientific outcomes of the project is to demonstrate impulsive take-off from water using combustion processes and aerial-aquatic flapping propulsion. The work won several awards, including the 'Queen Mary Best UK PhD in Robotics' (2020), the 'AAAI Best Robot Video Award' (2017) and the 'Taros Robot Demo Contest' (2015). The AquaMAV project has been widely featured in non-academic circles, such as news broadcast, science outreach events and museum exhibits (the October 2016 prototype of the AquaMAV is on display in the Antenna Gallery of the Science Museum, London). The robot was featured in BBC Click, Wired Magazine. The presentation of the project has helped to inform the public about how robots can be used in novel ways to help with real problems, and the ways in which natural design can contribute to the building of better machines/tools. Followup grants: The work has generated large amounts of interest, including an invitation to be a partner in the EPSRC ORCA Robotics Hub, the EPSRC CASCADE programme grant, and several H2020 EU projects. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2016 |
| Sector | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Agriculture, Food and Drink,Chemicals,Communities and Social Services/Policy,Construction,Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Energy,Environment,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Transport,Other |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal,Policy & public services |
| Description | Citation of project by Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
| URL | http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/POST-PN-479#fullreport |
| Description | Visit by Ministry of Education, Bangladesh for tour of the Aerial Robotics Laboratory - Aerial Robotics and Physical AI |
| Geographic Reach | Asia |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to new or Improved professional practice |
| Description | Applied Off-site and On-site Collective Multi-Robot Autonomous Building Manufacturing |
| Amount | £1,201,253 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/S031464/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2019 |
| End | 12/2021 |
| Description | Centre for Defence Enterprise funding |
| Amount | £73,718 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | CDE101491 |
| Organisation | Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2017 |
| End | 06/2017 |
| Description | EPSRC program grant |
| Amount | £4,448,296 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/R009953/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2018 |
| End | 01/2023 |
| Description | ISCF - Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Hub |
| Amount | £14,635,591 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/R026173/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2017 |
| End | 04/2021 |
| Description | Joint PhD project Enabling Drone Inspection of Future Fusion Facilities |
| Amount | £21,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | UK Atomic Energy Authority |
| Department | Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2022 |
| End | 12/2026 |
| Description | Robotic Ecosystems for Future Infrastructures |
| Amount | £150,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Royal Society |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2018 |
| End | 08/2023 |
| Title | AquaMAV testing in wing and water tunnels |
| Description | AquaMAV prototypes were tested in wind and water tunnels that are part of the national wind tunnel facility. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The required setup included the design of an automated catapult launcher for the water tank and an automated data collection unit for the wind tunnel. These tools are useful and available for other projects. |
| URL | http://www.nwtf.ac.uk/html/index.html |
| Title | Bioinspired technologies for construction and repair of the built environment |
| Description | Within the Aerial Additive Building Manufacturing (Aerial ABM) project, we take inspiration from biology to create novel printing, perching and flight technologies that are safer, more interactable and efficient. For example in smaller flying robots we take inspiration from house flies to create perching mechanisms based on mechanical intelligence of the body morphology. For larger robotic systems we rely on integration of complex control, sensing, and planning to enhance perching robustness. Inspired by ballooning spider, we have developed perching systems that enable stable motion of drones in 3D space based on strings and magnets. In order to develop efficient printing methods, we are inspired by nest creation methods employed by animals such as Swiftlet in nature. We have developed light weight deposition mechanisms and integrated them into flying drones that can turn Polyurethane foam materials into complex 3D structures that are more flexible in size and location. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | No impact so far. However, the work by Aerial Additive Building Manufacturing has been praised by a large number recognized academics and industrialists in the field, who are keen to collaborate with us on the existing or related future grants. This gives a very positive prospective for the societal and technological impacts of Aerial ABM within the near future. |
| URL | http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6288/895 |
| Title | Brahmal Vasudevan Multi Terrain Flight Arena on TerriNet infrastructure with wide reach to European audience. |
| Description | A large enclosed 10x6.2x5.5m flight arena (Arena), equipped with 16 Vicon T40 tracking cameras, capable of tracking multiple flying objects in 6 degrees of freedom, with millimetre accuracy. Tracking data can be used for closed-loop control of vehicles. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The Arena is the first of its kind in Europe, enabling engineers to test the next generation of aerial robotics for urban environments and extreme conditions. Researchers in the Arena are able to simulate different terrains in the air, the ocean and on land. The space also enables engineers to create extreme conditions such as fire, smoke and heat to simulate how the next generation of drones will perform in harsh environments. The research focus in Arena encompasses two main themes: (i) physical adaptation; (ii) cybernetics adaptation. The physical adaptation includes morphological changes in different environmental conditions for aerial and multi-terrain robots to land, perch, locomote or \"stay still\" in narrow and cluttered spaces. The cybernetical adaptation includes adjustments at the algorithmic level to maintain the stability, avoid the collisions and the track the safe and reliable trajectories. These activities are considered holistically with potential human interactions, neuroscience, and bio-inspiration. |
| URL | https://www.terrinet.eu/robotic_database_show_platform/?id=116 |
| Title | Brahmal Vasudevan Multi-Terrai Aerial Robotics Arena |
| Description | Imperial College London has recently opened the Brahmal Vasudevan Multi-Terrain Aerial Robotics Arena at the Department of Aeronautics. This flight arena is the first of its kind in Europe. The facility is dedicated to the design, development and testing of novel mobile robots for various unstructured and extreme environments. Hosted on the roof of the City and Guilds building, the Robotics Arena has been built based on a £1.25 million gift from Imperial alumnus Mr Brahmal Vasudevan, who graduated in Aeronautical Engineering in 1990. The arena can be configured for various terrains, including air/ground/water and it allows for the setup of simulated challenging environments, industrial scenarios and urban infrastructures. It is designed to allow for experiments including smoke and combustion and it is fully laser rated. The space is equipped with 16 high speed 3D aerial tracking cameras, that can be used to record in real-time the dynamics of robots in air and on ground. A further ten 3D tracking cameras will be positioned in a water tank, which will be used to test novel multi-terrain robots that can move in both air and water. The facility includes one Innovation Room that will be used for work group creative design and robot development. Located next to it is the Robotics Workshop containing 3D printers, micro-manufacturing equipment and a fume hood for component fabrication and assembly. Two outdoor spaces are accessible from the arena for open-air testing. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2016 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Particular well suited to design, develop and test mobile robots for unstructured and extreme environments, the space will be dedicated to the creation of future robots for smart cities, for supporting workers in hazardous environments, or for search and rescue missions. It will be used as teaching facility for undergraduates and PhDs and will constitute a showcase space for promoting robotics technologies at Imperial College London with international reach. |
| URL | https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/182375/uk-world-leader-drone-tech-says/ |
| Title | The Drone Hub at NEST |
| Description | The Drone Hub at the NEST research and innovation building in Dubendirf, Switzerland, is a test environment that facilitates the integration and interaction of robots such as drones or climbing robots with infrastructure systems. Leveranging the ability of robots to act autonomously the Drone Hub serves as test-bed to perform challenging tasks and thus lowering both the risks for humans and the cost of operation. This includes inspection of facade elements, repairs of cracks or surface cleaning in areas which are dangerous for human to work. The Drone Hub is open to industry partners for their own needs. A partnership includes: The use of the Drone Hub infrastructure. Join R&D initiatives in aerial robotics, robot autonomy and infrastructure digitalisation. Echange programs and talent recruitment (sabbaticals). Access to technology foresight in aerial robotics and infrastructure robotics and applied AI. Access to the NEST network or partners from research industry and the public sector. Visibility of the logo and use of the NEST infrastructure for events and visits. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Research finding validation and testing. New scientific theory validation. Improve business operation and efficiency. Worker safety |
| URL | https://www.empa.ch/web/nest/drone-hub?inheritRedirect=true |
| Title | Two large wind blades and water tank at Flight Arena, Empa |
| Description | • Two large wind blade sections arrived from ORE Catapult UK (6m x1.7m; 6mx0.4m). • We are in process of installation of these two wind blades (indoors and outdoors). • Installation of water tank (2m by 1.5m by 0.7m). |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Testbed for development of inspection technology in safe environment(prior to use in real world applications) Realistic testing environment Opportunity for robotic inspection to reduce risk to human workers |
| Description | Aerial Robotics Lab and the UK Atomic Energy Authority's Race (Remote Applications in Challenging Environments) |
| Organisation | UK Atomic Energy Authority |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | The collaboration between a team from UK Atomic Energy Authority's Race (Remote Applications in Challenging Environments) and a team from Imperial College aimed at testing the use of drones in the maintenance of the next generation of nuclear power reactors. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The Aerial Robotics Laboratory from Imperial College London designed a bioinspired nano aerial vehicle to fly into the reactor. The drone is a quadcopter with the size of the palm of a human hand to minimise turbulences. It is made out of transparent plastic and printed circuit material. To conserve its battery, the drone is able to attach itself with a magnet to the underside of a metal plate held by the robot. Then the drone uses a pulley and cord to lower itself down to the floor like a spider. |
| Impact | This multi-disciplinary collaboration is continuing toward the development of robots that can go into places that are dangerous for humans. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Aerial-aquatic hitchhiking robots capable of high-performance medium transition and bioinspired redundant adhesion |
| Organisation | Beihang University |
| Country | China |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Joint publication on research study "Aerial-aquatic hitchhiking robots capable of high-performance medium transition and bioinspired redundant adhesion". |
| Collaborator Contribution | Joint publication on research study "Aerial-aquatic hitchhiking robots capable of high-performance medium transition and bioinspired redundant adhesion". |
| Impact | Hydrostatically enhanced hitchhiking device, inspired by the morphology of a remora disc, which works in both air and water. |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | Collaboration with Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA) |
| Organisation | Empa - Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology |
| Country | Switzerland |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Staff time for meetings to discuss possible and active ORCA Hub projects. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Staff time for meetings to discuss end-user requirements for drones in infrastructure inspection and evaluation. Provide a testing site and materials for a demonstration of aerial inspection. |
| Impact | nil |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Ecological monitoring of forest environment using biologically inspired aerial drone |
| Organisation | Technical University of Munich |
| Country | Germany |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Provided research facilities: Flight arena, wind tunnel etc and supervision of master students visiting from TUM for development of an aerial platform with a reconfigurable body frame to enhance perching capabilities by detecting curvature and bending of its arms. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Two master students from TUM and their supervision. |
| Impact | 1. Development of an aerial platform with a reconfigurable body frame to enhance perching capabilities by detecting curvature and bending of its arms (Imperial College London). 2. Development of control methods to enable a dynamic, underactuated, reconfigurable system to enable ballistic perching over various structures (TUM). 3. Demonstration in field site in Surrey, UK. |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | Ecological monitoring of forest environment using biologically inspired aerial drone |
| Organisation | Technical University of Munich |
| Country | Germany |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Provided research facilities: Flight arena, wind tunnel etc and supervision of master students visiting from TUM for development of an aerial platform with a reconfigurable body frame to enhance perching capabilities by detecting curvature and bending of its arms. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Two master students from TUM and their supervision. |
| Impact | 1. Development of an aerial platform with a reconfigurable body frame to enhance perching capabilities by detecting curvature and bending of its arms (Imperial College London). 2. Development of control methods to enable a dynamic, underactuated, reconfigurable system to enable ballistic perching over various structures (TUM). 3. Demonstration in field site in Surrey, UK. |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | RL-based navigation for balloons in wind |
| Organisation | ETH Zurich |
| Department | Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems |
| Country | Switzerland |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Aerial robotics lab provided research facilities to complete the research study "RL-based navigation for balloons in wind". |
| Collaborator Contribution | Student from ETH Zurich visiting Imperial under knowledge exchange program. |
| Impact | The project develop an autonomous balloon-like system that is capable of navigating between two specified locations given a prediction of the surrounding wind field. |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | Superhydrophobic surface manufacture |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Department | Department of Chemistry |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | ++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Laboratory, equipment and other resources for the fabrication of superhydrophobic surfaces. Testing and analysis of the surface performance for drag reduction applications. Knowledge in fluid mechanics. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Knowledge in the chemistry and manufacture of superhydrophobic surfaces. |
| Impact | Multi-disciplinary collaboration (Chemistry/Fluid Mechanics). Manufacture of a spray-on superhydrophobic surface for hydrodynamic drag reduction surfaces. |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | Underwater diagnostics with Aerial Drones |
| Organisation | Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology |
| Country | Switzerland |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Multi-Environment Dual-Robot for Underwater Sample Acquisition (MEDUSA platform) is capable of landing and floating on the water. Water-sampling study will be done in Switzerland at lake monitoring platform of Eawag. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Joint experiment |
| Impact | Ongoing research study |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | Visiting Faculty - Barbara Mazzolai (Italian Institute of Technology, IIT) |
| Organisation | Italian Institute of Technology (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia IIT) |
| Country | Italy |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Barbara Mazzolai is Coordinator of the Center for Micro-BioRobotics (CMBR) at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) and Deputy Director at IIT delegate to the Supervision and Organization of IIT Centers Network at the same institute. She collaborates with Mirko Kovac as expert in bioinspired design, soft robotics and smart materials to be integrated in the design and development of aerial robots. She has spent 6 months of sabbatical period at the Aerial Robotics Lab to work on joint publications and joint project proposals. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Joint publication in the Journal of the Royal Society, Interface (Sareh S, et al 2017, ISSN 1742-5662); Joint project proposal submitted to the EU H2020 Call ICT-25-2016-2017 (Hu-DroneS); advisory role on PhD students and Post docs. Distinguished BioRobotics Lecture at Imperial College (June 30, 2017) |
| Impact | Joint publication in the Journal of the Royal Society, Interface (Sareh S, et al 2017, ISSN 1742-5662); Joint project proposal submitted to the EU H2020 Call ICT-25-2016-2017 (Hu-DroneS); advisory role on PhD students and Post docs. Distinguished BioRobotics Lecture at Imperial College (June 30, 2017). The collaboration is multidisciplinary and includes: aerial robotics, soft robotics, material science, biology. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Visiting Faculty - Prof. Afzal Suleman (University of Victoria) |
| Organisation | University of Victoria |
| Country | Australia |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Visiting Faculty - Prof. Afzal Suleman (University of Victoria) |
| Collaborator Contribution | Visiting Faculty - Prof. Afzal Suleman (University of Victoria) |
| Impact | Visiting Faculty - Prof. Afzal Suleman (University of Victoria) |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Visiting Faculty - Prof. Afzal Suleman (University of Victoria) |
| Organisation | University of Victoria |
| Country | Australia |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Visiting Faculty - Prof. Afzal Suleman (University of Victoria) |
| Collaborator Contribution | Visiting Faculty - Prof. Afzal Suleman (University of Victoria) |
| Impact | Visiting Faculty - Prof. Afzal Suleman (University of Victoria) |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Visiting student from EPFL - Celia Raposo |
| Organisation | Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) |
| Country | Switzerland |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Supervision. Expertise in robot development, fluid mechanics, electronics and flight performance. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Manufacturing, testing and design work. |
| Impact | Journal and conference paper submitted. Disciplines involved: Electronics, navigation, fluid mechanics flight dynamics. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | "Maschinenbau" journal Robotik Industry Interview - Roboter brauchen intelligente Materialien |
| 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 | Artificial intelligence (AI) is now considered fundamental to development across all industries new products and technologies and creates a unity for companies that master them Competitive advantage. What is still missing, however, is an in-depth discussion of the effects on society in order to better understand the opportunities, but also possible risks. In the interview Empa researchers Mirko Kovac and Aslan Miriyev from the Center for Robotics outline where to go developed AI and robotics research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.springerprofessional.de/en/roboter-brauchen-intelligente-materialien/19610398 |
| Description | 1st AIRPHARO Workshop on Aerial Robotic Systems Physically Interacting with the Environment - A High Payload Aerial Platform For Aerial Infrastructure Repair and Manufacturing |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Abstract-The use of aerial robots in construction is an area of general interest in the robotics community. Autonomous aerial systems have the potential to improve safety, efficiency and sustainability of industrial construction and repair processes. Several solutions have been deployed in this domain focusing on problems in aerial manipulation and control using existing aerial platforms which are not specialised for the specific challenges in operating on a construction site. This paper presents a new compact, high thrust aerial platform that can act as a modular, application agnostic base for demonstrating a wide variety of capabilities. The platform has been built and tested flying both with manual controls and autonomously in a motion tracking arena while carrying a payload of up to7.3kgwith a maximum flight time between10-34mins(payload dependent). In the future, this platform will be combined with vision based tracking sensors, manipulators and other hardware to operate in and interact with an outdoor environment. Future applications may include manipulation of heavy objects, deposition of material and navigating confined spaces. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9571052 |
| Description | 1st AIRPHARO Workshop on Aerial Robotic Systems Physically Interacting with the Environment - Workshop: Coordination of Aerial and Spacecraft Robotics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The 1st AIRPHARO Workshop on Aerial Robotic Systems Physically Interacting with the Environment is the successor of the workshops on Research, Education and Development of Unmanned Aerial Systems (RED-UAS), plan to arrange further related workshops. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://sites.google.com/view/airpharo2021/home |
| Description | 1st AIRPHARO Workshop on Aerial Robotic Systems Physically Interacting with the Environment - Zero-footprint eco-robotics: A new perspective on biodegradable robots |
| 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 | The AIRPHARO workshop will focus on a high growth area of both research and industry, the use of aerial robots for physical interaction with people and the environment. The scope of the workshop includes technologies, functionalities, regulation and safety issues, applications and education related to aerial manipulation and transportation. The technologies encompass aerial manipulation, soft aerial robots and compliance, bio-inspiration, teleoperation, hybrid aerial/ground/marine interaction, recharging/refueling and multi-robot cooperation with physical interaction. The functionalities include contact inspection, transportation, deployment and retrieval, co-working with humans, sampling and cleaning. The main application areas are inspection and maintenance, agriculture, construction, environment protection, firefighting and healthcare. Regulation and safety issues involving risk analysis, and education including educational prototypes and software tools are also included in the scope. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: design and control of aerial manipulators (AM), autonomy, AM control architectures, biologically inspired AM, perception for physical interaction, navigation, multi-robot collaboration, machine learning for AM, mission planning, AM applications. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9571067 |
| Description | 22nd International Conference and Exhibition on Material Science and Engineering - Physical AI for Soft Aerial Robotics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Theme: Anticipating Future Trends, New Insights, and Cutting-Edge Technologies in Materials Science and Engineering |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://material-science.materialsconferences.com/ |
| Description | 3 Sat Nano - Drone Underwater Robotic System |
| 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 | Can drones help to monitor the water quality of large bodies of water closely and scientifically, thereby improving the protection of ecosystems? |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.3sat.de/wissen/nano/211213-drohne-nano-100.html |
| Description | A new review, published today in Science Robotics and co-authored by Imperial researcher Dr Mirko Kovac, who directs the Aerial Robotics Laboratory in the Department of Aeronautics, looks at the state-of-the-art in robot construction and where we need to go next to make a robot-built environment a reality. |
| 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 | It comes as the UKRI has announced £18m in funding to support digital transformation of the construction industry, of which Dr Kovac is a cooperating investigator on a project with UCL where his group will explore robotic platform solutions for collective robotic construction. The world is increasingly urban, and the researchers say that robots could be the perfect tools to help build and maintain new cities. Using robots should reduce human risk, allow tasks to be completed faster, and allow monitoring alongside construction - the robots could collect data on everything they are doing, helping to improve their practices. Dr Kovac said: "The cities of the future could be built and maintained by groups of land-based and flying robots working together to construct, assess, and repair the urban ecosystem of buildings and infrastructure. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | A new review, published today in Science Robotics and co-authored by Imperial researcher Dr Mirko Kovac, who directs the Aerial Robotics Laboratory in the Department of Aeronautics, looks at the state-of-the-art in robot construction and where we need to go next to make a robot-built environment a reality. |
| 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 | Robots that can transition from water to air are desirable in these situations, but the launch requires a lot of power, which has been difficult to achieve in small robots. Now, researchers at Imperial College London have invented a system that requires just 0.2 grams of calcium carbide powder in a combustion chamber. The only moving part is a small pump that brings in water from the environment the robot is sat in, such as a lake or ocean. The water and the calcium-carbide powder then combine in a reaction chamber, producing a burnable acetylene gas. As the gas ignites and expands, it pushes the water out as a jet, which propels the robot clear of the water and into a glide of up to 26 metres. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/190517/cities-future-could-built-robots-mimicking/ |
| Description | AI for Good Global Summit 'Wind Industry: Green Energy Robots for Achieving the Planet Net-Zero Future - Aerial Robotics for Off-shore Wind |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | We have less than 10 years to solve the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). AI holds great promise by capitalizing on the unprecedented quantities of data now being generated on sentiment behaviour, human health, commerce, communications, migration and more. The goal of AI for Good is to identify practical applications of AI to advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and scale those solutions for global impact. It's the leading action-oriented, global & inclusive United Nations platform on AI. AI for Good is organized by ITU in partnership with 40 UN Sister Agencies and co-convened with Switzerland. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://aiforgood.itu.int/speakers-ai-for-good/ |
| Description | Aerospace & Defense Meetings Sevilla 2021 - Physical AI for Infrastructure Drones |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Unmanned Aerial Systems technologies are becoming an important tool at industrial and infrastructure systems in many different applications. This workshop presents some successful use cases of successful demonstration of state-of-the-art of these technologies in industrial environments. Laboratory for Robotics and Intelligent Control Systems of the University of Zagreb, Aerial Robotics Laboratory of the Imperial College London and GRVC Robotics Laboratory of the University of Seville will present their experience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS6i2_VEmzg |
| Description | AlphaGalileo: Skills development in Physical AI could give birth to lifelike intelligent robots |
| 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 | The research suggests that teaching materials science, mechanical engineering, computer science, biology and chemistry as a combined discipline could help students develop the skills they need to create lifelike artificially intelligent (AI) robots as researchers. Known as Physical AI, these robots would be designed to look and behave like humans or other animals while possessing intellectual capabilities normally associated with biological organisms. These robots could in future help humans at work and in daily living, performing tasks that are dangerous for humans, and assisting in medicine, caregiving, security, building and industry. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.alphagalileo.org/en-gb/Item-Display/ItemId/200575?returnurl=https://www.alphagalileo.org... |
| Description | As well as finding out more about threats to bees, researchers have been inspired to create bee-like drones and to protect our natural pollinators with the help of school students. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | As well as investigating the impact of pesticides on bees, Imperial researchers in the Aerial Robotics Lab have also been inspired by bees when creating drones. The drones' designs are inspired by nature: the flying robots will sense and swoop on damaged infrastructure like bees monitoring and building their hive. They can also alert nearby drones to an issue to rally a team response. Like many flying animals, the drones will also be soft and flexible to minimise impact damage to the building or the drones themselves. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/191248/world-bee-day-buzz-around-imperials/ |
| Description | BBC Click Feature |
| 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 | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Dr Kovac conducted an interview with the BBC for their 'Click' technology feature, with Rob Siddall providing background assistance. The topic of the segment was pollution monitoring, and the interview also featured footage of robot prototypes from the project being tested. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08hz447/click-air-quality |
| Description | BBC World News |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Interview of Mirko Kovac for BBC World News as Robotics expert with audience of ca. 400 million people. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38505626 |
| Description | BBC World Service - Special edition BBC Click on Drones |
| 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 | Special edition of BBC click with interview to Dr Mirko Kovac |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
| URL | http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p030vxy4 |
| Description | BT - BRITISH SCIENCE WEEK DRONE DAY 'Physical Artificial Intelligence for Aerial Robotics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | BSW plus we have lots of interest from schools all over the UK. So far our landing page has received over 3000 hits in the past 10 days of launching a short overview video. You can take a look here: Adastral Park - British Science Week (atadastral.co.uk) Drones: How are drones being used in our everyday lives? What are their future benefits and possibilities? Can physical artificial intelligence create lifelike robots? |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://atadastral.co.uk/bsw/ |
| Description | BT British Science Week - Physical Artificial Intelligence for Aerial Robotics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | 8000 online viewers! students and family members. At BT Adastral Park where I am usually based, we hold a week long British Science Week (BSW), attracting around 1600 students from the Eastern Region. Due to Covid-19, we are going virtual from 8th - 12th March 2021! We are setting up a web page for schools and families to join us over the five days to explore a subject launched each day: Cyber Security Smart Cities Creative Media Drones Health & Sports Science Each day, there will be an introduction of a pre-recorded video host, leading onto a 5 minute video about the subject. Some "profile" fact pages will also be shown alongside, giving the viewer a chance to get to know each of the presenters and the grads/apprentices who work in the topic space. A Q&A session will be held live each day from 1345 til 1430. A make and do session will also be available, with step by step instructions Then we are giving universities and businesses a chance to get involved, by hosting a 5 minute video about the subject of the day; career "profile" fact pages; and the opportunity to be part of the live Q&A. It's a great publicity opportunity to showcase and celebrate the work in their departments. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://atadastral.co.uk/bsw/drones/ |
| Description | Beihang university - Physical Artificial Intelligence for Aerial Robotics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | graduate students, postdocs, and undergraduate students - 45 attendees. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Breaking the Surface: Aerial Robotics for Digital Infrastructure Systems |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | To increase share recent technological advances in Aerial Robotics for Digital Infrastructure Systems. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | BtS Conference (Croatia) |
| 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 | Breaking the Surface Marine Robotics (BtS) serves as a prominent meeting place for experts and students of marine control engineering and signal processing and the marine robotics application areas. Dr Mirko Kovac presented the our latest aerial robotics technologies with highlights on the work on Aerial ABM at this meeting during October 2016. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.marinetraining.eu/content/breaking-surface-2016-8th-international-interdisciplinary-field... |
| Description | CGTN Interview with Shini Somara |
| 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 | research on drones and forest conservation and monitoring and wanted to make a film about your work for a television programme called Razor on CGTN Europe. Razor is a 30-min weekly science and technology programme, where we feature the latest science, technology and innovation from around the world. CGTN has bureaus in Beijing, Washington DC, Nairobi and most recently London. We reach audiences of 550 million people across 127 countries. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Children Christmas Lecture at Imperial College |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Mirko Kovac was invited to be the speaker at the annual Children's Christmas Lecture at Imperial College. The event is one of the College's annual prestigious lectures, the aim of which is to demonstrate to children that science can be fun as well as interesting and hopefully they will go on to consider studying science at GCSE, A Level and beyond. The age range of the audience is 11-16, involving schools in London and children of Imperial staff and alumnus who attend as well as members of the general public. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/eventssummary/event_9-11-2016-10-57-45 |
| Description | Children Christmas Lecture at Surrey |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Mirko Kovac was invited speaker to the IET and University of Surrey 2017 Children's Christmas Lecture. The event is organised for schools, with target audience of children between 13 - 18 year olds who are interested in Science, Engineering and Technology. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/iet-christmas-lecture-2017-surrey-tickets-39319167689# |
| Description | Digital Journal: Drones are helping to protect the environment in novel ways |
| 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 | Drones have a number of useful applications, especially in assisting scientists to better understand the planet. This includes environmental and conservation work. Three examples are presented. Drone technology is advancing in novel ways. As an example, researchers have begun to use special computer algorithms to control drones. In addition, drones are being equipped with new types of sensors to take readings or they have advanced cameras that allow 3D models to be produced from images. AI is also making drones safer, such as avoiding collisions and boosting the probability of detecting drones and reducing fault detections. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | http://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-and-science/science/drones-are-helping-to-protect-the-environment... |
| Description | Drone Days 2021 - Multi-Modal Aerial Robotics For Environmental Sensing and Construction |
| 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 | DroneDays is a two-day workshop focused on unmanned aerial vehicles which will be held on 4th and 5th October 2021 in Biograd na Moru, Croatia. The programme consists of keynote lectures and an exhibition area, and is focused on unmanned aerial vehicle applications and end-user industries. It will serve as a meeting place for experts from the industry and academia, end-users, as well as regulatory bodies from the region. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | http://dronedays.fer.hr/en/session/multi-modal-aerial-robotics-for-environmental-sensing-and-constru... |
| Description | EMPA Lecture Series in Physical AI: Seminar by Prof. Dr. Salvador Pané i Vidal - Materials for small-scale robots |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | We live in a world increasingly surrounded by robots such as robotic surgical systems, flying drones, autonomous planetary rovers, and robotic appliances. An emerging family of robotic systems are untethered micro- and nanorobots. These tiny vehicles can move either by harvesting chemical fuels present in their swimming environments or by means of external energy sources. One of the ultimate goals of small-scale robotics is to develop machines that can deliver drugs, or realize other medical missions in confined spaces of the human body. Other applications include water remediation or "on-the-fly" chemistry. The recent rapid developments in small-scale robotics is undeniably related to advances in material science and manufacturing. However, while many applications have been demonstrated, aspects such as complex locomotion, multifunctionality, biocompatibility and biodegradability need to be further investigated for the successful translation of these devices to real applications. To this end, new material-based concepts and novel fabrication schemes are urgently required. In this talk, I will introduce two of my latest developments in small-scale robotics. In the first part, we will show how 3D printed microtemplates can be exploited to produce complex robotic microstructures made of rigid metals, soft polymers and combinations of these. As a result, topologically complex metal-organic structures can be realized with micrometric resolution. I will also demonstrate that metal-organic interlocked micromachines can solve several practical challenges in small-scale robotics. We show that high magnetic responsiveness, drug loading capabilities, biocompatibility, on-demand shape transformation, and multi-locomotion modes can be embedded in a single microrobotic machine. The second part of this talk will be focused on multiferroic small-scale robots. These small-scale robots consist of multiferroic magnetoelectric composite materials, which have the ability to generate an electric field under the application of an external magnetic field. Micro and nanorobots capable of wirelessly delivering electric fields can be used for electrostimulation of cells for the central nervous systems applications, or for bone tissue engineering. Finally, magnetoelectric small-scale robots can also be used for water cleaning applications, such as degradation of organic pollutants or reduction of heavy metals. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.empa.ch/web/s799/physical-ai-seminar-series |
| Description | EMPA Lecture Series in Physical AI: Seminar by Prof. Fritz Vollrath - Spiders and their Webs - in the context of soft-robotics. Unravelling Spider Webs and Silks |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Webs are fascinating examples of Nature's 'Design by Evolution' which is powerful process able to generate highly functional and supremely efficient materials, devices and systems. Silk is an excellent examples for outstanding performance of a natural material, and this talk shall explore a few characteristics and put them into perspective. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://events.empa.ch/Aktuelle%20Veranstaltungen/Tagungen/event.php?vnr=277-110 |
| Description | EMPA Lecture Series in Physical AI: Seminar by Prof. Metin Sitti - Soft-bodied small-scale mobile robots |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | 57 attendees. Untethered small-scale mobile robots have the potential to revolutionize healthcare, since they have the unique capability of accessing, operating and possibly staying inside hard and currently not possible to reach small spaces inside the human body non-invasively. On the other hand, soft-bodied robots have unique capabilities with compared to their fully rigid counterparts, such as shape changing and programming, physical adaptation, safe operation, and multifunctionality. Using such unique capabilities of soft robots for medical applications, we propose new miniature soft medical robots that are actuated using external magnetic fields. We first developed a shape-programming methodology for 2D magneto-elastic materials, and used such materials to create magnetic soft millirobots inspired by soft-bodied organisms, such as spermatozoids, caterpillars, and jellyfishes. A magneto-elastic sheet-shaped soft robot is demonstrated to be able to have seven or more locomotion modalities to be able to navigate in complex environments, such as inside the human body. Next, a baby jellyfish-inspired magneto-elastic milliswimmer is shown to realize multiple functionalities by producing diverse controlled fluidic flows around its body. Then, an array of cilia-inspired magneto-elastic cilia is developed to generate metachronal waves for efficient biofluid pumping and fluidic object manipulation. Also, various 3D metastructures-based soft robots with specific medical functionalities are introduced under ultrasound type of medical imaging modalities. Finally, liquid crystal elastomer type of stimuli-responsive materials are integrated with magneto-elastic composites towards self-sensing and self-adapting physically intelligent robots at the small scale. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://nccr-robotics.ch/events/empa-robotics-centre-seminar-series-on-physical-ai/ |
| Description | EMPA Press Release: Drones to monitor ecological changes |
| 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 | A team of researchers from Empa and Imperial College London developed drones that can attach sensors to trees to monitor environmental and ecological changes in forests. Sensors for forest monitoring are already used to track changes in temperature, humidity and light, as well as the movements of animals and insects through their habitats. They also help to detect and monitor forest fires and can provide valuable data on how climate change and other human activities are affecting the natural world. Placing these sensors can, however, prove difficult in large, tall forests, and climbing trees to place them poses its own risks. Flying robots à la Robin Hood Now, a team of researchers from Empa and Imperial College London has developed drones that can shoot sensor-containing darts onto trees several meters away in cluttered environments like forests. The drones can also place sensors through contact or by perching on tree branches. The researchers hope the drones will be used in future to create networks of sensors to boost data on forest ecosystems and to track hard-to-navigate biomes like the Amazon rainforest. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.empa.ch/web/s604/drohnen-im-wald |
| Description | EPFL EESS Environmental Engineering Seminar Series - Aerial Robotics for Environmental and Infrastructure Science |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Environmental and infrastructure sciences rely heavily on accurate, timely and complete data sets which are often collected manually at significant risks and costs. Robotics and mobile sensor networks can collect data more effectively and with higher spatial-temporal resolution compared to manual methods while benefiting from expanded operational envelopes and added data collection capabilities. In future, robotics will be an indispensable tool for data collection in complex environments, enabling the digitalisation of forests, lakes, off-shore energy systems, cities and the polar environment. However, such future robot solutions will need to operate more flexibly, robustly and efficiently than they do today. This talk will present how animal-inspired robot design methods can integrate adaptive morphologies, functional materials and energy-efficient locomotion principles to enable this new class of environmental robotics. The talk will also include application examples, such as flying robots that can place sensors in forests, aerial-aquatic drones for autonomous water sampling, drones with compliant landing systems for landing on wind turbines, drones for aerial construction and repair, and impact-resilient drones for safe operations in underground and tunnel systems. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://memento.epfl.ch/event/eess-talk-on-aerial-robotics-for-environmental-and/ |
| Description | ETH Robotics & Autonomous Systems Faculty Workshop - Aerial Infrastructure Robotics |
| 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 | ETH Robotics & Autonomous Systems Faculty Workshop - Aerial Infrastructure Robotics |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | ETH Smart Cities & Mobility Faculty Workshop - Physical AI for Aerial Robotics |
| 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 | ETH Smart Cities & Mobility Faculty Workshop - Physical AI for Aerial Robotics |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Eawag Seminar: Aerial-aquatic drones for water sampling |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Manual water sampling can be expensive, labour intensive and risky, in particular in areas where the environment is hazardous or difficult to access. Mobile robots are starting to be used for such applications, offering a relatively risk-free and low-cost manner to rapidly and systematically observe aquatic phenomena and perform in-situ measurements at a high spatio-temporal resolution. However, most robots are either designed to move in either air or water and are therefore constrained by the limitation of each movement modality. Multi-modal mobility in both air and water and across fluid boundaries allows for unprecedented mission capabilities that cannot be done with only flying or swimming robots. For example, it enables autonomous water sampling in inaccessible coastal areas, mountain lakes, around coral reefs, between floating ice in the arctic sea and during urban flooding situations, where obstacles in the water inhibit access with single-mode robots. However, the conflicting design requirements for operation in air and water has prevented the demonstration of a fully functional and autonomous aerial-aquatic robot. In this talk, I will present how biological inspiration can help in the design of such vehicles and what we can learn from aerial-aquatic animals to build multi-modal robots. I will also present the current state of the Aquatic Micro Aerial Vehicle (AquaMAV) research at Imperial College London where we have developed a family of aerial-aquatic drones for water sampling applications. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.eawag.ch/de/news-agenda/agenda/archiv/detail/?tx_sfpevents_sfpevents%5Bevent%5D=1782&tx_... |
| Description | Ecobuild Exhibition (Excel, London) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Ecobuild was a four-day event at Excel Exhibition Centre in London bringing professionals and researchers in the field of construction together to exchange ideas and demonstrate potential implementations for our future built environment. Aerial Robotics Lab at Imperial has been invited to give a presentation on "Drones for construction and repair in future cities" as well as the opportunity to display novel technologies developed within Aerial Additive Building Manufacturing project to a wide range of audiences from industry to academia. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Electronics 360: Video: Dart-shooting drone deploys sensor to inaccessible locations |
| 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 | Researchers from the Imperial College London have created a new deployment method for sensors that uses unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to launch sensors into hazardous environments or inaccessible locations. The drones shoot the sensors like darts to a target location that can be safely approached by a UAV, such as under the forest canopy or up high in a tall tree or an industrial pipeline or oil rig. Typically, these types of sensors would need to be delivered by a human putting the person in threat of injury. Researchers said the drone-sensor system opens new opportunities for industrial and scientific uses. With the system, no physical interaction is needed, and the method is based on mechanical energy storage and ultralight shape memory alloy trigger. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/15906/video-dart-shooting-drone-deploys-sensor-to-inac... |
| Description | Empa Leadership Forum - Materials and Technology Centre of Robotics |
| 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 | Empa Leadership Forum - Materials and Technology Centre of Robotics |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Empa Press Release - Digital Day 'A Sustainable Future with "Living" Machines: Collaborative Drones: How Physical Artificial Intelligence will Shape our Interaction with Robots' |
| 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 | In this insightful conversation with Mirko Kovac, Head of Empa's Materials and Technology Center of Robotics, the role of materials science in the evolution of drone technology was emphasized, as the composition of robots' bodies, morphology and materials is pivotal in developing a fully functional lifelike robot. How do these intelligent, nature-like robots of the future look like? More importantly, how do we develop these? Kovac presented examples for potential applications of drones developed at the center, including flying robots that shoot and place sensor darts in the forest to get insights and collect the necessary data to protect forest ecosystems from depletion. Drones that work synergetic to society and facilitate the inspection of complex construction sites, mining and other hostile environments, are other relevant use cases of life supportive robots. Check out the full interview, hosted by Empa's Head of Communications, Michael Hagmann, to get more details. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://digitaltag.empa.ch/-lebende-machinen |
| Description | Empa-ETHZ Soft robotic workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Empa-ETHZ Soft robotic workshop |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Empa-ETHZ Soft robotic workshop - Physical AI for Soft Aerial Robotics |
| 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 | offers a multidisciplinary training by combining two emerging fields of smart materials and soft robots with meaningful societal and economic impact. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Eurekalert: Skills development in Physical AI could give birth to lifelike intelligent robots |
| 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 | The research suggests that teaching materials science, mechanical engineering, computer science, biology and chemistry as a combined discipline could help students develop the skills they need to create lifelike artificially intelligent (AI) robots as researchers. Known as Physical AI, these robots would be designed to look and behave like humans or other animals while possessing intellectual capabilities normally associated with biological organisms. These robots could in future help humans at work and in daily living, performing tasks that are dangerous for humans, and assisting in medicine, caregiving, security, building and industry. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-11/icl-sdi110920.php |
| Description | European Robotics Forum 2017 - Talk at Workshop on Aerial Robotics Inspection: from prototypes to Industrial Applications |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The European Robotics Forum is the most influential event of the robotics community in Europe. The event gather together academic researchers, industrial representatives and EU officers to present and discuss robotics trends, future initiatives and funding opportunities. The 2017 edition was held in Edinburgh, from March 22 to 24 (http://www.erf2017.eu). The Aerial Robotics Lab has been invited to participate and give a talk at the workshop organised by the Topic Group on Aerial Robotics. The presentations session was followed by a group discussion on aerial robotics challenges and future opportunities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.erf2017.eu |
| Description | European Robotics Forum: talk at Workshop on Aerial Robotics Inspection: from prototypes to Industrial Applications |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of the project activities during the Workshop on Aerial Robotics Inspection: from prototypes to Industrial Applications at the 2017 European Robotics Forum. Discussion and networking followed the presentation. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.erf2017.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ERF2017-Schedule-v1.1.pdf |
| Description | Exhibition at Science Museum - London |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | AquaMAV has been featured for a Topic Zone at London Science Museum from February 2017. Topic Zones are single-object displays that highlight a new technology and are displayed for four months, reaching an audience of about 100,000. Technology displayed must be both interesting and ground-breaking. Content is presented via digital interactive displays and visitors are invited to comment on the objects - with internal moderation. The aim is to encourage visitors to discuss cutting-edge science and technology. Two prototypes of AquaMAV are currently exposed in the Science Museum, one prototype is attached to the roof showing the flying modality and the other is in a tank showing the underwater modality. The robots will be exposed for 4 months during the event on Robots. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://antenna.sciencemuseum.org.uk/topiczone/articles/can-flying-diving-robots-help-keep-our-ocean... |
| Description | Forbes: Researchers Propose 'Physical AI' As Key To Lifelike Robots |
| 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 | Researchers at Imperial College London have proposed "physical artificial intelligence" as a new multidisciplinary area of research that could be vital to producing lifelike intelligent robots in the future. Writing in the Nature Machine Intelligence journal, the team argue that teaching materials science, mechanical engineering, computer science, biology and chemistry as a combined discipline would help students and researchers develop lifelike artificially intelligent robots. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonchandler/2020/11/11/researchers-propose-physical-ai-as-key-to-life... |
| Description | Hosting schoolchildren for Empa summer camp |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | To encourage students about aerial robotics and educate and inspire them with respect to the current advanced techology. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | ICRA 2017 talk at Workshop IC3 - Industry of the future: Collaborative, Connected, Cognitive. Novel approaches stemming from factory of the future & industry 4.0 initiatives (June 2 2017, Singapore) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | ICRA is the flagship conference of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. We have submitted the proposal for a talk at the workshop on IC3 Industry of the future which has been evaluated and accepted for the event. During the talk, Dr Kovac has shown the results and the challenges related to the aerial robotics construction for the industry of the future. A group discussion with researchers, industrial representatives and policymakers has followed after the talk. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://sssa.bioroboticsinstitute.it/workshops/IC3_icra2017 |
| Description | ICRA 2020 Competition judge "Self-Assembling and Reconfigurable Systems" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Self-assembly is a process where pre-existing components form a structured system without external control due to the local interaction between the components. It is ubiquitous in many different fields like biology, chemistry, medicine, robotics and materials science. Self-assembly is a very important aspect in biological and robotics systems. This workshop aims to open a dialogue about self-assembly between researchers in biology and robotics. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | IDW: On the way to lifelike robots |
| 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 | In order for robots to be able to achieve more than simple automated machines in the future, they must not only have their own "brain". Empa researchers postulate that artificial intelligence must be expanded to include the capabilities of a Physical Artificial Intelligence, PAI. This will redefine the field of robotics and the relationship between man and machine. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://idw-online.de/en/news757713 |
| Description | IEEE ICRA session chair - Aerial Systems Multi-robots |
| 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 | Aerial Systems Multi-robots |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://ras.papercept.net/conferences/conferences/ICRA21/program/ICRA21_ContentListWeb_1.html#tudt22 |
| Description | IEEE ICRA workshop on Aerial Robotics - Physical AI for Soft Aerial Robotics |
| 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 | As the flagship conference of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, ICRA will bring together the world's top researchers and most important companies to share ideas and advances in our field. Many important developments in robotics and automation have historically been first presented at ICRA, and in its 39th year, ICRA 2022 promises to take this trend one step further. As the practical and socio-economic impact of our field continues to expand, robotics and automation are increasingly taking the center stage in our lives and will play an important role in the future of work and society, an important focus of this conference. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://ras.papercept.net/conferences/conferences/ICRA21/program/ICRA21_ContentListWeb_1.html#tudt22 |
| Description | IEEE RAS Conference on Soft Robotics - RoboSoft 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | ORCA Hub featured during the RoboSoft2018 full day workshop on "Soft-bodied structures in nature and robotics: towards new trends and opportunities" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.robosoft2018.org |
| Description | IROS 2020: Application-Driven Soft Robotic Systems |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Invitation to co-chair a IROS 2020 session |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | http://ras.papercept.net/images/temp/IROS/files/3409.pdf |
| Description | ITN SMART workshop 2: Integration smart materials in soft robotics - Physical Artificial Intelligence for Aerial Robotics |
| 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 | This time the SMART ITN offers a multidisciplinary training by combining two emerging fields of smart materials and soft robots with meaningful societal and economic impact (T-model). The second training event will be organised either virtually (ZOOM) or physically if the current quarantine situation will be eased on 16 - 18 MARCH 2021. The topic is "Integration smart materials in soft robotics" including training sessions on Science Communication and Fundraising skills. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | http://www.smartitn.eu/training-events/smart-workshop-2/ |
| Description | Imperial College London - Sberbank Presentation - Trends, Developments & Applications in Robotics + Advancements in Robotics & Practical Application Set-Up |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | 30 attendees limited due to covid (normally 100 attendees arrive annually) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.imperial.ac.uk/business-school/executive-education/custom-programmes/sberbank-corporate-... |
| Description | Imperial College London - Sberbank Presentation - Trends, Developments & Applications in Robotics + Advancements in Robotics & Practical Application Set-Up |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | 30 attendees limited due to covid (normally 100 attendees arrive annually) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.imperial.ac.uk/business-school/executive-education/custom-programmes/sberbank-corporate-... |
| Description | Imperial College London Robotics Forum - MSRM Summer School - Physical AI for Aerial Infrastructure Robotics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | a hybrid event that includes online talks and on-site activities in both institutions Imperial College London and TUM, Munich. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07eiieo75oabaa5bf9&llr=xmxiekcbb |
| Description | Imperial College London Robotics Forum Industry Day - Infrastructure Robotics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | This annual event brings together industry players and academics to discuss robotics and discover potential partnership opportunities. The objective of this year's event is to identify challenges and cross-cutting questions that will empower research in robotics for infrastructures, homes, and health. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.imperial.ac.uk/events/131734/2021-imperial-robotics-forum-industry-day/ |
| Description | Imperial Festival (London) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Imperial Festival was a two day event where the Aerial Robotics Lab demonstrated new technologies for flight, perching, printing using quadcopter platforms as well as other flying robots to university students and schools. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.imperial.ac.uk/festival/ |
| Description | Imperial Festival 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ORCA Hub featured during the Imperial Festival (http://www.imperial.ac.uk/festival/) at the Aerial Robotics Lab stand and during the tours in the Aerial Robotics Arena |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://www.imperial.ac.uk/festival/ |
| Description | Imperial Magazine - Soft Robotics Interview |
| 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 | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Mirko Kovac, Professor in Aerial Robotics at the Department of Aeronautics, which houses the Brahmal Vasudevan Aerial Robotics Lab. Today's drones are quite happy in the air above the sea, but they're in trouble when they plunge into the ocean. And while they can take pictures of, say, a problematic component on an oil rig, they can't mend it. Soft robotics take inspiration from everyday life: an outstretched hand; a seabird - or a dead fish" In contrast, soft robotics take inspiration from the ordinary biological structures and processes of everyday life: an outstretched hand, or a seabird diving into the water. Or, indeed, a dead fish 'swimming' upstream. This, it turns out, is a perfect demonstration of soft robotic principles: a system where the compliance of the structure is similar to that of the environment. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.imperial.ac.uk/be-inspired/magazine/issue-51/soft-robotics/ |
| Description | Imperial Press Release: Skills development in Physical AI could cultivate lifelike intelligent robots |
| 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 | New research suggests combining educational topics and research disciplines to help researchers breathe life into lifelike intelligent robots. The comment piece suggests that teaching materials science, mechanical engineering, computer science, biology and chemistry as a combined discipline could help students develop the skills they need to create lifelike artificially intelligent (AI) robots as researchers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/208053/skills-development-physical-ai-could-cultivate/ |
| Description | Imperial Press Release: Skills development in Physical AI could cultivate lifelike intelligent robots on November 10 2020 |
| 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 | Skills development in Physical AI could cultivate lifelike intelligent robots on November 10 2020. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/208053/skills-development-physical-ai-could-cultivate/ https://www.nature.com/articles/s42256-020-00258-y/metrics) Nature Machine Intelligence paper (ranked 2nd of all articles of similar age in Nature Machine Intelligence with similar age: Science Robotics paper (in top 5% of all research output of Altmetric and high attention score in 99% percentile): https://robotics.altmetric.com/details/66446214 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/208053/skills-development-physical-ai-could-cultivate/ |
| Description | Imperial's Aerial Robotics Lab has been instrumental in launching a new type of drone that could fix wind farms without human help. |
| 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 | The Lab is part of the international Offshore Robotics for Certification of Assets hub (ORCA) which has developed a four-legged robot called Anymal that can walk around and replace humans on remote oil rigs or wind farms to perform maintenance tasks. The drone is equipped with a robotic arm that can attach itself to vertical structures, such as a wind turbine, to inspect it, hook onto a sensor, or carry out reparations independently. Lab lead Dr Mirko Kovac said: "The robots can visually inspect a turbine for integrity concerns and make contact, placing sensors on the infrastructure, or acting as a sensor itself, to assess the health of each asset. "Our technology could even deposit repair material for certain types of damage. This has far reaching applications including removing the need for humans to abseil down the side of turbines which can be both dangerous and expensive." |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/193492/flyby-fixers-customer-care-news-from/ |
| Description | Industrial Strategy all staff event - Rising to the Grand Challenge |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Exhibitor stand of the ORCA Hub at the Industrial Strategy all staff event - Rising to the Grand Challenge, held at the Conference Centre in Westminster. As a part of the event, we participated in the organised marketplace with different exhibitions created by partner organisations and the business industry. The stand has been visited by ministers, senior members, and BEIS staff keen on discussing the Industrial Strategy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Innovations report: Auf dem Weg zu lebensechten Robotern |
| 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 | Damit Roboter in Zukunft mehr können als einfache Automaten, müssen sie nicht nur über eine eigene Denkleistung verfügen. Die künstliche Intelligenz muss um Fähigkeiten einer physischen künstlichen Intelligenz, PAI, erweitert werden, postulieren Empa-Forscher. Dies werde das Feld der Robotik und die Beziehungen zwischen Mensch und Maschine neu definieren. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.innovations-report.de/fachgebiete/informationstechnologie/auf-dem-weg-zu-lebensechten-ro... |
| Description | International Workshop on Embodied Intelligence - Physical Artificial Intelligence for Aerial Robotics |
| 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 | This free event brings together a wide range of speakers to discuss the many challenges and opportunities in Embodied Intelligence research! 224 attendees. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://embodiedaiworkshop.wordpress.com/#Plenary |
| Description | Invited Speaker: Aerial Robotics for Infrastructure Systems |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Future infrastructure systems will evolve into complex ecosystems where autonomous aerial, aquatic and ground-based robots will coexist with people and cooperate in symbiosis. To create this human-robot ecosystem, robots will need to respond more flexibly, robustly and efficiently than they do today. They will need to be designed with the ability to move safely close to humans and in contact with infrastructure elements to perform sensing and intervention tasks. Their behaviours will need to be carefully orchestrated to integrate smoothly into the environment and in industry 4.0 workflows. Taking inspiration from natural systems, aerial robotic systems can integrate multi-functional morphology, energy-efficient locomotion principles and advanced perception abilities that will allow them to successfully operate and cooperate in these complex and dynamic environments. This talk will describe design principles and technologies for the development of biologically inspired flying robots that can perform monitoring and manufacturing tasks for infrastructure systems. Examples will include flying robots with perching and aerial sensor-placement abilities, aerial-aquatic drones, drones with compliant landing systems for landing on autonomous cars, drones for aerial construction and repair, soft aerial robots, and origami-based drones for safe interactions with infrastructure elements. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://dronedays.fer.hr/en/session/aerial-robotics-for-infrastructure-systems/ |
| Description | Invited Speaker: Soft Aerial Robotics for Digital Infrastructure Systems |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Future infrastructure systems will evolve into complex ecosystems where autonomous aerial, aquatic and ground-based robots will coexist with people and cooperate in symbiosis. To create this human-robot ecosystem, robots will need to respond more flexibly, robustly and efficiently than they do today. They will need to be designed with the ability to move safely close to humans and in contact with infrastructure elements to perform sensing and intervention tasks. Their behaviours will need to be carefully orchestrated to integrate smoothly into the environment and in industry 4.0 workflows. Taking inspiration from natural systems, aerial robotic systems can integrate multi-functional morphology, new materials, energy-efficient locomotion principles and advanced perception abilities that will allow them to successfully operate and cooperate in these complex and dynamic environments. This talk will describe design principles and technologies for the development of biologically inspired flying robots with adaptive morphology that can perform monitoring and manufacturing tasks for infrastructure and building systems. Examples will include flying robots with perching and aerial sensor-placement abilities, aerial-aquatic drones, drones with compliant landing systems for landing on autonomous cars, drones for aerial construction and repair, and origami-based drones for safe interactions with infrastructure elements. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://web.fe.up.pt/~robot2019/index.php/invited-speakers |
| Description | Invited Speaker: Soft Aerial Robotics for Infrastructure Manufacturing |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Future cities and infrastructure systems will evolve into complex conglomerates where autonomous aerial, aquatic and ground-based robots will coexist with people and cooperate in symbiosis. To create this human-robot ecosystem, robots will need to respond more flexibly, robustly and efficiently than they do today. They will need to be designed with the ability to move across terrain boundaries and physically interact with infrastructure elements to perform sensing and intervention tasks. Taking inspiration from nature, aerial robotic systems can integrate multi-functional morphology, new materials, energy-efficient locomotion principles and advanced perception abilities that will allow them to successfully operate and cooperate in complex and dynamic environments. This talk will describe the scientific fundamentals, design principles and technologies for the development of biologically inspired flying robots with adaptive morphology that can perform monitoring and manufacturing tasks for future infrastructure and building systems. Examples will include flying robots with perching capabilities and origami-based landing systems, drones for aerial construction and repair, and combustion-based jet thrusters for aerial-aquatic vehicles. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://pi.is.mpg.de/talks |
| Description | Invited Talk "Soft Aerial Robotics for Digital Infrastructure Systems" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Future infrastructure systems will evolve into complex ecosystems where autonomous aerial, aquatic and ground-based robots will coexist with people and cooperate in symbiosis. To create this human-robot ecosystem, robots will need to respond more flexibly, robustly and efficiently than they do today. They will need to be designed with the ability to move safely close to humans and in contact with infrastructure elements to perform sensing and intervention tasks. Their behaviours will need to be carefully orchestrated to integrate smoothly into the environment and in industry 4.0 workflows. Taking inspiration from natural systems, aerial robotic systems can integrate multi-functional morphology, new materials, energy-efficient locomotion principles and advanced perception abilities that will allow them to successfully operate and cooperate in these complex and dynamic environments. This talk will describe design principles and technologies for the development of biologically inspired flying robots with adaptive morphology that can perform monitoring and manufacturing tasks for infrastructure and building systems. Examples will include flying robots with perching and aerial sensor-placement abilities, aerial-aquatic drones, drones with compliant landing systems for landing on autonomous cars, drones for aerial construction and repair, and origami-based drones for safe interactions with infrastructure elements. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://web.fe.up.pt/~robot2019/index.php/invited-speakers |
| Description | Invited talk at Behang University, Beijing |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Mirko Kovac has been invited to give a talk at Behang University, Beijing |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Invited talk at Khalifa University (2017) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Mirko Kovac has been invited to give a talk at Khalifa University during the MBZIRC competition. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Keynote Lecture at International Conference of Micro Aerial Vehicles |
| 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 | Mirko Kovac has been invited to give a Keynote Lecture at the 2017 International Conference of Micro Aerial Vehicles (http://www.imav2017.org) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.imav2017.org |
| Description | Keynote lecture in International Conference of Micro Aerial Vehicles |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | International Conference of Micro Aerial Vehicles, Toulouse, FR |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Keynotes lectures in CNRS Journées Nationales du GdR Robotique |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | 11.2018 CNRS Journées Nationales du GdR Robotique, Paris, FR |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | LaOpinion: La Inteligencia Artificial se hace humana |
| 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 | La nueva frontera en la investigación robótica y en Inteligencia Artificial, que promete tener un gran impacto en las próximas décadas, es la "humanización" de los robots. Se trata de crear máquinas capaces de interactuar como pares con los humanos, a partir de una nueva concepción que integra conocimientos de múltiples disciplinas. Un estudio de investigadores del Imperial College de Londres desarrolla las bases de esta nueva visión. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.laopiniondemalaga.es/tendencias21/2020/11/11/inteligencia-artificial-humana-27371825.htm... |
| Description | Lab Manager: Forest Patrol Drones Could Monitor Environmental and Ecological Changes |
| 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 | Sensors for forest monitoring are already used to track changes in temperature, humidity, and light, as well as the movements of animals and insects through their habitat. They also help to detect and monitor forest fires and can provide valuable data on how climate change and other human activities are impacting the natural world. However, placing these sensors can prove difficult in large, tall forests, and climbing trees to place them poses its own risks. Now, researchers at Imperial College London's Aerial Robotics Laboratory have developed drones that can shoot sensor-containing darts onto trees several meters away in cluttered environments like forests. The drones can also place sensors through contact or by perching on tree branches. The researchers hope the drones will be used in future to create networks of sensors to boost data on forest ecosystems, and to track hard-to-navigate biomes like the Amazon rainforest. Lead researcher and professor Mirko Kovac, director of the Aerial Robotics Lab from the Department of Aeronautics at Imperial said: "Monitoring forest ecosystems can be difficult, but our drones could deploy whole networks of sensors to boost the amount and precision of environmental and ecological data. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.labmanager.com/news/forest-patrol-drones-could-monitor-environmental-and-ecological-chan... |
| Description | Late breaking results poster presentation at ICRA 2018 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Late breaking results poster presentation at ICRA 2018. Title: "Bio-inspired Aquatic Micro Air Vehicle for Environmental Monitoring and Disaster Relief". A large amount of interest was raised about both the research at the scientific level and its applications, including industry participants asking for a field test in their working environment. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Live interview on Aljazeera TV |
| 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 | Live interview of Dr Mirko Kovac on Aljazeera TV as Aerial Robotics expert for the world news. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://twitter.com/aerialrobotics/status/787007134978437120 |
| Description | Living Machines Satellite 2020 Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Living Machines Satellite 2020 Workshop is a virtual workshop entitled "Growing structures: bioinspired innovation insights for architecture and robotics". The organization of a satellite event at Living Machines will be the chance to promote the establishment of many collaborations and initiatives across a variety of disciplines: integrating art and architecture with science and technology is timely and relevant to guide the evolution of our urban environment in a sustainable and effective way. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | http://livingmachinesconference.eu/2020/worshops-lm2020/ |
| Description | Local talk in London (Laura Margcheri) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Laura also talked about her experience at Imperial during a local event on March 8, showing the AcquaMAV. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.facebook.com/events/2602419949830206/ |
| Description | Maryland Robotics Center PRG Seminar Series - Soft Aerial Robotics for Environmental Sensing |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Robotics and Computer Vision. Environmental sensing rely heavily on accurate, timely and complete data sets which are often collected manually at significant risks and costs. Robotics and mobile sensor networks can collect data more effectively and with higher spatial-temporal resolution compared to manual methods while benefiting from expanded operational envelopes and added data collection capabilities. In future, robotics will be an indispensable tool for data collection in complex environments, enabling the digitalization of forests, lakes, off-shore energy systems, cities and the polar environment. However, such future robot solutions will need to operate more flexibly, robustly and efficiently than they do today. This talk will present how animal-inspired soft robot design methods can integrate adaptive morphologies, functional materials and energy-efficient locomotion principles to enable this new class of environmental robotics. The talk will also include application examples, such as flying robots that can place sensors in forests, aerial-aquatic drones for autonomous water sampling, drones with compliant landing systems for landing on wind turbines, drones for aerial construction and repair, and impact-resilient drones for safe operations in underground and tunnel systems. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | http://prg.cs.umd.edu/seminar |
| Description | Materials Science Expo 2021 - Soft Aerial Robotics for Environmental Sensing |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Theme: Anticipating Future Trends, New Insights, and Cutting-Edge Technologies in Materials Science and Engineering. The significance of this gathering is to organize researchers, analysts, and young researchers to different controls with the aptitudes and capabilities needed to numerous disciplines with the abilities and competencies required to face the challenges of a fast-evolving world. Keeping pace with quickly developing thoughts and advances through quality session has been the fountainhead of the event of our research project. Direct introductions, applicable information, meet with present and potential researchers, create a sprinkle with higher approaches for treatment and mind, and obtain name acknowledgment at this 2-day conference. wide acclaimed speakers, the most recent systems, advancements, and the most up to this point refreshes in Material Science are signs of this meeting. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://material-science.materialsconferences.com/ |
| Description | Materials science world forum - Soft Aerial Robotics for Environmental Sensing |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Materials Science World Forum theme will be Celebrating the Highest Quality Research and Practice in Materials Science will focus on sharing the most recent evidence-based research. There will be resource fair following the conference which will help the participants to learn and engage with different organizations and associations aimed at providing support to the materials research community. Professionals from around the globe will have the opportunity to engage in dialogue, learning and discovery surrounding this field. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://10times.com/e1sz-k04f-p0f2 |
| Description | McKinsey & Co. Advanced EMEA Industries Conference: Our Unmanned Future (Rome, Italy) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | We were invited to present the vision of the Aerial Robotics Lab on "Our Unmanned Future", which included examples on using drones for construction and repair of the built environment. Over 400 professionals from high-impact industries such as Airbus and Ferrari and media professionals have presented and attended this event which had been instrumental in creating links for future project activities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Media Interview with CGTN - on Darting Drones |
| 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 | Forests are often described as the lungs of Earth, covering approximately 31 percent of its surface. Sadly, this area is shrinking rapidly, with an estimated area the size of Greece being destroyed every year. Monitoring the health of these forests plays a crucial role in protecting them, but the sheer scale presents huge challenges. Shini Somara joins Professor Mirko Kovac who leads the aerial robotics lab at Imperial College London, where squads of mini robots are being designed to live in our forests and collect data to meet the challenges of a shifting environment and build artificial intelligence. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.cgtnnow.com/razor/videos/razor-episode-088-digital |
| Description | Meeting with BASF about polyurethane materials for repair tasks |
| 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 | meetings and discussions |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Members of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee visited the Brahmal Vasudevan Multi Terrain Aerial Robotics Arena |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Committee Chair Norman Lamb was joined by fellow MPs Bill Grant, Stephen Metcalfe and former Universities and Science Minister Sam Gyimah, as well as Committee staff members. The visit was part of their inquiry into recreational and commercial drone use. MPs were welcomed by the Provost, Professor Ian Walmsley, who introduced them to Dr Mirko Kovac, Director of the Aerial Robotics Laboratory. He then presented on Imperial's work on drone technology and the challenges facing his team and the wider sector. Dr Kovac outlined his research on the usage of drones for digital infrastructure systems, including diagnostics and repairs, both in the air and underwater. In response to questions from Sam Gyimah and Stephen Metcalfe, Dr Kovac explained that the use of drones for these purposes is widely accepted in the scientific community. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/191908/mps-visit-imperials-aerial-robotics-lab/ |
| Description | Mirage: Skills development in Physical AI could cultivate lifelike intelligent robots |
| 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 | New research suggests combining educational topics and research disciplines to help researchers breathe life into lifelike intelligent robots. The research suggests that teaching materials science, mechanical engineering, computer science, biology and chemistry as a combined discipline could help students develop the skills they need to create lifelike artificially intelligent (AI) robots as researchers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.miragenews.com/skills-development-in-physical-ai-could-cultivate-lifelike-intelligent-ro... |
| Description | NCCR Robotics: Participation as an associate member in NCCR Robotics. One funded grasstoots project |
| 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 | https://nccr-robotics.ch/team-member/mirko-kovac/ |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://nccr-robotics.ch/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/INFO-PACK-2020-WEB-200dpi-30jun2020.pdf |
| Description | Nano Werk: On the way to lifelike robots |
| 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 | In order for robots to be able to achieve more than simple automated machines in the future, they must not only have their own "brain". Empa researchers postulate that artificial intelligence must be expanded to include the capabilities of a Physical Artificial Intelligence, PAI. This will redefine the field of robotics and the relationship between man and machine. Artificial intelligence is supposed to make machines perform at ever more amazing levels. A robot that can do little more than a remote-controlled model car has a limited range of applications. But from an automatic machine to an autonomous robot, it is a big, almost revolutionary step. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.nanowerk.com/news2/robotics/newsid=56599.php |
| Description | News Article (AlphaGalileo) : 'Flying fish' robot can propel itself out of water and glide through the air. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | A bio-inspired bot uses water from the environment to create a gas and launch itself from the water's surface. The robot, which can travel 26 metres through the air after take-off, could be used to collect water samples in hazardous and cluttered environments, such as during flooding or when monitoring ocean pollution. Robots that can transition from water to air are desirable in these situations, but the launch requires a lot of power, which has been difficult to achieve in small robots. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.alphagalileo.org/en-gb/Item-Display/ItemId/182690?returnurl=https://www.alphagalileo.org... |
| Description | News Article (Blick) : Roboter hüpft wie Flugfisch über Wasserflächen. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Direkt aus dem Wasser in die Luft: Forschende präsentieren eine Art "Flugfisch"- Roboter, der von der Wasseroberfläche starten und gleiten kann. Nützlich wären solche Roboter beispielsweise zur Überwachung von Meeresgebieten. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.blick.ch/news/technik-roboter-huepft-wie-flugfisch-ueber-wasserflaechen-id15512271.html |
| Description | News Article (BusinessStandard) : Robots could build future cities by mimicking nature: Study. News story from "A review of collective robotic construction". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Cities of the future could be built and repaired by robots and drones mimicking the tactics of nature, according to a study. Using robots should reduce human risk, allow tasks to be completed faster and monitoring alongside construction. The robots could collect data on everything they are doing, helping to improve their practices, according to the study published in the journal Science Robotics. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/robots-could-build-future-cities-by-mimicking-... |
| Description | News Article (Chemical&EngineeringNews) : Calcium carbide powers water-leaping robot. Researchers harness simple chemistry to propel this robot out of the water and into the air. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Robots that can navigate different types of terrain could help scientists collect information in hard-to-reach places. That navigation can be tricky, however. For example, launching a robot from the water into the air consumes a lot of energy. Taking inspiration from creatures such as the flying squid, researchers at Imperial College London have developed a robot that can propel itself through the air from an aquatic starting point (Sci. Rob. 2019, DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.aax7330). Unlike previous water-leaping robots that rely on heavy compressed gas canisters or external power sources to achieve flight, the new glider uses a lightweight solid fuel-calcium carbide. A small pump on board draws water from the robot's surroundings, allowing the water to react with the calcium carbide to produce acetylene gas. When the gas is ignited, the robot launches into the air via a jet of water and combustion products. The robot can also glide through the air, extending its maximum range to 26 meters. It can carry enough fuel for 10 consecutive launches; when it lands, the chamber begins to refill until it reaches its optimal launch angle, at which point it takes off again. The time between launches-currently about 20 minutes-could be used to collect data or water samples. Raphael Zufferey, the engineer who co-led the new study, says the robot could be used to collect data around icebergs, during floods, or in polluted waters. Giuliana Viglione: This robot can launch itself from the water into the air. Robots like this one that can navigate over different terrains could help scientists collect data in hard-to-reach places. This leaping robot uses a solid fuel called calcium carbide. A small pump on board draws water from its surroundings, and the water then reacts with the calcium carbide to produce combustible acetylene gas. When the gas is ignited, the robot flies into the air, propelled by a jet of water and combustion products. Once airborne, the robot can glide up to 26 meters. When it lands, the chamber begins to refill with water to prepare for relaunch. It can do this 10 times in a row before needing to be refueled. The Imperial College London researchers who built the bot say it could be used to collect data or water samples in polar regions, during floods, or in polluted waters. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://cen.acs.org/analytical-chemistry/Calcium-carbide-powers-water-leaping/97/i37 |
| Description | News Article (E&TMagazine) : News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | bio-inspired bot uses water from the environment to create a propelling gas and launch itself from the water's surface. The robot had been developed by researchers at Imperial College London. It can travel 26 meters through the air after take-off and could be used to collect water samples in hazardous and cluttered environments, such as during flooding or when monitoring ocean pollution, report the team lead by Mirko Kovac, who also heads the joint "Materials and Technology Center of Robotics" at Empa, in the latest issue of "Science Robotics". Robots that can transition from water to air are desirable in certain situations, but the launch requires a lot of power, which has been difficult to achieve in small robots. Now, researchers at Imperial College London have invented a system that requires just 0.2 grams of calcium carbide powder in a combustion chamber. The only moving part is a small pump that brings in water from the environment the robot is sat in, such as a lake or ocean. The water is then combined with the calcium-carbide powder in a reaction chamber, producing a burnable acetylene gas. As the gas ignites and expands, it pushes the water out as a jet propelling the robot clear of the water and into a glide of up to 26 meters. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | News Article (Engineer) : News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | bio-inspired bot uses water from the environment to create a propelling gas and launch itself from the water's surface. The robot had been developed by researchers at Imperial College London. It can travel 26 meters through the air after take-off and could be used to collect water samples in hazardous and cluttered environments, such as during flooding or when monitoring ocean pollution, report the team lead by Mirko Kovac, who also heads the joint "Materials and Technology Center of Robotics" at Empa, in the latest issue of "Science Robotics". Robots that can transition from water to air are desirable in certain situations, but the launch requires a lot of power, which has been difficult to achieve in small robots. Now, researchers at Imperial College London have invented a system that requires just 0.2 grams of calcium carbide powder in a combustion chamber. The only moving part is a small pump that brings in water from the environment the robot is sat in, such as a lake or ocean. The water is then combined with the calcium-carbide powder in a reaction chamber, producing a burnable acetylene gas. As the gas ignites and expands, it pushes the water out as a jet propelling the robot clear of the water and into a glide of up to 26 meters. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | News Article (FoxNews) : 'Flying fish' robot propels itself out of water and glides through the air. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | A bio-inspired robot can use water from the environment to launch itself into the air, British researchers revealed. The robot can travel 85 feet through the air after taking off and researchers believe it could be used to collect samples in hazardous or otherwise cluttered environments, such as during a major flood. Researchers from the Aerial Robotics Laboratory at Imperial College London devised a system that requires only 0.2 grams of calcium carbide powder in a combusion chamber, with the only moving part being a small pump that delivers water from the environment where the robot sits. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.foxnews.com/tech/flying-fish-robot-propels-water-glides-air |
| Description | News Article (FromPress) : Flying fish' drone actually explodes out of the water. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Drones that can both swim and fly are no longer in the distant future. Imperial College London's Aerial Robotics Lab built a concept for multimodal swimming robot it calls AquaMAV that can jump out of water. The scientists behind AquaMAV presented their findings in a paper published this week in Science Robotics. Source: https://pressfrom.info/us/news/science-and-technology/-323221-flying-fish-drone-actually-explodes-out-of-the-water. According to IEE Spectrum, the AquaMAV combines combustible power and water in order to propel itself. The drone contains calcium carbide powder. When mixed with water, the drone creates acetylene gas, which then gets funneled into a combustion chamber along with air and water. When ignited, the mixture then explodes, forcing the water out of the combustion chamber and propelling the drone into air. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://pressfrom.info/us/news/science-and-technology/-323221-flying-fish-drone-actually-explodes-ou... |
| Description | News Article (IEEE SPECTRUM) : Water Jet Powered Drone Takes Off With Explosions To take off from the water, this drone uses an explosion-powered water jet. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | At ICRA 2015, the Aerial Robotics Lab at the Imperial College London presented a concept for a multimodal flying swimming robot called AquaMAV. The really difficult thing about a flying and swimming robot isn't so much the transition from the first to the second, since you can manage that even if your robot is completely dead (thanks to gravity), but rather the other way: going from water to air, ideally in a stable and repetitive way. The AquaMAV concept solved this by basically just applying as much concentrated power as possible to the problem, using a jet thruster to hurl the robot out of the water with quite a bit of velocity to spare. In a paper appearing in Science Robotics this week, the roboticists behind AquaMAV present a fully operational robot that uses a solid-fuel powered chemical reaction to generate an explosion that powers the robot into the air. The 2015 version of AquaMAV, which was mostly just some very vintage-looking computer renderings and a little bit of hardware, used a small cylinder of CO2 to power its water jet thruster. This worked pretty well, but the mass and complexity of the storage and release mechanism for the compressed gas wasn't all that practical for a flying robot designed for long-term autonomy. It's a familiar challenge, especially for pneumatically powered soft robots-how do you efficiently generate gas on-demand, especially if you need a lot of pressure all at once? An explosion propels the drone out of the water There's one obvious way of generating large amounts of pressurized gas all at once, and that's explosions. We've seen robots use explosive thrust for mobility before, at a variety of scales, and it's very effective as long as you can both properly harness the explosion and generate the fuel with a minimum of fuss, and this latest version of AquaMAV manages to do both: |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/drones/water-jet-powered-drone-takes-off-with-explosion... |
| Description | News Article (Infosurhoy) : flying fish robot uses gas to launch itself 26-metres-out-of-water-and-into-the-air. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Fish out of water for environmental researchers, using robots to collect much-needed water samples can be tricky. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://robotics.altmetric.com/details/66446214/news |
| Description | News Article (MailOnline) : News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | bio-inspired bot uses water from the environment to create a propelling gas and launch itself from the water's surface. The robot had been developed by researchers at Imperial College London. It can travel 26 meters through the air after take-off and could be used to collect water samples in hazardous and cluttered environments, such as during flooding or when monitoring ocean pollution, report the team lead by Mirko Kovac, who also heads the joint "Materials and Technology Center of Robotics" at Empa, in the latest issue of "Science Robotics". Robots that can transition from water to air are desirable in certain situations, but the launch requires a lot of power, which has been difficult to achieve in small robots. Now, researchers at Imperial College London have invented a system that requires just 0.2 grams of calcium carbide powder in a combustion chamber. The only moving part is a small pump that brings in water from the environment the robot is sat in, such as a lake or ocean. The water is then combined with the calcium-carbide powder in a reaction chamber, producing a burnable acetylene gas. As the gas ignites and expands, it pushes the water out as a jet propelling the robot clear of the water and into a glide of up to 26 meters. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | News Article (Mirror) : News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | bio-inspired bot uses water from the environment to create a propelling gas and launch itself from the water's surface. The robot had been developed by researchers at Imperial College London. It can travel 26 meters through the air after take-off and could be used to collect water samples in hazardous and cluttered environments, such as during flooding or when monitoring ocean pollution, report the team lead by Mirko Kovac, who also heads the joint "Materials and Technology Center of Robotics" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | News Article (NewScientist) :Robot can launch out of the water and glide like a flying fish. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Like a flying fish gliding above the water's surface, a robot can now propel itself out of water into flight. Mirko Kovac and his colleagues at Imperial College London have developed a robot that can lift itself out of water and travel through the air for up to 26 metres. The robot weighs 160 grams and could be used for monitoring the ocean. It could take water samples by jumping in and out of the water in cluttered environments, avoiding obstacles such as ice in cold regions or floating objects after a flood. "In these situations, it's important to fly there quickly, take a sample and come back," says Kovac. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.newscientist.com/article/2216119-robot-can-launch-out-of-the-water-and-glide-like-a-flyi... |
| Description | News Article (NyTechnik) : En kemisk reaktion får den motorlösa farkosten att flyga. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Den lilla glidflygaren kastar sig ur vattnet och kan färdas 26 meter. Drivkraften är en kemisk reaktion, och kalciumkarbiden räcker till 20 hopp. Nu ska den skalas upp. Glidflygplanet får plats i handflatan, och med sin storlek är flygförmågan på upp till 26 meter imponerande. Farkosten har dock ingen motor utan innehåller bara en rörlig del - en pump. Roboten utgår från vattenytan och drivkraften kommer från en kemisk reaktion mellan kalciumkarbid och vatten. Vatten pumpas in i en huvudkammare och en liten del överförs med häverteffekt till en mindre kammare som innehåller kalciumkarbidpulver. Den kemiska reaktionen bildar acetylengas som tvingas in i huvudkammaren och antänds. Kraften hos förbränningen skjuter ut det vatten som finns kvar vilket skickar upp farkosten i skyn. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.nyteknik.se/fordon/en-kemisk-reaktion-far-den-motorlosa-farkosten-att-flyga-6971542 |
| Description | News Article (PopularMechanics) : This Glider Is Powered by a Chemical Reaction-Not an Engine. Science is beautiful.. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Roboticists at Imperial College London and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology have developed a new type of glider that swiftly jumps from sea to air like a flying fish. The small aerial-aquatic glider, which can fit in the palm of your hands, uses a chemical reaction to propel itself out of the water. Water is pumped into a master chamber, and then siphoned into another, smaller chamber containing calcium carbide powder. This chemical reaction creates acetylene gas, which is forced into the main chamber and ignited. The force of this ignition quickly expels water in the chamber, sending the vehicle into the air. Similar robots-like the robotic bee that the team of scientists previously worked on-have used either tethered systems of power or are propelled by internal engines or compressed gas. This newest vehicle, however, has a very simple design with only one moving part: the pump. "It doesn't need any pistons or valves, which are typical for combustion processes or internal combustion engines," lead roboticist Mirko Kovac tells Popular Mechanics. "It uses the property of the fluid, the gas, the water, and this reaction to create the various stages of the combustion." |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a29003643/glider-robot-chemical-reaction/ |
| Description | News Article (ScientificAmercian) : Drenchable Drones, Prickly Cells and Face-Tracked Chimps: Science GIFs to Start Your Week. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Drones and water usually do not mix. (Indeed, some of the most popular drone videos on YouTube feature "epic" water saves.) But a new drone developed by researchers in England is made to move from sea to sky-and back again. This fixed-wing flyer uses a burst of gas to launch out of the water. The researchers say the abilities of Japanese flying squid inspired their design. The amphibious glider can stay afloat, even if the sea is a little choppy (big waves are a problem, though). When it is ready to fly, a water-intake system lets it adjust its angle in preparation for takeoff-and it can fly up to 85 feet after launching from the drink. The researchers hope to bring their jump glider (or future evolutions of the prototype) into rough environments, such as natural disaster zones, to do sampling and monitoring. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/drenchable-drones-prickly-cells-and-face-tracked-chimps-s... |
| Description | News Article (TAGBLATT) : Roboter hüpft wie Flugfisch über Wasserflächen. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Direkt aus dem Wasser in die Luft: Forschende präsentieren eine Art <>- Roboter, der von der Wasseroberfläche starten und gleiten kann. Nützlich wären solche Roboter beispielsweise zur Überwachung von Meeresgebieten. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.tagblatt.ch/newsticker/schweiz/roboter-hupft-wie-flugfisch-uber-wasserflachen-ld.1151218 |
| Description | News Article (TechXplore) : Cities of the future could be built by robots mimicking nature. News story from "A review of collective robotic construction". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Cities of the future could be built by robots mimicking nature. A new review, published today in Science Robotics and co-authored by Imperial researcher Dr. Mirko Kovac, who directs the Aerial Robotics Laboratory in the Department of Aeronautics, looks at the state-of-the-art in robot construction and where we need to go next to make a robot-built environment a reality. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://techxplore.com/news/2019-03-cities-future-built-robots-mimicking.html |
| Description | News Article (The Hindu) : Can robots build future cities? Using robots should reduce human risk, allow tasks to be completed faster and monitoring alongside construction. News story from "A review of collective robotic construction". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Cities of the future could be built and repaired by robots and drones mimicking the tactics of nature, according to a study. Using robots should reduce human risk, allow tasks to be completed faster and monitoring alongside construction. The robots could collect data on everything they are doing, helping to improve their practices, according to the study published in the journal Science Robotics. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-in-school/can-robots-build-future-cities/article26563528.ec... |
| Description | News Article (TheIndependent) : News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Mirko Kovac and his colleagues at Imperial College London have developed a robot that can lift itself out of water and travel through the air for up to 26 metres. The robot weighs 160 grams and could be used for monitoring the ocean. It could take water samples by jumping in and out of the water in cluttered environments, avoiding obstacles such as ice in cold regions or floating objects after a flood. "In these situations, it's important to fly there quickly, take a sample and come back," says Kovac |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | News Article (XINHUANET) : Engineers invent tiny "flying fish" robot floating on rough waves. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Engineers at Imperial College London have invented a tiny "flying fish" robot that can use water to create a gas and launch itself from the water's surface, the university said in a release on Wednesday. The study published in Science Robotics journal described a bio-inspired robot that can travel 26 meters through the air after take-off, which can be used to collect water samples in hazardous and cluttered environments, such as during flooding or when monitoring ocean pollution. The only moving part of the robot is a small pump that brings in water from the environment, such as a lake or an ocean. It has 0.2 grams of calcium carbide powder in a combustion chamber. The water and the powder combine to produce a burnable acetylene gas, and the gas, when ignited, could push the water out as a jet, propelling the robot into a glide, according to the study. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-09/12/c_138386536.htm |
| Description | News Article (cash) : Roboter hüpft wie Flugfisch über Wasserflächen. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Direkt aus dem Wasser in die Luft: Forschende präsentieren eine Art "Flugfisch"- Roboter, der von der Wasseroberfläche starten und gleiten kann. Nützlich wären solche Roboter beispielsweise zur Überwachung von Meeresgebieten. Der Start aus dem Wasser in die Luft ist für kleine Roboter eine knifflige Sache, weil er viel Energie benötigt. Das Team um Mirko Kovac von der Forschungsanstalt Empa und dem Imperial College London hat deshalb ein neues, besonders leichtes Antriebssystem entwickelt und mit einem Roboter getestet, wie die Empa am Donnerstag mitteilte. Das Antriebssystem benötigt nur 0,2 Gramm Calciumcarbidpulver in einer Brennkammer. Eine kleine Pumpe bringt das Umgebungswasser in einer Reaktionskammer mit dem Pulver zusammen. Dadurch entsteht brennbares Acetylengas. Wenn das Gas entzündet wird und sich ausdehnt, drückt es das Wasser als Antriebsstrahl heraus. Das ermöglicht den Start von der Wasseroberfläche und einen Gleitflug von rund 26 Metern, wie die Forschenden im Fachblatt "Science Robotics" berichteten. Wenn sich sein Wassertank dann wieder passiv füllt, kann er ein weiteres Mal "hüpfen". Das Forschungsteam testete den Roboter im Labor, in einem See und in einem Wellentank, wie die Empa schrieb. Auch bei Wellengang kann der Roboter demnach abheben. Interessant wäre der Einsatz eines solchen Antriebs beispielsweise bei Robotern, die bei Überschwemmungen Wasserproben sammeln oder die Umweltverschmutzung bei Korallenriffen oder um Offshore-Plattformen herum beobachten sollen: Der "Flugfisch" könnte selbstständig über die Wasserfläche gleiten und an mehreren Orten Proben entnehmen. Im Vergleich zu elektrisch angetriebenen Robotern würde der neu entwickelte Antrieb über grössere Distanzen deutlich Energie sparen. In einem nächsten Schritt wollen die Empa-Forschenden und ihre Kollegen nun Roboter aus verschiedenen Materialien entwickeln, sowie den Roboter in verschiedenen Umgebungen weiter testen. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.cash.ch/news/roboter-huepft-wie-flugfisch-ueber-wasserflaechen-1397757 |
| Description | News Article (futurism) : WATCH A ROBOT FISH FLY BY SHOOTING WATER OUT OF ITS REAR. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Fish Out Of Water For environmental researchers, using robots to collect much-needed water samples can be tricky. The bot might have trouble navigating around trash while collecting samples from polluted waters, for example, or avoiding ice. Now, researchers from Imperial College London have created a robot fish that can get around such obstacles - by propelling itself over them using a stream of water pushed out its rear end. Full Of Gas The researchers detail their creation of the flying robot fish in a paper published in the journal Science Robotics on Wednesday. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://futurism.com/the-byte/watch-robot-fish-fly-shooting-water-rear |
| Description | News Article (heise online) : Fliegender Roboterfisch: Roboter schießt sich aus dem Wasser. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Forscher in Großbritannien haben einen Roboter entwickelt, der sich aus Wasser in die Luft schießen und dann gleiten kann. Das ist äußerst praktisch. Ein Roboter, der gleichermaßen fliegen und schwimmen kann, wäre ideal, um etwa nach einem Unfall in einem Atomkraftwerk oder einem Chemiebetrieb in kurzer Zeit Proben an mehreren Orten zu entnehmen. Die größte Herausforderung dabei besteht darin, aus dem Wasser wieder in die Luft zu kommen. Britische Forscher haben jetzt eine Lösung präsentiert. Aus dem Wasser schießen Wie das Forschungsteam um Mirko Kovac vom Imperial College London in der aktuellen Ausgabe von Science Robotics berichtet, gelingt der Start aus dem Wasser mithilfe eines Düsenantriebs. Als Treibstoff führt der Roboter Calciumcarbid mit, das mit Wasser reagiert und Acetylen erzeugt. Das wiederum wird in einer Brennkammer elektrisch gezündet und presst einen Wasserstrahl durch eine Düse, der den Roboter in die Luft schleudert. Der geht dort in den Gleitflug über. Mit 53 Milligramm Calciumcarbid habe der 160 Gramm schwere Roboter auf diese Weise 26 Meter fliegend zurückgelegt, berichten die Wissenschaftler. Die 491 Milliliter große Brennkammer, die zu 40 Prozent mit Wasser gefüllt ist, werde dabei innerhalb von 0,2 Sekunden durch eine 6,8 Millimeter große Düse geleert. Danach gehe der Roboter, der wie ein Flugzeug gestaltet ist, in den Gleitflug über. Da die Schubkraft mehr als das 25-fache des Eigengewichts des Roboters betrage, gelinge der Start auch, bei unruhiger Wasseroberfläche, wie sich bei 22 Flugversuchen im Labor und im Freien gezeigt habe. Damit der Roboter sowohl den angetriebenen Flug wie auch den Gleitflug bewältigen sowie auf der Wasseroberfläche sinnvoll operieren kann, seien beim Design einige Kompromisse nötig gewesen, schreiben die Forscher. Je nach Operationsmodus sei etwa die optimale Position des Schwerpunktes unterschiedlich gewesen. Für einen einsatztauglichen Roboter müsste das Design angepasst werden. So könnte etwa die Zeit für das Füllen der Brennkammer mit Wasser durch ein Ventil verkürzt werden, was aber das Gewicht erhöhen würde. Ein Propeller würde die Reichweite im Flugmodus erhöhen. Um überhaupt erst einmal aus dem Wasser zu kommen, scheint der einfache und robuste Düsenantrieb aber eine sehr gut geeignete Methode zu sein. (mho) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Fliegender-Roboterfisch-Roboter-schiesst-sich-aus-dem-Wasser... |
| Description | News Article (hindustantimes) : Robots could build future cities by mimicking nature: Study. News story from "A review of collective robotic construction". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Cities of the future could be built and repaired by robots and drones mimicking the tactics of nature, according to a study. Using robots should reduce human risk, allow tasks to be completed faster and monitoring alongside construction. The robots could collect data on everything they are doing, helping to improve their practices, according to the study published in the journal Science Robotics. Many animals in groups take cues from and leverage their environment when constructing or repairing their homes. For example, termites, which live in large 'super-organism' colonies, rely on pheromones excreted during deposition of materials to coordinate construction. Analysing these methods of coordination can help researchers design algorithms for how groups of robots and drones could autonomously work together during construction. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.hindustantimes.com/sex-and-relationships/robots-could-build-future-cities-by-mimicking-n... |
| Description | News Article (ibtimes) : Flying Fish Robot From London Could Become The Future Of Sea Travel. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | ove out RC boats; there's a new fish in town! Scientists at the Imperial College of London have developed a leaping, farting fish-bot that that can be used to monitor reefs or ice floes. In a report by the Daily Star, the flying-fish automaton can swim, glide and skip rough waters thanks to its high-powered propulsion system. Mirko Kovac, the director of the Aerial Robotics Laboratory at the Imperial College in London, said that the robot could transition from water to air in seconds. Kovac said that its locomotive principle is based on the "flying fish." According to the bot's blueprints from the journal Science Robotics, the 160-gram fish-bot can manage a flight distance of 26 meters "using 0.2 grams of fuel." It uses calcium carbide pellets with the water it's swimming in to produce acetylene gas. The combustible element turns the miniature "fish" into a gliding, farting jet that can operate in short intervals. Kovac added that the automaton could be useful as an observation tool. He said that the small device could "be used for reef monitoring or arctic sea monitoring." Scientist at the Imperial College of London believes that it could be the future of sea travel. Kovac noted that the method they presented would allow several amphibious vehicles to transition out of the water temporarily. The technology would allow seafarers to navigate under challenging terrains such as rocks and icebergs. It would render traditional aquatic vehicles obsolete if ever the technology pushes through the market. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.ibtimes.com/flying-fish-robot-london-could-become-future-sea-travel-2839144 |
| Description | News Article (innovationsreport) : < |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Ein bio-inspirierter Roboter nutzt Wasser aus der Umwelt, um ein Antriebsgas zu erzeugen und von der Wasseroberfläche zu starten. Der Roboter wurde von Forschern des <> entwickelt. Er kann nach dem Start rund 26 Meter weit fliegen und könnte zur Entnahme von Wasserproben in gefährlichen und unübersichtlichen Umgebungen wie bei Überschwemmungen oder bei der Überwachung der Meeresverschmutzung eingesetzt werden, berichtet das Team um Mirko Kovac, der auch das gemeinsame <> an der Empa leitet, in der neuesten Ausgabe des Fachmagazins <>. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/energie-elektrotechnik/flugfisch-roboter-kann-tauche... |
| Description | News Article (msn) : 'Flying fish' drone actually explodes out of the water. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Drones that can both swim and fly are no longer in the distant future. Imperial College London's Aerial Robotics Lab built a concept for multimodal swimming robot it calls AquaMAV that can jump out of water. The scientists behind AquaMAV presented their findings in a paper published this week in Science Robotics. According to IEE Spectrum, the AquaMAV combines combustible power and water in order to propel itself. The drone contains calcium carbide powder. When mixed with water, the drone creates acetylene gas, which then gets funneled into a combustion chamber along with air and water. When ignited, the mixture then explodes, forcing the water out of the combustion chamber and propelling the drone into air. The AquaMAV can fly up to 26 meters in the air, and creates so much force it can even propel itself out of choppy waters. Scientists believe it can be used to collect water samples during natural disasters such as floods or to monitor ocean pollution. You can watch the AquaMAV in action in the video below. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/flying-fish-drone-actually-explodes-out-of-the-water/ar-AA... |
| Description | News Article (suedostschweiz) : Roboter hüpft wie Flugfisch über Wasserflächen. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Direkt aus dem Wasser in die Luft: Forschende präsentieren eine Art <>- Roboter, der von der Wasseroberfläche starten und gleiten kann. Nützlich wären solche Roboter beispielsweise zur Überwachung von Meeresgebieten. Der Start aus dem Wasser in die Luft ist für kleine Roboter eine knifflige Sache, weil er viel Energie benötigt. Das Team um Mirko Kovac von der Forschungsanstalt Empa und dem Imperial College London hat deshalb ein neues, besonders leichtes Antriebssystem entwickelt und mit einem Roboter getestet, wie die Empa am Donnerstag mitteilte. Das Antriebssystem benötigt nur 0,2 Gramm Calciumcarbidpulver in einer Brennkammer. Eine kleine Pumpe bringt das Umgebungswasser in einer Reaktionskammer mit dem Pulver zusammen. Dadurch entsteht brennbares Acetylengas. Wenn das Gas entzündet wird und sich ausdehnt, drückt es das Wasser als Antriebsstrahl heraus. Das ermöglicht den Start von der Wasseroberfläche und einen Gleitflug von rund 26 Metern, wie die Forschenden im Fachblatt <> berichteten. Wenn sich sein Wassertank dann wieder passiv füllt, kann er ein weiteres Mal <>. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.suedostschweiz.ch/wirtschaft/2019-09-12/roboter-huepft-wie-flugfisch-ueber-wasserflaeche... |
| Description | News Article (swissinfo) : Roboter hüpft wie Flugfisch über Wasserflächen. News story from "Consecutive aquatic jump-gliding with water-reactive fuel". |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Direkt aus dem Wasser in die Luft: Forschende präsentieren eine Art "Flugfisch"- Roboter, der von der Wasseroberfläche starten und gleiten kann. Nützlich wären solche Roboter beispielsweise zur Überwachung von Meeresgebieten. Der Start aus dem Wasser in die Luft ist für kleine Roboter eine knifflige Sache, weil er viel Energie benötigt. Das Team um Mirko Kovac von der Forschungsanstalt Empa und dem Imperial College London hat deshalb ein neues, besonders leichtes Antriebssystem entwickelt und mit einem Roboter getestet, wie die Empa am Donnerstag mitteilte. Das Antriebssystem benötigt nur 0,2 Gramm Calciumcarbidpulver in einer Brennkammer. Eine kleine Pumpe bringt das Umgebungswasser in einer Reaktionskammer mit dem Pulver zusammen. Dadurch entsteht brennbares Acetylengas. Wenn das Gas entzündet wird und sich ausdehnt, drückt es das Wasser als Antriebsstrahl heraus. Das ermöglicht den Start von der Wasseroberfläche und einen Gleitflug von rund 26 Metern, wie die Forschenden im Fachblatt "Science Robotics" berichteten. Wenn sich sein Wassertank dann wieder passiv füllt, kann er ein weiteres Mal "hüpfen". Das Forschungsteam testete den Roboter im Labor, in einem See und in einem Wellentank, wie die Empa schrieb. Auch bei Wellengang kann der Roboter demnach abheben. Interessant wäre der Einsatz eines solchen Antriebs beispielsweise bei Robotern, die bei Überschwemmungen Wasserproben sammeln oder die Umweltverschmutzung bei Korallenriffen oder um Offshore-Plattformen herum beobachten sollen: Der "Flugfisch" könnte selbstständig über die Wasserfläche gleiten und an mehreren Orten Proben entnehmen. Im Vergleich zu elektrisch angetriebenen Robotern würde der neu entwickelte Antrieb über grössere Distanzen deutlich Energie sparen. In einem nächsten Schritt wollen die Empa-Forschenden und ihre Kollegen nun Roboter aus verschiedenen Materialien entwickeln, sowie den Roboter in verschiedenen Umgebungen weiter testen. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | http://www.swissinfo.ch/ger/roboter-huepft-wie-flugfisch-ueber-wasserflaechen/45223598 |
| Description | News Atlas: Drone deploys sensors by shooting them as darts |
| 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 | When conducting environmental studies in hard-to-access locations, scientists will often set up wireless networks of small data-logging sensors. Deploying those sensors can be difficult and even dangerous work, though, which is why a dart-shooting drone is being developed to do the job. Although drones have already been experimentally used for the placement of environmental sensors, the deployment methods have involved either dropping the sensors onto the ground, or sticking them onto vertical surfaces using an attached appendage such as a mechanical arm. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://newatlas.com/drones/sensor-dart-shooting-drone/ |
| Description | Opening of the Brahmal Vasudevan Multi-Terrain Aerial Robotics Arena |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | On October 20, 2017, the Aerial Robotics Lab has organised on official ceremony for the opening of the new Multi-Terrain Aerial Robotics Arena at Imperial College London. The development of the Arena is thanks to a £1.25 million gift from Imperial College alumnus Mr Brahmal Vasudevan. The Arena is the first of its kind in Europe, enabling engineers to test the next generation of aerial robotics for urban environments and extreme conditions. The researchers in the Arena can simulate different terrains in the air, the ocean and on land. The space also enables the engineers to create extreme conditions such as fire, smoke, and heat to simulate how the next generation of drones will perform in harsh environments. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/182375/uk-world-leader-drone-tech-says/ |
| Description | Paper plane design and launch competition workshop |
| 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 | Attendees were introduced into aircraft design and how the principles apply to paper planes. They could the make their own designs for a flight distance competition. The planes were launched at the same speed and angle and the landing point marked for every attempt. Participants could learn about the effect of changes to the design by launching them consecutively in a repeatable way. A podium for the top three was held for additional engagement. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Peer Review: IEEE T-RO 20-0376 |
| 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 | the IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO). Entitled "SLAAM: Simultaneous Localization And Additive Manufacturing", by Jinbo Li, Pierre-Lucas Aubin-Fournier, Krzysztof Skonieczny, the revised paper is |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Physical Artificial Intelligence for Aerial Robotics - University of Beijing |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Environmental and infrastructure sciences rely heavily on accurate, timely and complete data sets which are often collected manually at significant risks and costs. Robotics and mobile sensor networks can collect data more effectively and with higher spatial-temporal resolution compared to manual methods while benefiting from expanded operational envelopes and added data collection capabilities. In future, robotics will be an indispensable tool for data collection in complex environments, enabling the digitalisation of forests, lakes, off-shore energy systems, cities and the polar environment. However, such future robot solutions will need to operate more flexibly, robustly and efficiently than they do today. This talk will present how animal-inspired robot design methods can integrate adaptive morphologies, functional materials and energy-efficient locomotion principles to enable this new class of environmental robotics. The talk will also discuss how integrated Physical Artificial Intelligence can contribute to the development of novel aerial robots. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Physical Artificial Intelligence for Infrastructure Drones: DRONE & ROVs: 25-26 FEBRUARY 2021: LONDON |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | The conference will bring together researchers and practitioners to discuss and address the current and emerging issues and challenges, as well as share successes and state-of-the-art and practice, in using unmanned aerial vehi-cles (UAVs), remote control vehicles (RCVs) and remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) for asset and sys-tem integrity inspection and management onshore, offshore and subsea. It will feature keynote and invited papers providing broader overviews of the main contemporary themes as well as more focused presentations addressing specific issues of practical relevance. Ample opportunities for informal discussions, sharing of insights across differ-ent fields and applications and networking will be available. The challenges associated with inspecting and main-taining the integrity of onshore, marine, offshore and subsea infrastructures and systems evolve quickly calling for development of new, and enhancement of existing, technologies. Onshore, we are witnessing the rapid expansion of using unmanned aerial vehicles for asset management of bridges, dams, pipelines, roads, railways and many oth-er infrastructures. Subsea, wells are being drilled at greater depths, pressures and temperatures, requiring en-hanced assessment of the integrity of structures and systems in such extreme conditions. There is a push to expand operations into new locations such as the Arctic, where environmental and operational conditions are considerably harsher. Many assets in the North Sea are rapidly reaching or have already exceeded their original design life and safe but affordable life extension and decommissioning are becoming major objectives. The recent rapid develop-ments in renewable energy technologies have introduced new challenges of maintaining at minimum cost the relia-bility and integrity of structures and equipment in remote locations and subjected to extreme loads and environ-mental conditions. There are also exciting new opportunities, but also significant challenges and uncertainties, in applying vision-based structural health and condition monitoring to safety and structural integrity. These and many additional traditional and emerging themes will be covered during the conference through survey, focused and/or case study presentations from the world-leading practitioners and researchers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://10times.com/drones-rovs-london |
| Description | Pint of Science Festival |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I (Rob Siddall) spoke for 30 minutes and did a small live demonstration to an audience of around 50, about the Aquatic Micro Air Vehicles Research. The talk generated a great deal of interest, and I was invited to repeat it again later in the year by the organisers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://pintofscience.co.uk/event/robotic-presents-and-bionic-futures |
| Description | Plenary talk at the World of Drones Congress 2017, Brisbane |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The Aerial Robotics Lab has been invited to give a talk at the inaugural World of Drones Congress (WoDC) 2017, which has been held from 31 August to 2 September 2017 in Brisbane, Australia. Over 630 delegates from across the Asia Pacific and beyond attended and the congress featured a fascinating Expo with over 30 exhibitors from Australia, China and Japan. The program included the launch of Australia's very first state-wide Drones Strategy by the Premier of Queensland and the first Australian National Drone Safety Forum. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://www.worldofdrones.com.au |
| Description | Poster presentation at ICRA 2018 |
| 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 | Poster presentation during the 2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA): "Bioinspired aquatic micro air vehicle for environmental monitoring and disaster relief" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Presentation and 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 | Gammon Construction Imperial visit |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Presentation and demo COEBIT |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | 09/18. Presentation at COEBIT (Centre of Excellence for Bio-Inspired Technology) meeting |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Presentation and demo Delegations from the french embassy |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | with Prof. Nozha Boujemaa, Director of DATAIA Institute |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Presentation and demo Imperial festival |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Public event with Imperial Festival |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Presentation and demo Italian AI experts and ministry representatives |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | 31/01/19. Lab visit from committee of Italian AI experts and ministry representatives |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Presentation and demo Microsoft |
| 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 | Yearly tour for CEOs, Research Directors, and other leaders from their university partners |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Presentation and demo Oxford animal flight group |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | 08/10/18. Visit to Oxford animal flight group for small symposium |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Presentation and demo Paul Pounds |
| 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 | University of Queensland, Australia |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Presentation and demo Science museum |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | 22/10/18-26/10/2018. Science museum outreach: showcasing research, interacting with visitors, helping children design robots |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Presentation and demo Trenton Jerde |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | editor for Nature Machine Intelligence |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Presentation and demo World of Drones Congress |
| 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 | 13/12/18. Lab visit from Australian "World of Drones Congress" organisers (largest industrial drones conference in Australasia) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Presentation and demo Zaman Ahmad |
| 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 | Cyber Training Firm, Malaysia |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Press release in Telez |
| 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 | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | annoucement of EMPA collaberation |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.telez.ch/neues-drohnenlabor_14813/# |
| Description | Press release: ERC President visits Imperial as latest European grant award success celebrated |
| 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 | The President of the ERC, Professor Maria Leptin, visited Imperial this week to meet some of the College's previous ERC grant award winners and discover the impact of the European funded research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/234735/erc-president-visits-imperial-latest-european/ |
| Description | Press release: ProteusDrone: A shape-shifting soft drone |
| 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 | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Dübendorf, St. Gallen und Thun, 21.03.2022 - Mirko Kovac has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant from Horizon Europe, the EU's key funding program for research and innovation. Kovac, a researcher at both Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, and Imperial College London, is designing metamorphic drones for use in complex environments like the arctic. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.admin.ch/gov/en/start/documentation/media-releases.msg-id-87692.html |
| Description | RFA Colloquim Resources and Pollutants + Energy - Autonomous drone-based sensor placement in complex environments |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Abstract: Environmental and infrastructure sciences rely heavily on accurate, timely and complete data sets which are often collected manually at significant risks and costs. Robotics and mobile sensor networks can collect data more effectively and with higher spatial-temporal resolution compared to manual methods while benefiting from expanded operational envelopes and added data collection capabilities. In future, robotics will be an indispensable tool for data collection in complex environments, enabling the digitalisation of forests, lakes, off-shore energy systems, cities and the polar environment. However, such future robot solutions will need to operate more flexibly, robustly and efficiently than they do today. This talk will present how animal-inspired robot design methods can integrate adaptive morphologies, functional materials and energy-efficient locomotion principles to enable this new class of environmental robotics. The talk will also include application examples, such as flying robots that can place sensors in forests, aerial-aquatic drones for autonomous water sampling, drones with compliant landing systems for landing on wind turbines, drones for aerial construction and repair, and impact-resilient drones for safe operations in underground and tunnel systems. Short biography: Prof. Mirko Kovac is director of the Aerial Robotics Laboratory, full professor at Imperial College London and Royal Society Wolfson Fellow. He is also heading the Materials and Technology Centre of Robotics at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) in Zürich. His research group focusses on the development of novel, aerial robots for distributed sensing and autonomous manufacturing in complex natural and man-made environments. Prof. Kovac's particular specialisation is in robot design, hardware development and multi-modal robot mobility. Before his appointment in London, he was post-doctoral researcher at Harvard University and he obtained his PhD at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). He received his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) in 2005. Since 2006, he has presented his work in >70 international proceedings and journals, has won several best paper awards and has delivered >30 keynote lectures. He also regularly acts as advisor to government, investment funds and industry on robotics opportunities. The following information couldn't be added to Exchange: time zone:Floating |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Radio interview for BBC Earth feature on bio-inspired drones: The birds, the bees and the robots |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Radio interview for BBC Earth feature on bio-inspired drones: How biology is influencing technology to help us better understand nature. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.bbcearth.com/blog/?article=the-birds-the-bees-and-the-robots |
| Description | Research Colloquium (ETH Zurich) |
| 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 | Dr Mirko Kovac presented our novel 3D printing and aerial construction technologies arising from Aerial ABM at the Research Colloquium on Building Technologies at ETH Zurich in January 2017. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Research Talk (Livorno, Italy) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | In April 2016, Dr Mirko Kovac talked about the use soft materials in aerial robots to enhance the flight performance as well as creating support structures inspired by birds in nature. The talk attracted a large number of audience and his team were invited to write a book chapter on Soft Aerial Robots. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.robosoftca.eu/information/events/soft-robotics-week-2016 |
| Description | Research Talk (Perugia, Italy) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Dr Mirko Kovac presented the progress on 3D printing materials within the Aerial ABM project at the International Conference on Smart and Multifunctional Materials, Structures and Systems in Perugia, Italy. This presentation initiated new discussions for possible collaboration with colleagues at the Italian Institute of Technology on 3D printing. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://2016.cimtec-congress.org/ |
| Description | Research Visit to EMPA-Nest in Zurich |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation and tour of EMPA nest facility, regarding potential collaborations between Imperial and ETH Zurich |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | RoboSoft 2021 - Workshop "Material Intelligence" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | 300 attendees. The role of soft, adaptive matter in Robotics is intensively growing with the increasing demand for compliant, intelligent, and collaborative robotic behavior. The development of intelligent material systems combining actuation, sensing, and computation has become one of the grand challenges for realizing this vision of next-generation soft robotics. Material intelligence, the concept of material-level acquisition and application of knowledge and skills, embodies a critical synergy of sensing, actuation, and computation with the potential to redefine our expectations of material behavior. However, this idea's advancement faces several challenges due to the technical breadth, complex implementation, and conceptual paradigm shift of material behavior it requires. In addition, physical integration of these capabilities and concepts is inherently interdisciplinary, requiring input and the development of a common language across numerous disciplines, including Materials Science, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Bioengineering, Architecture, and others. The present workshop aims to host "under one roof" the leading researchers in the fields of soft-material actuation, sensing, and computation to create a dialogue on state of the art, identify technical/conceptual barriers, and outline key challenges and opportunities for Material Intelligence. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.material-intelligence.com/ |
| Description | Robotics 2021 3rd World Conference on Robotics and AI - Physical Artificial Intelligence for Aerial Robotics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Robotics 2021 3rd World Conference on Robotics and AI |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.scientificfederation.com/robotics-artificial-intelligence/program.pdf |
| Description | Robotics Center PRG Seminar Series - Soft Aerial Robotics for Environmental Sensing |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Our talks are also sponsored by the Maryland Robotics Center and they have an audience of about one hundred people coming from Computer Science and Engineering. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | http://prg.cs.umd.edu/seminar |
| Description | Royal College Physicians Society - Physical Artificial Intelligence for Aerial Robotics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Royal College Physicians Society - Physical Artificial Intelligence for Aerial Robotics - 51 delegates joined online |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://player.rcplondon.ac.uk/ |
| Description | Royal Society (London) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The event was hosted by prof. Brian Cox at the Royal festival hall who was running a debate on Artificial Intelligence. Dr Mirko Kovac ran a 10 minutes presentation and live demo showing in-flight arm stabilization of a robotic arm methods for drones. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.imperial.ac.uk/festival/ |
| Description | SRF online video - How drones protect us from toxic blue-green algae |
| 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 | How drones protect us from toxic blue-green algae In order to be able to effectively control the ecology of large bodies of water, ecologists from the Swiss Eawag are working with robotics to test the use of an on-water-under-water drone. I would love to have ten of them!" Aquatic ecologist Francesco Pomati from the Eawag research institute is enthusiastic about the first field test of the "Medusa system". A drone that can both fly and land on the water surface and drop an underwater module. What inspires me the most is the idea of creating robots that can move like artificial creatures in nature. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.srf.ch/wissen/klimaerwaermung/oekologie-unserer-gewaesser-wie-drohnen-uns-vor-giftigen-b... |
| Description | Sberbank Executive Education day |
| 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 cohort is organised by the Imperial Business School and it's purpose is to educate the Sberbank employees with the technologies and capabilities developed in Aerial Robotics. This is an ongoing cohort group from the previous year. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Science Museum Autonomous Vehicles Interactive Exhibition |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Took part in the 5 day interactive Science Museum event on Autonomous vehicles. Several laboratory members worked through case studies on designing autonomous vehicles for practical use with the general public. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Science Museum London, Invited exhibitor for Antenna Gallery |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Discover more in this cutting-edge exhibition through interactive exhibits, thought-provoking objects and even a retro robot car. Driverless will give you a unique glimpse into the AI-driven tech that could shape the habits, behaviour and society of tomorrow. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/see-and-do/driverless-who-is-in-control |
| Description | Science Robotics Interview with Alex Broz |
| 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 | Science Robotics is continually working to improve their service to authors and the dissemination of the research in our multidisciplinary journal. We aim to provide a forum for the latest technological advances and the critical social, ethical and policy issues surrounding robotics. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | ScienceDaily: Drones that patrol forests could monitor environmental and ecological changes |
| 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 | Sensors for forest monitoring are already used to track changes in temperature, humidity and light, as well as the movements of animals and insects through their habitat. They also help to detect and monitor forest fires and can provide valuable data on how climate change and other human activities are impacting the natural world. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201103112526.htm |
| Description | ScienceDaily: Skills development in Physical AI could give birth to lifelike intelligent robots |
| 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 | The research suggests that teaching materials science, mechanical engineering, computer science, biology and chemistry as a combined discipline could help students develop the skills they need to create lifelike artificially intelligent (AI) robots as researchers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201110112512.htm |
| Description | Sciencenewsnet.in: On the way to lifelike robots |
| 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 | Artificial intelligence is supposed to make machines perform at ever more amazing levels. A robot that can do little more than a remote-controlled model car has a limited range of applications. But from an automatic machine to an autonomous robot, it is a big, almost revolutionary step. Robotics researchers Mirko Kovac and Aslan Miriyev, who both work at Empa's "Materials and Technology Center of Robotics" in Dübendorf and at the "Aerial Robotics Lab" of Imperial College London, are convinced that one decisive component can make this evolutionary step possible: Physical artificial intelligence, PAI for short. Only when the artificial intelligence of a digital "brain" is merged with an intelligent body could new types of robots be created that have properties comparable to those of intelligent living organisms. They have now published their concept in the latest issue of the renowned scientific journal Nature Machine Intelligence. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://sciencenewsnet.in/on-the-way-to-lifelike-robots/ |
| Description | Scienmag: Skills Development In Physical AI Could Give Birth To Lifelike Intelligent Robots SCIENCE EDUCATION |
| 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 | The research suggests that teaching materials science, mechanical engineering, computer science, biology and chemistry as a combined discipline could help students develop the skills they need to create lifelike artificially intelligent (AI) robots as researchers. Known as Physical AI, these robots would be designed to look and behave like humans or other animals while possessing intellectual capabilities normally associated with biological organisms. These robots could in future help humans at work and in daily living, performing tasks that are dangerous for humans, and assisting in medicine, caregiving, security, building and industry. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://scienmag.com/skills-development-in-physical-ai-could-give-birth-to-lifelike-intelligent-robo... |
| Description | Seoul National University - Physical Artificial Intelligence for Aerial Robotics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Seoul National University - Physical Artificial Intelligence for Aerial Robotics - 27 postgraduate students attended this presentation. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Swissengineering FAEL autumn seminar "Artificial Intelligence" - Material Intelligence and Infrastructure Robotics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Artificial intelligence is not a new topic. Many structures come from artificial neural networks from the 80s. Interestingly, this phase has been retrospectively dubbed the Renaissance because the first conference on the subject of "Artificial Intelligence" took place in 1956. The present flare is so to speak, the third wave. A decisive milestone was the so-called "Convolutional Neural Networks" about 10 years ago. In addition, large networks with huge data sets allow nowadays a very extensive training of corresponding algorithms. The areas of application extend to actually all fields of science. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://admin.webmembership.ch/swissengineering/static/documents/event/6836/7a33b262-4ecb-44c2-8b42-... |
| Description | TAROS 2018 Conference Presentation (invited) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | As the winner of the Best UK PhD in robotics, Rob Siddall was invited to give a short talk detailing his thesis on Aerial-Aquatic Locomotion at the TAROS 2018 conference in Bristol. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Talk (RACE, Culham, UK) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Dr Mirko Kovac presented latest technologies for aerial manipulation and construction at RACE in challenging environments Symposium, Culham, UK, during October 2017. The presentation has initiated a number of collaborative activities on the use of aerial robots in exploration and repair in challenging environments. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.race.ukaea.uk/ |
| Description | Talk : SberBank Executive Education Day |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Executive Education Day tailored for SberBank. Dr. Mirko Kovac gave a 1.5hr talk on research which focusses on the development of novel, biologically inspired flying robots for distributed sensing in air and water and on autonomous robotic construction for future cities. Dr. Kovac's particular specialisation is in robot design, hardware development and multi-modal robot mobility. This followed with an opportunity for attendees for a practical hands-on session to create their own drone with a view to how SberBank could utilise this. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Talk and presentation in TEDxBolognaWomen (Laura Margheri) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | TEDxBolognaWomen: http://www.tedxbologna.com/perspectives/ It was held on December 8, 2018. I talked about the multidisciplinary of biorobotics, from my experience etc and I showed a video of the AquaMAV among the examples. The outreach was mainly at national level (Italy), even if the video is globally online: |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8xP8lMsl3Q |
| Description | Talk at PwC School of Mines |
| 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 | Dr Mirko Kovac participated in the panel discussion around the potential uses of drones/AI/robotics in Mining at the PwC annual conference "London School of Mines" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Talk to a Secondary School (St George's Catholic College |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Talk at the annual awards ceremony for a secondary school in southampton, GCSE students and parents invited. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Talk to a sixth form school group |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | A talk on robotics and question session with a large school group (Year 9 - A2 Level) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Tech Xplore: Skills development in Physical AI could give birth to lifelike intelligent robots |
| 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 | The research suggests that teaching materials science, mechanical engineering, computer science, biology and chemistry as a combined discipline could help students develop the skills they need to create lifelike artificially intelligent (AI) robots as researchers. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://techxplore.com/news/2020-11-skills-physical-ai-birth-lifelike.html |
| Description | Technology Demonstration for SberBank |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Demonstrated the pipeline repair using aerial robots for the visiting group. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Times of India: Drones That Shoot Sensor Darts In Tall Trees Will Give Forest Health Data |
| 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 | The researchers have developed drones that can shoot darts containing such sensors onto trees several meters away. As can be understood, the method can be used to place sensors high atop tall trees, even in cluttered forest regions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.indiatimes.com/technology/news/drones-sensor-darts-tall-trees-for-forest-data-527072.htm... |
| Description | Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems Conference (TAROS 2021) - Physical AI for Soft Aerial Robotics |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | TAROS is the longest-running UK-hosted international conference on Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS), which is aimed at the presentation and discussion of the latest results and methods in autonomous robotics research and applications. TAROS offers a friendly environment for robotics researchers and industry to take stock and plan future progress. It welcomes senior researchers and research students alike and specifically provides opportunities for research students and young research scientists to present their work to the scientific community. As in previous years, the TAROS 2021 proceedings will be published in the Springer Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence series. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://lcas.lincoln.ac.uk/wp/taros-2021/ |
| Description | Unmanned Maritime Systems Conference, May 16-17 2018, London |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Mirko Kovac was invited speaker at the second annual Unmanned Maritime Systems Technology conference, held in London on the 16th and 17th May 2018, organised by the SMi Group. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.smi-online.co.uk/defence/uk/conference/Unmanned-Maritime-Systems#tab_overview |
| Description | Urban Explorers Children's Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Participated in the Urban Explorers childrens conference, talking with primary/secondary school children about robotics and the work of Imperial College Researchers |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Visit from Felicity Buchan MP, South Kensington |
| 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 | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Local Member of Parliament Felicity Buchan, visited our lab and shown interest to our developed technology. She has also suggested to employ some of the drone technology for infrastructure inspection. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Workshop: Invited Speaker: International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2020 Workshop on "Self-Assembling and Reconfigurable Systems" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Self-assembly is a process where pre-existing components form a structured system without external control due to the local interaction between the components. It is ubiquitous in many different fields like biology, chemistry, medicine, robotics and materials science. Self-assembly is a very important aspect in biological and robotics systems. Biological systems are inherently hierarchical, and as such self-assembly remains the critical process by which the fundamental units form into functional structures, that in turn form living organisms. A shining example of this is the fundamental building block of life, base-pairing with hydrogen bonds to make double-stranded DNA. As the complexity of biological organisms is achieved from the self-assembly of nucleotides, self-assembly in robotics also presents a great opportunity for building functional systems. Robustness and reconfigurability has been a major objective for robotics researchers in recent years. Robust and reconfigurable systems offer improved systems, such as lower cost per unit as the individual requirements per robot is reduced, and a level of parallel redundancy that is not yet prevalent in robotics. Self-assembly lies at the intersection of biology and robotics, and it can help inform better robotics solutions. This workshop aims to open a dialogue about self-assembly between researchers in biology and robotics. The workshop will be divided into two main sub-themes: (1) Self-assembly in biological systems and (2) Self-assembly in robotics. The workshop aims to bridge the gap between both sub-themes and foster collaboration between the two fields. The former sub-theme entails the most interesting aspects of biological self-assembly. The latter sub-theme entails challenges in self-assembling robots and how processes in biological systems can help improve the system design aspect of these robots. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.selfassemblingsystems.org/invited-speakers |
| Description | Workshop: robosoft2020: Material Intelligence |
| 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 | The role of soft, adaptive matter in Robotics is intensively growing with the increasing demand for compliant, intelligent and collaborative robotic behavior. Development of intelligent material systems combining actuation, sensing and computation has become one of the grand challenges for realizing this vision of next generation soft robotics. Material intelligence, the concept of material-level acquisition and application of knowledge and skills, embodies a critical synergy of sensing, actuation and computation with the potential to redefine our expectations of material behavior. However, the advancement of this idea faces several challenges due to the technical breadth, complex implementation and conceptual paradigm shift of material behavior it requires. In addition, physical integration of these capabilities and concepts is inherently interdisciplinary, requiring input and the development of a common language across numerous disciplines, including Materials Science, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Bioengineering, Architecture and others. The present workshop aims to host "under one roof" the leading researchers in the fields of soft-material actuation, sensing and computation to create a dialogue on the state of the art, identify technical/conceptual barriers, and outline key challenges and opportunities for Material Intelligence. The workshop will include a special Dialogue Panel along with classical presentation sessions and extensive networking time. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.material-intelligence.com/ |
| Description | lecture on biorobotics during a workshop organized by the IAAD (Laura Margheri) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Laura gave a lecture on biorobotics during a workshop organized by the IAAD (https://www.iaad.it/en/). She made a sort of review of bio-robots, including the AcquaMAV. It was a lecture for about 20-25 students, from Italy and Israel. It was held on February 11, 2019. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.iaad.it/en/ |
| Description | msn: Drones That Shoot Sensor Darts In Tall Trees Will Give Forest Health Data |
| 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 | In today's world, several aspects of forests are monitored using sensors. These wireless sensors track the movements of animals and insects in the forests, while also monitoring the forest itself for changes in temperature, humidity and light. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/markets/drones-that-shoot-sensor-darts-in-tall-trees-will-give-fores... |