RoboHike: Autonomous Quadrupedal Robot Navigation and Hiking in Challenging Rough Terrains
Lead Research Organisation:
University College London
Department Name: Computer Science
Abstract
Quadrupedal robots are gaining important capabilities, especially over the past decade, due to the rapid advancements in mechatronics, control, and planning. In scenarios that robots need to operate for either inspecting hard-to-reach areas or aiding humans in dangerous and hazardous environments, quadrupedal robots could be ideal due to their ability to deal with sparse footholds in a safe and energy efficient way. To date, quadrupedal robots are able to traverse some types of rough terrain, using usually traditional control and perception methods. However, their mobility is still far behind their natural counterparts, especially in cases that the environment is dynamically changing. Tasks such as navigating and hiking rough or rocky trails, where the environment itself is uncertain, not fully perceived, and potentially dynamically changing, remain central challenges in legged robot locomotion. RoboHike aims at introducing and developing novel high level and platform-agnostic perception and learning approaches for modeling, identifying, and mapping footholds for quadrupedal robots, such that it would be possible to achieve fast, robust, and reliable navigation and hiking skills on challenging terrains. In particular, it aims at combining various sensing systems, such as proprioceptive (e.g., inertia, speed, or joint torques) and exteroceptive (e.g., visual, range, event, or foot's force contact data) perception to reconstruct the environment and handle the uncertainty of potentially missing or inaccurate data, before and during locomotion, especially for dynamically changing terrains. This will enable novel footstep planning and robot localization in the environment. Analytic and (self-supervised and reinforcement) learning methods will leverage multi-modal sensing to allow quadrupedal robots mimic the way that animals plan footsteps when learning to walk. The developed methods will be validated experimentally on several full-size quadrupedal robots, in academic and industrial real-world use cases, for tasks such as inspection, patrolling, and maintenance. RoboHike will work towards the next-generation autonomous robotic systems in construction fields, oil&gas sites, or damaged sites after a man-made/natural disaster, where efficient navigation is required, and rough/rocky terrain, industrial stairs, pipes, and narrow passages may exist. The vision is to endow quadrupeds with environment cognition for the benefit of the public in autonomizing manual labor of hard or dangerous tasks. The impact is expected to be high in the national and industrial sectors for automated inspection, monitoring, maintenance, and disaster innervations, where terrain is arduous and the requirement for timely intervention is paramount. We intend to construct publicly shared benchmark datasets on challenging trails, bringing in this way the robotics community several steps forward in robot locomotion by enabling robots to work on challenging grounds.
Organisations
- University College London (Fellow, Lead Research Organisation)
- ETH Zurich (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- Italian Institute of Technology (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia IIT) (Collaboration)
- Shanghai Jiao Tong University (Collaboration)
- Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) (Collaboration)
- IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON (Collaboration)
- ARRIVAL LIMITED (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE (Collaboration)
- Amazon.com (Collaboration)
- Inria Nancy - Grand-Est research centre (Collaboration)
- National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD (Collaboration)
- Sungkyunkwan University (Collaboration)
- University of Toulouse (Collaboration)
- Chalmers University of Technology (Collaboration)
- The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Collaboration)
- Osaka University (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS (Collaboration)
- University of Patras (Collaboration)
- Biblia Chora (Project Partner)
- University of Oxford (Project Partner)
- National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (Project Partner)
- ARRIVAL LIMITED (Project Partner)
Publications
Bendikas R
(2023)
Learning Needle Pick-and-Place Without Expert Demonstrations
in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
Chengxu Zhou
(2022)
TeLeMan: Teleoperative Legged Manipulation based on Body IMU-Sensing for the use of Explosive Ordinance Disposal
in arXiv
Christopher Peers
(2022)
Dynamic Camera Usage in Mobile Teleoperation System for Buzz Wire Task
Daniel Chee Hian Tan
(2023)
Your Value Function is a Control Barrier Function
Daniel Chee Hian Tan
(2024)
RL-CBF: Verifying Learned Controllers using Certificate Theory
Denis Hadjivelichkov
(2024)
Semantic Pose Correspondence of Novel Objectsfrom a Single Demonstration
Denis Hadjivelichkov
(2022)
One-Shot Transfer of Affordance Regions? AffCorrs!
Dionisis Totsila
(2023)
Sensorimotor Learning with Stability Guarantees via Autonomous Neural Dynamic Policies
Dionisis Totsila
(2023)
End-to-End Stable Imitation Learning via Autonomous Neural Dynamic Policies
Title | Bedtime Stories |
Description | A robot that will draw on the artist's back while the artist will read bedtime stories. |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Year Produced | 2022 |
Impact | Will aim at showing the impressive AI capabilities to imagine shapes when a story is read to it. |
Title | ELMO: A UCL Science-Fiction story |
Description | This is a science-fiction short that reflects on the themes of aging and free will. A space mission is traveling to an unknown destination. As his health deteriorates, Elmo, the oldest astronaut in the crew will discover that he has no control over his fate. |
Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
Year Produced | 2024 |
Impact | Excite the general public and the new generation over robotics of the future. |
Title | The Art of Balancing |
Description | A robot balancing while being pushed creates some impressive trajectories. We have recorded these into a painting and presented to a UCL AI competition. |
Type Of Art | Artwork |
Year Produced | 2022 |
Impact | A painting made by the robot |
URL | https://youtu.be/lINTZHzx0YM |
Description | We managed to generate a strong team of academics to lead world-wide and deliver research and teaching in the area of real-world robots. The formed team is advancing research on allowing robots learn to deal with several tasks. This is an important aspect to allow such robots help humans in dangerous and challenging cases, such as monitoring an area after a disaster (e.g., earthquake) and help with tedious tasks in agriculture, such as harvesting. |
Exploitation Route | We will continue working for the next 3 years on the objectives towards autonomous robotic systems. By publishing openly our findings and communicating them in our academic society, and in public, we hope that both academia and industry will take advantage of the findings, the industry will use our technology, and the public will build awareness of the positive impact robotics might have in our society. |
Sectors | Agriculture Food and Drink Construction Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) Education Electronics Energy Environment Government Democracy and Justice Manufacturing including Industrial Biotechology Culture Heritage Museums and Collections Security and Diplomacy |
URL | https://rpl-as-ucl.github.io |
Description | Since the fellowship started in January 2022, the findings have just started creating some impact and/or potential impact: 1. UCL-CS (nucleation of a new research area): created a whole new area of expertise for the Computer Science department at UCL (real-world mobile robotics). This resulted into the creation of two new programmes MEng and MSc in Robotics and AI, and a new facility of real robots at UCL East (worth of 1m pounds), as well as the recruitment of academics related to the topic. This brought UCL at the forefront of robotics both in the UK, but also worldwide, with clear positive financial and societal impact for the university and the UK (e.g., we have more than 500 applications for the new programmes). Dr. Dimitrios Kanoulas was recognised for this achievement by the UCL-CS department with an award in July 2022. 2. Schools (public impact): a surprising number of schools contacted our team for engagement (talks, demonstrations, visits, etc.). As robotics is something that scares the public sometimes, our engagement activities generate a positive impact on how young students and teachers think about robots. 3. Agriculture (economic impact): we are in contact with several companies that are involved in the area of agriculture and expressed their interest in acquiring part of our technology for their field needs, e.g. harvesting. This is expected to have a great impact in the economy and we are in the process of creating a start-up to engage further with this opportunity. 4. Government: there is an increased interest in the research of our group based on this fellowship. We have been invited several times by the Greek Embassy of London to discuss the fellowship and ways of running start-ups between Greece and the UK (the meetings were led by the Ambassador and Greek Government ministers and the prime minister). We had further visits from other embassies in our facilities to demonstrate our research methods (e.g., the Japanese Embassy, Labour Leader). 5. News: we have been contacted few times from large news networks, such as BBC to comment on concerns of public regarding robots, trying to promote "AI for Good". |
First Year Of Impact | 2022 |
Sector | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Education,Government, Democracy and Justice,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Security and Diplomacy |
Impact Types | Cultural Societal Economic Policy & public services |
Description | Demo of Robotic Dogs to Greek Ambassador in London and the Greek Prime Minister |
Geographic Reach | Europe |
Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
Impact | Continuous contact with Greek politicians about applying robotic solutions to emerging search&rescue issues in Greece. |
Description | Deputy Director of MSc in Robotics and AI |
Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
Description | Designer of MEng in Robotics and AI |
Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/undergraduate/degrees/robotics-and-artificial-intelligenc... |
Description | Discussion with Greek Bankers, Greek Church, and Embassy of Greece in London about academia-industry connection |
Geographic Reach | Europe |
Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
Impact | Academic team creation for changing the ways that the Greek government is considering joint Greek-UK spin-offs with financial impact for both countries. |
Description | Round Table for Embassy of Greece in London |
Geographic Reach | Europe |
Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
Impact | The two ministers of Greece were informed about ways to coordinate with UK-based start-ups in order to increase investment between Greece and the UK. Details: Roundtable discussion on bridging the Greek and British start-up ecosystems yesterday at the Hellenic Residency. Deputy Minister for Economic Diplomacy and Openness at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Kostas Fragogiannis and Deputy Minister for Research and Technology at the Ministry for Development and Investments, Dr Christos Dimas discussed with distinguished members of the Greek Diaspora in the UK with diverse backgrounds (academia, investors, startupers, corporates and associations). The event was organised by the Embassy of Greece in collaboration with SEV (Hellenic Federation of Enterprises). We hope this to be the beginning of a series of events aiming at establishing a support network for Greek start-ups and for the future ventures of Greek researchers in the UK. |
URL | https://www.facebook.com/GreeceInUK/photos/pb.100064680397456.-2207520000./5195041960539948/?type=3 |
Description | UCL Provost and Mayor of Newham Showcase |
Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
Impact | Interest in showcasing the robot capabilities in the local borough. |
Description | UK-RAS White Paper on Legged Robotics: Agile and Dynamic Interaction |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
URL | https://www.ukras.org.uk/publications/white-papers/legged-robotics-agile-dynamic-interaction/ |
Description | Autonomous Quadrupedal Robot Navigation and Hiking in Challenging Rough Terrains |
Amount | £99,775 (GBP) |
Funding ID | 2736841 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 08/2022 |
End | 09/2026 |
Description | Bio-Robots: Crawl, Jump, and Slither! |
Amount | £200,339 (GBP) |
Funding ID | EP/W033755/1 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 06/2022 |
End | 06/2024 |
Description | Continual Lifelong Learning and Adaptation for Legged Robots Planning and Control via Neuromorphic-based Learning |
Amount | £99,775 (GBP) |
Funding ID | 2728765 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 08/2022 |
End | 09/2026 |
Description | Continuous Reinforcement Learning for Quadruped Robots |
Amount | £99,775 (GBP) |
Funding ID | 2728764 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 08/2022 |
End | 09/2026 |
Description | UCL Architecture Research Fund (ARF): Interactive Multi-Robot Assembly! |
Amount | £9,989 (GBP) |
Organisation | University College London |
Sector | Academic/University |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 08/2022 |
End | 06/2023 |
Description | UCL Cities Partnerships Programme: Machine Learning for Robotic Grasping and Manipulation of Everyday Objects |
Amount | £5,000 (GBP) |
Organisation | University College London |
Sector | Academic/University |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 01/2022 |
End | 07/2022 |
Description | UCL Grand Challenges Doctoral Students: Employing Quadrupedal Robots as an Innovative Solution for Last-Mile Logistics |
Amount | £500 (GBP) |
Organisation | University College London |
Sector | Academic/University |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 01/2022 |
End | 07/2022 |
Description | UCL Innovation Enterprise: UCL Robotics Innovation Network |
Amount | £29,978 (GBP) |
Organisation | University College London |
Sector | Academic/University |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 01/2022 |
End | 03/2022 |
Description | UK-RAS Pump Priming: Summer School on Robot Manipulation Learning |
Amount | £3,500 (GBP) |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 05/2023 |
End | 06/2023 |
Title | Navigation Among Movable Obstacles via RL |
Description | For first time we deal with the problem of robot navigation, where interaction with obstacle is needed. We do that via reinforcement learning -- a purely new way to deal with the problem in real time. |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2022 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | The research method is impressive and unique, as the problem is intractable and thus learning techniques had to be applied to drive a real-world solution for industrial applications, e.g., a factory that boxes need to move around to clear paths. |
Title | New Fruit Manipulator |
Description | We designed a new way to deal with fruit grasping, via a soft manipulators with flexible fingers and novel sensing devices. |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2022 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | This manipulator is unique as it uses a thumb-technique to encapsulate objects without damaging them, and utilizes new sensors to drive learned actions for grasping. This novel design will be submitted for a patent. |
URL | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9635873 |
Title | One-Shot Affordance Localization |
Description | A novel way to find areas of interest on objects without the need to train any large neural network. |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2022 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | We managed to minimise the way of localising objects, such as grapes in a vineyard, or tools in a workshop, without the need to retrain a large network, thus, by minimising the amount of data and the energy for training a large network. |
URL | https://sites.google.com/view/affcorrs |
Title | UCL East Robotics Lab |
Description | TBD |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2023 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | TBD |
URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-east/study-and-research/robotics-and-autonomous-systems |
Title | Navigation Among Movable Obstacles with Deep Reinforcement Learning |
Description | It is for first time that this problem (Navigation Among Movable Obstacles) is studied from a Reinforcement Learning point of view. We produced an algorithm to solve this hard problem locally, using multiple agents in simulation and tried it on a real quadruped robot. |
Type Of Material | Computer model/algorithm |
Year Produced | 2023 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Impact: a completely new way of solving this problem will allow the community to solve this challenging task. We expect high impact in the research community. |
Title | One-Shot Transfer of Affordances when Manipulating Objects with Robots |
Description | We introduced a completely new method to finding regions on objects that have a particular functionality (e.g., cutting, holding, etc.). The novelty is that there is no need for large data to learn such functionalities for new objects appearing in a robot camera. |
Type Of Material | Computer model/algorithm |
Year Produced | 2022 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Impact: we expect a high impact in the research society, as we have been in contact to release the algorithm (something we did on GitHub). With this method, there is no need to label large data to allow robots handle everyday tools. |
URL | https://github.com/RPL-CS-UCL/UCL-AffCorrs |
Title | UMD_i Dataset |
Description | We present UMDi- a one-shot correspondence variant of UMD, which is composed of a single instance of each object in the dataset with both RGB image and affordance ground truth annotation. The original annotations are kept to highlight the difficulties of semantic transfer, as no two human annotations are the same. The classes include common objects such as bowls, ladles, and knives, with manually labelled grasp, scoop, wrap-grasp, support, contain, cut, and pound affordances. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2022 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | This dataset is useful for research on self-supervised learning of manipulation tasks and handling of tools in robotics. |
URL | https://github.com/RPL-CS-UCL/UCL-AffCorrs |
Description | Collaboration on Human Robot Interaction with LAAS-CNRS |
Organisation | University of Toulouse |
Department | Laboratory for Analysis and Architecture of Systems |
Country | France |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | In robotics, human-robot interaction is an important topic with robots being among humans. We collaborate with LAAS-CNRS towards a new way to use transformers to predict human motions and contact forces when a human is physically interacting with a robot. Our contribution was mainly in PhD student supervision and methodology development. |
Collaborator Contribution | The contribution of LAAS-CNRS was the generation of the new method of human-robot interaction based on our co-supervision and testing it on the real robotic hardware. |
Impact | Outcomes: 1) A submitted publication to a robotics conference. Multi-Disciplinarity: No, mainly all participants were from Computer Science. |
Start Year | 2023 |
Description | Collaboration on Legged Robot Control with LAAS-CNRS |
Organisation | University of Toulouse |
Department | Laboratory for Analysis and Architecture of Systems |
Country | France |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | In robotics, legged robot control using active sensing is a difficult problem. We collaborate with LAAS-CNRS towards a new way to solve the problem of active sensing for data quality improvement in model learning. Our contribution was the supervision of the PhD student, co-developing the method, and testing it with our robots. |
Collaborator Contribution | The contribution of LAAS-CNRS was the co-supervision of the PhD student to develop and test the method. |
Impact | Outcomes: 1) A submitted publication to control conference. Multi-Disciplinarity: No, mainly all participants were from Computer Science. |
Start Year | 2023 |
Description | Collaboration on Legged Robot Locomotion with IIT |
Organisation | Italian Institute of Technology (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia IIT) |
Country | Italy |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | In robotics, control for locomotion is an important and difficult problem. We collaborate with the Italian Institute of Technology towards a new way to perform control (a topic that is not the primary focus of our group). Our contribution was mainly co-developing the method and co-supervising the PhD student that performed the task. |
Collaborator Contribution | The contribution of University of the Italian Institute of Technology was the generation under our guidance of the new method to perform grasping and testing on the real robotic hardware. |
Impact | Outcomes: 1) A submitted publication to a robotics conference. Multi-Disciplinarity: No, mainly all participants were from Computer Science. |
Start Year | 2023 |
Description | Collaboration on Robot Localisation and Mapping with CAM |
Organisation | Shanghai Jiao Tong University |
Country | China |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | In robotics, localisation and mapping is an important and difficult problem. We collaborate with University of Cambridge and Shanghai Jiao Tong University towards a new way to perform the task. Our contribution was mainly capturing the dataset that was needed for training using our legged robots and sensors in the lab. |
Collaborator Contribution | The contribution of University of Cambridge and Shanghai Jiao Tong University was the generation of the new method to perform localisation and mapping using our dataset. |
Impact | Outcomes: 1) Software that make localisation and mapping on legged robots in dynamic environments. 2) A submitted publication to Computer Vision conference. Multi-Disciplinarity: No, mainly all participants were from Computer Science. |
Start Year | 2024 |
Description | Collaboration on Robot Localisation and Mapping with CAM |
Organisation | University of Cambridge |
Department | Cambridge Neuroscience |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | In robotics, localisation and mapping is an important and difficult problem. We collaborate with University of Cambridge and Shanghai Jiao Tong University towards a new way to perform the task. Our contribution was mainly capturing the dataset that was needed for training using our legged robots and sensors in the lab. |
Collaborator Contribution | The contribution of University of Cambridge and Shanghai Jiao Tong University was the generation of the new method to perform localisation and mapping using our dataset. |
Impact | Outcomes: 1) Software that make localisation and mapping on legged robots in dynamic environments. 2) A submitted publication to Computer Vision conference. Multi-Disciplinarity: No, mainly all participants were from Computer Science. |
Start Year | 2024 |
Description | Collaboration on Robot Manipulation Control with Chalmers |
Organisation | Chalmers University of Technology |
Country | Sweden |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | In robotics, manipulation is still an open problem. We collaborate with Chalmers University of Technology towards a new way to perform object grasping with robots using Implicit Reachability and Holistic Visual Servoing. Our contribution was mainly towards discussions about solving theoretically the problem. |
Collaborator Contribution | The contribution of University of Chalmers University of Technology was the generation of the new method to perform grasping and testing on the real robotic hardware. |
Impact | Outcomes: 1) A submitted publication to a robotics conference. Multi-Disciplinarity: No, mainly all participants were from Computer Science. |
Start Year | 2024 |
Description | Collaboration on Robot Mapping with HKUST |
Organisation | The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology |
Country | Hong Kong |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | In robotics, mapping is an important and difficult problem. We collaborate with The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology towards a new way to perform the task. Our contribution was mainly developing the method and testing on mobile robots. |
Collaborator Contribution | The contribution of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology was the co-development of the method and supervision. |
Impact | Outcomes: 1) Software for mapping on mobile robots in dynamic environments. 2) A submitted publication to automation jouranl. Multi-Disciplinarity: No, mainly all participants were from Computer Science. |
Start Year | 2024 |
Description | Collaboration on Robot Sensorimotor Learning with UPatras |
Organisation | University of Patras |
Country | Greece |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | In robotics, any task of loco-manipulation using end-to-end learning on sensory input data is still an open problem. In particular, multi-stage tasks are a challenge for reinforcement learning methods, and require either specific task knowledge (e.g., task segmentation) or big amount of interaction times to be learned. In this collaboration we study Behaviour Policy Learning that effectively combines 1) only few solution sketches, that is demonstrations without the actions, but only the states, 2) model-based controllers, and 3) simulations to effectively solve multi-stage tasks without strong knowledge about the underlying task. We collaborate with University of Patras towards a new way to perform sensorimotor learning with stability guarantees. Our contribution is two-fold: working on the theoretical aspect with implementation on legged robots and manipulators, and tested on the real hardware. We have helped with collection of real-world data and applying the learned policies on real robots (solving the sim2real gap) in order to increase the usability and impact of the developed methods. |
Collaborator Contribution | The contribution of University of Patras was the theoretical generation of the new method. |
Impact | Outcomes: 1) Submitted publication to a robotics conferences/journals and workshops. Multi-Disciplinarity: No, mainly all participants were from Computer Science. |
Start Year | 2023 |
Description | Collaboration on Social Robotics with ICL |
Organisation | Imperial College London |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | In robotics, social robotics becomes an emerging topic with robots walking around humans. We collaborate with Imperial College London towards a new way to perform locomotion of our legged robots among humans by preserving the social distances, while compelting our tasks. Our contribution was the development of the theory and code for serving the problem. |
Collaborator Contribution | The contribution of Imperial College London was the supervision of the method generation and help with the physical robot experiments. |
Impact | Outcomes: 1) A submitted publication to a robotics conference. Multi-Disciplinarity: No, mainly all participants were from Computer Science. |
Start Year | 2023 |
Description | Collaboration on Theoretical Aspects of Reinforcement Learning with Amazon |
Organisation | Amazon.com |
Department | Amazon UK |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | In robotics, using reinforcement learning for completing complex tasks is a challenging problem. We collaborate with Amazon researchers towards understanding the problem and finding solutions. Our contribution was mainly on theoretically resolving the problem of offline reinforcement learning for solving various tasks, such as maze exploration. |
Collaborator Contribution | The main contribution of Amazon was to discuss with us the current problems transformers have when using goal information and local features. |
Impact | Outcomes: 1) A submitted publication to a Machine Learning conference. Multi-Disciplinarity: No, mainly all participants were from Computer Science background. |
Start Year | 2024 |
Description | Collaboration on Whole-Body Robot Teleoperation with INRIA |
Organisation | Inria Nancy - Grand-Est research centre |
Country | France |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | In robotics, manipulation is still an open problem. We collaborate with INRIA towards a new way to perform whole body control for teleopration. Our contribution was towards the full method development and testing on our robots. |
Collaborator Contribution | The contribution of INRIA was the discussion of methods and code explanation for developing our own method. |
Impact | Outcomes: 1) A submitted publication to a robotics conference. Multi-Disciplinarity: No, mainly all participants were from Computer Science. |
Start Year | 2023 |
Description | Industrial Inspection - Arrival LTD |
Organisation | Arrival Limited |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | - Working on an inspection task for electric vehicle inspection on the spot. |
Collaborator Contribution | - Provided information about tasks needed in Generation 3 vehicle industries that need to be completed autonomously with mobile robots. |
Impact | - Definition of use-case for industrial vehicle inspection. - Multi-disciplinary: collaboration with car manufacturing industry, to understand the need of robots for inspection during manufacturing. |
Start Year | 2022 |
Description | Promoting Field and Legged Robotics in the Research Community |
Organisation | Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) |
Country | Norway |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | This is an effort to promote the benefits of legged robots in the research community via various ways: 1) editorials in good journals, 2) white papers, 3) robot competitions |
Collaborator Contribution | Helping in initiating the efforts, e.g., inviting us to editorials as Editors, or including us to the organisation team of legged robot competitions in good conferences (ICRA, IROS). |
Impact | 1) Editorial Paper in Frontiers in Robotics and AI on Rising Stars in Field Robotics that promote the new generation of researchers in the field. 2) A robot competition organised yearly at IEEE ICRA conference.Quadruped Robot Challenges (QRC) ICRA 2024 Yokohama, Stage 1+ |
Start Year | 2023 |
Description | Promoting Field and Legged Robotics in the Research Community |
Organisation | Sungkyunkwan University |
Country | Korea, Republic of |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | This is an effort to promote the benefits of legged robots in the research community via various ways: 1) editorials in good journals, 2) white papers, 3) robot competitions |
Collaborator Contribution | Helping in initiating the efforts, e.g., inviting us to editorials as Editors, or including us to the organisation team of legged robot competitions in good conferences (ICRA, IROS). |
Impact | 1) Editorial Paper in Frontiers in Robotics and AI on Rising Stars in Field Robotics that promote the new generation of researchers in the field. 2) A robot competition organised yearly at IEEE ICRA conference.Quadruped Robot Challenges (QRC) ICRA 2024 Yokohama, Stage 1+ |
Start Year | 2023 |
Description | Robot Training - ETH |
Organisation | ETH Zurich |
Country | Switzerland |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | - Research collaboration on legged robot locomotion |
Collaborator Contribution | - Training of our researchers at ETH on real world robots to be used in the fellowship. |
Impact | - Training of students/researchers on the ANYmal robot (i.e, 2 days training on UCL ANYmal robot, 1 PhD student summer school at ETH). - Multi-disciplinary: no |
Start Year | 2022 |
Description | Robot Training - ORI |
Organisation | University of Oxford |
Department | Oxford Robotics Institute (ORI) |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | - Research collaboration on legged robot locomotion |
Collaborator Contribution | - Access to robotic resources (i.e., robots, software for localisation and mapping) |
Impact | - EPSRC Research Proposal (under submission) - Multi-disciplinary: No |
Start Year | 2022 |
Description | Tele-operated Legged Robots - Univ. of Leeds |
Organisation | University of Leeds |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | We collaborated closely with Univ. of Leeds (Dr Chengxu Zhou) to generate legged robots that can be tele-operated in a whole-body fashion, and allow user to use VR headsets to feel the environment when performing loco-manipulation tasks. We tried our method for a Explosive Ordnance Disposal tasks, in collaboration with DASA/Dstl. |
Collaborator Contribution | We developed the visual and virtual reality system to deal with teleoperation and telexistence when controlling a legged robot manipulator. |
Impact | We manage to produce a method to control quadruped manipulators using tele-operation and tele-existence. We produced 4 papers (2 in 5th UK Robotics and Autonomous Systems Conference, 1 in IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems and 1 in arXiv). |
Start Year | 2022 |
Description | Volcanic Inspection - INGV |
Organisation | National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) |
Country | Italy |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | - Initiated discussions about methods for navigating in challenging terrain to inspect a volcano, including the type of information needed by the robot for the inspection. |
Collaborator Contribution | - Use-case for inspection of the Vesuvius volcano, including discussion on the inspection ways. |
Impact | - Use-case definition - Multi-disciplinary: this is a collaboration with volcanologists that are experts in the inspection of volcanoes. |
Start Year | 2022 |
Description | Weiwei Wan - Osaka Univ. |
Organisation | Osaka University |
Country | Japan |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | - Research on tele-operation |
Collaborator Contribution | - Research on bi-manual manipulation |
Impact | - Journal paper on manipulation of heavy objects with two robots. - Multi-disciplinary: no |
Start Year | 2022 |
Title | Common low level control framework for quadruped robots |
Description | We developed a framework to control several different quadrupedal robots in the same way to make our algorithms robot-agnostic. |
Type Of Technology | Software |
Year Produced | 2022 |
Impact | Impact: we aim at releasing the software soon in order to make an impact to the research society, by providing a framework that works independently of the robot model. |
Title | Navigation Among Movable Obstacles with Deep Reinforcement Learning |
Description | In this code we allow RL agents to be trained to solve the challenging problem of Navigation among Movable Obstacles, using Reinforcement Learning. |
Type Of Technology | Software |
Year Produced | 2023 |
Open Source License? | Yes |
Impact | Impact: a novel method to solve a problem that is open for several years in the research community. |
Title | Python-based framework for rapid prototyping of RL and optimal controller for quadruped robots |
Description | We work on a CasADi-based python framework to allow fast and less complex code development for quadruped robots either they are trained via Reinforcement Learning or Optimal Control. |
Type Of Technology | Software |
Year Produced | 2023 |
Impact | Impact: we aim for open-sourcing the code in order to allow the research community develop faster methods to control robots, without the need to hard code their algorithms. |
Title | UCL-AffCorrs |
Description | Given a single reference image of an object with annotated affordance regions, can we segment semantically corresponding parts within a target scene? We investigate this question with AffCorrs, an unsupervised model that combines the useful properties of pre-trained DINO-ViT's image descriptors and cyclic correspondences. AffCorrs is able to find corresponding affordances both for intra- and inter-class one-shot semantic part segmentation. |
Type Of Technology | Software |
Year Produced | 2022 |
Open Source License? | Yes |
Impact | Finding corresponding affordances both for intra- and inter-class one-shot semantic part segmentation. is more difficult than supervised alternatives, but enables future work such as learning affordances via imitation and assisted teleoperation. |
URL | https://sites.google.com/view/affcorrs |
Description | AI Showcase |
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 | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | AI Showcase with our quadruped robots performing for PhD students, the Deans and Provost of UCL. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
Description | BBC Digital Planet podcast |
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 | In brief: BBC interview about robotic dogs and their ethical aspects. Impact: public engagement about legged robots and how useful they can be in our society, as well as discussed the problem of weaponising robots. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct31yt |
Description | Conference paper presentation at CoRL 2022 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | In brief: presentation of paper on "One-Shot Transfer of Affordance Regions? AffCorrs!", at the 6th Annual Conference on Robot Learning. Impact: outreaching to academics working in the same research area. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://corl2022.org/ |
Description | Conference paper presentation at IROS 2022 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | In brief: presentation of paper on "Robust Contact State Estimation in Humanoid Walking Gaits", at the 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Impact: outreaching to academics working in the same research area. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://iros2022.org/ |
Description | Conference paper presentation at IROS 2022 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | In brief: presentation of paper on "Autonomous Mobile 3D Printing of Large-Scale Trajectories", at the 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Impact: outreaching to academics working in the same research area. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://iros2022.org/ |
Description | Conference paper presentation at IROS 2022 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | In brief: presentation of paper on "Navigation Among Movable Obstacles with Object Localization using Photorealistic Simulation", at the 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Impact: outreaching to academics working in the same research area. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://iros2022.org/ |
Description | Conference paper presentation at UK-RAS 2022 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | In brief: presentation of paper on "Analysis of VR Usability in Mobile Manipulator Teleoperation", at the 5th UK Robotics and Autonomous Systems Conference. Impact: outreaching to academics working in the same research area in the UK. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.ukras.org.uk/news-and-events/uk-ras/ukras22-the-5th-uk-robotics-and-autonomous-systems-c... |
Description | Conference paper presentation at UK-RAS 2022 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | In brief: presentation of paper on "Dynamic Camera Usage in Mobile Teleoperation System for Buzz Wire Task", at the 5th UK Robotics and Autonomous Systems Conference. Impact: outreaching to academics working in the same research area in the UK. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.ukras.org.uk/news-and-events/uk-ras/ukras22-the-5th-uk-robotics-and-autonomous-systems-c... |
Description | Demos/Posters at the 2023 UCL Robotics Workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | In brief: We ran demos with our robots to promote our research, we presented student posters of our work, and gave an invited talk about the fellowship to more than 200 participants, that included industry (e.g., BP), research centres (e.g. DeepMind),academics from all over the country, and media/policymakers. Impact: Changed the view of robotics towards a safer society. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://twitter.com/matchymaucl/status/1627701885044985859 |
Description | Disruptive Thinker Video |
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 | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | In Brief: How can we bring limbed robots into real world environments to complete challenging tasks? Dr Dimitrios Kanoulas and the team at UCL Computer Science's Robot Perception and Learning Lab are exploring how we can use autonomous and semi autonomous robots to work in environments that humans cannot. Impact: public engagement, academic outreaching |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/engineering/research/disruptive-thinkers-video-series#How%20can%20we%20bring%2... |
Description | Evening Standard Tech and Science Daily by Mark Blunden about RoboHike |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | In brief: a podcast about the need of robots in our society Impact: discussed the economical impact of robots helping in tasks, such as agriculture. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://open.spotify.com/episode/6AUzNIgvT0EExs2Vt2zLyu?si=9zzRkZzxQdW4FLYX_X8MKw&dl_branch=1&nd=1 |
Description | Film about Disruptive Thinkers |
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 | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | An interview about how can we bring robots into challenging environments, demonstrating how legged robots can help in several dangerous jobs. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/engineering/research/disruptive-thinkers-video-series#How%20can%20we%20bring%2... |
Description | ICRA 2022 Workshop: "Towards Real-World Deployment of Legged Robots" |
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 | In brief: organised the sixth version of "Towards Real-World Deployment of Legged Robots" workshop at ICRA 2022 (the larger robotics conference), where we have several speakers from academia and industry discussing legged robots, with invited presentations, demos, and posters. Impact: this is the largest legged robot event of the year, that brings together all roboticists that work on legged robots |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY45TGWcpM7yohYe33biZd1cEzwLK78dh |
Description | ICRA 2023 Workshop on "Towards Real-World Deployment of Legged Robots" |
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 | In brief: We organised this workshop in the top conference in robotics to engage with researchers and industry in legged robotics. This is the best known workshop in legged robots worldwide. Impact: Brought together all roboticists working on legged robots. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://leggedrobots.org/ |
Description | ICRA 2023-2024 Competition: "Autonomous Quadruped Robot Challenge (AQRC)" |
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 IEEE RAS Quadruped Robot Challenges (QRC) are robotic competitions mainly supported by IEEE RAS. The ICRA 2023 QRC is the first event in a series of challenges that will evolve from remote control of quadruped robots at a first-person-view station, to autonomous traversing on challenging terrain, and ultimately to racing of multiple quadruped manipulator robots. The QRC has great potential to lead the robotics community in technology advancement, nurture field engineers, and foster interactions with industries, ultimately leading to the creation of practical services for the public. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023,2024 |
URL | https://quadruped-robot-challenges.notion.site/Quadruped-Robot-Challenges-bdc4af35638c4036817c3212e6... |
Description | IEEE Spectrum - Video Friday |
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 | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | In brief: the disruptive thinking video appeared to IEEE Spectrum and outreached to several colleagues worldwide. Impact: few colleagues showed interest in multi-disciplinary worth with us towards novel research and impact outcomes, e.g., scanning tunnels. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://spectrum.ieee.org/video-friday-drones-in-trees |
Description | IEEE Spectrum Video Friday |
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 | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | In brief: appeared in the IEEE Spectrum (Video Friday), with our methods and outreaching activities. In this example making art using a quadruped robot. Impact: outreaching to robotics around the world with our research and outreach activities |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
URL | https://spectrum.ieee.org/video-friday-robot-soccer-finals |
Description | IROS'22 Workshop: "The Role of Uncertainty and How it is Tackled in Robotic Grasping and Manipulation" |
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 | We organised this workshop in one of the top conferences in robotics to engage with researchers and industry in robotic manipulation and promote state of the art research in the area. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://sites.google.com/view/the-role-of-uncertainty |
Description | Innovation Day event at the Hellenic Centre |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | The Greek Embassy put together an educational day dedicated to innovations or apps that would be of interest to the wider community. We were invited to demonstrate our findings. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
Description | Interview 2023 for BBC |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | A broadcast about UCL East opening with respect to legged robots and automation, influencing the general public about good AI. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001qpxz/bbc-london-evening-news-18092023 |
Description | Interview 2024 at Institution of Mechanical Engineers |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | Interview for the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on embodied AI via humanoid robots, focusing on challenges and future directions. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
Description | Interview for CDT of Foundational AI |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | 60sec with a Supervisor about several topics regarding AI and robotics, to influence the PhD students and their view about the future of embodied AI. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7100479693501411328 |
Description | Invited Lecture in Open Robotics Summer School |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | In brief: the invited talk at University of Patras in Greece, focused on "Humanoids, Quadrupeds, and other Legged Robots", to introduce school students to legged robotic research and development. Impact: Initiated a set of round table discussion with pupils, that showed interest in working with legged robots (have asked their instructor to consider a legged robot for next year's school). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.youtube.com/live/61eg3islhLU?feature=share |
Description | Invited Talk 2024: Dawes Centre for Future Crime |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | 50 students of the EPSRC CDT in Cybersecurity attended the talk on how robots are and will be used in security and defense. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
Description | Invited Talk at Arrival LTD |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | An invited talk about cognitive real-world legged robotics in industrial inspection, that showcased the advancements we had in my group. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Invited Talk at University of Southern California |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | An invited talk to PhD students about Cognitive Real-World robotics, that showcased the advancements we had in my group. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Invited Talk at University of Waterloo |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | An invited talk to PhD students about Cognitive Real-World robotics, that showcased the advancements we had in my group. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Invited Talk to the Royal Veterinary College in the UK |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | In brief: A multi-disciplinary invited talk at the RVC, titled "Robots with Legs & Arms: Cognition for Real-World Loco/Manipulation in Complex Environments", to target collaboration between animal researchers and roboticists. Impact: Grant proposal writing and collaboration on animal/robot study. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
Description | Invited lecture to the UCL Science Centre - School Outreach Lectures |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | In brief: each year, giving a talk about ``Real-World Legged Robots'' at UCL Science Centre lectures (the talk was sent to about 300 schools, with great engagement). Impact: several pupils contacted after the lecture (either via email or LinkedIn) to ask further info or questions on the related subject area. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/physics-astronomy/outreach/science-centre-lectures |
Description | Invited talk at Imperial College London |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | An invited talk to PhD students and Professors about Cognitive Real-World robotics, that showcased the advancements we had in my group. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://youtu.be/49Wb3XGryDo?si=fbrSGK-taWYB9kFc |
Description | Invited talk at Science Centre Lectures |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | An important online talk for schools about robotics and the advancements of my group in legged robots, that influences the direction of study for hundreds of pupils. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/physics-astronomy/outreach/science-centre-lectures |
Description | Invited talk at UCL Robotics Workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | A talk at the yearly organised workshop of robotics at UCL, with invited people from the unveristy and industry, where we also demonstrated our recent method on the legged robots to the public. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/robotics/events/2023/feb/ucl-robotics-23 |
Description | Invited talk for Newham CIEAG Network |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | A talk to school teachers about robotics and the development at UCL East and the local neighborhood in terms of automation and future works. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Invited talk for Spring into STEM 2.0 at UCL |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | 50 pupils attended for a talk about robotics in making a difference through engineering, which sparked questions and discussion afterwards, and the school reported increased interest in related subject areas. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023,2024 |
Description | Invited talk to 2023 UCL Robotics Workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
Results and Impact | In Brief: An invited talk about the UKRI FLF to academics and industry partners from all the UK, titled: "Robots with Legs & Arms: Cognition for Real-World Loco/Manipulation in Complex Environments". Impact: Engagement with industry, as well as outreaching to academics from other institution that work on similar topics. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/robotics/events/2023/feb/ucl-robotics-23 |
Description | Invited talk to UK-RAS Early-Career Seminar |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | In brief: UK-RAS Early-Career team invited Dr Kanoulas to share the path towards the UKRI FLF, and accept questions from early career academics that aim at similar paths. Impact: received several emails to help with early carer paths. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://youtu.be/9M8j87XMZac |
Description | Invited talk to University of Colorado at Boulder |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | In Brief: A PhD seminar talk about Cognitive Real-World Loco-Manipulation. Impact: Outreaching to international academics about our work resulted by the FLF and seek for collaborations. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Media coverage on the fellowship |
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 | In Brief: The UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship: RoboHike appeared to more than 30 newspapers, blogs, journals, online news, etc., including Telegraph and Yahoo!, while featured by UKRI and the UK Government itself. Impact: the news reached to all possible audiences and familiarised the UK and the world with the new type of robots that will help humans in real-world environments. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.gov.uk/government/news/next-generation-of-uk-science-leaders-backed-with-113-million-to-... |
Description | Mentors panel formation - Andrew Davison (ICL), Marc Deisenroth (UCL) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
Results and Impact | In brief: We formed a group of mentors for the fellowship, that are experts in various topics, including team management, research in the field of Machine Learning and Robotics, as well as formation of spin-offs. Impact: Initial discussions with the mentors, provided clear understanding of the good practices regarding the fellowship and helped with the formation of the working group and starting development of research methods. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
Description | Outreach Video for UCL-CS new MEng programma in Robotics and AI |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | A video about the new MEng programme of Robotics and AI at UCL with a focus to legged robots, attracting the interest of several students (500 applications were reported). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://youtu.be/pZQOAgESIcs?si=2ZaA8d382Fr3VEeI |
Description | Podcast Interview about the new IM@UCL |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | In brief: a podcast on "Robotics and Simulation: For or Against Humanity", promoting AI for Good and how robots can be beneficial in our society. Impact: change the view of people afraid of robots and the future with them. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://soundcloud.com/uclsound/ep-5-robotics-and-simulation-for-or-against-humanity |
Description | Railway Industry Association (RIA) Innovation Conference 2024 |
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 | This year, RIA introduced the "Future Focus Zone", a dedicated space within the conference aimed at highlighting groundbreaking innovations in fields like robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, virtual reality, and immersive technologies. Their goal is to spotlight the pioneering work being done in academic and research institutions, which might not typically be featured in a commercial exhibition setting. We were invited to demonstrae our work. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
URL | https://www.riagb.org.uk/RIA/Events/2024/RIC_2024/RIA_Innovation_Conference_2024.aspx |
Description | RoboHike Working Group |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | In brief: we have formed a group of research fellows, research assistants, PhD students, MSc students, and BSc/MEng students to work collaboratively on the project, by meeting monthly and solving one task at a time. Impact: Quick progress on the fellowship's goals and aims. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
Description | Robotic 3D Building news |
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 | In brief: several online news covered our work on 3D printing buildings Impact: excitement on the achievement showing proof of value for robots on the next generation. This led to discussions with Arup on funding a PhD student on the topic. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.fabbaloo.com/news/robotic-3d-print-research-shows-large-scale-possibilities |
Description | Robotics and Artificial Intelligence MEng Information Session |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | In brief: expert view from our Information Session webinar (Oct 2022) for our new undergraduate programme, launching Sept 2023. Impact: pupils showed high interest in robotics, with special focus to under-represented in engineering groups, e.g., female or black students. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://youtu.be/_LJqDmljw94 |
Description | Round Table Discussion to Greek Embassy in London |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | A round table discussion about the AI Revolution, with respect to practical capabilities and challenges, with several start-ups and academics being involved. It resulted to discussions over the future of AI with diverse audience. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-ai-revolution-opportunities-challenges-in-the-greek-ecosystem-tic... |
Description | School Visits |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | We have an extensive request for visits at the robotics lab at UCL East, to demonstrate the capabilities of our legged robots, with tens of Schools, industrial partners, and academics every week. This influences their decisions and view of robotics in the real world. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023,2024 |
Description | Scientific Advisors: Lourdes Agapito (UCL), Kostas Alexis (NTNU), Maren Bennewitz (Uni-Bonn), Enrico Mingo Hoffman (PAL Robotics), John Hutchinson (RVC), Simon Julier (UCL), Christopher Kilburn (UCL), Nikos Tsagarakis (IIT) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
Results and Impact | In brief: We formed a group of scientific advisors for the fellowship, that are experts in various topics, firstly to support the research and developments and secondly to foster further collaborations Impact: Initial discussions with the scientific advisors, regarding particular problems in the research resulted in to potential solutions. Moreover, we had collaboration initiatives with K. Alexis (mapping), J. Hutchinson (animal study and EPSRC grant proposal), and C. Kilburn (volcano inspection). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
Description | Summer School Organisation and Talk at Queen Mary University of London |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | The main organiser of a summer school in Robotics as a collaboration between the 4 big universities in London, UCL, QMUL, KCL, and ICL. This is yearly and in 2024 it will be at UCL, affecting the local research and industrial community. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023,2024 |
URL | https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dkanoulas_london-is-a-hub-in-robotics-and-thus-we-started-activity-71... |
Description | UCL AI Showcase |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Demo by our legged robots for the AI Showcase (November 2022). Audience included the UCL Provost and UCL Deans. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/faicdt/2022/11/04/cdt-students-shine-at-poster-showcase-event/ |
Description | UCL Gatsby and SWC (Sainbury Welcome Centre) Workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Every year, the UCL Gatsby and SWC (Sainbury Welcome Centre) PhD intake students participate in a 3-week bootcamp. During the bootcamp they unpack "blackboxes", i.e., everyday subsystems and concepts which we take for granted e.g., transistors, computer architecture, motors, sensors, control etc. The students spend the 3-weeks tinkering and interacting with these "blackboxes" and eventually build mobile robots with arduino's and raspberry pi's. At the end of the bootcamp, the robots are showcased to the entire institute. This year, the students are joined by the Go1 robot from UCL's Robohike project to play follow the leader. Here, the smaller robots will follow the larger Go1 robot around the room using bespoke infrared sensors. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
Description | UCL News Spotlight |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | In brief: a spotlight interview around the fellowship that was published at UCL. Impact: several emails about potential collaborations towards the fellowship's goals, including research and outreaching |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2022/aug/spotlight-dimitrios-kanoulas |
Description | UCL OVPA Case Study |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | An interview about my work with legged robots that would probably influence collaborators, industrial partners, and donor. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/giving/case-studies/2023/jun/ucl-east-dr-dimitrios-kanoulas-ukri-future-leader... |
Description | UCL Spotlight News |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | Spotlight interview to engage people with UK robotics and developments at UCL East. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2022/aug/spotlight-dimitrios-kanoulas |
Description | UCL-CS News Spotlight |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | tbc |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
URL | https://liveuclac.sharepoint.com/sites/ComputerScienceIntranet/SitePages/Staff-Spotlight.aspx |
Description | Visiting School at the UCL Science Museum - Demo |
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 | In brief: we ran some demos of our legged robots to ~50 pupils, as part of their visit to the Science Museum, to promote our research findings and the "AI for Good", also in order to consider Computer Science as their next field of study. Impact: pupils (female of under-represented groups) showed high interest in robotics and applying for computer science. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
URL | https://twitter.com/SBonnellSchool/status/1618998641544364032 |