Robots today are too specialised, poorly sensed, uncooperative, and unsafe to work productively alongside people at scale. This programme aims to build a new generation of autonomous robots that can sense, interpret, act, navigate, and collaborate with far greater acuity than current machines. The core problem is that existing robots cannot handle the variety of bespoke tasks needed in social care, manufacturing, logistics, service, inspection, or agriculture without constant human intervention. The researchers will focus on the fundamental science and engineering of embodied intelligence—the ability of robots to flexibly act, interact, and collaborate in the real world. They will develop robots that acquire sensing, perception, manipulation, navigation, and problem-solving abilities over their lifetime, allowing them to operate unaided while amplifying human productivity. If successful, this work could transform sectors where robots currently fall short, from care homes to factory floors, by making machines that genuinely collaborate rather than simply execute pre-programmed routines. The programme also aims to build a sustainable national centre of excellence, growing both the technology and the people needed for robust embodied intelligence.
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Our robots are too specialised, too impoverished in their sensing, too uncooperative and too unsafe to be productive at scale. To contribute to productivity in strategically important areas such as social care, manufacturing, logistics, service, inspection or agriculture, future generations of robots need to be able to sense, interpret, act, navigate, coordinate and collaborate with an hitherto unprecedented acuity. VISION: The overarching aim of this research programme is to deliver autonomous systems which amplify human capacity and potential. These robots must be capable of performing a broad array of bespoke tasks effectively, and with a minimum of operator intervention. In a sustainable national centre of excellence we will grow the technology and people substrate for robust embodied intelligence, i.e. the science and technology to enable robots to robustly and flexibly act, interact and collaborate in the real world. STRATEGY: Our focus is on engineering, exploring and exploiting the building blocks of integrated embodied intelligence to deliver autonomous systems which, over the course of their life-time, acquire the sensing, perception, manipulation, navigation, collaboration and problem solving abilities required to allow them to operate unaided while significantly enhancing human productivity. We will significantly expand the reach and versatility of robots in domains of strategic and commercial value by exploiting synergies across research disciplines, which only emerge when deploying robot systems. In doing so we are driven by both fundamental science questions and real-world applications. Together with our partners, we have a clear scope in mind: versatile, collaborative robots whose societal and economic footprint is vast. Our work will underpin a national strategic aim with a carefully considered and coherent programme of research: from sensing to collaboration.
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