Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL), the largest robotics laboratory of its type in the UK, has been formally opened by David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science.
The £1.65m laboratory – a partnership between the University of the West of England and the University of Bristol – is located at UWE's Frenchay campus and will be home to a community of 70 academics and businesses who are leading current thinking in nouvelle and service robotics, intelligent autonomous systems and bio-engineering.
Mr Willetts saw research projects such as CHRIS, a project on robot human interaction. Another, called energy autonomy is researching microbial fuel cell technology that extracts electrical energy from refined foods such as sugar while soft robots is a project developing artificial muscles and organs. Others include whiskers that take biological inspiration from rodents to design and build an active artificial whisker sensor system while another team is working on small unmanned air systems that can be used for urban search and rescue such as in collapsed buildings where further collapse is a risk, investigating potential chemical leaks in hazardous environments and by police or military personnel entering hostile buildings.
Mr Willetts said: “Robotics has a whole host of everyday applications, from helping our ageing population to improving manufacturing processes. Bristol Robotics Laboratory will bring together the best expertise from industry and the academic community to spearhead Britain’s efforts to be world leading in this fascinating and exciting area of science.”
Professor Chris Melhuish, director of BRL added: “We are on the threshold of an exciting new era in robotics in the UK and BRL is already making significant contributions in many areas. Our interdisciplinary research focuses on key areas of robot capabilities and applications ranging from human-robot interaction, medical robotics, soft robots with artificial muscles, giving robots a sense of touch to autonomous flying robots and robots that turn biomass into energy.
"By bringing together researchers including biologists, electronics and mechanical engineers, surgeons, psychologists, aerodynamicists, computer scientists, mathematicians, material scientists as well as industry we are able to explore new exciting areas of research and new applications which have an impact on new businesses. Our success is underpinned by the excellent staff that make up the BRL."
Mr Willetts was welcomed by UWE vice chancellor Professor Steven West and Professor David Clarke, deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Bristol. He also met representatives from industry, the European Commission and EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council).
Today's event underlines a report by HSBC last year that Bristol is on track to lead the rebalancing of British manufacturing over the next 20 years as an advanced manufacturing super-city. The bank's Future of Business Report identified Bristol – and its dynamic high-tech industrial base – as one of the UK's seven super-cities. The others are Brighton, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London and Newcastle.
