Claire chatted to Emma Hart from Edinburgh Napier University about algorithms that 'evolve' better robot designs and control systems.

Emma Hart is a computer scientist working in the field of evolutionary computation. Her work takes inspiration from the natural world, in particular biological evolution, and uses this to develop algorithms that 'evolve' both the design and control systems of a robot, customised to a specific application. She was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2022, and was awarded the ACM SIGEVO Award for Outstanding Contribution to Evolutionary Computation in 2023. She was invited to give a TED Talk on her work in 2021 that has over 1.8 million views.

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Claire chatted to Will Kinghorn from Made Smarter about how to increase adoption of new tech by small manufacturers.

Will Kinghorn is an automation and robotics specialist for the Made Smarter Adoption Programme in the UK. With a background as a chartered manufacturing engineer in the aerospace industry, Will has extensive experience in developing and implementing automation and robotic solutions. He now works with smaller manufacturing companies, assessing their needs, identifying suitable technologies, and guiding them through the adoption process. Last year he released a book called 'Digital Transformation in Your Manufacturing Business - A Made Smarter Guide’.

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Claire chatted to Miranda Lowther from the University of Bristol about soft, sensitive electronic skin for prosthetic limbs.

Miranda Lowther is a PhD researcher at the FARSCOPE-TU Centre for Doctoral Training, a joint venture between University of Bristol, University of West of England, and Bristol Robotics Laboratory, where she is pursuing her passion for using soft robotics and morphological computation to help people in healthcare. For her PhD, she is investigating how soft e-skins and morphological computation concepts can be used to improve prosthetic user health, comfort, and quality of life, through sensing and adaptation.

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Claire chatted to Jeremy Hadall from the Satellite Applications Catapult about robotic systems for in-orbit servicing, assembly, and manufacturing.

Jeremy Hadall has worked with robotics for his entire career, developing novel and innovative approaches for manufacturing and logistics industries. He's now turned his experience into the development of robots that enable those tasks in the orbital environment. Prior to joining the Satellite Applications Catapult, he served as Chief Engineer for Intelligent Automation at the Manufacturing Technology Centre for over ten years. He has previously served as a Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor at Cranfield University.

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Claire chatted to Tanja Katharina Kaiser from the University of Technology Nuremberg about how applying evolutionary principles can help robot teams make better decisions.

Tanja Katharina Kaiser is a senior researcher heading the Multi-Robot Systems Satellite Lab at the University of Technology Nuremberg (UTN) in Germany. She and her team focus on the development of adaptive multi-robot systems to solve complex real-world tasks using artificial intelligence. Tanja received her doctorate in robotics from the University of Lübeck in Germany in 2022. Before joining UTN, she held postdoctoral research positions at the Technical University of Dresden and the University of Konstanz.

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Claire chatted to Benjamin Mottis from ANYbotics about deploying their four-legged ANYmal robot in a variety of industries.

Benjamin Mottis is a Robotics Engineer in charge of ANYmal Research at ANYbotics. After graduating in robotics from EPFL, he joined ANYbotics as a Field Engineer in 2023. He specializes in deploying ANYmal and training customers across all ANYbotics verticals (Oil & Gas, Nuclear, Metals, Chemicals, etc.). Since 2024, as the Global Research Community Manager, he has been working on expanding the ANYmal Research Community and helping world-leading researchers push the boundaries of robotics with ANYmal.

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Claire chatted to Josie Gotz from the Manufacturing Technology Centre about robotics for material recovery, reuse and recycling.

Josie Gotz is a Senior Research Engineer in the Intelligent Robotics Team at the Manufacturing Technology Centre, she works as the technical lead on a variety of robotics and automation projects from research and development through to integration across a wide variety of manufacturing sectors. She specialises in creating innovative solutions for these industries, combining vision systems and artificial intelligence to build flexible automation systems. Josie has a particular interest in automated disassembly for material recovery, reuse and recycling.

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Claire chatted to Kaspar Althoefer from Queen Mary University of London about soft robotic manipulators for healthcare and manufacturing.

Kaspar Althoefer is Director of the Centre for Advanced Robotics at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). His research focuses on soft robotics, tactile perception, intelligent manipulation, and machine learning techniques for sensor signal interpretation. His research advancements have significant applications in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery, rehabilitation, assistive technologies, and human-robot interactions within a range of scenarios, including manufacturing. Before joining QMUL, he was a Professor at King's College London, where he also earned his PhD.

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