Robots vs animals: Learning from the ingenuity of nature. Final summary report

‘Robots vs Animals’ was a creative collaboration between engineers and zoologists, exploring the ingenuity of both nature and humankind. The project was organised and managed by the Science Communication Unit at the University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE), and funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious Awards. The project communicated the stories of the engineering design process taken by Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) engineers to create biologically inspired robots. Interactive sessions at Bristol Zoo Gardens and other public venues and events featured engineers and zoologists explaining and demonstrating the skills and processes of their respective charges

Adaptive cancelation of self-generated sensory signals in a whisking robot

Sensory signals are often caused by one's own active movements. This raises a problem of discriminating between self-generated sensory signals and signals generated by the external world. Such discrimination is of general importance for robotic systems, where operational robustness is dependent on the correct interpretation of sensory signals. Here, we investigate this problem in the context of a whiskered robot. The whisker sensory signal comprises two components: one due to contact with an object (externally generated) and another due to active movement of the whisker (self-generated). We propose a solution to this discrimination problem based on adaptive noise cancelation, where the robot learns to predict the sensory consequences of its own movements using an adaptive filter. The filter inputs (copy of motor commands) are transformed by Laguerre functions instead of the often-used tapped-delay line, which reduces model order and, therefore, computational complexity. Results from a contact-detection task demonstrate that false positives are significantly reduced using the proposed scheme

Towards the Safety of Human-in-the-Loop Robotics: Challenges and Opportunities for Safety Assurance of Robotic Co-Workers

The success of the human-robot co-worker team in a flexible manufacturing environment where robots learn from demonstration heavily relies on the correct and safe operation of the robot. How this can be achieved is a challenge that requires addressing both technical as well as human-centric research questions. In this paper we discuss the state of the art in safety assurance, existing as well as emerging standards in this area, and the need for new approaches to safety assurance in the context of learning machines. We then focus on robotic learning from demonstration, the challenges these techniques pose to safety assurance and indicate opportunities to integrate safety considerations into algorithms "by design". Finally, from a human-centric perspective, we stipulate that, to achieve high levels of safety and ultimately trust, the robotic co-worker must meet the innate expectations of the humans it works with. It is our aim to stimulate a discussion focused on the safety aspects of human-in-the-loop robotics, and to foster multidisciplinary collaboration to address the research challenges identified

AI ethics from the ground up: cultivating interdisciplinary capabilities (for care)

Interdisciplinary research has led to significant breakthroughs in the fields of AI, robotics and autonomous systems. Yet it has also been the basis of significant controversies. Cambridge Analytica and Facebook's amalgam of psychographics, data science and engineering at scale being perhaps the most infamous recent example. Despite continued promotion from research funders, it should be clear then that interdisciplinary research is not in itself an uncontested good. This presentation aims to explore the political and ethical dimensions of interdisciplinary research practices in the fields of AI, robotics and autonomous systems. Following a human capabilities approach and using mixed-methods, we locate and map a set of research capabilities valued by researchers at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory. This prompts a discussion on what it means to consider ethics of AI, not from a set of normative statements, but as practiced on the ground

Whisking with robots from rat vibrissae to biomimetic technology for active touch

This article summarizes some of the key features of the rat vibrissal system, including the actively controlled sweeping movements of the vibrissae known as whisking, and reviews the past and ongoing research aimed at replicating some of this functionality in biomimetic robots

Environmental Hazard Analysis - a Variant of Preliminary Hazard Analysis for Autonomous Mobile Robots

© 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. Robot manufacturers will be required to demonstrate objectively that all reasonably foreseeable hazards have been identified in any robotic product design that is to be marketed commercially. This is problematic for autonomous mobile robots because conventional methods, which have been developed for automatic systems do not assist safety analysts in identifying non-mission interactions with environmental features that are not directly associated with the robot’s design mission, and which may comprise the majority of the required tasks of autonomous robots. In this paper we develop a new variant of preliminary hazard analysis that is explicitly aimed at identifying non-mission interactions by means of new sets of guidewords not normally found in existing variants. We develop the required features of the method and describe its application to several small trials conducted at Bristol Robotics Laboratory in the 2011–2012 period

Image-Based Robotic System for Enhanced Minimally Invasive Intra-Articular Fracture Surgeries

Abstract: Robotic assistance can bring significant improvements to orthopedic fracture surgery: facilitate more accurate fracture fragment repositioning without open access and obviate problems related to the current minimally invasive fracture surgery techniques by providing a better clinical outcome, reduced recovery time, and health-related costs. This paper presents a new design of the robot-assisted fracture surgery (RAFS) system developed at Bristol Robotics Laboratory, featuring a new robotic architecture, and real-time 3D imaging of the fractured anatomy. The technology presented in this paper focuses on distal femur fractures, but can be adapted to the larger domain of fracture surgeries, improving the state-of-the-art in robot assistance in orthopedics. To demonstrate the enhanced performance of the RAFS system, 10 reductions of a distal femur fracture are performed using the system on a bone model. The experimental results clearly demonstrate the accuracy, effectiveness, and safety of the new RAFS system. The system allows the surgeon to precisely reduce the fractures with a reduction accuracy of 1.15 mm and 1.3°, meeting the clinical requirements for this procedure

Preliminary analysis of force-torque measurements for robot-assisted fracture surgery

© 2015 IEEE. Our group at Bristol Robotics Laboratory has been working on a new robotic system for fracture surgery that has been previously reported [1]. The robotic system is being developed for distal femur fractures and features a robot that manipulates the small fracture fragments through small percutaneous incisions and a robot that re-aligns the long bones. The robots controller design relies on accurate and bounded force and position parameters for which we require real surgical data. This paper reports preliminary findings of forces and torques applied during bone and soft tissue manipulation in typical orthopaedic surgery procedures. Using customised orthopaedic surgical tools we have collected data from a range of orthopaedic surgical procedures at Bristol Royal Infirmary, UK. Maximum forces and torques encountered during fracture manipulation which involved proximal femur and soft tissue distraction around it and reduction of neck of femur fractures have been recorded and further analysed in conjunction with accompanying image recordings. Using this data we are establishing a set of technical requirements for creating safe and dynamically stable minimally invasive robot-assisted fracture surgery (RAFS) systems