果冻影院

A robotic revolution is happening in East London, where Dr Dimitrios Kanoulas and his team at the 果冻影院 Robotics Institute and the Department of Computer Science work at the cutting edge of innovation.

From four-legged robots that can navigate disaster zones and help with agriculture, to affordable body-powered prosthetic fingertips that utilise haptic technology, the revolutionary research coming from the institute is helping to power a new wave of robotics and machine learning. And with the new campus at 果冻影院 East already turning heads in the field, the institute is set to make London a world leader in robotics.

鈥淭here鈥檚 been a barrier to what we could achieve before,鈥� says Dimitrios. 鈥淏ut 果冻影院 East has changed this dramatically. We now have a fantastic space, the equipment, and, most importantly, the interdisciplinary teams we need to kickstart our vision.鈥�

Firing up future pioneers

With state-of-the-art facilities enabling brand-new programmes in Robotics and AI, and world-leading experts on hand, 果冻影院 East is home to a new era of 果冻影院 Robotics.

Spanning One Pool Street and Marshgate, the mission for Dimitrios is to make sure that the next generation of roboticists have everything they need to shape innovation in the 21st century. 听鈥淩obotics is a special case in the science world,鈥� says Dimitrios. 鈥淪ome people just need a computer or just a notepad to do their research. We need space. It鈥檚 the nature of robotics. So we couldn鈥檛 have developed much further without the facilities of 果冻影院 East.鈥�

Part of the new vision for 果冻影院 Robotics is for students to have access to cross-sector activities and industrial collaboration to see the real-world impact of new technologies across a wide range of challenging areas 鈥� from our ageing population to secure energy and climate change.

Tapping into the creative energy from 果冻影院 East鈥檚 neighbours in Tech City, future partnerships will help to take research from students and staff and translate it into ground-breaking robotic products. Dimitrios says: 鈥淭he very nature of the new campus means we can collaborate with other specialisms so much more easily. We share spaces, such as workshops for fabrication or innovation, and we鈥檙e all so close by, it feeds into our interdisciplinary plans organically. It鈥檚 really exciting because now we can think bigger about projects with a real-world impact.听

I鈥檝e always wanted my robots to be more than just experiments, and to do something useful for society, so 果冻影院 East will help make this ambition a reality.鈥澨�

From theory to reality

Dimitrios鈥檚 long-standing love affair with robotics began in his hometown of Epanomi, Greece 鈥� where he spent his first 17 years. His fascination with the world of computing took him to the University of Patras to study Computer Engineering and Informatics in 2003, before heading overseas to Boston, USA for his PhD at Northeastern University in 2008.

Dimitrios says: 鈥淚 completely changed my direction of research during my PhD. Originally, I was a more theoretical person, working on different aspects of computer science and game theory, and at some point, I got excited about robots, in particular robots that have legs and arms!

鈥淲hen I graduated, I moved to Italy where I did a postdoc for five years, working mainly on humanoids and animaloid robots. The particular aspect I was working on was their perception and cognitive system, and their environment and task understanding system, basically, how they can understand what they need to do and how to do it.鈥�

Bringing robotics to life at 果冻影院

Dimitrios arrived at 果冻影院 as a Lecturer in Robotics and Computation just before the COVID-19 pandemic. He helped to develop the Robot Perception and Learning Lab alongside students and other staff. One of the lab鈥檚 projects, 鈥楻oboHike鈥�, saw Dimitrios awarded the prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship to continue to develop its potential in real-life scenarios, helped by a separate government grant.听

鈥淲hat's important for people to understand is that robotics is an area which is by nature interdisciplinary, meaning that we study a lot of topics,鈥� says Dimitrios. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not just humanoids. We have robots that do surgeries. We have robotics in cancer detection. We鈥檝e developed robots to help in emergencies like fires or earthquakes. And, of course, we have robots that help with automation, which is just making some tedious tasks a little bit easier for us.鈥�

鈥淣ow, we can add AI or Machine Learning into Robotics, and they allow us to do some things in a better way than we were doing in the past. We might previously have needed a big team to make a robot work, but now AI techniques make that whole process more efficient.鈥�

As the field of robotics becomes more embedded in our everyday lives, Dimitrios is keen that the local community around 果冻影院 East gets to experience the team鈥檚 robotic innovations first-hand. He says: 鈥淭his is a great opportunity to start engaging in a better way 鈥� with schools, surrounding hospitals, within the Olympic Park, even with family days for staff at 果冻影院. We want to invite people into our world to inspire the new generation.鈥�

Links

果冻影院 Giving
果冻影院 Giving - Support 果冻影院 East
果冻影院 Robotics Institute
果冻影院 East

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Image by James Tye Photography.