A joint robotics research centre of UWE Bristol and the University of Bristol, with more than 450 researchers and industry practitioners working on robots that help people.
Bristol Robotics Laboratory, usually called BRL, is a place where people build and study robots. It is run jointly by two universities, UWE Bristol and the University of Bristol, and it describes itself as a UK academic centre for multidisciplinary robotics research. Its website says more than 450 academics, researchers and industry practitioners work there, in over 4,600 square metres of facilities. The work covers a wide range: smart automation, robots that work alongside people, drones (unmanned aerial vehicles), driverless cars, swarms of simple robots that cooperate, robots that help with everyday living, medical and rehabilitation robots, machine vision and soft, squashy robots.
BRL was announced in a December 2005 press release as a partnership between the two universities, due to open in 2006 at Bristol Business Park. Professor Chris Melhuish of UWE was named as its director, and the aim was to create intelligent, independent robots that work with people, for example as care assistants for older people, as advanced prosthetics or as cleaning robots for hazardous jobs. The centre's stated mission today is to understand the science, engineering and social role of robotics and embedded intelligence. It also publishes a Code of Conduct on Applications of Robotics, which shows how seriously it takes the question of what robots should and should not do.
BRL is in Bristol, in the South West of England. Its facilities include mechanical workshops, wet labs, rapid prototyping, an ambient assisted living studio that looks like a home, a flying arena for drones, a 16,000 litre test pool for underwater work and Vicon 3D positioning systems that track movement precisely. The lab also coordinates the West of England Robotics Network and links to the Robotics Adoption Hub for the South West.
The laboratory brings together academics, researchers and industry practitioners. Its website describes a Technology Business Incubator and a Robotics Innovation Facility, which help companies test ideas, and a Hardware Incubator. It hosts conferences and competitions and works with trade associations. Past government officials quoted on its site praise it as a world-leading link between lab research and commercial development. These are claims from the centre and its supporters, not something we have checked independently.
Jobs in a place like this include research scientists and engineers, technicians who run the workshops and test areas, software developers, people who manage projects and industry partnerships, and staff who run events and education programmes. BRL hosts an EPSRC-funded doctoral training centre in robotics and autonomous systems, a doctoral programme called FARSCOPE, and offers undergraduate and Masters teaching and internships through its two universities. Engineering, computer science and physics are typical starting subjects.
Website: www.bristolroboticslab.com
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