A Sheffield spin-out from the University of Sheffield that builds telepresence technology so a person can operate a robot from far away using virtual reality and touch feedback.
Cyberselves is a University of Sheffield spin-out company that works on telepresence, which means feeling as if you are in a different place. The University's news page says it combines cloud robotics, virtual reality and haptic technology, meaning technology that lets you feel touch, so that an operator sitting in a chair can control a robot somewhere else. The aim is to allow a person to do useful work through a robot in places that are far away or dangerous for people to enter. The potential uses listed by the University include disaster relief, healthcare, nuclear decommissioning, bomb disposal and offshore wind.
The company grew from a research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) at the University of Sheffield, with partners in Oxford and Barcelona. The project looked at how people's experience of being human changes in digital spaces such as social media and virtual reality, and it drew on psychology, computer science, cultural studies and philosophy. Sheffield's news page says Cyberselves was incorporated on 13 March 2020. Dr Michael Szollosy is named in a University article as the founder and chief operating officer, and he is also a research fellow at the University. We did not find a formal mission statement, so we have not made one up.
Cyberselves is based in Sheffield and connected to the University's Sheffield Robotics group. It joined a UK team with Edinburgh-based Touchlab, whose electronic skin was part of the robot setup, to reach the final of the ANA Avatar XPRIZE, a global contest with a $10 million prize pool. The team used a modified PAL Tiago robot, driven by an operator wearing VR equipment with touch feedback. They did not win the top prize but shared in a $2 million prize pot. Cyberselves also won UK innovation grant support, as the University's robotics news pages show.
The sources we read say little about working life at the company. Dr Szollosy told the University that the team learned a great deal over four years of the competition and that the technology's potential for real-world impact was "huge". Because it is a university spin-out, it is reasonable to expect close links with researchers and students at Sheffield, and its book and research work look at the human side of technology as well as the engineering. This is our reading of the sources, and the company's own site would say more.
In a small robotics start-up with this focus, the roles are likely to include software engineers who work with VR and robot control, robotics engineers, designers who care how a person experiences the system, researchers, and business staff who talk to customers in industries such as energy and healthcare. If you are interested in how people and robots can work together, it is a good example of a company that began in a university lab and tests its ideas in international competitions.
Website: www.cyberselves.com
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