A University of Oxford research institute of about 100 people across several groups, building robots that drive, fly, grasp and inspect, and winner of a Queen's Anniversary Prize in 2023.
The Oxford Robotics Institute, or ORI, is part of the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford. It is a federation of research groups made up of researchers, engineers and students, working on robots that can fly, grasp, drive, run, inspect and explore. The university says about 100 people work in the institute across seven research groups, though its own website lists eight groups, so the number may be changing. Its themes include machine learning and AI, computer vision, perception, systems engineering and fabrication.
ORI says it aims to change what robots can do for us. According to the university, it grew from a single research group in 2003 and became an independent research institute in 2016. Professor Nick Hawes is its director. The university reports more than 380 field trials in places such as Icelandic volcanoes, the Atacama Desert and the JET fusion reactor, and more than 900 published papers. It also reports 22 patents, 70 licences and four start-up companies, though we did not find which companies they are. The Mobile Robotics Group, one of ORI's groups, is led by Professors Paul Newman and Ingmar Posner, who also founded the self-driving company Oxbotica, now Oxa.
ORI is based at the University of Oxford. We did not find a street address on the pages we read. Its projects include RobotCar, which the university describes as the first autonomous vehicle permitted on UK public roads, and navigation technology for the European Space Agency's Rosalind Franklin rover. It has also worked in the UK nuclear industry: a university page describes the Spot robot dog mapping a decommissioned nuclear reactor on its own, and the university says its work has influenced Sellafield and the UK Atomic Energy Authority. It takes part in the UKRI Robots for a Safer World programme.
In November 2023 the Institute won a Queen's Anniversary Prize, one of the UK's highest honours for universities, for its impact on autonomous robotics. The university says it has trained more than 120 PhD students, 40 postdoctoral researchers and 60 Master's students. Its website mentions regular seminars and lectures with local and visiting speakers, an industry membership programme, and an Athena Swan Bronze award held by the university. Its student quotes describe visits and demonstrations as chances to rethink their projects. These are the institute's and university's own descriptions.
People who work in a research institute like this are not only academics. There are research engineers who build and look after the robots, software developers, technicians, project and operations managers, and DPhil students, whose route in is mainly through Oxford graduate courses, including the MSc in Autonomous Robotics. Mathematics, computing, engineering and physics are the main starting subjects. The institute's own site has pages for people and for joining.
Website: ori.ox.ac.uk
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