Robotics facilities

Explore the facilities available to our robotics students
Robotics equipment
Our robotics facilities and specialist laboratories enable a hands-on approach to learning.
Based on the main city-centre campus , we have a number of different laboratories and robots on the upper two floors of the Smeaton building.
 

Robots used for teaching and student projects

Students on our robotics courses have use of both custom in-house and industrial robots during their studies. In addition, we have a range of robots and platforms that can us used for student projects, including robot dogs and drones.
The Mitsubishi robots are used to introduce students to high precision industrial robotics for pick and place tasks, although they are occasionally used for playing chess and for handling cloth for service robotics applications.
For learning control theory, in the 2nd year we have fifteen pole-balancing robots operated by microcontrollers, so students can experience a real-world application of control engineering.
We now have twenty-one Plymouth OWL robot – for stereo vision using Raspberry Pi computer board with twin OV5647 cameras. These link to host PCs for vision analysis and servo control. You will learn how to handle eye and neck servo control, and the OpenCV computation for stereo vergence, disparity and saccadic eye modelling for the third year and motion analysis for MSc Robotics .
To support robotic development, we offer rapid prototyping printers supporting PLA, ABS, Nylon, conductive elastomer and other materials, that are dedicated to robotics and electronic engineering students in our project laboratory. In addition, AutoCAD Fusion 360 design and Modelling software is available on over 30 workstations for our students. We also have additional mechanical workshop facilities including laser cutting.

Unitree Go2 robot outside Babbage building
6 x Unitree Go2 and 1 x Unitree Go2 robot dog

Quadruped robots featuring a lightweight yet robust structure. They are equipped with LIDAR for precise recognition and obstacle detection, enhancing their all-terrain capabilities, making them useful for agri-tech application
Robotriks RTU Platforms
3 x Robotriks RTU Platforms

Autonomous agricultural platforms that can be equipped with advanced robotic devices and AI to offer precision farming solutions, enhancing productivity and efficiency in agricultural operations
Robot Arm playing chess
5 x Mitsubishi arms

Industrial robots, used so students can learn robot programming for pick and place tasks
Plymouth OWL robot
Plymouth OWLs

Additional in-house built soft-robotics platform, used for teaching active vision for scene analysis and cognition
SoftBank Pepper
2 x 4ft tall semi-humanoid Pepper robots

Designed for interactive human engagement and equipped with speech recognition modules. This enables it to converse languages and maintain eye contact, making it well-suited for a variety of public assistance and social interaction roles
Pole Balancing Robots
12 x In-house built Pole Balancing Robots

Inverted pendulums, used to teach students aspects of control engineering and provide a microcontroller-controlled platform
 

Laboratories and robotic facilities used for research

Motor Learning and Robotics Lab

Research in the Motor Learning and Robotics Lab covers a range of periods in brain development as well as different motor systems: from the acquisition of speech in infants to the learning of novel arm movement in adults. We have designed and built a range of robotic interfaces which have facilitated research both in our laboratory and in groups in the UK and internationally. In addition, we run experiments with human participants to investigate and better understand the human sensorimotor system.
vbot
Bimanual Vbot robotic manipulandum
The vBOT is a custom-built back-drivable 2 degree of freedom planar robotic device.
3DOF robotic manipulandum arms
These includes a 3BOT manipulandum, as well as a smaller 3DOF manipulandum. The former is a extension of the VBOT manipulandum that operates in 3 dimensional space.
Worm-drive robotic arm
This is 3D printed 3DOF arm that is actuated using worm-drive motors.
Tendon co-contraction rig
This can be used to examine strategies to control and modulate the stiffness of a single link robot arm.
Inverted pendulum rig
These are more sophistically version of the inverted pendulums use for teaching.
 

SoAIR Laboratory

The SoAIR Laboratory laboratory focuses on different topics that combine multidisciplinary knowledge in robotics and AI, cognitive science, and computational linguistics.
iCub robot
Baxter Robot
A two-armed robot with an animated screen that is capable of grasping objects during human-robot collaboration.
Pepper Robot
A humanoid robot used in different applications like education and entertainment.
ICub Robot
A full humanoid robot capable of grasping objects and interacting with people and the environment. It is an ideal platform for related research to embodied cognition.
 

Centre of Research excellence in Intelligent and Sustainable Productive Systems (CRISPS)

CRISPS brings together a vibrant community of transdisciplinary researchers, working towards addressing the challenge of sustainably feeding a global population of 9 billion.
We work with regional farmers to prototype low-cost robotics solutions and are driving innovation in controlled environment research with industrial partners.
The ReCon Soil project brings together scientists, industry and educators to revolutionise how construction waste materials are managed. The team are developing novel ways to deploy soil sensors via an agricultural robotic platform, enabling semi-autonomous soil monitoring.
Robotriks