Robots and swarms being demonstrated tomorrow

ALIFE XI, hosted by the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science, is at the University of Winchester’s West Downs Campus. Roke Manor says its robot demonstration, including DORA (demonstration of robot autonomy) technology, will take place at 5.30pm tomorrow. DORA is a synthesis of Roke’s expertise in autonomous systems, AI, sensor exploitation, vision systems, tracking, navigation and SLAM (simultaneous location and mapping). It enables the robot to explore dark and dangerous environments. Roke says that DORA is designed to build up 3D information about objects and obstacles in its way, using vision processing. Also on display will be a team of the world’s cheapest swarm robots, developed and built by students at the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS). The university says these robots can be produced for as little as £24 each, and envisages swarms of up to 500 for use in disaster scenarios as well as space exploration. Meanmwhile, visitors will also see self-assembling robots, from the Free University of Brussels, controlled by neural networks that dynamically assign their own roles in a team.