"Driven by mobile autonomy: an enabling technology of the future" - Professor Paul Newman from the University of Oxford.

Paul Newman, Professor of Information Engineering at the University of Oxford and lead for the Oxford Mobile Robtics Group (MRG), presented the lecture at Imperial College on 11^th March.

Professor Newman presented a vision of the future where robots and robotic machines will become ubiquitous in our world. Central to achieving this will be seeing vision, the ability for those machines to perceive and understand the space in which they operate, to know their position accurately and reliably within that space and to be able to assess the risks inherent when moving in an environment filled with humans, normal urban clutter and other robots.

The Oxford MRG specialises in autonomous - driverless cars. The move towards computerised driver assistance and finally self-driving cars seems inevitable. Professor Newman described the challenges facing the development of these advances, the use of lasers for detailed and collaborative mapping of the road environment and computer vision techniques to locate the robot in that environment. The challenges of working out what is movable and transient against what is permanent in the view of a place and operating under ever changing conditions - bright sunlight or night time, noon or dusk, dry or wet, fog or snow, all represent the formidable technical hurdles being addressed. These form the basis of "experience based navigation", an approach to automated driving that Newman believes will be responsive to local conditions and robust in operation.   

Peter Lindsay was a distinguished alumnus of the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department at Imperial College who died in 2006. He was Emeritus Professor at King’s College London and Research Professor at Queen Mary University of London, and was noted for his contributions to microwave device theory, quantum electronics and the application of lasers in engineering.

The annual lecture, hosted and organised by Professor Robert Spence, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, was set up in his name to invite eminent speakers to discuss developments in their field which are enhancing the knowledge and understanding of scientists and researchers at the forefront of tackling challenges. 

Our thanks to Dr Mark Witkowski for this summary