Keynotes

Thierry Lecomte – From Safe Rails to Autonomous Realms

Thierry Lecomte presents CLEARSY’s journey from safety-critical railway automation to broader applications in autonomous mobility. Drawing from global deployments of automatic train systems, we show how railways function as large-scale robotic systems with embedded autonomy, localization, and fail-safe mechanisms. We then explore CLEARSY’s innovations in ground,aerial, and underwater autonomy, highlighting shared challenges in navigation, sensor fusion, and environment interaction. The role of advanced sensors, robust hardware, and formal modeling is emphasized across all domains. A core theme is the integration of safety, verification, and validation into robotics design—rooted in CLEARSY’s railway experience. The talk also addresses the transition from deterministic systems to complex, uncertain environments, proposing cross-domain methodologies for trustworthy autonomy. By bridging industry and research, CLEARSY supports the development of safe, deployable autonomous technologies. This keynote invites collaboration to ensure that the next generation of robotic systems is as safe as it is intelligent.​

Thierry Lecomte has a background in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. He also has 30 years of experience in R&D, having worked on industrial projects in the automotive, healthcare, microelectronics, nuclear energy, railway and space industries. Today he is R&D director of CLEARSY, a French SME specialized in the invention of safety critical systems, where he has worked since its creation in 2001. His current subjects of interest are safety and security co-engineering, safe artificial intelligence, and automatic/autonomous mobility – all related to formal methods.​

Sabine Hauert – Nano to Macro: Building Trustworthy Swarms for People

Building on 20 years of progress, swarm robotics is now ready to enable out-of-the-box solutions in real-world environments that adapt, scale,and are robust. To enable this, we propose a shift towards trustworthy swarms with emergent properties that are easy to design, monitor, control, and validate by humans. At the nano scale,these swarms can interface with the body, enabling applications in cancer treatment, wound healing or tissue engineering. At the macro scale, future swarms will leverage AI, integrate advanced local perception, and share information not only locally but also quasi-globally. Ultimately, we envision a future where specialised robots operate with shared situational awareness, coexisting and coordinating seamlessly in environments such as construction sites, farms, logistics hubs, and natural ecosystems. The goal is to foster an ecosystem where next-generation robots collaborate with each other—and with humans—at scale.​

Sabine Hauert is Professor of Swarm Engineering at University of Bristol. She leads a team of 20 researchers working on making swarms for people, and across scales, from nano robots for cancer treatment, to larger robots for environmental monitoring, or logistics (https://hauertlab.com/). Before joining the University of Bristol, Sabine engineered swarms of nano particles for cancer treatment at MIT, and deployed swarms of flying robots at EPFL. She’s PI or Co-I on more than 40M GBP in grant funding and has served on national and international committees, including the UK Robotics Growth Partnership, the Royal Society Working Group on Machine Learning, and several IEEE boards. She is on the board of directors of the Open Source Robotics Foundation and is Executive Trustee of non-profits robohub.org and aihub.org, which connect the robotics and AI communities to the public.
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Yiannis Demiris – Personal Assistive Robots

Yiannis Demiris will present the Personal Robotics Lab’s research on robots that perceive human sensorimotor and cognitive states through multimodal sensors, learn about their skills and intentions, and personalise how the robots will assist their users. He will present the algorithmic foundations of such assistive systems, from perception to deformable object manipulation, along with number examples from assisting users with their mobility, object handovers, and activities of daily living, including dressing, cooking, feeding and hygiene.

Yiannis Demiris is a Professor in Human-Centred Robotics at the department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Imperial College London, where he holds the Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies (Personal Assistive Robots). He is doing research in computational and robotic systems that use active perception, machine learning, and user modelling for learning from and collaborating with humans. He directs the Personal Robotics Laboratory where an energetic group of researchers are investigating computational algorithms and robotic devices that will improve the physical, cognitive and social well-being of humans.

Dejanira Araiza Illan – Robotics and automation from the lab to industrial deployments: challenges and opportunities

Global supply chains across different industries are subject to emerging challenges due to the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity of the world we live in. Robotic and automation solutions powered by artificial intelligence and multi-faceted software stacks on one hand, and powerful hardware on the other, promise to offer increased agility and resilience in manufacturing and logistics. As smarter robots are created aiming to take over difficult tasks currently performed by human operators, the challenges to deploy these robots in industrial environments are increasing too. Hence, how do we successfully achieve the scaling up of robots from laboratory environments into industrial deployments?

This talk will start with an overview of technological trends in robotics for supply chain applications. Then, we will reflect on the most pressing challenges when deploying automation technologies in a diverse range of industries, from fast moving to highly regulated. Finally, opportunities to address these challenges will be highlighted, to open room for inspiration in the development of the next generation of robotics solutions.

Dejanira Araiza Illan is an Associate Director in Business Transformation & Innovation at the Clinical Supply Chain, Johnson & Johnson. In her previous role at J&J, she supporting projects exploring Smart Manufacturing technologies across Innovative Medicine and MedTech, as part of the Enterprise Supply Chain Excellence and the Strategy, Innovation & Deployment teams. Prior to that, she worked as Scientist and Software Developer at the ROS-Industrial Consortium Asia Pacific and the Advanced Remanufacturing and Technology Centre at A*STAR, in Singapore. She also contributed to the UK R&D projects RIVERAS and ROBOSAFE, on trustworthy robotic assistants and engineering reliable autonomous systems, at the University of Bristol. She holds a PhD in Automatic Control and Systems Engineering by the University of Sheffield, UK. Her professional interests include digital innovation, smart packaging, smart manufacturing technologies, industrial advanced robotic applications, software engineering, artificial intelligence,  and autonomous systems.

Jon Timmis – Robots kept it real

Being an academic is a great job, you get to work on interesting and challenging problems, educate the next generation and make a difference.  In this talk, i will discuss working with robots as part of my academic journey and what it means from an academic perspective in terms of a career, bringing in examples of how working with robots helped me engage in all sorts of ways with interesting industries and allowed for a career to develop.  As my PhD supervisor said “robots help keep things real”, and he was right (though my own PhD was not in robotics!).

Professor Jon Timmis took up the position of Vice-Chancellor of Aberystwyth University on 1st January 2024. Previously he was the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Commercial) at the University of Sunderland. Jon is a previous recipient of a Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award and a Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellowship. Graduating in Computer Science from Aberystwyth University, Jon left following the completion of his PhD in computer science to become a lecturer at the University of Kent in 2000, moving to the University of York as a Reader in 2005. He was promoted to Professor in 2008. Following a period of Head of Department of the Electronic Engineering Department, he became Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Partnerships and Knowledge Exchange and then moved to University of Sunderland as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Commercial).

Jon’s research is at the cross-over between computer science, maths, engineering and biology. Jon has developed new ways to modelling immune system response, with a focus on the reduction of the use of animals in research, which aided therapeutic design and treatments. He has also worked on various robotic systems, from swarm robotic systems, to using artificial evolutionary approaches to design and control, and most recently looking into the development of software engineering techniques for robotic systems.

Lucy Wheeler – The Royal Academy of Engineering support for professionals in Autonomous Robotic Systems

The Royal Academy of Engineering is the UK’s national academy for engineering and technology. It delivers public benefit through our flagship products: Research & Invention Programmes, the Enterprise Hub, Engineering X, the National Engineering Policy Centre, and the new Skills Centre. These initiatives support our three goals to support a Sustainable and innovative economy, Technology that improves lives and an Engineering community fit for the future.  Our key strength is in our convening power to engage engineers with industry, investors, policy makers and educators underpinned by our values:

  • Progressive leadership
  • Equity, diversity and inclusion
  • Excellence for impact
  • Collaboration first
  • Creativity & innovation

Through our Research and Invention Fellowships the Academy backs visionary leaders developing transformative technologies with a strong and distinctive ability to effectively link engineering academic research with industry needs. Schemes such as the Chair in Emerging Technologies, Research Chairs and Research Fellowships are among our high-profile schemes that support innovation in AI, robotics, and deep tech. The Academy’s new Skills Centre combines our current skills and EDI programmes and has ambitious plans to accelerate and transform the engineering skills landscape, working with partner organisations and industry to support large-scale upskilling and reskilling, with a focus on underrepresented groups. We aim to support over 1,000 scholarships and 2,500 placements in the next five and we are committed to expand talent pipelines and inclusive training in Robotics and AI professionals. The Academy’s Enterprise Hub supports high-potential engineering startups, including those in autonomous systems.  With hubs across the UK and programmes that have a global reach, the Hub has helped raise £3.4bn and create 5,600 jobs in its 10-year existence. The National Engineering Policy Centre provides independent, systems-based advice to government. It shapes regulation and public understanding of technologies like AI and robotics and promotes responsible innovation.  Our international programmes such as Engineering X support our diplomacy to create equitable global collaborations.

Dr Lucy Wheeler is head of the Research Programme team at the Royal Academy of Engineering. Through our Research and Invention Fellowships the Academy supports visionary leaders developing transformative technologies with a strong and distinctive ability to effectively link engineering academic research with industry needs. Providing distinctive long-term funding, training, mentorship and support to advance knowledge and inventions to improve lives. She has been working to support researchers and innovators for almost 15 years. Her skills and experience in these areas have led to opportunities to share learnings and knowledge with practitioners and policymakers within the UK and beyond.

Kaiqiang Zhang – Unconscious bias or not? – a personal observation on what real research job does at a university or an institute

This talk is given by Dr Kaiqiang Zhang, who is a principal robotic researcher at the UK Atomic Energy Authority. The talk will share his personal observations on the day-to-day activities for an academic or a researcher at a university or a research institute, respectively. Zhang would share his research and development experiences in delivering commercial contracts, research council projects, contract tendering processes, and so on. He would also share common expectations on a PhD or early career researcher who wants to enter a research career beyond academia.

Kaiqiang Zhang (CEng, PhD, MIEEE, MIET) is the Robotics Research Portfolio Manager taking care of technical aspects for robotic research projects and a Principal Researcher with the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) with over 10 years of experience in developing robotic systems in challenging environments, like, vacuum, thermally stressful, nuclear environments, etc. Zhang received his B.Eng. degree in Automatic Control from the Xi’an Jiaotong University in 2012, his M.Sc. (dist.) degree in Advanced Engineering Robotics and Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Bristol, in 2013 and 2019, respectively. He led the control system development for robotic systems in microelectronics production machines, irradiated operation environments, and simulated low-earth orbit conditions from 2014 to 2019. Since 2020, he has been with the UKAEA. He has designed various robotic control systems for maintaining ITER, the world’s largest fusion experiment device being built internationally, in high-irradiated areas, like vacuum ports. Zhang was leading the control development for long-reach mechanisms in LongOps, motivated to enable deploy a very long-reach slender robotic manipulator via a narrow port into high-unstructured post-accidental environments. He is a member of IFAC Industrial Committee, and IEEE Nanotechnology Council. His work has been recognised as various conference and journal awards. Zhang has been invited to give talks by IET, IEEE societies, and universities.

Rich Walker – Designing robot hands to survive real world use cases

The Shadow Robot Company is known for developing high-dexterity robot hands for robotics research. In recent years we have also been working on new hands designed to tolerate high levels of abuse so they can support machine learning, which require different approaches to design, sensing and actuation. This talk will explain a few of these.