Oxford Robotics Institute


The Oxford Robotics Institute is an interdisciplinary division within the University of Oxford. It is dedicated to researching robotics, artificial intelligence, systems engineering, and other related fields. The ORI is a subsidiary of the Department of Engineering Science.
Information engineering Professor Nick Hawes is the current director of the ORI.
𝕏 oxfordrobots

Sub-divisions (Labs)

The ORI is divided into six groups, each with a different specialisation.
  1. Mobile Robotics Group : navigation systems, autonomous vehicles. This group was previously headed by Paul Newman. Newman went on to found Oxbotica where he is the CTO.
  2. Applied AI Lab : artificial intelligence and machine learning.
  3. Dynamic Robot Systems Group : control, motion planning, mapping, and navigation for dynamically moving robots.
  4. Goal-Oriented Long-Lived Systems : long-term autonomy and planning for robots operating for long periods of time in uncertain dynamic environments.
  5. Soft Robotics Lab: explores how compliance in the robot body can be exploited for dealing with task and environment uncertainty and for interacting with humans.
  6. Neural Processing Lab: foundational neuroscience, machine learning methods development, and systems applications such as Brain Computer Interfaces.

Activities

Among the ORI's projects are various autonomous vehicles as a part of the Mobile Robotics Group's Robotcar project. There have been various iterations of the hardware and software used in these experiments. The first vehicle used as a research platform by the Mobile Robotics Group was a Bowler Wildcat provided by BAE Systems in 2011. Since then, various Land Rovers as well as other models have been used as subsequent generations of research platforms.