Birmingham Extreme Robotics Lab (ERL)

Our mission is to pursue cutting-edge multi-disciplinary Robotics and AI (RAI) research and apply these methods to real-world engineering problems. In so doing, we aim to benefit end-user stakeholders spanning a range of critical industries.

Our thesis is that real industrial problems, of major societal and economic importance, offer extremely complex intellectual and technical challenges, requiring new research advances that extend well beyond the current state-of-the-art in RAI theory and practice.

The roots of our lab and team originated in our international track record of developing advanced robotics for nuclear and other “extreme” environments, where complex tasks must be performed in zones that are too hazardous for human workers. This includes a number of landmark deployments and world-first achievements of advanced autonomous robotics on nuclear sites.

However, our research advances are in RAI fundamentals. These are generic and widely applicable to numerous other types of industries and applications.

We are always keen to explore new topics and research challenges with new partners from industry and academia.

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