Towards internet of robotic things

Internet of Things, Machine Learning and Robotics are high priorities for developers in 2016. The concept of the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) (ABI Research) has been raised by integrating the three priorities, where intelligent devices can monitor events, fuse sensor data from a variety of sources, use local and distributed “intelligence” to determine a best course of action, and then act to control or manipulate objects in the physical world, and in some cases while physically moving through that world. It will also examine the many ways IoT technologies and robotic “devices” intersect to provide advanced robotic capabilities, along with novel applications, and by extension, new business, and investment opportunities.



The PhD programme aims to train the next generation of innovators in the growing field of IoT enabled Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS), one of the UK’s Eight Great Technologies for future growth.



Two PhD opportunities will be available for exploring the two research topics:

(1) Online adaptive machine learning for robotic self-learning for industry applications

The objective of this research is to develop high-performance self-learning algorithms on robots to adapt to the uncertain environment and/or dynamic tasks.

(2) IoT enabled robotic learning for collective decision making

The objective of this research is to develop cloud platform to collect information from distributed robots, and make online data fusion for collective decision making.



This PhD programme provides students explore the latest technical trends and challenges in robotics, and it will enhance the student’s ability to tackle complex intellectual and practical aspects of real robotic techniques, machine learning and IoT technology with advanced sensor technologies.