Understanding all aspects of Human-Robot interaction: the programming that coordinates a robot’s actions with human action as well the human appreciation and trust in the robot.
At present, there are many sensors and actuators in every device – so they may become embedded in a physical reality. For robots that move around in a specific setting there is a pressing need for the development of proper methods of control and joint-action. The embedded, embodied nature of human cognition is an inspiration for this, and vice versa. Computational modelling of such tasks can give insight into the nature of human mental processing. In the Master’s specialisation in Robot Cognition you’ll learn all about the sensors, actuators and the computational modelling that connects them.
Making sense of sensor data – developing artificial perception – is no trivial task. The perception, recognition and even appreciation of sound stimuli for speech and music (i.e. auditory scene analysis) require modelling and representation at many levels and the same holds for visual object recognition and computer vision. In this area, vocal and facial expression recognition (recognition of emotion from voices and faces) is a rapidly growing application area. In the area of action and motor planning, sensorimotor integration and action, there are strong links with research at the world-renowned Donders Centre for Cognition.
At Radboud University we also look beyond the technical side of creating robots that can move, talk and interpret emotions as humans do. We believe that a robot needs to do more than simply function to its best ability. A robot that humans distrust will fail even if it is well programmed. Culture also plays a role in this; people in Japan are more open to the possibilities of robots than in, for example, the Netherlands. We will teach you how to evaluate humans’ attitudes towards a robot in order to use that information to create robots that will be accepted and trusted and therefore perform even better.
See the website http://www.ru.nl/masters/ai/robot
- We offer a great mix of technical and social aspects of robot cognition.
- This programme focuses on programming robot behaviours and evaluating them rather than building the robots themselves. We teach you to programme robots that will be used in close contact with human beings, for example in healthcare and education, rather than in industry.
- Our cognitive focus leads to a highly interdisciplinary AI programme where students gain skills and knowledge from a number of different areas such as mathematics, computer science, psychology and neuroscience combined with a core foundation of artificial intelligence.
- This specialisation offers plenty of room to create a programme that meets your own academic and professional interests.
- Together with the world-renowned Donders Institute, the Max Planck Institute and various other leading research centres in Nijmegen, we train our students to become excellent researchers in AI.
- To help you decide on a research topic there is a semi-annual Thesis Fair where academics and companies present possible project ideas. Often there are more project proposals than students to accept them, giving you ample choice. We are also open to any of you own ideas for research.
- Our AI students are a close-knit group; they have their own room in which they often get together to interact, debate and develop their ideas. Every student also receives personal guidance and supervision from a member of our expert staff.
The programme is closely related to the research carried out in the internationally renowned Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour. This institute has several unique facilities for brain imaging using EEG, fMRI and MEG. You could also cooperate with the Behavioural Science Institute and work in its Virtual Reality Laboratory, which can be used to study social interaction between humans and avatars.
An example of a possible thesis subject:
- Engaging human-robot interactions in healthcare for children and/or the elderly
Social robots are often deployed with 'special' user groups such as children and elderly people. Developing and evaluating robot behaviours for these user groups is a challenge as a proper understanding of their cognitive and social abilities is needed. Depending on the task, children for example need to be engaged and encouraged in a different way than adults do. What are effective robot behaviours and strategies to engage children and/or elderly people? How can these robot behaviours be evaluated in a proper way?
Our Artificial Intelligence graduates have excellent job prospects and are often offered a job before they have actually graduated. Many of our graduates go on to do a PhD either at a major research institute or university with an AI department. Other graduates work for companies interested in cognitive design and research. Examples of companies looking for AI experts with this specialisation: Philips, Siemens, Honda, Mercedes, Google. Some students have even gone on to start their own companies.
Examples of jobs that a graduate of the specialisation in Robot Cognition could get:
- PhD Researcher on Cognitive-Affective Modelling for Social Robots
- PhD Researcher on Automatic analysis of human group behaviour in the presence of robots
- PhD Researcher on Automatic analysis of affective quality of conversations in human-robot interaction
- Advisor and innovation manager in the healthcare industry
- Social robotics and affective computing for robots expressing emotions
- Developer of control algorithms for using optic flow in drones
- Advisor for start-up company on developing new uses for tactile displays
- Team member in design of emotion recognition and training for autistic children
Half of your second year consists of an internship, giving you plenty of hands-on experience. We encourage students to do this internship abroad, although this is not mandatory. We do have connections with companies abroad, for example in China, Finland and the United States.
See the website http://www.ru.nl/masters/ai/robot
Robots have the potential to revolutionise society and the economy, working for us, beside us, and interacting with us. This EPSRC-sponsored programme will produce graduates with the technical skills and industry awareness to create an innovation pipeline from academic research to global markets.
The robotics and autonomous systems area has been highlighted by the UK Government in 2013 as one of the eight Great Technologies that underpin the UK's Industrial Strategy for jobs and growth. Key application areas include manufacturing, assistive and medical robots, offshore energy, environmental monitoring, search and rescue, defence, and support for the ageing population.
The University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University are jointly offering this innovative four-year PhD training programme, which combines a strong general grounding in current theory, methods and applications with flexibility for individualised study and a specialised PhD project.
Robotics and autonomous systems are increasingly studied beyond the range of classical engineering. Today robots represent one of the main areas of application of computer science and provide challenges for mathematics and natural science.
It is impossible to imagine transportation, warehousing, safety systems, space and marine exploration, prosthetics, and many other areas of industry, technology and science without robots. Robots are used in theoretical biology and the neurosciences as a model of behaviour.
Areas of interest specific to the center include: movement control, planning, decision making, bio- and neurorobotics, human-robot interaction, healthcare applications, robot soccer, neuroprosthetics, underwater robotics, bipedal walking, service robots, robotic co-workers, computer vision, speech processing, computer animation realistic simulations, and machine learning.
Many more topics can be found be exploring the Centre’s web pages, particularly the personal web pages of the Centre supervisors:
Our four-year PhD programme combines Masters level coursework and project work with independent PhD-level research.
In the first year, you will undertake four or five masters level courses, spread throughout robotics, machine learning, computational neuroscience, computer architectures, statistics, optimization, sensorics, dynamics, mechanics, image processing, signal processing, modelling, animation, artificial intelligence, and related areas. You will also undertake a significant introductory research project. (Students with previous masters-level work in these areas may request to take less courses and a larger project.)
At the end of the first year, successful students will be awarded an MSc by Research by the University of Edinburgh. From this basis, the subsequent three years will be spent developing and pursuing a PhD research project, under the close supervision of your primary and secondary supervisors. The PhD will be awarded jointly by the University of Edinburgh and the Heriot-Watt University.
You will have opportunities for three to six month internships with leading companies in your area, and to participate in our industrial engagement programme, exchanging ideas and challenges with our sponsor companies.
Throughout your studies, you will participate in our regular programmes of seminars, short talks and brainstorming sessions, and benefit from our pastoral mentoring schemes.
Our user partners in industry include companies working in offshore energy, environmental monitoring, defence, assisted living, transport, advanced manufacturing and education. They will provide the real world context for research, as well as opportunities for reciprocal secondments, internships and involvement in our industrial engagement programme.
The School of Informatics holds a Silver Athena SWAN award, in recognition of our commitment to advance the representation of women in science, mathematics, engineering and technology. The School is deploying a range of strategies to help female staff and students of all stages in their careers and we seek regular feedback from our research community on our performance.
You will have access to the outstanding facilities in the Edinburgh Robotarium, a national facility for research into robot interaction, supporting the research of more than 50 world-leading investigators from 17 cross-disciplinary research groups.
Research groups at the Edinburgh Robotarium include humanoid movement control, underwater, land and airborne autonomous vehicles, human robot interaction, bio- and neuro-robotics, and planning and decision making in multirobot scenarios.
In addition, our research groups contain a diverse range of compute clusters for compute and data-intensive work, including a large cluster hosted by the Edinburgh Compute and Data Facility.
Our aim is to produce innovation-ready graduates who are skilled in the principles of technical and commercial disruption and who understand how finance and organisation realise new products in start-up, SME and corporate situations.
We intend for our graduates to become leaders in the globally emerging market for autonomous and robotic systems that reduce risk, reduce cost, increase profit and protect the environment. This vision is shared by our industrial supporters, whose support for our internship programme indicates their strong desire to find highly qualified new employees.
Our component research groups already have excellent track-records in post-graduation destinations, including the research labs of industry-leading companies, and post-doctoral research positions in top tier universities.
The Institute of Perception, Action and Behaviour (IPAB) focuses on how to link computational perception, representation, transformation and generation processes to external worlds, in theory and in practice.
This covers domains such as visual perception, dynamic control of robot systems, active sensing and decision making, biomimetic robotics, computer-based generation of external phenomena, such as images, music or actions, and agent-based interaction within computer games and animation.
Supported by the dynamic research culture of IPAB, you can develop robots that learn their own motor control, mimic animal behaviours, or produce autonomous and coordinated team actions. Or you can work with systems that interpret real images and video, or generate complex behaviour in animated characters.
We aim to link strong theoretical perspectives with practical hands-on construction, and provide the hardware and software support to realise this vision.
You carry out your research within a research group under the guidance of a supervisor. You will be expected to attend seminars and meetings of relevant research groups and may also attend lectures that are relevant to your research topic. Periodic reviews of your progress will be conducted to assist with research planning.
A programme of transferable skills courses facilitates broader professional development in a wide range of topics, from writing and presentation skills to entrepreneurship and career strategies.
The School of Informatics holds a Silver Athena SWAN award, in recognition of our commitment to advance the representation of women in science, mathematics, engineering and technology. The School is deploying a range of strategies to help female staff and students of all stages in their careers and we seek regular feedback from our research community on our performance.
Our robotics labs contain a range of mobile platforms, robot manipulators, humanoid robots, and custom-built sensor and actuation systems that attract continuous interest from funders, industry and members of the public.
Recent developments include the UK's only NASA Valkyrie robot platform, application of robotic hardware to prosthetics and assisted living, and a team that competes in the international robot soccer league.
Our new Edinburgh Centre for Robotics (ECR) brings collaboration with Heriot-Watt University to expand the range of facilities and applications we can explore, and to fund research training.
The machine vision lab has facilities for 3D range data capture, motion capture and high-resolution and high-speed video, and the high performance computing needed for graphics is well supported, including hardware partnerships with companies such as NVIDIA.
While many of our graduates go on to highly successful academic careers, others find their niche in commercial research labs, putting their knowledge and skills to use in an industry setting.
Several of our recent graduates have set up or joined spin-out robotics companies. Our graphics researchers have strong connections to the media and games industries.
Robotics is on the cusp of an exciting new era as robots become more reactive, intelligent and human-like, as well as finding applications in a range of industries including consumer and healthcare robotics.
We are in the midst of an increase in the pace of technological change and the changes in the coming decade will be a magnitude of order greater than anything that has gone before. A paradigm shift is about to take place that will forever change society; our ability to manufacture novel robots and new artificial intelligence techniques will both change the way we interact with technology and will allow technology to interact with us and our world in a far more nuanced way.
This new MSc Robotics Engineering reflects recent software and hardware technological advances and exposes students to new, much sought-after skills and up-to-date areas of research. Recent technological advances are incorporated into the course by developing novel cross disciplinary approaches and subject areas such as Embedded Systems, Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality.
Robotics Engineering covers a wide range of specific topics such as:
The course will include an introduction to Robotics, covering topics such as actuators, sensors and mechatronics, with examples and categorization of robots (from mobile robots to robot arms and interactive robots); robotic applications including biomedical robotics (e.g. for minimally invasive surgery) and robotic rehabilitation, robotic hands (metamorphic hands, grasping and sensing) and industrial robotics; embedded systems and microcontrollers including the Internet of Things; the robot as a computational unit based on sensing, reasoning and action; Artificial Intelligence, navigation and machine learning. You will have the opportunity to develop the hardware and software for a robotic system.
Understanding naturally intelligent systems, building artificially intelligent systems, and improving the interactions between humans and artificial systems.
As humans, we may be intrigued by the complexity of any daily activity. How do we perceive, act, decide, and remember? On the one hand, if we understand how our own intelligence works, we can use this knowledge to make computers smarter. On the other hand, by making computers behave more like humans, we learn more about how our own cognition works.
The AI Master’s programme at Radboud University has a distinctly cognitive focus. This cognitive focus leads to a highly interdisciplinary programme where students gain skills and knowledge from a number of different areas such as mathematics, computer science, psychology and neuroscience combined with a core foundation of artificial intelligence.
See the website http://www.ru.nl/masters/ai
Slowly the human brain has been revealing its mystery to the scientific community. Now that we are actually able to model and stimulate aspects of cognition, AI researchers have gained a deeper understanding of cognition. At the world-renowned Donders Institute, the Max Planck Institute and various other leading research centres, we train our students to become excellent researchers in this area.
At Radboud University we also teach students how to develop practical applications that will become the next generation of products, apps, therapies and services. Our department has been awarded several prizes for its pioneering role in bringing innovations from science to society, e.g. in Assistive Technology for people with disabilities. You’ll be taught the skills needed to conduct and steer such innovation processes. Many Master’s research projects have both a scientific and a practical component.
Computational modelling is the central methodology taught and used in this programme. Depending on the area of study, the computational models can range from behavioural models of millions of individuals interacting on the web, to functional models of human or robot decision-making, to models of individual or networks of artificial neurons. At Radboud University we offer the following three specialisations (on campus simply known as Computation, Robot and Web):
- Neural Computing
Learn how to create artificial information systems that mimic biological systems as well as how to use theoretical insights from AI to better understand cognitive processing in humans.
- Interactive Agents
Developing intelligent machines and new ways for humans and machines to interact, as well as understanding cognition through human behavior.
To finalise your AI master's programme, you have the choice of either an Internship (18EC) and Research Project (30EC) or a single larger Extended Research Project (48EC). During the internship you have the chance to acquire additional AI relevant skills either at a research lab or at a company. During the Research Projects phase, you get to put what you have learned during your master's programme into practice. You can perform your research work in the AI department, at other research departments at the University (e.g. the Behaviour Science Institute or Donders Institute) or at an external company (such as Philips or TNO). You are also encouraged to go abroad for your internship and/or research project (previously students have gone to Stanford University in California and Aldebaran Robotics in Paris). To help you decide on a thesis topic, there is an annual Thesis Fair where academics and companies present possible project ideas.
Our Artificial Intelligence graduates have excellent job prospects and are often offered a job before they have actually graduated. Many of our graduates go on to do a PhD either at a major research institute or a university with an AI department. Other graduates have started their own companies or work for companies interested in cognitive design and research.
Find out how to apply here http://www.ru.nl/masters/ai
- Information for international students
Radboud University would like to meet you in your country (http://www.ru.nl/meetus) in order to give all the information you need and to answer any questions you might have about studying in the Netherlands. In the next few months, an advisor of Radboud University will be attending fairs in various countries, always accompanied by a current or former student.
Furthermore, we understand if you would like to see the Radboud Campus and the city of Nijmegen, which is why we organise an Master's Open Day for international students, which you are welcome to attend (http://www.ru.nl/openday).
- Information for Dutch students
Radboud University offers students in the Netherlands plenty of opportunities to get more information on your programme of choice, or get answers to any questions you might have and more. Apart from a Master's Evening and a Master's Day, we also organise Orientation Days and a Master’s Afternoon for HBO students.
This international Master’s programme gives insights into cutting edge resarch in robotics and artificial intelligence. The programme is centred around a "raise your robot" theme. You get access to a robot platform from day one, which you will give more and more advanced capabilities as the courses are progressing.
The programme is offered by the nationally and internationally renowned Centre for Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems (AASS) at Örebro University. As a student, you will be immersed in one of Sweden's largest academic research centres in robotics and intelligent systems. The outcomes of our ongoing international research projects feed into all of the courses. Vice versa, student projects and thesis works typically contribute to our research projects with industry partners.
As a Master of Engineering (ME) graduate you will have the opportunity to either seek employment as a professional engineer, or start a research career.
The ME normally takes 12 months to complete full-time. It builds on prior study at undergraduate level, such as the four-year BE(Hons) or BSc(Tech). The degree requires 120 points, which can either be made up of 30 points in taught papers and a 90-point dissertation (research project), or one 120-point thesis.
If you enrol in an ME via the Faculty of Science & Engineering you can major in Engineering, and your thesis topic may come from our wide range of study areas such as biological engineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, materials engineering, environmental engineering and electronic engineering.
The Faculty of Science & Engineering fosters collaborative relationships between science, engineering, industry and management. The Faculty has developed a very strong research base to support its aims of providing you with in-depth knowledge, analytical skills, innovative ideas, and techniques to translate science into technology in the real world.
You will have the opportunity to undertake research with staff who are leaders in their field and will have the use of world-class laboratory facilities. Past ME students have worked on projects such as a ‘snake robot’ for disaster rescue and a brain-controlled electro-mechanical prosthetic hand.
The University of Waikato School of Engineering’s specialised laboratories includes the Large Scale Lab complex that features a suite of workshops and laboratories dedicated to engineering teaching and research. These include 3D printing, a mechanical workshop and computer labs with engineering design software.
The computing facilities at the University of Waikato are among the best in New Zealand, ranging from phones and tablets for mobile application development to cluster computers for massively parallel processing. Software engineering students will have 24 hour access to computer labs equipped with all the latest computer software.
Depending on the thesis topic studied, graduates of this degree may find employment in the research and development department in a range of engineering industries, including energy companies, environmental agencies, government departments, biomedical/pharmaceutical industries, private research companies, universities, food and dairy industries, electronics, agriculture, forestry and more. The ME can also be a stepping stone to doctoral studies.
Career opportunities
Automation for the Food Industry Research
The food industry is very labour intensive and as a result is under threat from low wage economies. To allow companies to remain competitive they need to embrace automation. Led by Dr Steve Davis you will learn how many of the challenges found in the food industry cannot be addressed by conventional automation and how advanced systems and grippers are required.
Cognition Robotics and Autonomous Systems
We use the term "cognitive robotics" to refer to robots with higher level cognitive functions that involve knowledge representation and reasoning.
You will work on robots with cognitive capabilities, which are key elements to autonomous systems, such as perception processing, attention allocation, anticipation, planning, reasoning about other agents, and perhaps reasoning about their own mental states. Several projects are currently undertaken in this area in collaboration with psychologists and neuroscientist from European institutions. This course is led by Prof. S. Nefti-Meziani and Dr T. Theodoridis.
Biologically Inspired Robotics Research
Dr Steve Davis leads this research which covers all areas of biologically inspired robotics. Future robots will move away from operating solely in factories and will interact more closely with humans. This will require a more natural/biological-like human-machine interaction. You will work with new design approaches and learn how they will shape future robotic systems. You will learn how traditional actuators have many shortcomings and how compliance can greatly improve the safety of human robot interaction, and also how these technologies have application in healthcare and rehabilitation applications.
End-effectors and robot hands
Also led by Dr Steve Davis, this research area is concerned with the development of advanced end effectors. You will learn how innovative approaches can be used to grasp difficult to handle products. This course will also teach you how multi-fingered dexterous end-effectors, similar to the human hand, can handle a broad range of products, and how these technologies can be used in tele-presence tasks.
Swarm Intelligence and Multi-Agent Systems
This research theme, as led by Prof. S. Nefti Meziani and Dr T. Theodoridis, concerns the development of an Intelligent Collaborative Behaviour using Multi-Agent Systems/robots using novel swarm intelligent techniques. We have introduced the irrationality theory applied in path planning, obstacle avoidance and emergent behaviours, using the Khepera robots (K-Team) and the Webots simulator.
You will study and implement intelligent algorithms, which can be used for simulating viscoelastic behaviours for particle systems. Other relevant areas you can be involved in are crowd behaviour modelling, space and security robotics, and swarm and cognitive agents.
Uninhabited Autonomous Systems/Air Vehicles (UAS/UAV)
Prof. S. Nefti Meziani, Dr A. Jones, and Dr E. Chadwick lead the research into how uninhabited autonomous systems (UAS) cope with unscripted procedures when conducting a mission where commands are issued at high levels of abstraction. It is designed around human-centric needs with the ability to perform tasks in accordance with instructions which lack adequate 'terms of reference'. You will work in autonomous systems that involve humans-in-the-loop.
The centre's activities originated in 1987 when The University of Salford was chosen as the site of the United Kingdom's National Advanced Robotics Research Centre. Since then Robotics has formed a major strategic direction within Engineering in the University and Salford, where Researchers have been at the forefront of strategic national developments initiated by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and international developments within the E.U.
The centre houses a multidisciplinary group lead by Prof Samia Nefti-Meziani with interests in autonomous systems and robotics and their constituent technologies. The group has strong national and international links with both industry and other research institutes. The core group of researchers in the laboratory includes over a dozen graduate students and three senior academic research members.
The group has a long history of attracting research funding including the EU FP7 projects Novel Q and RobotCub. It has also received funding in both the food and aerospace sectors and has recently been awarded the national GAMMA project targeted at autonomous systems for the aerospace sector. Due to its international reputation for robotics research the group has been awarded €4M by the EU ITN Marie Curie Project to form an Initial Training Network which will train the future leaders in the field of robotics
Graduates are expected to find employment in a range of industries. Robotics and Embedded Systems are continuously developing topics that present many career opportunities in areas such as embedded systems design, robotic design, control systems design and integration, engineering management and research.
Students leaving the School with a postgraduate research degree are well placed to lead and manage research and development activities in a number of areas. Globally, a postgraduate research qualification is usually a prerequisite for an academic career and several of our alumni are now senior academics.
The research groups have strong links with industry in all areas of robotics and systems engineering. These include large multinationals such as Airbus, BAE, Festo and ABB, to name just a few, through to small SMEs working in related fields. The group also has links with public sector organisations such as the NHS, fire and police service. The main benefit of these links for students is the ability to work on real world problems potentially leading to their research being adopted in by industry. The links also provide students with the opportunity to gain experience of working with industry and meeting its needs.
