Research Archives

New project uses AI and robotics to help early detection of urinary tract infections

1 December 2022/in Heriot-Watt University, News, Research, University of Edinburgh/by Louise Jack

Technology at the National Robotarium will be used by a team of researchers from the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University to develop artificial intelligence (AI) and socially assistive robots to detect urinary tract infections (UTIs) earlier.

The FEATHER project aims to reduce the number of serious adverse outcomes that can result from late or misdiagnosis and reduce the amount of antibiotics that are prescribed while clinicians wait for lab results.

The ground-breaking research has been awarded £1.1 million from the UK Government by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation, and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).

UTIs affect 150 million people worldwide annually, making it one of the most common types of infection. When diagnosed early, it can be treated with antibiotics. If left untreated, UTIs can lead to sepsis, kidney damage and even loss of life.

Diagnosis, however, can be difficult with lab analysis, a process taking up to 48 hours, providing the only definitive result. Early signs of a UTI can also be challenging to recognise because symptoms vary according to age and existing health conditions. There is no single sign of infection but a collection of symptoms which may include pain, temperature, frequency of urination, changes in sleep patterns and tremors.

UTIs are particularly difficult to diagnose in people receiving formal care, and there is significant antibiotic overtreatment in this group as clinicians wait for lab results to return.

To address these concerns, researchers from the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University are working with two industry partners from the care sector. Scotland’s national respite centre, Leuchie House, and Blackwood Homes and Care are providing user insights to help researchers develop machine learning methods and interactions for socially assistive robots to support earlier detection of a potential infection and raise an alert for investigation by a clinician.

The project will gather continual data about the daily activities of individuals in their home via sensors that could help spot changes in behaviour or activity levels and trigger an interaction with a socially assistive robot. The FEATHER platform will combine and analyse these data points to flag potential infection signs before an individual or carer is aware there is a problem. Behaviour changes could include kettle use, change in walking pace, cognitive function through interaction with a socially assistive robot or a change to sleep patterns.

The AI and implementation aspects of the project will be led by Professor Kia Nazarpour, Dr Nigel Goddard and Dr Lynda Webb from the University of Edinburgh. The Human Robot Interaction aspects will be led by Professor Lynne Baillie, assisted by Dr. Mauro Dragone, from Heriot-Watt University.

Professor Kia Nazarpour, project lead and Professor of Digital Health at the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, said: “This unique data platform will help individuals, carers and clinicians to recognise the signs of potential urinary tract infections far earlier, helping to prompt the investigations and medical tests needed. Earlier detection makes timely treatment possible, improving outcomes for patients, lowering the number of people presenting at A&E, and reducing costs to the NHS.

“We also believe it will help to minimise the amount of antibiotics that are necessarily prescribed as a cover while waiting for lab results. As the second most common reason for the prescription of antibiotics, the infection makes a significant contribution to the increasingly concerning problem of drug-resistant bacteria, and there is widespread advantage to society in implementing better diagnosis.”

Professor Lynne Baillie, lead for the National Robotarium on Human-Robot Interaction, Assistive Living and Health, said: “We hope this work will create an additional structured support mechanism for people who live independently. Studies show that there is a significant association between delirium and UTI in older adults and, while it is possible that carers will pick up these signs, we should not be relying on observations alone. We are working with stakeholders to co-design the robot interaction and data collection for the machine learning methods to better support longer and healthier independent living.

“Working sensitively and supportively with this vulnerable social group is of the utmost importance. By developing the technology in the new Assisted Living Lab at the National Robotarium, we are able to test it in a realistic social care setting.”

Kitty Walker, a care receiver and regular guest at Leuchie House, said: “The impact of having a UTI can be far more serious than a lot of people may realise. Commonly, my speech becomes affected which can make it difficult to communicate with people like I normally would. More seriously, I’ve been hospitalised in the past after the late diagnosis of a UTI led to me having a seizure and I required mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

“It can often take a long time to receive a full diagnosis and be given the right antibiotics to tackle the infection. In the meantime, I’m usually prescribed a general antibiotic until my results come back. Being able to spot the early indicators that I have a UTI would save any anxiety I might feel when I know there is a problem and help reduce the number of different antibiotics I need to take.”

UK Government Minister for Scotland, Malcolm Offord, said: “Data and AI have the potential to transform diagnosis and treatment of so many conditions and improve outcomes for patients.

“This research will make a big difference to detecting UTIs as quickly as possible, and I am glad residents in Scotland’s care sector will be some of the first to benefit.

“The UK Government is providing £1.1 million of research funding for this project, and through the City Deal we are investing £21 million in the new National Robotorium facilities at Heriot-Watt University.”

Scottish Government Business Minister, Ivan McKee, said: “I am pleased to see this ground-breaking and innovative work being carried out in Scotland. Through allowing earlier diagnosis and treatment of UTIs, this AI and robotics research can make a key contribution to improving health and social care provision in Scotland, while ensuring the dignity of individuals is protected.

“The National Robotarium and its Ambient Assisted Living lab will be a key asset for Scotland, and the UK, in supporting people to live well and independently in their communities as they age. The Scottish Government is investing £1.4 million in the National Robotarium as part of our wider investment in the £1.3 billion Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal.”

Colin Foskett, Head of Innovation & Research at Blackwood Homes and Care, said: “Understanding how socially assistive AI can be used to better detect UTIs has the potential to improve the health & wellbeing of our customers. Early UTI detection could prevent hospital admissions, associated decline and ensure people can continue to live independently for longer.

Building on our existing collaborations with the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University, this exciting new project will co-design and co-create new products and services with our customers, our staff and the academic partners. We look forward to exploring this emerging technology and are excited to see the potential of AI for the future of independent living.

Mark Bevan, CEO at Leuchie House, said: “The personal, health and financial cost of urinary infections are massive, costing the NHS at least £500M last year, devastating people’s lives and adding great complexity to the provision of increasingly complex adult care.

“Leuchie House is uniquely placed as a national centre with unrivalled access to guests who trust us to manage the sharing of their health data and experience.

“This groundbreaking partnership with guests, the University of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University, is just one example of how we are reaching out from our base in East Lothian to improve the lives of people across Scotland and beyond, developing important new knowledge through our practice experience and partners research expertise.”

For more information please contact:

Steven Herd, steven@hottinroof.co.uk, 07791878940

A man moves his arm to mimic a humanoid robot while another man in glasses looks on

Interested in a research career in robotics and AI?

18 November 2022/in Heriot-Watt University, Research, University of Edinburgh/by Louise Jack

The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Robotics and Autonomous Systems (CDT-RAS), the training arm led by National Robotarium scientists from Heriot-Watt University and The University of Edinburgh, is recruiting new candidates for September 2023 admission.

The Centre has been training innovation-ready postgraduates since 2014, equipping graduates with the technical skills and industry awareness to create an innovation pipeline to global markets. Application areas include manufacturing, assistive and medical robots, offshore energy, environmental monitoring, search and rescue, defence, and support for the ageing population. Many of these research themes are the foundation for the testing and development of robotic solutions in the National Robotarium’s high-spec labs.

The 4-year PhD studentships are fully-funded for all nationalities and provide a maintenance stipend at the research council rate (£16,062pa for 2022/23) and home tuition fees (£4596 for 2022/23).

How to apply

Applicants are invited to submit a proposal on one of the CDT-RAS’s main research themes and include 2-3 other research themes of interest.

Themes include:

Human-Robot Interaction:
NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming);
Machine Learning and AI;
Robot Design and Soft Robotics;
Verification and Security;

These should be submitted, along with additional documentation, via the Heriot-Watt application portal no later than Monday 16 January 2023.

Further information can be found on the CDT-RAS recruitment web pages.

£1.3m project investigates if robots can be used to build lasers

13 October 2022/in Heriot-Watt University, Research/by Louise Jack

Experts at the new National Robotarium in Edinburgh and their industrial partners have launched a £1.3 million project to work out if robots could be used to help humans build lasers.

Manufacturing lasers is a lengthy and delicate process, with individual components aligned step-by-step as each device is assembled.

Currently, the process requires dedicated manufacturing lines, which makes it difficult and expensive for the companies that produce lasers to respond quickly to changes in demand from their markets.

The new three-year project, funded by the UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), aims to discover if robots could be used to carry out some of the most repetitive and time-consuming assembly and alignment steps in the manufacturing process, which would then free up humans to concentrate on the important testing and quality-control steps.

Announcement of the groundbreaking research project comes as the National Robotarium officially opened the doors to its new state-of-art £22.4 million facility in Edinburgh on 28th September, 2022. Utilising expertise from both Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh, it is the most advanced centre for robotics and AI in the UK and houses extensive world-class facilities for researchers and businesses.

Lasers will play an important role in the newly opened facility – the site has a dedicated laser laboratory, and its projects include developing robots that will use the devices across a wide range of applications, from remote sensing for agriculture through to diagnosis and treatment in medicine.

Researchers from the National Robotarium will be joined in their laser project by industrial experts from optical components manufacturer Gooch & Housego, aerospace giant Leonardo and laser maker Luxinar.

The National Robotarium is part of the Data-Driven Innovation initiative, supported by £21 million from the UK Government and £1.4 million from the Scottish Government. The initiative aims to turn Edinburgh into the data capital of Europe and is part of the wider £1.3 billion Edinburgh and South-East Scotland City Region Deal.

Project leader and ultra lab lead at the National Robotarium, Dr Richard Carter, said: “This project will push our understanding of robots’ capabilities to the limit.

“No one knows if robots will be capable of carrying out such complex and intuitive tasks, and so we’ll be working with experienced personnel from throughout the industry to find out.

“Making lasers is a delicate and highly skilled job, with many repetitive steps to make sure each component is aligned as it’s assembled into the device.

“If we can design robots that can carry out many of those repetitive steps then we will be able to improve the quality of the jobs for the talented experts who make these lasers and free them up to work on the important testing and quality assurance steps in the process.”

Dr Carter added: “One of the activities we’ll undertake during this project is to film experts assembling lasers and then ask them questions about what they do at each step.

“So much of the manufacturing process is down to human intuition and experience, and it’s really difficult to teach those factors to a machine.

“If we can develop robots and control systems that can carry out these tasks then the results will have applications in other fields too.”

News of the new project came as the National Robotarium were gold sponsors of the Scotland Automation & Robotics Show, which forms part of the wider Scottish Manufacturing & Supply Chain Conference & Exhibition, at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow on 13 October

a group of people smiling and standing inside on stairs

8th Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards launched at the National Robotarium

5 October 2022/in Heriot-Watt University, Previous Events, Research, Scottish Government, University of Edinburgh, Working with Industry/by Louise Jack

The eighth Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards has opened for entries, following a celebratory launch event at the new National Robotarium facility.

Interface, an organisation committed to developing and supporting collaborations between business and research communities in Scotland, will host the Awards ceremony in person on Thursday 23 March, 2023.

The Awards acknowledge collaborations from businesses, social enterprises, public sector organisations, third sector, universities, research institutes, innovation centres and colleges.

The eighth Awards were launched by Mr Ivan McKee, Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise, at an event for past winners.

Business Minister Ivan McKee said: “It was great to be part of the launch event for 2023 Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards (SKEAs), celebrating the innovative collaborations between business and the research community across Scotland.

“I have been involved with the Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards for a number of years now and always look forward to hearing more about the impact of these business-academic partnerships across all sectors of industry, helping to tackle some of society’s big challenges and making Scotland a more resilient nation.”

Amelia Whitelaw, Director of Interface, added: “It is important we acknowledge the impact of these unique partnerships and celebrate the achievements of the individuals who are driving growth, prosperity and innovation in our local communities.”

The awards were launched at the new National Robotarium, the largest and most advanced applied research facility for robotics and artificial intelligence in the UK. Located on Heriot-Watt University’s Edinburgh campus in partnership with The University of Edinburgh, the vibrant hub for innovation and industry collaboration was a fitting location for the launch.

Dr Gillian Murray, deputy principal for business and enterprise at Heriot-Watt University said: “We’re enormously proud to have won several Knowledge Exchange Awards in recent years. These prestigious awards recognise and celebrate the importance of working in partnership with business and the impact that approach can have on accelerating research into commercial application. At Heriot-Watt University, entrepreneurship and innovation lie at the heart of our strategy and we work hard to inspire our students and academics to pursue the commercial potential of their creative ideas.”

Individuals from academia or businesses are encouraged to apply by 9 December, 2022.

For further information on the awards and application forms please go to The Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards 2023 | Interface Knowledge Connection (interface-online.org.uk)

Two men in suits pose beside robot dog and humanoid robot

The National Robotarium is officially open for business!

29 September 2022/in Heriot-Watt University, News, Previous Events, Research, UK Government, University of Edinburgh, Working with Industry/by Louise Jack

The National Robotarium, the UK’s newest centre for robotics and artificial intelligence officially opened its doors, as announced at a special event held in the £22.4m facility on 28 September.

Located on Heriot-Watt University’s Edinburgh campus, in partnership with the University of Edinburgh, it will be the largest and most advanced applied research facility for robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) in the UK, creating an innovation hub for the practical application of robotics and autonomous systems.

The special opening event gathered leading figures from government, industry, research and the robotics community for networking, talks and a tour of the multimillion-pound, purpose-built facilities, central to the development and testing of robotics and AI solutions across three distinct areas; Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS), Human and Robot Interaction (HRI) and High-Precision Manufacturing.

Officially opening the facility was Sir John McCanny CBE, Regius Professor Emeritus of Electronics and Computer Engineering, Queen’s University Belfast, and Chair of the National Robotarium Independent Advisory Board.

Keynote speeches were delivered by Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University, Professor Richard A. Williams, Provost and Head of the Data-Driven Innovation initiative at the University of Edinburgh, Professor Kim Graham, co-academic lead at the National Robotarium, Professor Helen Hastie and Chief Executive Officer at the National Robotarium, Stewart Miller.

An exciting new partnership between the National Robotarium and Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest multinational business group, was also announced at the opening by Mr Miller and Head of TCS Scotland, Gopalan Rajagopalan. The two organisations will work together on applied engineering and joint research in areas including soft robotics, field robotics, co-bots and tele-operations in an effort to increase cross-industry collaboration and accelerate the development of robotic solutions from laboratory to market.

As part of the event, guests were able to experience the some of the state-of-the-art robotic technology that has been installed at the National Robotarium to explore how robots can be used to help different sectors, such as healthcare, construction, manufacturing and offshore energy, work more safely and efficiently.

Demonstrations on the day included socially assistive robots, medical technology for improving cognition, ROVs for underwater 3D mapping and scanning of hazardous environments at sea, companion robots, and a humanoid robot that is being used to better understand the mechanisms and treatment of Parkinson’s Disease.

Stewart Miller said: “Britain has a long and rich heritage of delivering cutting-edge innovation on the world stage.

“The opening of this dedicated, state-of-the-art facility is another important milestone in that story and one which I believe demonstrates Scotland and the UK’s role at the forefront of global developments in AI and robotics.”

Permanent Under Secretary of State for Scotland, David Duguid MP, who attended and spoke at the event said: “The National Robotarium – backed by £21 million UK Government funding – showcases the exceptional developments Scotland is making in pioneering research and technology, creating opportunities for entrepreneurs and innovators and bringing jobs and prosperity. More than £2 billion is being invested by the UK Government directly in Scotland to level up communities.”

A firefighter moves through smoke with smart AI-fitted helmet

The National Robotarium teams-up with Scottish Fire and Rescue Service on AI-empowered smart helmet that helps firefighters better locate victims

28 September 2022/in Heriot-Watt University, Research, University of Edinburgh/by Louise Jack

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Pioneering new helmet technology which could help firefighters quickly map their surroundings, navigate hazardous environments and efficiently locate fire-scene victims is being developed by University of Edinburgh researchers at the National Robotarium.

The research breakthrough announcement comes as the £22.4 million National Robotarium facility officially opens its doors today, Wednesday 28 September 2022.

Combining feeds from thermal cameras, radar and inertial sensors mounted on a standard-issue firefighting helmet, the technology uses cutting-edge artificial intelligence to provide wearers with real-time information that can help detect victims, recognise teammates and provide an accurate understanding of their own location.

Developmental field trials of the new technology have been conducted in partnership with Scottish Fire and Rescue Service personnel at its £10.5 million training facility in Newbridge, Edinburgh.

It’s hoped that the first-of-its-kind technology could support firefighters and scene commanders to more safely navigate adverse or low-visibility conditions such as smoke-filled fire scenes and reduce the time it takes to rescue victims.

Developed by researchers at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Informatics and the National Robotarium, a world-leading centre for robotics and artificial intelligence hosted by Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh, the project has received funding from the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA) and the Scottish Funding Council’s SFC Saltire scheme, as well as funding from the University of Edinburgh.

Stewart Miller is CEO of the National Robotarium. Speaking at the opening of the new purpose-built facility today, said: “The development of a smart fire fighting helmet that has the potential to support firefighters and help save lives is an excellent example of the pedigree of research coming from the National Robotarium’s two partner universities, each amongst the most prestigious in Scotland.

“As we open the doors of our dedicated, state-of-the-art facility today, we are able to showcase Scotland and the UK’s role at the forefront of global developments in AI and robotics, and the role of the National Robotarium in championing and developing solutions to some of society and industry’s biggest challenges.”

Based at Heriot-Watt University’s Edinburgh campus, the National Robotarium houses extensive world-class facilities for researchers and businesses. The facility provides a catalyst for entrepreneurship, bringing together academics and global companies, and is expected to deliver sustainable economic benefit to Edinburgh, the UK and beyond.

Dr Chris Lu, Lecturer in Cyber-Physical Systems in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh who is leading the project, said: “Firefighters often operate in environments with very low or no visibility due to the vast amount of smoke released from a fire. This can make detecting the location of potential victims and whereabouts of firefighters very challenging in situations that are often extremely time-sensitive.

“This new technology has the potential to support on-the-ground firefighters and scene commanders to make crucial in-the-moment decisions that can enhance search rescue efficiency, ensure safer collaboration between teammates and, most importantly, improve outcomes for potential victims of fire scenes.

“Our entire sensor rig weighs less than a kilogram and is composed of affordable, off-the-shelf components that can be easily retrofitted to existing standard-issue firefighting helmets. This means it has the potential to be an incredibly efficient and accessible resource to fire and rescue teams in Scotland, the UK and beyond once fully developed.

“We are continuing to expand the capabilities of the technology with the support of the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service, to whom we are enormously grateful. Our next ambition is to give the helmet the ability to generate 3D maps and an embedded display, which will provide the wearer with even more spatial awareness. We are actively looking to engage with industry partners to help make this next step a reality.”

Bryan Todd, Group Commander in Training, Safety & Assurance at Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, said: “We are proud that our staff at our Newbridge Training Centre have been able to support with the trialling of this technology. Safety, Teamwork and Innovation are three of our core values as a service and we always welcome opportunities to work in partnership with higher education organisations and the fantastic work they do in exploring ideas to improve community and firefighter safety.”

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Robotics research shortlisted for education Oscar!

2 September 2022/in Heriot-Watt University, Research/by Louise Jack

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Research led by Heriot-Watt University has been shortlisted in the prestigious Times Higher Education THE Awards 2022, in recognition of its ground-breaking robotics research to support the energy transition.

Offshore wind is a critical component in the drive to net zero. However, inspecting and maintaining these infrastructures is dangerous, expensive and requires support vessels with a high carbon footprint.

Launched in October 2017, with expertise from 13 universities and 30+ industry partners, the Offshore Robotics for Certification of Assets (ORCA) Hub has been leading a revolution in offshore energy inspection, collaborating on an unprecedented scale to match research directly to industry needs.

The work, which is now being progressed as part of the National Robotarium, a partnership between Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh, has demonstrated how Robotics and Autonomous Systems can safely inspect, maintain, and repair offshore infrastructure, guided by people on ships or onshore. Examples include what is believed to be the first autonomous foundation inspection at an offshore wind farm, developing 3D maps to show repair needs.

Widely known as the ‘Oscars of higher education’ the Times Higher Education (THE) Awards attracted more than 550 entries this year. The ORCA Hub is shortlisted for STEM: Research Project of the Year.

Professor Yvan Petillot, director of the ORCA Hub and joint academic lead of the National Robotarium, said: “We are enormously proud to be shortlisted for this prestigious award and it is a testament to the incredible work of all our researchers, our multiple collaborators and industry partners who have supported our work over the last five years. The ORCA Hub’s work has prompted a revolution in offshore energy inspection, raising the profile of Robotics and Autonomous Systems while accelerating government and industry net zero ambitions.

“Together with our collaborators, we have equipped drones with contact capabilities to monitor turbine surfaces, reducing risky human-led operations. We’ve showcased our work to more than 15,000 people in person through events and we’ve highlighted our research to more than 200 million people globally through media coverage. We’re continuing our work as part of the National Robotarium to address some of industry’s biggest challenges. Our far-reaching work has international impact and the ability to meet major societal needs as the race to net zero gathers pace. We’d urge those with an interest in collaborating to get in touch with us.”

THE editor John Gill said: “This is the 18th year that the THE Awards will celebrate the best that UK higher education has to offer, across 20 categories covering all aspects of university activity. Once again, the shortlists reflect universities doing extraordinary things in extraordinary times, during the 2020-21 academic year, when the pandemic continued to force higher education and all who work in it to respond to an unprecedented challenge.

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AWE explores robotics opportunities with the National Robotarium

27 July 2022/in Research/by Louise Jack

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Senior representatives from the National Robotarium, the UK’s leading centre for robotics and AI, hosted strategic partner AWE for a day of activities and talks centred on sharing expertise and opportunities for collaboration.

AWE is one of Heriot-Watt University’s longest-established academic partnerships, carrying out STEM research for mutual benefit.

During the visit CEO of the National Robotarium, Stewart Miller, gave a tour of the new multimillion-pound facility, due to open at Heriot-Watt University’s Edinburgh campus in the autumn when it will become home to the largest and most advance applied research facility for robotics and AI in the UK.

The tour included a sneak preview of its specialist Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS), Human and Robot Interaction (HRI), and High-Precision Manufacturing labs, which will be used as shared test centres for the development of robotic solutions to real-world industry challenges.

Following the tour, National Robotarium academic co-lead, Professor Yvan Petillot, and Academic Lead in Precision Laser Applications, Dr Richard Carter, led a workshop on how the two organisations could share knowledge and expertise and together advance future-thinking research and teaching in the use of robotics and AI for safeguarding and security. The National Robotarium has already forged partnerships to develop ground-breaking robotics for health and social care, hospitality, agriculture, energy, manufacturing, and the offshore sector.

Attendees also discussed how the National Robotarium’s CPD and talent programmes could support AWE students and graduates to develop practical robotics and AI skills that could be utilised within different sectors and industry roles.

Dr Richard Carter said: “Heriot-Watt and AWE have worked together for many years now, forming a strategic alliance over a number of successful projects in statistics, modelling and optical metrology.

“This recent visit to the National Robotarium has provided an opportunity to explore how we can expand this relationship into the field of robotics and AI, and to showcase our new facility as a hub for creating innovative, cutting-edge research and technology with different industry and government partners.”

AWE Head of Outreach, Professor Norman Godfrey, said: “The National Robotarium at Heriot-Watt University is a fantastic new UK facility. Its formation provides a unique opportunity for AWE to engage at the earliest stage with the technologies, processes and policies it is developing for multiple industrial partners.”

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Student-led project to build AI butler reaches next round of Amazon SimBot Challenge

14 July 2022/in Heriot-Watt University, Research/by Louise Jack

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A team of student researchers from the National Robotarium, supported by Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh, have reached the next round of the Amazon Alexa Prize SimBot Challenge, a global AI competition that tasks university teams with developing a bot that can best respond to people’s commands and demands.

Team EMMA (Embodied MultiModal Agent), led by PhD students Amit, Hementhage, Malvina, and Georgios, successfully completed the Public Benchmark Challenge in April. The challenge involved talking a robot model through a series of household tasks using predefined dialogue datasets – created and provided by Amazon – to assess its ability to follow instructions, learn, and predict changes in its 3D virtual environment.

EMMA, the only non-US team to be shortlisted for the competition, placed sixth on the leader board, allowing them to continue into the ‘live interactions’ development phase, beginning in July 2022. During this phase, the teams will compete to develop a bot that best responds to real Alexa customers who will rate, review and feedback in real-time.

The outcome of the development phase will be revealed during the finals, scheduled for early 2023.

“They have been working hard to develop an embodied agent that is capable of answering questions or solving tasks through natural language interactions, similar to how humans talk to and learn from each other, and the next phase of the competition will see the team develop this technology even further.”

Prof. Verena Rieser, Professor of Conversational AI at the National Robotarium, and team advisor said: “The Alexa Prize SimBot Challenge is focused on helping advance the next generation of virtual assistants that will assist humans in completing real-world tasks.

“The technology and research being developed by the teams involved is really exciting as it could ultimately mean that robots are able to help and support people in their homes and other real-life environments.”

Amit Parekh, the team’s student leader, said: “I’m incredibly surprised and happy with how much we’ve managed to achieve over just a few months and really excited to see what we’re able to achieve over the coming stages! Everyone’s gone above and beyond and we’ve been able to create something we can all be proud of as a result.”

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New project helps Amazon create dataset to advance multilingual language understanding research

24 June 2022/in Research/by Louise Jack

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Researchers at the National Robotarium, hosted by Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh, have created a Spoken Language Understanding Resource Package (SLURP) aimed at making it easier for AI and machines to understand spoken questions and commands from humans.

One of the items included in the package is an open dataset in English spanning 18 domains. Amazon recently localised and translated the English-only SLURP dataset into 50 typologically diverse languages, creating a new multilingual dataset called MASSIVE.

Although spoken-language understanding-based virtual assistants like Alexa have made major capability advances in the past decade, academic and industrial natural language understanding (NLU) efforts worldwide are still limited to a small subset of the world’s 7,000+ languages. One difficulty in creating massively multilingual NLU models is the lack of labelled data for training and evaluation.

The newly created MASSIVE dataset, which contains one million labelled utterances spanning 51 languages and open-source code, fills the gap and helps advance the state of the art of massively multilingual NLU research.

In conjunction with the dataset release, Amazon has launched a global competition challenging researchers to build the best spoken-language understanding systems using the dataset. Results from the competition will be presented at Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, a leading conference on natural language processing held later this year.

The National Robotarium, based in Edinburgh, is a world-leading centre for robotics and Artificial Intelligence, accelerating research from laboratory to market that delivers substantial benefits for society.

It is supported by £21 million from the UK Government and £1.4 million from the Scottish Government through the £1.3 billion Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal – a 15 year investment programme jointly funded by both governments and regional partners.

“Virtual assistants have until now only supported a tiny fraction of the world’s 7,000-plus languages. The technology is an increasing presence in homes and businesses, so it’s exciting that the National Robotarium has played a part in making it much more relevant and accessible for potentially millions more people. Significantly, it shows the practical applications of AI in the real world and underlines the importance of improving our conversational interactions with AI technology.” – Project lead and Professor of Conversational AI at the National Robotarium, Verena Rieser

National Robotarium CEO, Stewart Miller, said:

“Industry collaboration that impacts both business and society is a key focus of the research being developed at the National Robotarium. Helping people around the world to use voice AI systems in their native tongue is an excellent example of the solutions we’re delivering to global challenges and local needs.

“With the combined robotic and AI experience of Heriot-Watt and the University of Edinburgh, the National Robotarium is paving the way for the UK to take a globally significant role at the forefront of developments in AI and machine learning technology.”

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