The Hamlyn Centre (http://www.imperial.ac.uk/robotics) directed by Prof Yang has been established for developing safe, effective and accessible imaging, sensing and robotics technologies that can reshape the future of healthcare for both developing and developed countries. Focusing on technological innovation but with a strong emphasis on clinical translation and direct patient benefit with a global impact, the centre is at the forefront of research in imaging, sensing and robotics for addressing global health challenges associated with demographic, environment, social and economic changes. The Centre plays an active role in international collaboration and outreach activities, as well as in the training of surgeons and engineers in robotic technologies, thereby facilitating a fully integrated clinical approach. It has extensive research, engineering laboratory spaces at the South Kensington campus of Imperial, large pre-clinical facilities at Northwick Park with state-of-the art imaging and surgical equipment for in vivo validation, and comprehensive clinical laboratories at the Surgical Innovation Centre at Imperial College St Mary’s Hospital.

In addition to its core research activities, the Centre offers comprehensive PhD and MRes programmes for researchers with a strong technical or clinical background. These programmes are designed to develop cutting edge, disruptive technologies and blue-sky ideas; yet will be appropriate and accessible to both developing and developed countries for addressing different needs of the healthcare challenges with a common ground for technological innovations. Through its endowment fund and close working relationship with industry, government and non-government organisations, the Centre also offers Advanced Fellowships, International Fellowships, Faculty Exchange Programmes, and Research Secondment for specific research projects and technical areas.

Professor Guang-Zhong Yang (FREng, FIEEE, FIET, FAIMBE) is director and co-founder of the Hamlyn Centre for Robotic Surgery, Deputy Chairman of the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London, UK. Professor Yang also holds a number of key academic positions at Imperial – he is Director and Founder of the Royal Society/Wolfson Medical Image Computing Laboratory, co-founder of the Wolfson Surgical Technology Laboratory, Chairman of the Centre for Pervasive Sensing. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, fellow of IEEE, IET, AIMBE and a recipient of the Royal Society Research Merit Award and listed in The Times Eureka ‘Top 100’ in British Science.

Professor Yang’s main research interests are in medical imaging, sensing and robotics. In imaging, he is credited for a number of novel MR phase contrast velocity imaging and computational modelling techniques that have transformed in vivo blood flow quantification and visualisation. These include the development of locally focused imaging combined with real-time navigator echoes for resolving respiratory motion for high-resolution coronary-angiography, as well as MR dynamic flow pressure mapping for which he received the ISMRM I. I Rabi Award. He pioneered the concept of perceptual docking for robotic control, which represents a paradigm shift of learning and knowledge acquisition of motor and perceptual/cognitive behaviour for robotics, as well as the field of Body Sensor Network (BSN) for providing personalized wireless monitoring platforms that are pervasive, intelligent, and context-aware.  

The EU has been funding research in cognitive systems and robotics for more than 10 years, with the goal to make robots and cognitive systems more intuitive, robust, autonomous and acting in a real-world environments. This talk will present the main achievements of the programme and give some perspective on the current situation of robotics research in Europe, as well as future opportunities and challenges in particular in the context of H2020.

Anne Bajart has a PhD in Electronical Engineering. She is Research Programme Officer at the European Commission. Before working for the EC, she worked as lecturer, researcher and project manager at the University of Liège (BE), at the Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne (CH) and at Philips Leuven (BE). She has expertise a.o. in systems control, digital signal processing, power electronics and speech recognition. Her main areas of interest today are robots, Human-Robot and Human-Computer Interaction, benchmarking and performance evaluation of systems, intelligent control of complex systems, dissemination of science, impact assessment and social acceptance of technology.