Robotic Engineering Superhero’s

Wind turbines harness the wind to produce energy, however, they can be quite dangerous to maintain. Offshore engineers are subjected to dangerous conditions which include hazardous weather conditions and environments. Robotic platforms which include robots for air, land and sea, can be used to complete inspection and maintenance missions to reduce the risk and increase […]


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DIGIT Editor’s Pick | The Challenges and Opportunities of Big Data

Published online by Digit, the Smart Systems Group’s Professor David Flynn explores how industry, society and government extract future value from Big Data. Many businesses, organisations and government departments are increasingly interested in unlocking the value of big data analytics to gain a detailed insight into their stakeholders and market trends. However, this fascination with […]


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Autonomy and Me: Symbiotic Partnerships Between People and Systems

Thank you to Clearpath Robotics for highlighting how our research is establishing a pathway for the transition of Trustworthy Autonomous Services into industry. Productive collaboration, Run-Time mission resilience and Safety Compliance was achieved using a digital environment to support the 3C’s (Collaboration, Coordination and Corroboration) across people, infrastructure, the environment, and resident robotics using a hyper-enabled collaborative […]


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Research in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems for the Offshore Sector

The Offshore Robotics for the Certification of Assets (ORCA) Hub is a research programme of a group of universities and several partners developing Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems for the offshore sector. The hubs aim is to develop research and discovery science into commercial products and services in order to support the UK offshore […]


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AI Set to Deliver Safer Offshore Work Environments

A new artificial intelligence that is set to boost safety standards in the offshore energy industry is in development. A team of engineers from Heriot-Watt University’s, Smart Systems Group (SSG), say their ambitious project will protect lives and help prevent offshore disasters. Part of the Offshore Robotics for the Certification of Assets (ORCA) Hub, a consortium of five universities including Heriot-Watt, […]


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ReFLEX Orkney at Forefront of Shift to Net Zero World

A £28.5m project on the archipelago is working to combine technology with renewable energy to provide intelligent heat, power and transport services. Orkney ‘is at the forefront of a green energy revolution’ as the world moves towards a carbon-neutral future. The programme aims to create the world’s first large-scale ‘smart local energy system’ by combining […]


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ORCA Hub Researchers to present work at the 2020 Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston in May

Run-time Safety Compliance and Self-Certification for Robotics. Irrespective of the mission, environment or robotic platform you need Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) operating efficiently and safely – first time and every time. We have developed a transferable framework that integrates infrastructure, robotic and personnel data, to support safety and mission success. Within our framework we […]


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Undersea Defence Technology Visitors

The UDT (Undersea Defence Technology Conference & Exhibition) 2019 was held for three days from May 13th to May 15th in Stockholm, Sweden. As part of the conference 16 engineers from the defence sector were tasked with providing a survey of European underwater defence-related companies, and visiting the associated universities and companies in Scotland this […]


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