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Bringing a new robot to market is an exciting venture. When that robot is a new type of robot the venture takes on new proportions – it becomes an adventure. Dr Rob Buckingham, managing director of OCRobotics Ltd, describes the principles of a new snake arm robot that has applications in a number of industries including aerospace (engines and airframes), nuclear, space and surgery as well as a whole range of general inspection and maintenance tasks.

Describes some of the current research into multi‐arm robots underway at AMARC, University of Bristol, at the theoretical level, defining what constitutes a multi‐arm robot and also at the implementation level. Use is made in the laboratory of a planar, two‐arm experimental robot and a 32‐axis, four‐arm robot system. In industry a four‐arm robot for handling composites is used. AMARC has also been involved in the development of a two‐arm robot for the fish industry. Concludes that the goal of producing a multi‐arm robot which is able to conduct some complex and varied manipulation tasks is still largely a research topic.

Summarises the content of the IEE Tustin lecture presented by Professor Katsuhisha Furuta of the Tokyo Institute of Technology. The work discussed is part of the $10 million super mechano systems project which concentrates on developing walking machines based largely on pendulae principles.

The following article is a “Q&A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot journal as a method to impart the combined technological, business and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry engineer-turned successful business leader, regarding the commercialization and challenges of bringing technological inventions to market while overseeing a company. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The interviewee is Dr Rob Buckingham, Director at UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and Robotics Pioneer. Dr Buckingham is an innovator of snake-arm robotics for confined and hazardous environments. In this interview, Dr Buckingham shares some of his 30+ year personal and business experiences of working in industry, academia, co-founding and directing a robotics company and heading up a new UK government-funded organization for remote handling.

Dr Buckingham received his BSc and his MEng in the Special Engineering Programme at Brunel University in London. The program’s objective was to train engineers for the industry by developing problem-solving abilities and decision-making skills of students, which Buckingham accomplished while being sponsored by the UKAEA and as a National Engineering Scholar. After obtaining his PhD in robotics at the University of Bristol, Buckingham, he remained at Bristol for two years as a lecturer in mechanical engineering. In 1997, he co-founded OC Robotics, a private company that designs snake-arm robots specifically to operate in confined spaces. Buckingham directed OC until 2014, when he returned to where he began his early career, UKAEA Culham, this time as a Director and Head of the new Remote Applications in Challenging Environments (RACE) Centre. Under Buckingham’s leadership, RACE is involved in exploring many areas of remote operations, including inspection, maintenance and decommissioning and will be instrumental in developing new remote tools and techniques for academia and industry.

With the unique experience of studying at a university’s distinctive engineering program while working as a young engineer for the UKAEA who sponsored him, Dr Buckingham found his lifelong passion and career in robotics for remote handling. He was one of the creators of the emerging field of snake-arm robotics. He is now applying his innovative, commercial technologies and strategies from working in the nuclear, aerospace, construction and petrochemicals sectors to the industry of nuclear fusion. Dr Buckingham was awarded The Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal in 2009. In the same year, his company OC Robotics won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the category of Innovation. Buckingham is also a Fellow of the UK Institute of Engineering Technology, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and a visiting professor at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory. He was co-chair of the Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) Special Interest Group Steering Group during the preparation of the influential UK RAS strategy, which has since been adopted by UK Government.

Examines Robofish, a prototype high speed, vision guided robot with an end‐effector that is able to grasp slippery fish and accurately place them within a deheading machine. Describes the vision system, the two fingered gripper and the robot which has two rotating arms. Outlines the software for the robot and gives results of initial trials. Concludes that with careful design, a fish can be grasped reliably and with the necessary accuracy in order to achieve yield improvements on fish deheading exceeding 1 per cent.

Robotic solutions for the handling of food products have been notably absent from suppliers’ catalogues and indeed from research laboratories. This is primarily due to the peculiarities that handling food adds to the general pick‐and‐place task. These are the complexity of handling non‐rigid products that are infinitely variable in shape, the hygiene requirement which stipulates IP65 or better for the hose‐down environment, and the reality that the food industry produces low margin products that only make substantial profits at large volumes, whilst also requiring perfect product presentation to the consumer. In this environment, tasks which have both a short payback and other commercial advantages, such as increased operator safety or improved quality, whilst also being technically feasible, are not immediately obvious.