15 November 2024
Advancing the frontiers of robotics and neurotechnology
We are excited to be launching two new multi-year R&D programmes with Programme Directors, Jenny Read and Jacques Carolan.
Backed by £57 million, Robot Dexterity will seek to leverage advances in hardware, AI, and simulation to transform robot capabilities and boost human productivity and prosperity. Through Precision Neurotechnologies, we will direct £69 million towards developing next-generation neurotechnologies, capable of producing more breakthrough treatments to neurological disorders ranging from depression to Parkinson's disease.
"Whether it's turning valves in chemical plants or tightening bolts on rail tracks, there are any number of dangerous or difficult tasks where, if it were possible, society would benefit from deploying robotics," says Jenny Read, Programme Director for Robot Dexterity. "We know from evolution that it's possible to achieve dexterous control with minimal compute and energy consumption. Demonstrating a similar shift in robotic abilities will help us address the labour challenges of tomorrow, and support a step change in productivity and welfare."
As with all of our funded research, these programmes have been designed to support our mission to unlock technological breakthroughs that could benefit everyone.
The Robot Dexterity programme
By harnessing advances in AI and advanced simulation, this programme will aim to show that it's possible to transform robotic dexterity, and create vastly more useful machines. We will aim to demonstrate the power of this approach by producing one or more robotic manipulators with unprecedented dexterity on a real-world task.
If successful, these advances stand to make robotics much more widely useful than it is today, boosting productivity, supporting the establishment of new industries, and easing future labour deficits. In the UK alone, over 70% of businesses say they are impacted by shortages – a problem compounded by the fact that the world's population aged over 65 is expected to triple by 2100.
Over the next five years, we will direct £57 million into R&D projects supporting the objectives of this programme. Robot Dexterity will be split into four Technical Areas (TAs), each with a specific aim, approach, and budget. In the early stages, we anticipate funding advances in individual components, e.g. actuation or sensing, in isolation, before later combining advances made within and beyond the programme to develop new manipulators, and demonstrate a paradigm-shift in robotic abilities.
"The development of robot bodies has lagged far behind the enormous advances in computation over the last half-century" said Ilan Gur, CEO. "AI is justifiably driving a wave of enthusiasm for progress in robotics, but not enough attention is being paid to the hardware breakthroughs that will be needed to unlock widespread utility for society."
Explore the Robot Dexterity programme
The Precision Neurotechnologies programme
This programme aims to develop next-generation neurotechnologies that can interface with the human brain at the circuit level — across distributed brain regions and with cell type specificity.
Neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders carry a major social and economic impact – three times that of heart disease – affecting people, communities and societies around the world. By uniting the frontiers of engineered biology and hardware, Precision Neurotechnologies seeks to demonstrate new treatments for these disorders by interfacing precisely at the same scale at which they occur in the brain.
"Whether it's epilepsy, depression, addiction, or movement disorders, many brain conditions are circuit-level disorders, which current neurotechnologies are unable to address", says Jacques Carolan, Programme Director. "This programme will seek to transform our understanding of what highly precise neurotech can do, and move us closer to a world in which personalised brain health care is available to everyone."
The programme will run for up to four years and comprise £69 million in funding, split out over three Technical Areas. If successful, the development of a new suite of 'precision neurotechnologies' should enable major advances in two core areas:
1. Disease understanding and diagnosis by developing novel biomarkers of disease states;
2. The identification of new therapeutic targets, capable of leading to personalised treatments tailored to the individual.
"We've learnt more about the brain in the past five years than we have in the last fifty, but neurotech remains massively underserved relative to its potential impact," said Ilan Gur, CEO. "Despite advances in brain-computer-interfacing technologies, there have been very few serious attempts for engaging with the central nervous system at the circuit level. We believe precision neurotechnologies could be game-changing for understanding and treating some of our most complex and devastating disorders."