To the Planets and Beyond: A Robot's Story
The Children's Christmas Lecture 2005
| Children's Christmas
Lecture Summary |
| Date: |
Wednesday 21 December 2005 |
Time: |
3pm |
| Location: |
Palmer Lecture
Theatre
Whiteknights Campus
The University of
Reading |
| Speaker : |
Dr. Gerrard T.
Mckee |
Summary
Please note: All tickets have now been
allocated for this year's Christmas lecture.
Heard of Sojourner, the little robotic rover of the NASA
Pathfinder Mission to Mars? Find out how it served scientists in
their quest to understand the world and look for evidence of life on
Mars. As we send robots deeper into space alone we need to provide
them with the ability to think and act on their own. After all man
will not be there to tell them what to do or to help them out if
they get lost or into difficulty. What type of intelligence does a
robot explorer of the planets require? How do we give it this
intelligence? And can robots ever experience the same thrill of
exploration that humans would experience?
Suitable for age 7+
The University of Reading Children’s Christmas Lecture is always
very popular and is therefore a ticket only event. Unfortunately
all tickets have been allocated for this year's lecture.
About the speaker: Dr Gerard McKee
Dr Gerard McKee is Senior Lecturer in Network Robotics in the
School of Systems Engineering at The University of Reading. He
received his BSc in Electronics and his PhD on the topic of
Modelling and Engineering Intelligent Systems from the University of
Manchester, Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). He joined
the Department of Computer Science at the University of Reading in
1987 where he has taught courses in Artificial Intelligence,
Robotics, and Information System Design.
Dr McKee has led and participated in numerous activities towards
the public understanding of science, including online robot
demonstrations for television and “Talking with Scientists” seminars
for University Open Days. In 2003 he received a SMART award from the
UK PPARC Research Directorate for the development of a UK Mars
Station Network – a set of online robot arenas offering general
members of the public the opportunity to drive a small rover-like
robot system around a physical simulation of a site on Mars.
Dr McKee’s primary research interests are in the area of network
robotics, robot architectures, cooperative robot systems and
telerobotics. He has developed online robot systems to support
robotics education and Artificial Intelligence teaching in
undergraduate single honours and joint degree programmes. He has
contributed to workshops on robotics education and has a number of
conference and journal publications in the area.
Dr McKee founded and leads the Active Robotics Laboratory which
conducts research on advanced robotics systems and applications
including new concepts for space robotics systems. He has been a
Visiting Research Scholar and Visiting Research Scientist at the
NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and Visiting
Researcher at the MIT Field Robotics Laboratory.
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