Our Department of Computer Science has welcomed an exciting new arrival: Alan, a humanoid robot that will support a wide range of future research.
Meet Alan
Alan is a Unitree G1 Edu robot, designed for education and research, and has already generated strong interest across the department.
While the robot may also appear at public events and demonstrations, its main role will be to help researchers explore how intelligent systems can better understand and respond to the world around them.
By bringing together movement, vision and interaction in one platform, Alan offers a practical new way for our researchers to test ideas in real-life settings.
Supporting new ideas across AI and robotics
Alan will be used primarily as a shared research platform within our Computer Science community, particularly by colleagues in the VIViD research group.
Researchers are interested in using Alan to study how robots can recognise people and objects, understand scenes, copy human actions and make decisions in everyday environments.
He may also support work in areas such as assistive robotics, helping explore how future robots could work safely and usefully alongside people.
The robot also connects with wider projects across the department. For example, it could support longer-term research into how traditional human skills and practices might be observed, learned and eventually carried out in respectful and helpful ways by robotic systems.
Bringing research into the real world
One of the most exciting next steps is exploring how Alan can carry out simple tasks and make decisions in real time without depending heavily on outside computing support.
This would help make the robot more independent and better suited to real-world environments.
As a physical research platform, Alan gives our researchers a valuable opportunity to test ideas in a more direct and practical way.
It also strengthens the department's work in AI, robotics and visual computing, while creating new opportunities for collaboration and innovation.
