Main Page
MMVLWiki
The Mobile Machines and Vision Laboratory (MMVL) is a research group under the Centre for Automation and Robotics Research (CARR) within the Materials and Engineering Research Institute (MERI). The expertise within the MMVL group are diverse but it includes a long standing presence on open-source Computer Vision / Machine Perception, as well as Embedded Systems Engineering and Human Machine Interfaces, in relation to mobile robotics research and its applications.
The main theme of our research is on the connection of artificial perception and physical action. Perception requires extensive processing and interpreting of data generated by sensors. We employ a wide range of perception sensor modalities and sensing technologies, including various types of cameras, ranging lasers and ultrasound devices. Actions are typically performed by robots and multi robot teams, ranging from large to medium and small sized mobile robots. The robots and sensors are applied in structured environments and human machine interactions play an important role.
MMVL has had a long presence in delivering UK Research Councils and European Union projects since 1996; such as, Miniman, Micron, I-SWARM, GUARDIANS, VIEW-FINDER and Nanorobotics (also see past projects). Currently the MMVL is participating in EU-FP7 projects REPLICATOR and EPSRC project REINS (also see present projects). We are also actively involved in consultancy for industry.
If you need assistance, please visit the help section.
News
CARR/MMVL part of the SCentRo
02 Sep 2011: The CARR/MMVL group is now part of the Sheffield Centre for Robotics.
EPSRC funding: REINS project
02 Mar 2011: The MMVL group has been awarded a new project by the EPSRC under grant number EP/I028757/1. The REINS project will investigate and experiment upon how a human and a semi-autonomous robot can develop cooperation using a haptic interface in low visibility conditions. We view communication as a flexible, creative and dynamically adaptive process, which does not necessarily require a set of a-priory fixed codes. We will investigate the communicational landscape emerging within the human-robot team and its emerging 'vocabularies'. More...
TAROS 2011: Conference organisation
26th Nov 2010: Sheffield Hallam University via the MMVL group is co-organising TAROS 2011 conference in collaboration with the University of Sheffield. For more information see here. The call for papers poster is available here.
DHRS-CIM EU project Marie Curie exchanges
10th Sep 2010: The DHRS-CIM project EU-FP7 People Network project, has now had several active exchanges between MMVL (SHU, UK) and D-CIS Lab (Thales R&D, NL) during Aug and Sep 2010. These exchanges are in the context of the project and have been performed on a visiting researcher basis. For more information consult the DHRS-CIM page or contact us.
GUARDIANS EU project successfully completed
12th July 2010: The GUARDIANS project EU-FP6-IST, was successful according to the European Union Panel Review Report. The overall contribution was labelled as 'excellent' with the experimentation and results as 'very good'. The works on plume olfactory navigation, robot-human team cooperation and interfacing, were deemed as 'impressive' and 'well presented'. The VF final project report is available here. More...
ViewFinder (VF) EU project successfully completed
5th July 2010: The VF project EU-FP6-IST, was successful according to the European Union Panel Review Report. The overall contribution was labelled as 'sufficient' with the experimentation and results as 'good'. The works on depth recovery and point-cloud rendering were deemed as 'promising' and 'novel'. The VF final project report is available here. More...
Thesis on 3-D surface reconstruction
7th Apr 2010: Kim Chuan has published his PhD thesis on Development of 3-D Surface Data Acquisition System Using Non-Calibrated Laser Alignment Techniques. More...
Robotic centre launch event
22nd January 2010: The Centre for Automation and Robotics Research (CARR) will be opened by Professor Noel Sharkey from Sheffield University. The launch will include demonstrations of the GUARDIANS- and VIEW-FINDER-project. Jacques Penders was interviewed on BBC radio (at 22m 07s of the 30 mins show).
Older News
Older news can be found in the news archive.