Episode Four - Robot Senses: perceiving the world
Matt Watson of Opteran Technologies explains how reverse-engineering honeybee brains enables efficient, low-power collision avoidance and SLAM, contrasting this with the high compute demands of supervised deep learning. Dr. Perla Maiolino of the Oxford Robotics Institute discusses CySkin, a flexible, large-area artificial skin using capacitive triangular modules for tactile perception and manipulation. Dr. Dimitrios Kanoulas of UCL addresses the challenge of fusing multi-sensor data (LiDAR, cameras, IMUs) to handle uncertainty and real-time planning in dynamic, unstructured environments.