Smart Cities Robotics

Smart Cities and Robotics

Our work on Smart Cities has historically centred on the MK:Smart project, a flagship £17.2M UK initiative, which focused on progressing the smart city agenda in Milton Keynes. MK:Smart is widely regarded as one of the leading international smart city initiatives and comprised a consortium of 21 partners, which included MK City Council, major technology companies (e.g., BT, Samsung, Huawei), three Catapult centres, water and energy providers, and a number of other organisations.  A key outcome of MK:Smart was the MK Data Hub, an award-winning data infrastructure that supports the acquisition and management of both static and dynamic data from a variety of sources.

Building on the work carried out in MK:Smart, we have further progressed the smart city agenda, developing new solutions for the MK Data Hub, as well as carrying out fundamental research on the wider socio-technological issues associated with the deployment of technologies in urban contexts.  In particular we have worked closely with MK City Council in the MK:5G project, which has deployed a state-of-the-art 5G infrastructure in the city.

An important spin-off of MK:Smart was CityLabs, a programme funded by the European Regional Development Fund, which enabled SMEs in our region to take advantage of our expertise in Intelligent Systems and Data Science to develop innovative products and services for the digital economy.

More recently we have also started a new line of research in Robotics, focusing in particular on the challenges associated with the integration of robots in a smart city infrastructure. In this context, we are working on augmenting Machine Learning approaches with Knowledge Technologies, to design autonomous agents that can assist humans on a number of tasks, such as in the case of HanS, the Health & Safety robot inspector being developed in our Lab.

This line of work in Robotics is also being progressed in the Gatekeeper project, where we are collaborating with the NHS and local community groups to develop novel interventions for community-based care, including robotic assistance in the home and management systems for community volunteering activities.

We have also organised the 1st Smart Cities Robotics Challenge, which was held in Milton Keynes in September 2019, under the umbrella of the European Robotics League. This was the first competition of its kind anywhere in the world and required robots to leverage the smart city infrastructure and interact with ordinary citizens, assisting them in shopping scenarios, dealing with emergency situations, and providing a variety of other services.

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Team

Alessio Antoninis PhotoAlessio AntoniniResearch Associate
Jason Carvalhos PhotoJason CarvalhoProject Officer - Data Hub Development
Enrico Dagas PhotoEnrico DagaResearch Fellow
Enrico Mottas PhotoEnrico MottaProfessor of Knowledge Technologies
Riccardo Palas PhotoRiccardo PalaWeb Developer

News

SPIROCCO’s App for community-based care

SPIROCCO’s App for community-based care

As part of the H2020 GATEKEEPER, we are developing an App with the SME SPIROCCO to support community-based care. SPIROCCO is a winner of €50k funds of the 1st GK Open Call, addressing our challenge...

Agnese presents her research on robots with common sense at the AAAI Spring Symposium

The 2022 AAAI Symposium on Machine Learning and Knowledge Engineering for Hybrid Intelligence (AAAI-MAKE) took place on March 21-23. The symposium is aimed at bringing together researchers and...

Testing the GATEKEEPER robotic intervention in KMi

Testing the GATEKEEPER robotic intervention in KMi

As part of the GATEKEEPER project, our Gianluca is working on autonomous inspection of home environments aimed to identify and map objects of daily living and identify potential hazards. In...

Testing Robotic Vision through VR

Testing Robotic Vision through VR

As a part of the GATEKEEPER project, we are collaborating with Extend Robotics on the development of VR software for remote presence through the TiaGo robot. The first step is the reconstruction of...

Watch the video from the 2021 SciRoc Challenge!

Watch the video from the 2021 SciRoc Challenge!

Well… what an event! A huge thank you again to all of our teams, sponsors, volunteers and members of the public for joining us to support the 2021 SciRoc Challenge, and to the city of Bologna for...

ISDS Team at Semantics 2021

ISDS Team at Semantics 2021

Last week saw the latest edition of the Semantics series of conferences, Semantics 2021, which took place in Amsterdam, Holland. Since 2005, the Semantics conferences provide the main European...

Highlights from SciRoc 2021

Highlights from SciRoc 2021

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The Winners of SciRoc 2021 Are Announced!

The Winners of SciRoc 2021 Are Announced!

SciRoc 2021 took place at the historic Palazzo Re Enzo, from Monday 6th – Friday 10th September 2021. 13 international teams joined the competition. Given the restrictions and uncertainty around...

ISDS win at the SciRoc 2021 challenge

Last week, from the 6th to the 10th of September, the 2nd International Smart Cities and Robotics Challenge (SciRoc) was held in Bologna  (Italy) in the historic location of Palazzo Re Enzo. As a...

Publications

2018

Daga, E., Gangemi, A. and Motta, E. (2018) Reasoning with Data Flows and Policy Propagation Rules, Semantic Web - Interoperability, Usability, Applicability, IOS Press


2017

Liu, S., d'Aquin, M. and Motta, E. (2017) Measuring Accuracy of Triples in Knowledge Graphs, International Conference on Language, Data and Knowledge, Galway, Ireland, 10318, pp. 343-357, Springer, Cham


2016

Daga, E., d'Aquin, M., Motta, E. and Gangemi, A. (2016) An Incremental Learning Method to Support the Annotation of Workflows with Data-to-Data Relations, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management, pp. 129-144, Springer


Annika, W., Montaner, J. and Kortuem, G. (2016) Urban Data in the primary classroom: bringing data literacy to the UK curriculum, Journal of Community Informatics, C&C


Wolff, A., Gooch, D., Montaner, J., Rashid, U. and Kortuem, G. (2016) Creating an Understanding of Data Literacy for a Data-driven Society, Journal of Community Informatics


Elbanhawy, E. and Smith, A. (2016) Towards An Ambient Display Awareness Interface for Home Battery Storage System, Workshop: UbiTtention: Smart & Ambient Notification and Attention Management at UbiComp 2016, Germany


Daga, E., d'Aquin, M. and Adamou, A. (2016) Addressing exploitability of Smart City data, IEEE International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2)


Elbanhawy, E., Price, B. and Linden, J. (2016) Honey, I charged the car at work today: The Myths Behind EV workplace Shared Recharging, Workshop: The 5th International Workshop on Pervasive Urban Applications at PURBA 2016, Germany


Allocca, C., Adamou, A., d'Aquin, M. and Motta, E. (2016) SPARQL Query Recommendations by Example, Demo at Extended Semant Web Conference, The ESWC 2016 proceedings, Crete, Greece Demo at Extended Semant Web Conference, in eds. Harald Sack, Eva Blomqvist, Mathieu d'Aquin, Chiara Ghidini, Simone Paolo Ponzetto, Christoph Lange​, The Semantic Web. Latest Advances and New Domains.


Moore, J., Kortuem, G., Smith, A., Chowdhury, N., Cavero, J. and Gooch, D. (2016) DevOps for the Urban IoT, The 2nd EAI International Conference on IoT in Urban Space


Elbanhawy, E., Price, B. and Korteum, G. (2016) Honey, I charged the Car: Towards A Human-Centric Fair Scheduling Algorthim of EV Workplace Charging, CHI 2016


Gooch, D. and Kortuem, G. (2016) Creating sustainability through Smart City Projects, Workshop: Design, patterns, principles, and strategies for Sustainable HCI workshop at CHI 2016


Wolff, A., Gooch, D. and Kortuem, G. (2016) Data Literacy to Support Human-centered Machine Learning, Workshop: Workshop on Human-centered machine learning at CHI 2016, San Jose, CA


Elbanhawy, E., Price, B. and Kortuem, G. (2016) A Case Study of EV Owner-Regulation Using Workplace Charging: Design Requirements of SenCharge Platform, CHI 2016, San Jose, CA


Wolff, A., Hudson, L. and Kortuem, G. (2016) The Role of Data Literacy within a MOOC Analysis, Workshop: Data Literacy for Learning Analytics at LAK 2016


Barker, M., Giles, E. and Linden, J. (2016) Making it Physical: Designing embodied experiences in meaningful contexts, Workshop: BodySense 2 at TEI 2016


2015

Valdez, A., Potter, S., Cook, M. and Langendahl, P. (2015) Exploring participatory visions of smart transport in Milton Keynes, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Engineering Sustainability, 168, 6


Elbanhawy, E. (2015) Straight from the Horse's Mouth: I am an Electric Vehicle User, I am a Risk Taker, EAI International Conference on Smart Urban Mobility Services, Canada


Elbanhawy, E. (2015) The Charging Personas of the E-Mobility Users of Newcastle-Gateshead Urban Area, EAI International Conference on Smart Urban Mobility Services, Canada


Daga, E., d'Aquin, M., Gangemi, A. and Motta, E. (2015) Bottom-Up Ontology Construction with Contento, Demo at International Semantic Web Conference


Okada, A., Wolff, A. and Mikroyannidis, A. (2015) Fostering young smart citizens through personal learning environments for urban inquiries, Workshop: Smart Learning Ecosystems in Smart Regions and Cities at 10th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL), Toledo, Spain


Gooch, D., Wolff, A. and Cavero, J. (2015) Bringing Data Literacy to UK Secondary Schools, Smart Learning Ecosystems in Smart Regions and Cities, Toledo


Okada, A., Wolff, A. and Mikroyannidis, A. (2015) Fostering young smart citizens through personal learning environments for urban inquiries, Smart Learning Ecosystems in Smart Regions and Cities, Toledo


Gooch, D., Wolff, A. and Cavero, J. (2015) Bringing Data Literacy to UK Secondary Schools, Workshop: Smart Learning Ecosystems in Smart Regions and Cities at EC-TEL 2015, Toledo, Spain


Cavero, J., Kortuem, G. and Foell, S. (2015) Smart community energy initiatives in Smart Cities: learning collectively about energy, Workshop: EC-TEL 2015 at Smart Learning Ecosystems in Smart Regions and Cities, Toledo, Spain


Wolff, A. and Kortuem, G. (2015) Visualising energy: teaching data literacy in schools, Workshop: Sencity 2 at Ubicomp 2015, Osaka


Elbanhawy, E., Price, B. and Korteum, G. (2015) SENGY: Good Morning, Your Carbon Footprint this Month is 0.003 tons of CO2, Workshop: SenCity2 at Ubicomp 2015, Japan


Elbanhawy, E. (2015) Message to Newcastle City Council: Activate the EV Charging Point in Grey Street and Deactivate Strawberry Lane, Workshop: SenCity2 at Ubicomp 2015, Japan


Gooch, D., Wolff, A., Kortuem, G. and Brown, R. (2015) Reimagining the role of citizens in Smart City projects, First International Workshop on Smart Cities: People, Technology and Data, Osaka


Bourgeous, J., Foell, S., ElBanhawy, E., Price, B., Linden, J. and Kortuem, G. (2015) Harvesting green miles from my roof: an investigation into self-sufficient mobility with electric vehicles, ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing, Osaka


Elbanhawy, E., Price, B. and Kortuem, G. (2015) SENGY: Good Morning, Your Carbon Footprint this Month is 0.003 tons of CO2, Workshop: SenCity2 workshop at Ubicomp 2015, Osaka


Elbanhawy, E. (2015) Message to Newcastle City Council: Activate the EV Charging Point in Grey Street and Deactivate Strawberry Lane, Workshop: SenCity2 workshop at Ubicomp 2015, Osaka


Elbanhawy, E. and Price, B. (2015) Understanding The Social Practice of EV Workplace Charging Facility, Workshop: The 4th International Workshop on Pervasive Urban Applications at PURBA 2015, Japan


Bourgeous, J., Foell, S., ElBanhawy, E., Price, B., Londend, J. and Kortuem, G. (2015) Harvesting green miles from my roof: an investigation into self-sufficient mobility with electric vehicles, ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing, Japan


Potter, S., Valdez, A., Cook, M. and Langendahl, P. (2015) Governance in niche development for a transition to a new mobility regime, International Sustainability Conference 2015, Sussex


Piccolo, L. and ElBanhawy, E. (2015) Community Energy Engagement: Towards Practical Design Approach, Workshop: UK SHCI: Sustainable HCI in the UK at British Human Computer Interaction Conference 2015


Elbanhawy, E. and Dalton, R. (2015) Spatiotemporal Analysis of the e-Mobility System in Newcastle-Gateshead Area, The 10th Space Syntax Symposium SSS, London


Piccolo, L. and ElBanhawy, E. (2015) Community Energy Engagement: Towards Practical Design Approach, Workshop: The British HCI 2015 workshop, Lincoln


Elbanhawy, E. and Dalton, R. (2015) Spatiotemporal Analysis of the e-Mobility System in Newcastle-Gateshead Area, The 10th Space Syntax Symposium (SSS10), London


Wolff, A., Kortuem, G. and Cavero, J. (2015) Urban Data Games: creating smart citizens for smart cities, 15th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, Taiwan


Wolff, A., Kortuem, G. and Cavero, J. (2015) Urban Data Games: creating smart citizens for smart cities, 15th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, Taiwan


Wolff, A., Kortuem, G. and Cavero, J. (2015) Urban Data in the primary classroom: bringing data literacy to the UK curriculum, Workshop: Data Literacy Workshop, Oxford


Cavero, J., Kortuem, G. and Wolff, A. (2015) Collective intelligence for community energy initiatives, Workshop: Encouraging Collective Intelligence for the Common Good, Limerick


Wolff, A., Gooch, D., Mir, U., Cavero, J. and Kortuem, G. (2015) Removing barriers for citizen participation to urban innovation, Digital Cities 9, Limerick, Ireland


Wolff, A., Gooch, D., Mir, U., Cavero, J. and Kortuem, G. (2015) Removing barriers for citizen participation to urban innovation, Digital Cities 9 Workshop, Limerick


Okada, A., Wolff, A., Mikroyannidis, A. and Ashton, S. (2015) Promoting partnerships among Universities, Schools and Research Centres to foster Responsible Research and Innovation for smart citizenship, 15th International Conference on Technology Policy and Innovation (ICTPI), Milton Keynes, UK


Liu, S., d'Aquin, M. and Motta, E. (2015) Towards Linked Data Fact Validation through Measuring Consensus, Workshop: the 2nd Workshop on Linked Data Quality at the 12th ESWC, Portoroz, Slovenia


Adamou, A. and d'Aquin, M. (2015) On Requirements for Federated Data Integration as a Compilation Process, Workshop: 2nd International Workshop on Dataset PROFIling and fEderated Search for Linked Data (PROFILES '15) at 12th European Semantic Web Conference (ESWC 2015), Portoroz, Slovenia, 1362, pp. 75-80, CEUR-WS.org


2014

d'Aquin, M., Adamou, A., Daga, E., Liu, S., Thomas, K. and Motta, E. (2014) Dealing with Diversity in a Smart-City Datahub, Workshop: 5th Workshop on Semantics for Smarter Cities