Dr Jonathan Roberts: Research Director, Autonomous Systems Laboratory.

Dr Jonathan Roberts: Research Director

Dr Jonathan Roberts is Research Director of the Autonomous Systems Laboratory in CSIRO’s ICT Centre.

• 25 July 2011 | Updated 14 October 2011

• Current activities
• Background
• Academic qualifications
• Achievements 

Dr Jonathan Roberts' expertise is in the design and development of autonomous field robots (those that require little or no human direction and which operate in real world conditions).

Current activities

As Director of the Autonomous Systems Laboratory in CSIRO's ICT Centre, Dr Roberts leads more than 45 scientists and engineers.

Research in this laboratory spans robotics, computer vision and pervasive computing technologies such as sensor networks.

Dr Roberts' particular research interest is in robot guidance systems so robots – including flying robots – can operate autonomously in unstructured and dynamic outdoor environments.

Outside CSIRO, Dr Roberts is:

• Deputy Director of the Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation (ARCAA)
• Video Editor, IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine
• a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Field Robotics.

Background

Dr Roberts joined CSIRO in 1995 to develop robots for the mining industry. He was involved in the development of such large robots as:

• 3500 tonne draglines (used in open cut mining to remove the overburden from the ore body)
• 20 tonne hot metal carrier (a forklift-style vehicle that move crucibles of molten metal in smelters)
• 30 tonne load haul dump trucks (used in underground mining to move ore from the face to a crusher or truck)
• autonomous explosive loading vehicles for underground mining.

He was made CSIRO's leader of robotics in 2004 and became Research Director of the Autonomous Systems Laboratory in 2009.

Academic qualifications

Dr Roberts was awarded a:

• Bachelor of Engineering with Honours in aerospace systems engineering, University of Southampton, UK, 1991
• Doctor of Philosophy in computer vision, University of Southampton, UK, 1994.

Achievements

Dr Roberts holds two patents and has published over 100 refereed journal and conference papers.

Along with his current editorial roles, he edited the International Journal of Field Robotics special issue on unmanned aerial vehicles (now known as unmanned aircraft systems) in 2006.

Dr Roberts was President of the Australian Robotics and Automation Association in 2007 and 2008 and Vice President in 2005.

He has been involved in the organisation of many scientific meetings, including as:

• member, international program committee, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2005, 2007 and 2009
• member, international program committee, IEEE/Robotics Society of Japan International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2007 and publicity co-chair in 2005
• member, international program committee, International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR), 2007  
• member, international program committee, Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles (IAV) 2007  
• member, international program committee, Field and Service Robotics (FSR), 2007 and 2009 and local arrangements co-chair in 2005
• co-chair, Australasian Conference on Robotics & Automation (ACRA), 1999 and 2003.

In 2007 Dr Roberts and ARCAA colleagues cofounded the Outback Rescue Challenge, a competition that draws entrants from around the world to see if their autonomous aircraft can locate a lost ‘person’ and drop life-saving supplies to them.

Hear Dr Roberts talk about the Challenge in Outback Joe ‘almost saved’ by flying robots (Podcast 8 Oct 10).