Dr Jonathan Roberts is Research Director of the Autonomous Systems Laboratory in CSIRO’s ICT Centre.
Dr Jonathan Roberts' expertise is in the design and construction 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 50 scientists and engineers.
Research in this laboratory spans robotics and 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.
Dr Roberts’ particular research interest is in robot guidance systems.
Outside CSIRO, Dr Roberts is:
- Associate 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 he 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 papers in journals and at international conferences.
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.
Read about the technical details of the work undertaken in the Autonomous Systems Laboratory [external link].
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