Katherine Christensen, Author at Australian Cobotics Centre | ARC funded ITTC for Collaborative Robotics in Advanced Manufacturing

ARTICLE: Cutting-edge careers

Posted on March 8, 2023May 29, 2023 by Katherine Christensen

Research Program Lead Dr Penny Williams featured in The Australian today in an article entitled, “The rise of AI is shaking up the world of work”, part of the Women in Education, Cutting Edge Careers special edition.

Penny talked about her research with the Australian Cobotics Centre and the opportunities available for women working with AI and robots in the future. “Women should consider courses that, in addition to giving them a trade or professional qualification, will help them develop digital skills, including basic coding. (They’ll also require) entrepreneurial thinking, strong communication and problem-solving skills, and the ability to collaborate with both humans and machines.”

Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/gGjv_zen

New PhD Researcher, Akash Hettiarachchi

Posted on March 6, 2023March 13, 2023 by Katherine Christensen

Welcome to Akash Hettiarachchi! Akash is a PhD researcher in the Centre, working with our Human Robot Workforce program based at QUT (Queensland University of Technology).

As new technologies are introduced, workers must re-train, upskill and adapt as production processes and specific jobs are re-designed. Opportunities exist to diversify the workforce, retain ageing or injured workers, and create a new employee-value proposition.

With the aim of expanding the available pool of talent and addressing attraction issues, this Project will look at the implementation of collaborative robotic technology across all Partner Organisations with manufacturing operations. It will explore the potential for new technologies to provide jobs that might be attractive to younger applicants and previously under-represented groups of workers in manufacturing, such as women or people with a disability.

Further, the study will consider how such technology might address retention and knowledge management issues by enabling injured or ageing workers to remain in meaningful and secure employment.

Welcome Akash!

New PhD Researcher, James Dwyer

Posted on February 23, 2023March 13, 2023 by Katherine Christensen

Welcome to our newest PhD Researcher, James Dwyer based at QUT (Queensland University of Technology)! James is joining our Human Robot Interaction program and is supervised by Jared Donovan. His PhD project is entitled: “Human Robotic Interaction prototyping toolkit”.

Interaction Design relies on prototyping methods to help envisage future design concepts and elicit feedback from potential users. A key challenge the design of human-robot interaction (HRI) with collaborative robots is the current lack of prototyping tools, techniques, and materials. Without good prototyping tools, it is difficult to move beyond existing solutions and develop new ways of interacting with robots that make them more accessible and easier for people to use.

This Project will develop a robot collaboration prototyping toolkit that combines physical and simulated robotic systems to explore, develop and test new processes and work routines. The project will enable designers, engineers, and end-users to work together to improve the future of human-robotic interaction.

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