Cross-cutting challenges

We provide a bespoke environment where researchers from different specialisms and disciplines work together to tackle real-world challenges related to safe autonomy and AI. Each year the Institute supports a number of cross-cutting projects.

Seed funding is provided for both short and long-term projects, with teams working across ISA's Communications, Assurance and Design and Verification pillars.

Funded projects

Safe Maritime Autonomous Systems

An interdisciplinary project bringing together ISA expertise in underwater communications and sensing systems, development of autonomous vehicles and robots, and AI safety assurance.

Safe Tele-Operated Robotic Chemistry (S-TORCH)

A proof-of-concept project enabling expert chemists to remotely operate a dual-arm robot for hazardous chemistry tasks, built on reliable communication, formal verification and robust safety assurance.

Reliable Autonomy through Perception Assurance for Operational Robotics in Dynamic and Degraded Environments (RAPTOR)

RAPTOR is building an assurance framework that assesses safety in relation to a specific task a robot is carrying out, enabling outdoor mobile robots to recognise when it's no longer safe to rely on their own sensors and communications and switch to verified degraded-autonomy modes.

Semantics for Verifiable Maritime Autonomy (Seamantics)

Developing a framework that embeds verifiable semantics into a vessel's control system, ensuring it makes safe decisions and can understand humans and other vessels, even in the event of incomplete information or unreliable communication.