The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) has named RACE’s in-house developed robotic interoperability software, CorteX, as the winner of the Digital Futures category in its Impact in Society Awards. The IET awards celebrate teams of people from around the world who are doing critical work that responds to the challenges that society face across sustainability and climate change, digital futures and healthy lives.
CorteX enables the control of multiple robots from a single user interface. Crucially, CorteX makes it efficient to maintain and extend robotic systems, solving a problem in industries where robotics is deployed over multiple decades such as fusion energy devices and powerplant decommissioning.
Robert Skilton, UKAEA Robotics Fellow said: “Winning the IET’s Impact in Society Award in the Digital Futures category for our robotics control system CorteX is a really important achievement for UKAEA. It demonstrates how we are bringing immediate benefits to society as a direct result of the research being conducted to enable fusion energy. The team behind it is fundamental to its success and it’s fantastic to be recognised for our teamwork.”
The original vision for CorteX came from Robert Skilton in 2013. Matt Goodliffe, Lead Technologist, continued the project in 2014 and was joined by Dr Ipek Caliskanelli, Senior Robotics Research Engineer, in 2018 together completing the vision and building a team to take it from research project to real-world product.
CorteX is the result of collaborative effort between experts in robotics research, software engineering, UI/UX design, quality assurance, standards compliance, and technical authoring. With this blend of experience, RACE is developing CorteX to help other teams all over the globe, both in industry and academia, who are facing complex interoperability challenges.
About Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET)
The IET is one of the world’s largest engineering institutions with 169,000 members in over 150 countries. It is focused on engineering a better world by inspiring, informing and influencing its members, engineers and technicians, and all those who are touched by, or touch, the work of engineers.
Professor Bob Cryan, IET President said of the awards: “At the IET we know first-hand that engineers continue to solve many of the challenges facing communities across the globe – making an ongoing difference to the world around us. These Awards celebrate the teams of unsung heroes doing just that, as well as truly celebrating the art of collaboration in engineering workplaces.”
For more information about the IET’s Impact in Society Awards, please visit: www.theiet.org/impact-in-society.
