It is an exceptional time for discoveries in particle physics and particle astrophysics and the research we wish to conduct in this STFC consolidated grant programme at Sheffield is at the heart of this action. Foremost recently has been the discovery by ATLAS of a Higgs boson particle. Members of the group led and helped to develop the key 4-lepton analysis upon which the discovery was based. We will now use our expertise to measure carefully the properties of the new particle to establish whether it is the Higgs boson predicted by theory, or something else. We will also search for squark and gluino particles predicted by supersymmetry theory, which will be the main target of the next, higher energy, run of the LHC. Preparing for the future, we will expand our role in the ATLAS upgrade programme to build key components of a new ATLAS tracker. Our involvement in the T2K experiment in Japan also greatly benefited from confirmation of a non-zero third neutrino mixing angle, a result fundamental to our understanding of the neutrino. The group's respected work in neutrino analyses for T2K, particularly of so-called charge current and neutral current events, will continue along with international responsibilities for data management and for the critical light injection calibration system. However, bolstered by the exciting new results we will now also accelerate participation in next generation long baseline neutrino experiment for CP violation aimed to unravel the mystery of antimatter in the Universe, notably using LBNE/F in the US and Hyper-K in Japan. For these our particular focus will be on detector construction. For the precursor LAr1-ND experiment at Fermilab we plan to construct the central Anode Plane Array for the detector, while working also on our pioneering liquid argon R&D. We will also establish novel detector prototypes at the new CERN-based neutrino platform and for LBNE/F itself. Closely related here will be work on the MICE experiment towards a potential future neutrino factory, plus related R&D on high power particle beam targets for future neutrino beams and experiments. For particle astrophysics we plan to expand work on gravitation waves, through specialist noise analysis for Advanced Ligo, and develop new effort on dark matter, thought to comprise 90% of the Universe. There is strong motivation here because the US LUX experiment recently produced a step-change in sensitivity to dark matter particles. We will complete leading analysis for the EDELWEISS experiment and then lead key simulations for the upcoming LZ experiment in the US. Following our pioneering work on detectors with sensitivity to galactic signatures, the group will also lead analysis and construction tasks for the DRIFT direction sensitive experiment at Boulby and the new DM-ICE250 NaI experiment, which US collaborators recently agreed will be hosted at Boubly. DM-ICE will seek a new annual modulation signal for dark matter. These experiments are all searching WIMP particles, but we will also expand study of axions as a potential alternative. Meanwhile, our generic detector R&D and knowledge exchange programme is vital to underpinning the group's expertise and skills-base. It benefits from our historic links to the Boulby deep underground science laboratory but critically now involves multiple industrial and non-STFC projects. Noteworthy aims now will be to complete our DECC-funded programme on muon tomography for climate change, develop new instrumentation for radon assay, spin-out work on novel motor control electronics via a new patent and continue development of novel welding technology. It is interesting that our long-standing efforts to develop liquid argon technology for neutrino physics are also relevant to medical imaging requirements. We plan to complete a new prototype instrument, building on a recent MRC award. This all reflects the group's commitment to contributing to societal and impact agendas.

The global Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) market was $25.5bn in 2001 and is growing. The market potential for future robotics and autonomous systems is of huge value to the UK. The need for expansion in this important sector is well recognised, as evidenced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer's announcement of £35m investment in the sector in 2012, the highlighting of this sector in the 2012 BIS Foresight report 'Technology and Innovation Futures' and the identification of robotics and autonomous systems by the Minister for Universities and Science in 2013 as one of the "8 great technologies" that will drive future growth. This expansion will be fuelled by a step change in RAS capability, the key to which is their increased adaptability. For example, a home care robot must adapt safely to its owner's unpredictable behaviour; micro air vehicles will be sent into damaged buildings without knowing the layout or obstructions; a high value manufacturing robot will need to manufacture small batches of different components. The key to achieving increased adaptability is that the innovators who develop them must, themselves, be very adaptable people. FARSCOPE, the Future Autonomous and Robotic Systems Centre for PhD Education, aims to meet the need for a new generation of innovators who will drive the robotics and autonomous systems sector in the coming decade and beyond. The Centre will train over 50 students in the essential RAS technical underpinning skills, the ability to integrate RAS knowledge and technologies to address real-world problems, and the understanding of wider implications and applications of RAS and the ability to innovate within, and beyond, this sector. FARSCOPE will be delivered by a partnership between the University of Bristol (UoB) and the University of the West of England (UWE). It will bring together the dedicated 3000 square metre Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL), one of the largest robotics laboratories in Europe, with a training and supervising team drawn from UoB and UWE offering a wide breadth of experience and depth of expertise in autonomous systems and related topics. The FARSCOPE centre will exploit the strengths of BRL, including medical and healthcare robotics, energy autonomous robotics, safe human-robot interactions, soft robotics, unconventional computing, experimental psychology, biomimicry, machine vision including vision-based navigation and medical imaging and an extensive aerial robotics portfolio including unmanned air vehicles and autonomous flight control. Throughout the four-year training programme industry and stakeholder partners will actively engage with the CDT, helping to deliver the programme and sharing both their domain expertise and their commercial experience with FARSCOPE students. This includes regular seminar series, industrial placements, group 'grand challenge' project, enterprise training and the three-year individual research project. Engaged partners include BAE Systems, DSTL, Blue Bear Systems, SciSys, National Composites Centre, Rolls Royce, Toshiba, NHS SouthWest and OC Robotics. FARSCOPE also has commitment from a range of international partners from across Europe, the Americas and Asia who are offering student exchange placements and who will enhance the global perspective of the programme.

VISION: To create, run and exploit the world's leading research programme in mobile autonomy addressing fundamental technical issues which impede large scale commercial and societal adoption of mobile robotics. AMBITION: We need to build better robots - we need them to be cheap, work synergistically with people in large, complex and time-changing environments and do so for long periods of time. Moreover, it is essential that they are safe and trusted. We are compelled as researchers to produce the foundational technologies that will see robots work in economically and socially important domains. These motivations drive the science in this proposal. STRATEGY: Robotics is fast advancing to a point where autonomous systems can add real value to the public domain. The potential reach of mobile robotics in particular is vast, covering sectors as diverse as transport, logistics, space, defence, agriculture and infrastructure management. In order to realise this potential we need our robots to be cheap, work synergistically with people in large, complex and time-changing environments and do so robustly for long periods of time. Our aim, therefore, is to create a lasting, catalysing impact on UKPLC by growing a sustainable centre of excellence in mobile autonomy. A central tenet to this research is that the capability gap between the state of the art and what is needed is addressed by designing algorithms that leverage experiences gained through real and continued world use. Our machines will operate in support of humans and seamlessly integrate into complex cyber-physical systems with a variety of physical and computational elements. We must, therefore, be able to guarantee, and even certify, that the software that controls the robots is safe and trustworthy by design. We will engage in this via a range of flagship technology demonstrators in different domains (transport, logistics, space, etc.), which will mesh the research together, giving at once context, grounding, validation and impact.

Robots will revolutionise the world's economy and society over the next twenty years, working for us, beside us and interacting with us. The UK urgently needs graduates with the technical skills and industry awareness to create an innovation pipeline from academic research to global markets. Key application areas include manufacturing, assistive and medical robots, offshore energy, environmental monitoring, search and rescue, defence, and support for the aging population. The robotics and autonomous systems area has been highlighted by the UK Government in 2013 as one the 8 Great Technologies that underpin the UK's Industrial Strategy for jobs and growth. The essential challenge can be characterised as how to obtain successful INTERACTIONS. Robots must interact physically with environments, requiring compliant manipulation, active sensing, world modelling and planning. Robots must interact with each other, making collaborative decisions between multiple, decentralised, heterogeneous robotic systems to achieve complex tasks. Robots must interact with people in smart spaces, taking into account human perception mechanisms, shared control, affective computing and natural multi-modal interfaces.Robots must introspect for condition monitoring, prognostics and health management, and long term persistent autonomy including validation and verification. Finally, success in all these interactions depend on engineering enablers, including architectural system design, novel embodiment, micro and nano-sensors, and embedded multi-core computing. The Edinburgh alliance in Robotics and Autonomous Systems (EDU-RAS) provides an ideal environment for a Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) to meet these needs. Heriot Watt University and the University of Edinburgh combine internationally leading science with an outstanding track record of exploitation, and world class infrastructure enhanced by a recent £7.2M EPSRC plus industry capital equipment award (ROBOTARIUM). A critical mass of experienced supervisors cover the underpinning disciplines crucial to autonomous interaction, including robot learning, field robotics, anthropomorphic & bio-inspired designs, human robot interaction, embedded control and sensing systems, multi-agent decision making and planning, and multimodal interaction. The CDT will enable student-centred collaboration across topic boundaries, seeking new research synergies as well as developing and fielding complete robotic or autonomous systems. A CDT will create cohort of students able to support each other in making novel connections between problems and methods; with sufficient shared understanding to communicate easily, but able to draw on each other's different, developing, areas of cutting-edge expertise. The CDT will draw on a well-established program in postgraduate training to create an innovative four year PhD, with taught courses on the underpinning theory and state of the art and research training closely linked to career relevant skills in creativity, ethics and innovation. The proposed centre will have a strong participative industrial presence; thirty two user partners have committed to £9M (£2.4M direct, £6.6M in kind) support; and to involvement including Membership of External Advisory Board to direct and govern the program, scoping particular projects around specific interests, co-funding of PhD studentships, access to equipment and software, co-supervision of students, student placements, contribution to MSc taught programs, support for student robot competition entries including prize money, and industry lead training on business skills. Our vision for the Centre is as a major international force that can make a generational leap in the training of innovation-ready postgraduates who are experienced in deployment of robotic and autonomous systems in the real world.

The nuclear industry has some of the most extreme environments in the world, with radiation levels and other hazards frequently restricting human access to facilities. Even when human entry is possible, the risks can be significant and very low levels of productivity. To date, robotic systems have had limited impact on the nuclear industry, but it is clear that they offer considerable opportunities for improved productivity and significantly reduced human risk. The nuclear industry has a vast array of highly complex and diverse challenges that span the entire industry: decommissioning and waste management, Plant Life Extension (PLEX), Nuclear New Build (NNB), small modular reactors (SMRs) and fusion. Whilst the challenges across the nuclear industry are varied, they share many similarities that relate to the extreme conditions that are present. Vitally these similarities also translate across into other environments, such as space, oil and gas and mining, all of which, for example, have challenges associated with radiation (high energy cosmic rays in space and the presence of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) in mining and oil and gas). Major hazards associated with the nuclear industry include radiation; storage media (for example water, air, vacuum); lack of utilities (such as lighting, power or communications); restricted access; unstructured environments. These hazards mean that some challenges are currently intractable in the absence of solutions that will rely on future capabilities in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (RAI). Reliable robotic systems are not just essential for future operations in the nuclear industry, but they also offer the potential to transform the industry globally. In decommissioning, robots will be required to characterise facilities (e.g. map dose rates, generate topographical maps and identify materials), inspect vessels and infrastructure, move, manipulate, cut, sort and segregate waste and assist operations staff. To support the life extension of existing nuclear power plants, robotic systems will be required to inspect and assess the integrity and condition of equipment and facilities and might even be used to implement urgent repairs in hard to reach areas of the plant. Similar systems will be required in NNB, fusion reactors and SMRs. Furthermore, it is essential that past mistakes in the design of nuclear facilities, which makes the deployment of robotic systems highly challenging, do not perpetuate into future builds. Even newly constructed facilities such as CERN, which now has many areas that are inaccessible to humans because of high radioactive dose rates, has been designed for human, rather than robotic intervention. Another major challenge that RAIN will grapple with is the use of digital technologies within the nuclear sector. Virtual and Augmented Reality, AI and machine learning have arrived but the nuclear sector is poorly positioned to understand and use these rapidly emerging technologies. RAIN will deliver the necessary step changes in fundamental robotics science and establish the pathways to impact that will enable the creation of a research and innovation ecosystem with the capability to lead the world in nuclear robotics. While our centre of gravity is around nuclear we have a keen focus on applications and exploitation in a much wider range of challenging environments.