Aim: ‘BioRobotics (Bio-inspired robotics design and operation)’ is a new subcategory of bio-inspired design. It is about learning concepts from nature and applying them to the design and operation of robotics system. Bio-inspired roboticists are usually interested in biosensors (e.g. eye), bioactuators (e.g., muscle), or biomaterials (e.g., spider silk). Recently, nature has successfully been used to address the practical challenges, for example, biological attachment mechanisms such as gecko feet, burrs, and bird feathers can handle the complex assembly tasks. Collaboration mechanism from Ants’ team can inspire the multi-robots collaboration for object transportation. Despite the significance of bio-inspired design, no standardized methodology currently exists to help designers adequately learn from nature, especially for complex tasks such as assembly or object transportation collaboration. Therefore, this in-person workshop aims to bring the roboticists specified in bio-inspired design and operation together to explore further the opportunities and challenges of bio-inspired design and operation.
Time: 17th April 2026, 9:00-6:00pm
Venue: Riddle Halls, Belfast
Organisers:
Dr. Mien Van, Queen's University Belfast, UK
Dr. Erfu Yang, University of Stratchclyde, UK
Dr. Shan Luo, King's College London, Uk
Invited Expert SPEAKERs:
Prof. Shigang Yue, University of Leicester, UK
Prof. Thrishantha Nanayakkara, Imperial Colleage London, UK
Dr. Yongjing Wang, University of Birmingham, UK
Dr. Hareesh Godaba, University of Southamton, UK
Dr. Emmanouil Spyrakos Papastavridis, King's College London, UK
Dr. Sara Abad Guaman, University College London, UK
Prof. Yan Jin, Queen's University Belfast, UK
Dr. FARSHAD ARVIN, Durham University, UK
Insect’s vision for dynamic visual world - from bio-inspired models to bio-robotics
Professor Shigang Yue is Professor of Computer Science in University of Leicester.
Prof. Yue has published more than 200 peer reviewed journal and conference papers in bio-inspired neural networks and robotics. He has coordinated several major EU FP7 and EU H2020 projects. He is Associate Editor for IEEE TNNLS and IEEE TCDS. He had been an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow and worked in several universities including UCL, Newcastle University, University of Cambridge and University of Lincoln.
His group has been focusing on bio-plausible and bio-inspired visual neural networks, bio-robots, swarm intelligence, swarm robots, and application to autonomous systems.
Digitalisation and robotisation of disassembly and triage for industrial sustainability
Dr. Yongjing Wang is an Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham, specialising in robotics for sustainable manufacturing, particularly robotised disassembly. His contributions include over 70 publications in the areas of contact-rich mechanics, dexterous manufacturing, and machine intelligence in motion, as well as the first academic book addressing optimisation problems in disassembly sequence planning, ‘Optimisation of Robotic Disassembly for Remanufacturing’.
He leads three major EPSRC grants (£3.5M) and is a co-investigator/theme lead in the £15M EPSRC hub RESCU-M2. He is also a funding reviewer for research councils in the UK, Switzerland and the US, and an editor for world-leading journals and conferences (e.g. the IEEE transactions, Nature series and the Royal Society series). His research is supported by leading companies across automation, automotive, electronics, IT, and recycling sectors.
Beyond academia, Wang advises the UN on sustainability, contributes to UN AI guidelines, and serves on a BSI committee and a ASME standard committee. He is a Fellow of IMechE and FHEA, a Chartered Engineer, and a Senior Member of IEEE.
Towards Real-Time Metamorphosis between Bio-Inspired Forms – A Postbiological Pursuit
Emmanouil Spyrakos-Papastavridis received the B.Sc. degree in electronic and electrical engineering from University College London (UCL), London, U.K., the M.Sc. degree in mechatronics from King’s College London (KCL), London, U.K., and the Ph.D. degree in humanoid robotics from Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), Genoa, Italy. He was a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Department of Advanced Robotics, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, a visiting researcher at the Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London, a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the Department of Engineering, KCL, and later a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) with the same department. He is currently a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Robotics at the Centre for Robotics Research, Department of Engineering, KCL. His research interests include articulated-soft robots, nonlinear control, humanoids, bipedal balancing, legged systems, impedance control, metamorphic robots, exoskeletons, and physical human-robot interaction. Dr Spyrakos was a recipient of the 2022 Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics Best Paper Award, and a finalist for the Best Interactive Paper Award at Humanoids 2015. He was Principal Investigator of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) REST project and is currently Principal Investigator of the EPSRC RROBOMORPHOSIS project. He is serving as an Associate Editor for Robotica and Associated Editor-in-Chief of Design for Augmented Humanity.
Parallel Robots for High Value Manufacturing and Medical Systems
Dr Jin is a Professor in the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast. He is a Fellow of IMechE and FHEA. His research interest includes parallel robots, robotics automation, aircraft assembly, high performance machining, digital lean manufacturing, and production management. Prof. Jin has been an investigator for dozens of research programmes, funded by DTI, EPSRC, Royal Academy of Engineering, EU H2020, Invest Northern Ireland and industry, with a total value of £14 million. He is an associate editor of IMechE Journal of Engineering Manufacture. He is a member of the prestigious EPSRC Early Career Forum in Manufacturing Research, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow, and a member of technical committee of UK-RAS network. He also served as general chair of ICMR2019 and Parallel2020 international conferences. Prof. Jin has published over 180 peer-reviewed technical papers. He received the highly prestigious A. T. Yang Memorial Award in Theoretical Kinematics in 2019 and best paper awards at several leading international conferences (MeSRob2025, MEDER2024, iDECON2023, ICCSMT2023, IEEE_MeetroAeroSapce2022, IMIOT&ICSEE2018 and INDIN2012). He is a chartered engineer, chair of robotics committee in UK IFToMM, board member of IMechE MICG, and a member of IMechE.
From Biology to Embodiment: Developing Adaptive Robotic Systems
Dr Sara Adela Abad is an Assistant Professor in Robotics at University College London and Head of the Bioinspired Adaptive Robotics Lab. Her research investigates how biological systems achieve robustness and adaptability, translating these principles into embodied robotic systems that interact effectively with complex environments. Her work spans bioinspired locomotion and neuro-mechanical haptic interfaces, with applications in several fields, e.g., biodiversity monitoring, farming, human-robot interaction, and healthcare diagnostics. She has received several awards (e.g., IHE Discovery Award 2026) and Impact Fellowships recognising the impact of her research. Additionally, her research has been published in leading journals (Nat. Commun. and IEEE TR-O) and has received international media attention for its potential impact on future human-robot interaction technologies.