Hugh Durrant-Whyte is a world-renowned robotics scientist who is particularly interested in developing outdoor ‘field’ robots. These can be used in the air, underwater or on the ground for wide-ranging applications, including agriculture, conservation, mining and defence work. For example, Hugh has created flying weed-spraying drones for use in remote areas and a cargo-handling airport terminal in Brisbane, Australia.
His work in developing nonlinear filtering techniques for robot control led to the development of simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM). SLAM algorithms are used in a number of applications, including self-driving cars, drones and autonomous underwater vehicles.
In 2008, Hugh was named National Professional Engineer of the Year by Engineers Australia’s Sydney Division, and in 2010 he was awarded NSW Scientist of the Year. He delivered a popular talk, entitled ‘What is a robot?’, at TEDxSydney in 2012.
Professional position
- Professor, ARC Federation Fellow, Faculty of Engineering, University of Sydney
Subject groups
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Other
Other interests
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Mathematics
Statistics and Operational Research
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Engineering and Materials Science
Engineering, aeronautical, Communications incl information theory, Computer engineering (including software), Engineering, control (incl robotics)
