Hemma Philamore

Hemma Philamore is a Senior Lecturer in Robotics and Autonomous systems at University of Bristol. Hemma is committed to embedding environmental sustainability within robotics research and teaching practise at University of Bristol and beyond. Becoming a member of PROTEAS has provided a community of like-minded people working within robotics, which has been instrumental in turning these goals into practise solutions at University of Bristol and Bristol Robotics Lab. 

Hemma’s research expertise is in soft, energy autonomous, and bio-hybrid robots for environmental applications. She works with partners including British Antarctic Survey, the Department of Earth Sciences at UCL, and Vellore Institute of Technology (India) to develop robots and sensors for environmental exploration and remediation. Hemma’s research includes energy-autonomous, mobile robots, powered by bacteria; energy-autonomous water quality sensors based on bioelectrochemical cells and embedded machine learning; and soft-robotic, multi-terrain robots. This includes the following projects:

A turtle-inspired environmental monitoring robot with adaptive morphology and control for multi-terrain locomotion. Royal Society Research Grant, 2023 

Robots in the Wild – Environmentally, trustworthy robots for monitoring challenging natural ecosystems. Collaboration between University of Bristol, University College London and University of the West of England,, Royal Society APEX Award, 2023 

Robotany (robots for use in vertical farming). EPSRC & Brigstow Institute, University of Bristol, Impact Acceleration Award, 2021 

Bio-Hybrid Robot-a Assisted Pollution Mapping in Agriculture in Rural India. Collaboration between University of Bristol, UK and Vellore Institute of Technology, India, Global Challenges Research Fund, 2017