People, homes, and drones

You never know how far one small idea can go. Gait has advantages as a biometric in that the gait can be perceived at low resolution of when other biometrics are concealed or are not available. Recognising the way people walk has uses in medical image analysis to surveillance and solving murder cases!

To meet our climate change targets, we must decarbonise our homes' space heating, cooking, and hot water, but, in combination with electric vehicles, this could lead to a 200-300% increase in the UK's annual electricity demand. The UK’s low voltage electricity network will not be able to operate with this large unconstrained electrical load. Our research, the LATENT project, explores the potential for homes electric heating to operate as a deferrable load, using your house as a ‘heat store’ controlled by 3rd party.

Civilian drones (remotely piloted/autonomous aircraft) have been the ‘next big thing’ for many years, but most of us only experience real benefits from their development through their use in film and media, as flying cameras. After some faltering starts in some directions (for example, ‘last mile’ delivery), the question arises: what industry might drones disrupt next? This talk will consider some promising candidates and some of the challenges – both technical and non-technical – that we need to overcome to convert drone technology progress into genuine, positive societal impact.