BRL: Bristol Robotics Laboratory

Bristol Robotics Laboratory is a research centre set up by the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England and is the largest robotics centre in the UK.

All activities, and all 160+ full-time researchers are co-located within one large research facility.

Queen's Building

Our Queen's building lab has equipment for developing and testing soft robots and materials.

Equipment

Our equipment includes:

• a fume hood;
• Thinky centrifugal mixer and vacuum oven for chemical synthesis and preparation of hydrogels;
• FDM and SLA 3D printers;
• vacuum chamber for preparation of silicone rubbers;
• high voltage chamber (up to 10kV) for testing of electro-active polymers.

The lab also has a range of load cells, laser displacement meters and mechanical stages for rapid fabrication of rigs for testing soft materials and structures.