15 Oct 2026
Oxford Robotics Institute and Autodiscovery partner in European Space Agency-funded project on multi-robot scouting
The project will develop and field-trial solutions for multi-cooperative robot systems for real-time exploration, mapping and inspection of critical infrastructure
The project will develop collaborative autonomous robots and drones with potential applications including the autonomous monitoring of critical infrastructure such as airports, power plants and data centres. Credit: ESA ECSAT, Harwell Campus (top right).
In the Threat Monitoring Networked Team (TMNT) project, the Articulated Robotic Group (ARG) and Dynamic Robot Systems Group (DRS) of the Oxford Robotics Institute (ORI), University of Oxford, will partner with Autodiscovery, a system integrator for mobile robots, to develop a team of robots to support exploration, mapping and visualisation for a range of applications from security surveillance to lunar exploration.
The project, which is funded by a €1.8 million grant from the European Space Agency (ESA), aims to develop a cooperative team of four quadruped robots and a support drone, while leveraging 5G/6G inter-robotic communications to enable real-time, autonomous data sharing to support tasks such as multimodal object detection, manipulation, visualisation and mapping.
Teams of robots – multiple robot systems that act cooperatively – are used in numerous applications to improve the speed and coverage for tasks like mapping, search or surveillance. Having multiple robots working collaboratively also offers greater resilience in case of challenging situations or in instances of redundancy due to technical problems. However, core challenges remain in collaborative mapping, planning, and sharing AI in fleets of robots in the field, which requires novel development.
To ensure the technology developments are in line with real-world needs, the project aims to validate and verify the multi-robot system through a comprehensive set of field trials across a range of application areas, including critical infrastructure. This includes security-related site mapping and surveillance at university campuses, data centres and factories, as well as at the ESA LUNA facility for space exploration and planetary scouting.
Prof. Ioannis Havoutis, Principal Investigator of ARG, will lead the project. The project will see ORI contribute their expertise in robotic software, with Prof. Havoutis leading the AI-stack development and Prof. Maurice Fallon leading software support for SLAM. Autodiscovery, who have expertise in building bespoke robotic systems and proof-of-concept deployment, will lead on the hardware development and field trials.
Prof. Havoutis said:
"Robot teams that can scout, map and share information in real time have huge potential not just for security applications, but for space exploration, disaster response and industrial inspection too. This project lets us push cooperative robotics out of the lab and into genuinely demanding field conditions, working with a partner who understands how to turn that research into deployable hardware. We're excited to see what a four-robot team with next-generation connectivity can achieve."
Aron Kisdi Managing Director of Autodiscovery said: “Mobile robotics is at a turning point where we are moving beyond lab demonstrations and pushing to industrial scale deployment. Connectivity is a critically important part of this transition. We are seeing growing customer demand for robots helping with security and safety of industrial sites and this project enables us to bring the highest quality products to our customers and to prepare for the future with scalable connectivity and robots working in close collaboration with people and each other.”
