French students work on underwater exploration

Four French students came to Wales to work on a series of ongoing projects at the Mechatronics Research Centre in the University's Departments of Computing and Engineering.

Robots that are programmed to explore underwater and send images to the surface were among the research projects tackled by students from France who have spent the last four months working closely with lecturers at the University of Wales, Newport.

The four students, from Ecole Nationales Superieure de Mecanique et des Microtechniques (L'ENSMM) in Besancon in Eastern France, came to Wales to work on a series of ongoing projects at the Mechatronics Research Centre in the University's Departments of Computing and Engineering.

"It was a pleasure to welcome these overseas students whose work on a number of diverse robotics-based projects will enable us to continue our research by providing us with the hardware and software to try new control systems and artificial intelligence algorithms", said Computing Lecturer Dr Christopher Tubb.

"The students came here on the Socrates programme which supports European co-operation in key areas including new technologies".

"They have spent four months working with the Department of Computing on projects that make up the final year module element of the University's degree programme and also meet the requirements of their programme of study which involves an internship with an industrial partner".

"The students that come to us are gaining valuable experience of working as a support member within a research centre, and were each given a project which supports our mobile robotics and underwater robotics research".

"One of the students, Antoine Faucher, carried out work on a new project we are looking at, possibly in conjunction with the local authority, which involves human power vehicles (HPVs)".

"The local authority is interested both from a recycling and an 'in town without the car' perspective, as we will probably be using old bikes and other recycled material from the waste management department as the basis of our prototypes".

"This project is linked to the idea that within an urban environment the use of human powered vehicles can provide personal transport in a clean, quiet and safe manner", he added.

While working on their projects the French students took time out to enjoy the night-life in Newport and Cardiff as well as visit a number of Welsh beauty spots.

Romain Vandenborght enjoyed combining sight-seeing with his research project.

He said, "I was very pleased to have the opportunity to come here and work in your laboratory on this project and I have learned a great deal in my time here".

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