We aim to develop mobile co-robotic platforms on the human-scale for use in environments where people work. The approach is to develop using state-of-the-art standards and to develop our own open modular platforms that allow robotic systems to be plug-and-play.
Founding team
Chris Mangnall
Chris is a 20 year veteran of the visual effects industry, leading teams to create world class 3D graphics for Hollywood. Chris has a 1st Class BA (Hons) in Computer Animation and Visualisation from the University of Bournemouth, and has since augmented his degree with numerous online courses including Linear Algebra, Differential Geometry, Quantum Mechanics, Statistical Mechanics and Quantum Machine Learning.
He has worked for top post production houses in the UK and Canada: Framestore-cfc, Double Negative, Pixar, Image Engine and Sony Imageworks, and created special effects for films such as the Harry Potter franchise, Chappie, Pacific Rim and Godzilla: King of Monsters. He is a winner of a 2024 Visual Effects Society Award for his work on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
His work primarily involves particle, rigid-body and fluid simulations, as well as authoring geometry processing tools for tricky one-off effects.
The diverse nature of film special effects has afforded him a solid and practical understanding of the maths behind a variety of dynamical systems and physical simulations, and his passion for learning has kept him up to date with latest technology.
When he can, he likes to go outside, climb, hike and play with his daughter.
Andy Whyte
After graduating with a Masters in Electronics and Control Engineering, Andy worked at a couple of French Computer Science labs. In the developmental robotics group at Sony CSL, Andy worked on Sony entertainment robotics platforms such as the Aibo robot dog and Qrio humanoid robot, using neural networks and curiosity driven learning techniques. However, at this time it was apparent that AI was missing ‘something’, so Andy, left research to do product development in the Cambridge Consulting ecosystem, where developed skills including becoming a Chartered Mechanical Engineer. He has lead commercially successful product developments such as haptic control electronics, hardware, HDL and software for surgery simulation, this project became the platform for 7 products and lead to a client IPO, as well many other successful consumer and industrial products. In 2017, Andy began a PhD at the University of Cambridge, recognising the importance of developments in deep learning Andy applied them to problems in his PhD. This in turn allowed him to observe on the ‘deep learning’ undergraduate module and rekindled an interest in machine learning. Since then, Andy has kept up to date on AI developments and is excited to be well placed to develop electro-mechanical systems applying techniques.