CRADLE’s first Industry Engagement Activity (IdEA) was organised for National Highways, a government-owned company responsible for operating, maintaining, and improving England’s major roads. Prior engagements with business consulting and services company, Jacobs, raised initial discussions on how highway inspection could be carried out more safely, by using robotics and remote operations to reduce the amount of time people spend on the road in hazardous conditions.
On 20 September 2023, an ‘Industry Day’ workshop was attended by representatives from Jacobs, the University of Manchester, and National Highways. The team spent the morning discussing the breadth of challenges facing National Highways, then used the afternoon to prioritise these challenges according to urgency and impact.
As a result of the workshop, the CRADLE team presented several technology implementations to demonstrate the capabilities of robotics for the sector.
Read the full article in DPA's January 2025 issue