Sethu Vijayakumar is the Professor of Robotics at the University of Edinburgh, UK, and the Founding Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics.
He has pioneered the use of large-scale machine learning techniques in the real-time control of several iconic robotic platforms such as the SARCOS and the HONDA ASIMO humanoids, KUKA-LWR robot arm and iLIMB prosthetic hand. One of his projects (2016) involved a collaboration with NASA Johnson Space Centre on the Valkyrie humanoid robot being prepared for unmanned robotic pre-deployment missions to Mars. Professor Vijayakumar, who has a PhD (1998) from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, holds the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) - Microsoft Research Chair at Edinburgh and is also an Adjunct Faculty of the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles. He has published over 250 peer reviewed and highly cited articles [H-index 49, Citations > 12,000 as of 2024] on topics covering robot learning, optimal control, and real-time planning in high dimensional sensorimotor systems. He has been appointed to grant review panels for the EU (FP7, H2020), DFG-Germany and NSF-USA. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a judge on BBC Robot Wars and winner of the 2015 Tam Dalyell Prize for excellence in engaging the public with science – including his role in the UK wide launch of the BBC micro:bit initiative (2016) for STEM education. Professor Vijayakumar helps shape and drive the national Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) agenda in his role as a Programme Director (AI) at The Alan Turing Institute, the United Kingdom’s national institute for data science and Artificial Intelligence.