Previous appointments
include a number of industrial and academic positions;
controls systems design engineer with British Railways,
the UK Ministry of Defence and the Papua New Guinea
University of Technology. Notable achievements include
the invention, with S. Kormilo, of the first microprocessor
based adaptive controller for small hydroelectric
plants, the development of the first free running
magnetoresitive oscillator, and the first academic
in the UK to be seconded to industry under the SAIS
(senior academics in industry) scheme in 1993. During
this secondment he was a member of the team which
created WorkSpace, the worlds first PC based, industrial
standard, FAS (flexible automation system) design
and robot off-line programming package. He was the
leader of the team, which created the UK’s first
dedicated robotics undergraduate programme, the
BEng (Hons) Robotics & Automated Systems course
at Plymouth and is chairman of the BARA (British
Automation & Robotic Association) special interest
group devoted to robotics education in the UK.
Mr Robinson holds bachelors and masters degrees
in electronic engineering from the University of
Hull. Author or co-author of over 70 academic papers
he also manages his own consultancy company, Ppafco
Associates and is a founding director of Merlin
Automation & Robotics Systems Ltd.
e-mail : probinson@plymouth.ac.uk
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