Welcome to The Centre for Advanced Robotics
The Centre for Advanced Robotics @ Queen Mary (ARQ) is a leading UK-based multidisciplinary research centre dedicated to advancing robotics. Our primary goal is to unite, facilitate, and promote comprehensive research and teaching in Advanced Robotics. ARQ serves as the focal point for world-class under-/postgraduate research and teaching in robotics, reinforcing Queen Mary's robotics research activities. Achieving "Centre of Excellence Status" in 2019 at Queen Mary University of London, ARQ has garnered over £7m in research funding since its inauguration in 2017.
Our diverse research portfolio includes projects funded by prestigious entities such as the European Research Council (ERC), European Commission (EC), UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), Innovate UK, and industrial partners. ARQ, currently led by Professor Kaspar Althoefer, comprises 20 core and associated academic members, along with 45 postdoctoral researchers and PhD students.
Specialized robotics teams within ARQ focus on areas such as robot design, mechatronics, human-robot interaction, control systems, autonomous systems, field robotics, sensing, biomedical robotics, and mechatronics. Notable teams include SAPHIR (Kaspar Althoefer), CRISP (Lorenzo Jamone), HAIR (Ildar Farkhatdinov), and RSR (Dr Ketao Zhang).
Explore the websites of our teams and projects, and publications for insights into our cutting-edge research.
News

24-02-2025
Faculty of Science and Engineering

15-11-2024
Centre for Bioengineering
Recent Publications
- Fiber Bragg grating-based tactile sensing tool for minimally invasive surgery
Zhang Z, Violakis G, Dawood AB, Abdalwareth A, Althoefer K, Polygerinos P, Angelmahr M and Schade W
Optical Fibers and Sensors for Medical Diagnostics, Treatment, and Environmental Applications XXV. vol. 13310
20-03-2025 - Guest EditorialSpecial Collection on Tactile Robotics
Yim M, Luo S, Lepora N, Yuan W, Althoefer K, Cheng G, Olvera JRG and Dahiya R
IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) vol. 41, ii-iii.
01-01-2025 - Modelling of Buoyancy Based Actuation of an Inflatable Underwater Soft Robot
Kaleel D, Clement B and Althoefer K
Lecture Notes in Computer Science. vol. 15052, 242-253.
30-12-2024
Recent Grants
- Ocado (S&E Flexible Match-funded PhD Studentship)
Kaspar Althoefer
£75,000 Ocado Innovation Ltd
01-10-2024 - 30-09-2027 - Multi-sensor Eversion Robot Towards Intelligent Endoscopic Microsurgery - ERC SyG 2023 Althoefer
Kaspar Althoefer, Ketao Zhang and Mohamed Thaha
£1,791,893 EU Commission - Horizon Europe
01-07-2024 - 30-06-2030 - EMPreSS: Enhanced Methane Monitoring Precision for a Multi-Agent UAV System Solution
Paul Balcombe and Ketao Zhang
£415,038 NERC Natural Environment Research Council
01-06-2024 - 31-05-2027