Bruce MacDonald
Professor & Director
My long term goal is to design intelligent robotic assistants that improve the quality of people's lives. My main research interests are in human robot interaction and robot programming systems, and applications in areas such as healthcare and robots on farms. I'm the director of the department's robotics group and the leader for the multidisciplinary CARES robotics team at the University of Auckland. I was the founding chairman for NZ's robotics, automation and sensing association for 3 years. For NZ's national science challenge Science for Technological Innovation (SfTI), I'm the deputy director, theme leader for Sensors, Robotics and Automation and responsible for capacity development. The key SfTI question is about what long term research in physical sciences and engineering NZ should do in order to drive future economic growth; I believe a strategic approach to this will deliver more long term benefits, when coupled with active engagement in delivering the research across the country. I'm co-chair for the IEEE technical committee on software engineering for robotics. One research programme is developing robots to help care for older people, a multidisciplinary project undertaken jointly with Korean researchers and companies. Another project is for multipurpose orchard robotics, jointly with the University Waikato, Plant and Food Research and Robotics Plus.