The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has announced updated rules that will give operators an annual permission to operate in built up areas.

No two countries see eye-to-eye when it comes to regulating drones; and every country seems to have different guidelines for determining who can deploy drones.

RE.WORK’s Future Robotics Forum - which took place in London on Tuesday - was an opportunity to hear the stories of key influencers and developers of transformative robotic services and devices, and to learn about the challenges involved in commercialisation.

Many governments have determined that robotics will play a significant role in contributing to their economy and have set up projects to fund bottlenecks to speed up the process.

UK’s Ministry of Defense invested 1.1M GBP in a new robotic mannequin that will test protective suits and equipment for the UK’s armed forces. The project is named “Porton Man” and is able to emulate the movements of a soldier (march, sit, kneel and pose). It is equipped with more than a hundred sensors that monitor in real-time the performance of the tested article.

Voice recognition is a timely science not only because of all the human-automobile communication offered by car companies, but also by smart devices and their growing use of voice interfaces. It won’t be long until we operate many of our appliances by voice command.

What does the UK public want from robotics research? What are their hopes and fears? In order to discover more about what British citizens think about robotics and other key areas of technology, Sciencewise, the UK’s centre for public dialogue in policymaking for science and technology issues, has commissioned a set of reports to explore public attitudes through market research, opinion polling, academic research, public engagement activities and the media. The aim of the reports is to create a snapshot of current UK attitudes and values on robotics, and to make recommendations for further engaging the public in policy matters. The reports follow key announcements in the UK, including the identification of robotics as a key growth area by UK Chancellor George Osborne in his 2012 speech to the Royal Society, confirmation of this by Minister for Science and Universities David Willetts in his report Eight Great Technologies, and the July 2013 announcement that the UK robotics industry would receive a £40 million funding boost.