About this Event
As robotic devices take their place in every day life, working alongside people, on production lines, delivering groceries and takeaways, cleaning airports, and assisting surgery, Milton Keynes City Council is hosting a unique opportunity during Milton Keynes Tech Week to inform recommendations and set out a vision for what is fast becoming the latest technical wave impacting society. This event has two opportunities to engage:
- From 12.30pm workshops invite you to consult on standards and respond to scenarios where robots are deployed in public spaces
- Evening reception and panel : A future with Robots in everyday life, hosted with the support of Smart City Consultancy with welcome address from Alice Clouter, Deputing Director Regulatory Innovation Office (RIO).
Milton Keynes has long been home to pavement robots, self-driving vehicles and drones, and is actively working to establish RoboPASS—a licensing framework to assure and oversee safe and secure robotic deployments in open public spaces. This is your opportunity to ask questions, explore the role robots have to play, learn more and consult on initiatives with the innovators and experts that are navigating development, including representatives from Milton Keynes City Council and other local authorities, regulators, central government, businesses, educators and smart city experts.
Agenda at a glance:
doors open 12:30 (lunch provided)
Daytime format
delegates choose from two of the three 1.5 hour round table workshop sessions (described below.)
13:00 – RoboPass the project – Insights and Recommendations
13:30 - workshops round 1
15:00 - session change and break
15:15 - workshops round 2
16:45 - 17:15 - summary discussion
17:15 - Evening Refreshments
18:15- Welcome address and presentations
18:45 Panel and Q&A
20:00 -close
Workshop descriptions for daytime sessions - delegates choose from two of the three sessions described below.
1/ Navigating the opportunity: use cases, benefits and concerns
collating understanding and emergent service development and deployment experience for potential uses of mobile robotic device-enabled services. The session focusses on the economic and social benefit cases, associated impacts to be anticipated such as the demands on public infrastructure (physical and digital), nuisance and vandalism, or crowding to review considerations for viable service delivery.
2/Licensing and permitting: managing complexity of the Highway
This workshop examines the licensing process developed within RoboPASS and underlying structures needed to issue licenses and manage governance models and reporting for real‑world adoption of robotics in urban and public spaces. These include expectations for safely tackling the complexities of navigating these spaces, task delivery, service viability and human-robot interaction as well as considerations for urban planning, infrastructure, and the rules that maintain respect for public rights and social value crucial to fostering public acceptance and trust.
3/ Assurance factors and underpinning standards
This session reviews the taxonomy of assurance factors being advanced with the support of BSI covering key assurance domains for safe, lawful and trusted deployment of autonomous robots in shared public environments, including system integrity, autonomous decision-making, operational safety, security, and governance. Mapping the most relevant national and international standards and examining gaps where current standards are insufficient, the aim is to inform priorities for a defensible assurance framework for publicway robotics.
Event venue & nearby stays
MK Gallery, 900 Midsummer Boulevard, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
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