Rob Siddall B contact@robsiddall.

com
Í www.robsiddall.com
Aerospace engineer and roboticist working on unmanned aircraft, with extensive theoretical and practical experience.

Experience and Education

2017-Present Lead Engineer, HayBeeSee Robotics, London, UK.
Startup company funded by the ESA, Innovate UK and angel investment. Leading a team in the development
of a unique aerial-terrestrial agricultural robot, with manipulation and imaging capabilities. The project
includes extensive mechanical design, motion/flight control, ROS development and computer vision.
2017-Present Research Associate, Imperial College London, Aerial Robotics Laboratory.
Part time contract (20%), running concurrently with work for HayBeeSee. Working principally on the
completion of a hyperelastic multimodal aquatic robot, as well as perching systems for aerial robots.
2013-2017 PhD, Imperial College London, Department of Aeronautics.
Member of the Aerial Robotics Laboratory research group. Doctoral Thesis: Aquatic Micro Air Vehicles.
Thesis content: Practical and theoretical investigations into miniature aerial-aquatic robots capable of
movement in both air and water. The work required extensive experimental work and resulted in three unique
prototypes with distinct locomotion strategies, as well as four journal publications, four conference papers
(publication record overleaf ) and several awards, including Best UK PhD in Robotics 2017.
2014-2017 Lab Manager As the first to join, played a lead role in the outfitting of the newly established Aerial
Robotics Laboratory, including design and installation of an indoor flight arena and a fabrication
facility. Helped with planning, developing and funding an expanded facility, which opened last year.
2008-2012 MEng, BA, University of Cambridge, Department of Engineering.
Specialized in Aerospace and Aerothermal Engineering. Final Year Grade: Merit, Thesis Grade: Distinction.
Thesis content: ’Sliding Granular Flow’. Conducted experiments on the rheology and tribology of particles in
a viscous fluid, building on work conducted as a UROP student. The final results featured at a conference.
2011 Undergraduate Researcher (UROP), University of Cambridge, Department of Engineering.
2010 Intern, Fluid Gravity Engineering, Portsmouth, UK.
2009 Intern, Myers Houghton and Partners, Long Beach, California.

Skills
Practical CNC/traditional machining, electronics, composites fabrication, 3D printing (plastics/metals), Laser
machining, unmanned aircraft, soft robotics, wind tunnels, SCUBA diving, driving license.
Computing Matlab, Simulink, Creo Parametric, Solidworks, LabView, Embedded Computing / Microcontrollers
(Python/C, ROS), G-code, QPROP/AVL/Xfoil, Adobe Suite, LATEX, SketchUp
Teaching Designed and ran 3rd year Applications of Engineering course 2016-17, supervised 11 master’s thesis
projects from 2013-17 and was Teaching Assistant for 1st year Experimental Methods 2013-15.

Awards
2018 Winner, Best UK PhD in Robotics, The Centre for Advanced Robotics at Queen Mary (ARQ)
2017 Winner, Best Robot Video, ’Aquatic Micro Air Vehicles for Water Health Monitoring’, AAAI-17
2017 Finalist, ’Aerial-Aquatic Locomotion’, STEM for Britain Parliamentary Science Contest, London
2016 Winner (National Award), ’Buildrone’, UAE Drones for Good Competition, Dubai
2015 Winner, EPSRC Robot Demo Contest, ’A Jet Propelled Aquatic Jumpglider’, TAROS 2015
 Publication Record
Journal Publications
2017 Royal Society Interface Focus, ’Wind and water tunnel testing of a morphing aquatic micro air
vehicle’, Robert Siddall, Alejandro Ortega Ancel and Mirko Kovac
2017 Robotics and Automation Letters, ’Efficient Aerial-Aquatic Locomotion with a Single Propulsion
System’, Yu Herng Tan, Robert Siddall and Mirko Kovac
2016 ASME/IEEE Transactions on Mechatronics, ’Fast Aquatic Escape with a Jet Thruster’, Robert
Siddall and Mirko Kovac
2014 Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, ’Launching the AquaMAV: Bioinspired Design For Aerial Aquatic
Robotic Platforms’, Robert Siddall and Mirko Kovac
Conference Publications
2016 Soft Robotics: Trends, Applications and Challenges, ’Bio-inspired Soft Aerial Robots: Adaptive
Morphology for High-Performance Flight’, Sina Sareh, Robert Siddall, Talib Al-Hinai and Mirko
Kovac
2015 International Symposium on Robotics Research, ’Explosive Propulsion Strategies for Aquatic Take-
off in Robotics’, Robert Siddall, Grant Kennedy and Mirko Kovac
2015 International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ’A Water Jet Thruster for an Aquatic Micro
Air Vehicle’, Robert Siddall and Mirko Kovac
2015 International Symposium on Adaptive Motion of Animals and Machines, ’Bioinspired Aerial-Aquatic
Mobility for Miniature Robots’, Robert Siddall and Mirko Kovac
Patents
2016 GB1701052.1 (Journal 6668), ’An electronic fluency device’, Jordi Fernandez Oromi, Rowan Brack-
ston, Van Dimitri Immerseel, Juan Marcos Garcia de la Cruz, Robert Siddall and James Bird
Posters
2012 Suspension Processing & Suspension Engineering Rheology, ’Velocity of sliding flow of a dense
granular suspension down an inclined plane’, Digby Symons and Robert Siddall

Communication Skills
Invited / Sponsored Talks
2017 Institute of Mechanical Engineers, Drones 2017 Event, ’Bioinspired Aerial Robotics’
2016 Palantir Technologies GEEKnight: Biotechnology and Robotics, ’Flight of the Robot: Doing more
with Drones’
2016 Tokyo Tech International Symposium on Biomimetic Robotics, ’Bioinspired Design for Aquatic
Micro Air Vehicles’
Outreach and Other Public Speaking
2018 Autonomous Vehicle Design Activity, Science Museum London
2017 PhD as Art Exhibition
2017 Science Museum London, Antenna Gallery Exhibit on Aquatic Micro Air Vehicle prototype
2016 Pint of Science Festival
2016 UK Space Design Competition (Technical Specialist)
2016 Dubai World Government Summit
2015 Science Museum London ’Lates’ Exhibitor
2015 London Tech Week Launch Event
2015 Imperial Festival
2015 IIT Bombay Techfest 2015
2014 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Award Ceremony