| Established | 1970 [1] |
|---|---|
| Students | ~800 [2] |
| Location | , Wales 52°24′50″N4°03′53″W / 52.4140°N 4.0647°W |
| Campus | Penglais Campus |
| Research areas | Intelligent robotics Computer vision Artificial Intelligence Computational biology Advanced reasoning |
| Website | aber |
The Department of Computer Science at Aberystwyth University was established in 1970 and is located in the Llandinam Building on the Penglais Campus. [1] [2] The department has approximately 800 students across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and conducts research in intelligent robotics, computer vision, artificial intelligence, and computational biology. [2]
The Department of Computer Science was founded in 1970. [1] During the 1975-80 period, Science Research Council data showed the department received £3.2 million in research grants. [1]
The department experienced expansion in the 1980s. In 1981, the number of graduating students doubled, and the first Master of Engineering in Computing students graduated in 1982. The department awarded its first six PhDs during this decade. [1] Computing infrastructure progressed from PDP-11 systems to VAX-11/750 systems by 1984, leading to the establishment of a Systems Support group managed by Dave Price. [1]
In the Research Assessment Exercise 2008, the department was graded with 100% of research classified as international quality, with 70% deemed world-leading or internationally excellent. This placed it amongst the top 20 computer science departments in the UK. [1]
The department offers undergraduate degree programmes accredited by BCS (The Chartered Institute for IT): [3]
Students have access to Linux and Mac OS X laboratories and robotic equipment including Arduinos and mobile robots. [4]
Postgraduate programmes include:
Approximately 20 students pursue postgraduate research programmes within the department. [5] Research postgraduates complete training modules through the university's Researcher Development Programme.
Research is organised within four groups: [6]
Research areas include knowledge representation, fuzzy-rough techniques, randomised search heuristics, computational intelligence methods, and applications of artificial intelligence in manufacturing systems. [6]
The group conducts research in data analysis of large-scale biological data, formalisation of biological data, biomedical informatics, genetics, pharmacogenomics, and systems biology. [6] The group was originally established around 1998 and has evolved through several iterations, becoming the Bioinformatics and Health Informatics group in 2023. [7]
A significant contribution from the group has been the development of AberOWL, a framework for ontology-based access to biological data. [8] AberOWL provides reasoning services for bio-ontologies and consists of an ontology repository, web services, and web interfaces that enable semantic access to biological data and literature. [9] The system has been applied to provide automated reasoning-based access to hundreds of ontologies in BioPortal, demonstrating that complex queries can be answered in milliseconds. [10]
The group has also made significant contributions to metabolomics research, particularly in developing standards for data exchange and management. Research has included the development of hybrid SQL/XML approaches to metabolomic data management and contributions to the Metabolomics Standards Initiative. [11] Other notable achievements include the development of the Robot Scientist project, which created an autonomous biological laboratory capable of performing experiments independently. [7]
The group is part of the UK-Robotics and Autonomous Systems network and participates in national and international research consortia covering robotics applications across multiple domains. [12]
Research focuses on software and hardware for operation in unconstrained environments. The group has participated in space robotics research including the Beagle 2 mission and the ExoMars programme. [13]
Research includes medical image analysis, computer vision for robotics, virtual reality applications, and computer vision applications in marine and plant biology. [14]
The group has collaborated on space research missions including Beagle2 and ExoMars, focusing on computer vision applications and feature-based localisation for planetary exploration. [14]
AberMUD was developed in 1987 by Alan Cox, Richard Acott, Jim Finnis, and Leon Thrane while students at the department. Written initially in the B programming language for a Honeywell mainframe, it was later ported to C for Unix systems. AberMUD became the first widely-distributed open source MUD and influenced the development of subsequent MUD implementations.
The department is housed in the Llandinam Building on the Penglais Campus. Facilities include Linux and Mac OS X laboratories, robotic equipment, and access to Supercomputing Wales facilities. [13]
The department has access to a GPU farm and is developing ANTUR (Aberystwyth Natural Terrain for Unconstrained Robotics), a facility for testing autonomous robots. [13]
Degree programmes are accredited by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT on behalf of the Engineering Council. [3] This accreditation provides graduates with eligibility for Chartered IT Professional (CITP) status. [16]