Friday 19 June 2026 12:00pm to 1:30pm
CivEng Seminar Room 1-33
About
The DRF Lunchtime Clinic is delighted to welcome Dr. Sam Brooks, Assistant Research Professor at the Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge, who will be presenting a talk entitled "Automating Repair: Moving Beyond Predicting Failure to Self-Engineering."
About the talk
Everything engineers create will eventually degrade, wear, or fail. Over the last 20 years, our ability to monitor systems and predict failures has improved significantly. However, our responses to prevent, manage, or recover from failures still often depend on human intervention. This becomes a particular challenge when machines operate in inaccessible, hazardous, remote, or highly automated environments.
This talk explores how engineered systems can move beyond monitoring faults towards automatically responding to them. Drawing on research into self-engineering systems, process automation, and bioinspired repair, I will discuss and highlight the challenges of automating processes such as repair and maintenance and how they can be addressed.
About the speaker
Dr Sam Brooks is an Assistant Research Professor at the Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge. His current research focuses on aspects of automation and digital technologies in manufacturing, including how to automate repair, remanufacturing, and refurbishment operations. His previous research combines considerations from engineering design, digital manufacturing and cyber-physical systems, with a particular interest in self-engineering systems that can monitor, adapt, repair or recover function. His work spans self-repair and self-cleaning systems, low-cost digital manufacturing, manufacturing information sharing, bioinspired design and industrial sustainability at the University of Cambridge, City, University of London and the University of Bristol.