From robotic iPads to fruit picking robots: Suffolk's first robotics testing lab

  • Watch a report by Russell Hookey


Robotic iPads and robots that can pick fruit on farms are just a few innovative projects showing how artificial intelligence can be used more in our everyday life.

They're being developed by companies working at a new robotics testing lab in Suffolk which is expected to place the UK at the "forefront of a new era of robotics".

The facility at the BT Labs in Martlesham, Ipswich is hoping to play a "key role" in developing robotics solutions to speed the deployment of infrastructure.

The lab is the first of its kind in the country and is designed to help BT engage with universities and start-up businesses as it hopes to develop solutions to "challenging" engineering tasks.

Credit: BT

This includes problems such as how to clear out blocked ducts, and install a new fibre network without having to dig up roads and pavements.

The site is an indoor facility that allows research teams to trail the robotics with a number of different test zones.



Around a hundred technology companies are based at Adastral Park with around four thousand staff.