Chris Harper

Chris Harper is a Senior Research Fellow at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, affiliated with the Faculty of Engineering and Technology at the University of the West of England. His work focuses on safety assurance in robotics and autonomous systems, with expertise spanning civil aerospace, rail, defense systems, and nuclear energy.

• AAIP Assistive Robotics in Healthcare
• CAV Forth
• ROBOPILOT
• SafeMRX

Research Expertise: With over 25 years in system safety assurance, Harper specializes in safety case development, hazard identification, fault tree analysis (FTA), failure modes & effects analysis (FMEA), and simulation-based safety validation techniques.

Key Contributions: He contributed to ISO 13482, the first international safety standard for mobile service robots, and developed the Environmental Survey Hazard Analysis (ESHA) method for autonomous systems.

Publications: His work spans safety verification methodologies, swarm intelligence applications, and formal methods integration in autonomous vehicles. Recent articles highlight simulation-based assertion checking and ISO standardization efforts.

• 15+ years in robotics safety research
• ISO technical committee participation
• ESHA method development
• PhD in robotics safety methodology