Meet our visualisation lead, Daniel Mitchell
Daniel Mitchell is a researcher and visualisation specialist with a background in robotics. We asked him about his role at TransiT.
What’s your role at TransiT?
I’m a Research Associate at the University of Glasgow and my role in TransiT is using visualisation tools to help us understand what new technologies can be deployed – and how – in a future transport system that we may not have necessarily imagined yet.
Watch Daniel Mitchell presenting his digital 3D visualisation of proposed route planning in Dublin, featuring HGV modelling and a public feedback interface to support community input during the planning process. The presentation by Dan and his team won Most Innovative Solution at this year’s Bentley Urban Tech Challenge, a collaborative event organized by Bentley Systems, Google, Dublin City University, and the Smart Dublin initiative.
What does this involve?
I’m using tools including computer gaming engines and modelling software used in construction and other sectors to design infrastructure. I also work closely with TransiT industry partners, including Bentley Systems, which specialises in infrastructure engineering software.
My goal is to use my learnings from robotics and autonomous systems to help the transport sector operate more efficiently.
Daniel Mitchell
The visualisations I’m working on create an environment that we can walk through together with stakeholders to understand how future infrastructure would work.
For example, today we have static vehicle charging points. But in the future, we’re looking at the electrification of overhead gantry lines, which are called electric highway systems.
With the visualisations, we can walk through that future scenario to understand how these gantries could be set up on a road today, to understand all the engineering complexities – and also how it connects to the wider system, like the energy network.
Daniel Mitchell with Boston Dynamics robot, Spot.
Tell us a bit about yourself?
I did a Master of Engineering degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Heriot-Watt University and then a PhD in Robotics at University of Glasgow. I’ve worked with some quite famous robots, including Boston Dynamics’ four-legged robot, Spot.
I’ve also controlled a robot using my brain, as part of an international collaboration with California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the world-renowned science and engineering institute, where I was a visiting researcher, working with leaders in the field of robotics.
Other highlights include winning Rising Star awards from the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the University of Virginia, and also a Sir Alan Stirling Brown Award from the University of Glasgow’s School of Engineering.
Daniel Mitchell (left) at Port of Dover with TransiT colleagues Nish Rehmatulla, Adam Gripton, Siti Fariya and Alan Logan.
What do you hope to achieve at TransiT?
My goal is to use my learnings from robotics and autonomous systems to help the transport sector operate more efficiently.
I would like industry and the public to have a better understanding of what a future decarbonised transport system might entail. And what behaviours we might need to change, so we can all work together towards net zero.
