Following engineering training (at British Rail and Rolls Royce) I graduated from Swansea University in 1967 (BSc) and 1969 (MSc) in Electrical Engineering. I then moved into Computer Science as a Lecturer at Leicester Polytechnic. I completed my PhD in 1980 in Psychology (Nottingham University). In 1974 I moved to Aberystwyth University, then a college in the federal University of Wales. I became a Senior Lecturer in 1985 and was awarded a personal chair in 1987. I am now Emeritus Professor, engaged in writing and part-time research.

I have taught and researched into robotics and artificial intelligence for 40 years and have been involved in most branches of these fields. I have always worked on engineering projects with a human dimension: speech processing; colour vision; expert systems; diagnostic reasoning; learning mechanisms; and robotics. My research has ranged from tactile sensing systems for robotics to novel qualitative models of electrical circuit theory, and robot learning techniques from classical AI to brain models. My early work on infant learning algorithms (developed during my PhD) has blossomed in the last decade within the active and promising field known as Developmental Robotics. For a demonstration of longitudinal development on the iCub humanoid robot, see the video "Time Lapse learning".

I have won funding for many of my research projects in robotics, (over 35 research projects with grant cash components totaling over £8m from the UK's research councils and from the European Commission). Many of these projects involved considerable additional contributions from collaborating companies such as, Thorn EMI, Software Sciences, Systems Designers, Jaguar Cars, Ford Motor Co., and Unilever Research. I also founded and directed the Centre for Intelligent Systems, a support agency promoting advanced software for SMEs throughout Wales.

I am a longstanding reviewer for international research agencies, journals and senior academic appointments panels. I have written over 200 papers, two books, and edited two others. I am a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIET), and the Learned Society of Wales (FLSW).