He may be a world-renowned robotics scientist but Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte is a confessed Luddite when it comes to the technology many of us take for granted.

He's never owned a mobile phone, he uses email and the internet sparingly and he doesn't drive.

"I think technology has gone too far," says Durrant-Whyte, 48, the research director of the Australian Centre for Field Robotics at the University of Sydney. "I know that sounds odd."

Odd indeed for someone who has assembled the world's second-biggest robotics research group more than 200 people and who recently won a Clunies Ross innovation award from the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.

He likes nothing better than sitting quietly nutting out complex maths problems and algorithms, away from ringing phones and distracting emails.

"Communication has become a substitute for work," he says, adding that other favourite pursuits are reading a good book or going for a walk.

The algorithms are used to develop "field" robots, for use outside in the air, underwater and on the ground for cargo handling, mining, agriculture and defence work.

Other applications being developed include identifying and spraying weeds in remote areas, herding animals, fighting bushfires and searching for particular corals and fish.

Australia, with its vast open spaces, is the ideal place to test and commercialise field robots, Durrant-Whyte says.

It's the reason he migrated here from England in 1995, answering a magazine advertisement for a mechatronics (mechanical and electrical engineering) professor at the University of Sydney.

That snap decision to come here is typical of what Durrant-Whyte describes as "the random progression of my career".

When he couldn't decide after finishing school whether he wanted to be an engineer or a scientist, he opted to do a science degree majoring in nuclear engineering and worked for four years at Rolls-Royce, designing nuclear reactors for submarines.

"The joke is, I used to have a licence to drive a nuclear sub but I've never had a car licence," he laughs.

But he decided there wasn't much future in nuclear reactors after the Three Mile Island accident. Keen to travel, he applied for a scholarship to do postgraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He scanned a list of subjects, decided robotics "sounded cool" and completed a masters and PhD in three years, just as the area was really taking off.

Then came nine years researching and lecturing at Oxford University, where a company that moved shipping containers asked him to help design giant outdoor robots for the job.

"That's when I really got interested in doing stuff outside rather than inside," he says. "Big outdoor robots are much more challenging than little indoor ones."

One of the first people Durrant-Whyte met when he moved to Australia was the chief executive of port operator Patrick, Chris Corrigan, who asked him to design robots for its cargo terminal in Brisbane. The completely unmanned terminal opened in 2004.

Other major clients of Durrant-Whyte's team include mining companies such as Rio Tinto, which has huge robot trucks and drills in Western Australia's Pilbara area, and global defence company BAE Systems.

It's an impressive res{aac}ume {aac} for someone who says he was "very average" at school.

He even had one teacher comment, on his report card, that "Hugh will never make a scientist".

"I think they just weren't working on the same level as me," Durrant-Whyte quips in response. "People like me, we like to see stuff work."

The big questions

Biggest break Seeing an advertisement on the wall of the career guidance centre for a scholarship to study in the US.

Biggest achievement The cargo-handling terminal in Brisbane. It has 36 robots moving shipping containers from ships to yards and on to vehicles. I'm amazed seeing the algorithms and maths work ... it's not science fiction any more.

Biggest regret I knew you'd ask me this and I couldn't think of any, so I asked my four kids and my wife but they couldn't think of anything either. I just go from one happenstance to the next.

Best investment Buying a house in Balmain before the prices escalated.

Worst investment I don't have investments. I've never bought a share, I just have shares in a few start-ups [through his work].

Attitude to money I don't think about money at all. My wife looks after it. Money is not the driver of anything that I do.

Personal philosophy Enjoy yourself and do what you think is right.