Why Imperial Ladies - because they are named after Queens of England and the chassis were dimensioned in inches.
Unfortunately due to domestic circumstances I had to abandon work on these robots.

Elizabeth

Elizabeth Gallery
Imperial-Lady class robot #1
A self contained mobile robot able to navigate in an unstructured environment and coexist with human and other reasonably sized animal life.
Multiple sensors and multiple sensor systems.
Data fusion via behavioural fusion control strategies.
Design and building started September 1993.
Size - about 26" * 18" * 36".

Victoria

Victoria Gallery
Imperial-Lady class robot #2
A self contained mobile robot able to navigate in an unstructured environment and coexist with human and other reasonably sized animal life.
Multiple sensors and multiple sensor systems.
Data fusion via behavioural fusion control strategies.
Design and building started September 1993.
Size - about 26" * 18" * 36".

Both Elizabeth and Victoria were designed to be operated by Triangle Digital Services 16 bit Forth controllers.
Big Red Emergency-stop switches were fitted at the four corners of the top structure.
Each base was designed to be clad in bump sensitive sensor plates in case other sensor readings failed.
Each robot had an on board charger but a docking charger point was never fitted.
Victoria had 12v motors and Elizabeth 24v motors, the steering was by windscreen wiper motors and the drive was by mobility scooter motors.

1996
Victoria was demonstrated at the Model Engineering Show London on 5th & 6th January 1996, was featured on 'The Big Breakfast' TV show on 4th September 1996, and was at Robotix96, the 2nd Robot Olympics Glasgow in March 1996 (photographed with Liberator.
     

Victoria then appeared with Prof. Martin Smith on various TV programs.

During the 1996 filming of Victoria as Robocop on Carol Vorderman's 1997 programme "Put it to the Test" she called the robot Robocop and the name stuck.

1997 - onwards
Victoria was shown - as Robocop - at Robotix97, the 3rd Robot Olympics Glasgow in Spring 1997.

Victoria, now with a complete skirt, was fitted with an upper body, arms and microwave sensors by Martin Smith, and from 2000 both Elizabeth and Victoria have been in his care.

On 2nd July 2002 Victoria was shown off to the Duke of Edinburgh when he visited the Technology Innovation Centre at the University of Central England.