Renaming the old science packs to their 0.17 names in the 4 files in the Expanded_Robot_Tech_0.5.3\prototypes\technology\ folder:
From - - > To
science-pack-1 - - > automation-science-pack
science-pack-2 - - > logistic-science-pack
science-pack-3 - - > chemical-science-pack
high-tech-science-pack - - > utility-science-pack

and updating the Factorio version in the info.json from 0.16 to 0.17

Now the mod will run and appears to work. But I have not done extensive testing.

this did not seem to work with 17.36 and various other mods installed

I tried it too, came quite far in to getting it to load, but it gave me an non-contiguous error and i couldn't find out why.

This was the error
Failed to load mods: Technology character-logistics-slots: Non-contiguous levels: 7 to 10, followed by 8.

I find it quite weird because neither vanilla nor the mod has technology levels beyond 6 .