Senior Systems Scientist
Home Department: RI
Office: 3207 Newell-Simon Hall
Phone: (412) 268-7943
Administrative Assistant:
Peggy A. Martin
Mailing Address
My research focuses on developing the intelligence necessary to enable complex platforms to autonomously interact with and perform meaningful work in complex environments. The task areas on which I am currently focusing include biologically inspired dynamic locomotion and learning, compliant manipulation for agriculture and food preparation, managing uncertainty in human-robot interaction, and field-ready search and rescue robotics. The central ideas that underlie the analytical aspects of my work are drawn from classical control theory, Bayesian inference, practical optimal control, and modern reinforcement learning.
Research Topics
- Biologically Inspired and Evolutionary Robotics
- Human-Robot Interaction
- Search and Rescue Robotics
- Force Control
- Micro/Nanorobots
- Motion Control
- Kinematically Redundant Manipulators
- Robotic Systems Architectures and Programming
- Robots with Flexible Elements
- Human-Centered Robotics
- Kinematics
- Robotics Foundations
- Human Robot Collaboration
- AI Reasoning for Robotics
- Field & Service Robotics
- Robotics for Scientific Discovery
- Robotics in Agriculture and Forestry
- Robotics in Construction
- Robotics in Hazardous Application
- Space Robots and Systems
- Underwater Robotics
- Domestic Robotics
- Perceptual Robotics
- Manipulation & Interfaces
- Behavior-based Systems
- Cooperative Manipulators
- Motion for Manipulation Tasks
- Robot Learning for Manipulation
- Robot Structures
- Legged Robots
- Model Identification
- Parallel Mechanism and Robots
- Soft Robotics
- Wheeled Robots
- Active Perception
- AI Reasoning for Articulated Systems
- Dynamics
- Geometric Algorithms
- Motion Planning
- Sensing & Perception
- Force and Tactile Sensors
- Multisensor Data Fusion
- Sensing and Estimation
- Reinforcement Learning
- Full Stack Autonomy
Displaying 68 Publications
current phd students
current masters students
Below is a list of this RI member's most recent, active or featured projects. To view archived projects, please visit the project archive
Confined Space Robotics - In-situ Pipe Repair
Robot solution for old pipes. Robots go inside the pipes to repair leakage by extruding epoxy pipe inside the original pipe without digging the old pipe otu of the ground.
Confined Space Robotics - Pipeline SLAM - Robust Mapping in Confined Spaces
CMU in-pipe mapping system is a self-sufficient payload consisting of sensors and computation devices, equipped with multi-modal Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithms.
DARPA RACER Challenge
An autonomy system that can handle tough terrain while moving fast.
DARPA Subterranean Challenge - Team Explorer
The DARPA Subterranean or “SubT” Challenge seeks novel approaches to rapidly map, navigate, and search underground environments during time-sensitive combat operations or disaster response scenarios.
Geometric Mechanics: The Dynamics and Control of Multi-robot Systems in Ambient Media
Investigating the different and rich ways in which agents interact in their environment, especially when that environment possesses complicated dynamics of its own.
Hybrid Robot Exploration
This project seeks novel approaches to rapidly map, navigate, and search environments.
Locomoting Systems - Titan 6 - Large Size Six-Legged Robot
Two-meter tall hexapod for various terrain usage. It is also an exploration of building a set of self-sufficient modular joints unified by a novel control architecture.
MMPUG: Multi-Model Perception Uber Good
This research seeks to develop the state of the art in fast moving autonomy while also exploring methods for human interaction with complex systems.
Modular Robots
Modular robots offer the potential to build customized robots from a small set of core components called modules. We are interested in the science and engineering of modular robots.
Modular Robots: EigenBots System Design
Self-contained sensing, computing, and a motor driver printed circuit board design provides onboard feedback control and motion planning.
Modular Robots: Mechanism and Control Design
Modular robotic systems have a core set of modules that can be combined and recombined to quickly form a customized robot.
Space Robotics: Dexterous On-Orbit Maintenance
Dexterous On-Orbit Maintenance is used to perform repairs and replacements for satellites whose enabling functions - propellants, coolants, etc. - naturally deplete or whose subcomponents fail.