Category: robotics community

Katherine (Katie) Skinner, assistant professor of robotics, was awarded the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant for a project titled “CAREER: Adaptive Multimodal Fusion for Robust Robot Perception in Underwater Environments”, which aims “to provide new capabilities for marine robotic systems to map, visualize, and navigate underwater sites autonomously.”

“These new capabilities will be achieved using innovative machine learning methods to simultaneously capture the robot’s surroundings and pinpoint the robot’s location by combining acoustic and visual information,” the award abstract states. 

“Project outcomes will be demonstrated for use in archaeology by mapping historically significant shipwreck sites. The results will also apply to tasks such as underwater construction, infrastructure maintenance, and emergency response.”

Continue reading ⇒

Nima Fazeli, assistant professor of robotics, was awarded the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant for a project “to realize intelligent and dexterous robots that seamlessly integrate vision and touch.”

“Touch provides robots with a wealth of knowledge from physical interactions and in many tasks it is crucial for success (e.g., reaching into a pocket or rummaging in through a grocery bag),” the award abstract states. “Integrating touch with the rapid progress in vision will accelerate the deployment of skilled and reliable robots from research settings into the real-world.”

Continue reading ⇒

Three University of Michigan students engineered a robotic school of fish prototype, named “Swarm Fish,” as part of their class project in ROB 203: Robotics Mechanisms.

The project, by students Devin Jones, Krystelle Fernandez, and Yatee Balan, is just one example of the many robotics course projects that offer students rigorous hands-on work and prepare student roboticists to meet the emerging needs of society.

Continue reading ⇒

Robotics honors staff and faculty who create a welcoming community, exemplify our values, and allow our roboticists to prosper. We recognize such efforts in many ways, including through the College of Engineering Staff Incentive Program and the Robotics Departmental Faculty Award.

The Staff Incentive Program recognizes staff who consistently demonstrate the College’s vision and mission. This initiative is part of the culture pillar of Michigan Engineering’s strategic plan.

This year’s Robotics recipients of the Staff Incentive Program are Abhishek Narula and Samantha Price.

The Departmental Faculty Award recognizes faculty for high impact accomplishments benefiting the Department and the College.

This year’s Robotics Department Faculty Award honors Chad Jenkins.

Continue reading ⇒

Dimitra Panagou’s research has the potential to create safe networked control systems across a vast number of fields, from aerial swarms to satellite constellations, connected vehicles, human-robot networks and beyond. Panagou, associate professor of robotics, has been recognized for these research efforts with the George J. Huebner, Jr. Research Excellence Award, which is given to those who have demonstrated sustained excellence in research and related scholarly activities. 

Continue reading ⇒