Category: robotics community

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.”

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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Over homecoming, Dr. Joshua Mangelson received the 2023 Robotics Department Alumni Merit Award. As part of the homecoming visit, Dr. Mangelson presented the Robotics Alumni Award Lecture, “Steps Towards Intelligent Large-Scale Marine Robotic Autonomy,” for the robotics community.

Dr. Mangelson became the very first person to earn a PhD degree in Robotics from the University of Michigan. He was one of five brave students in the first cohort who joined the new program. They accepted the risks, but also realized the reward, of defining the discipline of robotics.

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