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Projects

For papers, check out the publications page.

Collaborative Research: Decision-Making on Uncertain Spatial-Temporal Fields: Modeling, Planning and Control with Applications to Adaptive Sampling. Sponsor: NSF.

Collaborative Research: A Complementarity-Free Contact Model for Robotics Applications. Sponsor: NSF.

Landroids Phase II Task A Control Software. Sponsor: DARPA (Subcontractor to Intelligent Automation, Inc).

Current Students

Ph.D. Students Ben Fine Plamen Ivanov Sasin Janpuangtong Jung-Hwan Kim Young-Ho Kim Changjoo Nam

MS Students Taahir Ahmed Amey Parulkar Reza Hosseini Teshnizi

Undergraduates Jordan Cazamias Gregory Donelan II Ryan Edwards Trevor Nelligan Patrick Sheehan

Past Students

The following are students that were part of the Distributed AI Robotics Lab.

Ph.D. Students

• Lantao Liu, PhD CE
  1. Dissertation Title: "Linear sum assignment algorithms for distributed multi-robot systems"
  2. Graduated Spring 2013
  3. Currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Field Robotics Center of Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

MS Students

• Yong Song, MS CS
  1. Thesis Title: "Minimalist multi-robot clustering of square objects: new strategies, experiments, and analysis"
  2. Graduated: Spring 2013
• Asish Ghoshal, MS CS
  1. Thesis Title: "Rapidly-exploring random tree inspired multi-robot space coverage"
  2. Graduated: Spring 2012
  3. Currently a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science at Purdue University.
• Shawn Kristek, MS CE
  1. Thesis Title: "Orienting deformable polygonal parts without sensors"
  2. Graduated: Fall 2011
  3. Currently an Engineer at Weatherford International.
• Tanushree Mitra, MS CS
  1. Thesis Title: "Cost, precision, and task structure in aggression-based arbitration for minimalist robot cooperation"
  2. Graduated: Spring 2011
  3. Currently a PhD student at Georgia Tech.

Undergraduate Students

• Kate Wells
  1. She worked in the lab under my guidance Spring 2012—Spring 2013 on research topics addressing applications of lazy utility evaluation to multi-robot task allocation problems.
• Ericka Cook
  During Fall 2012 and part of Spring 2013, Ericka and I explored some biology literature in order to seek methods for new robot experiments.
• Jared Brandhorst
  During Fall 2011, Jared conduced some directed research under my guidance. He systematically explored symnet configurations (part of Mark Tilden's BEAM robot taxonomy) with both physical devices and in simulation.
• Sarena Chism
  I advised TAMU Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Scholar Sarena Chism on two topics. She worked in Fall 2009 on some simulation problems, and carried out physical robot experiments in Spring 2010 in order to assess interference between robots.

Before coming to Texas A&M, I also advised John O'Hollaren (USC Merit Scholar and REU:2009), Frankline Haynie (USC REU:2007), Shirin Nikaein (USC REU:2007), Minal Cordeiro (USC REU: 2006, 2007), Danko Krajisnik (USC REU:2006), Andrew Fisher (USC Merit Scholar, 2005—2007).

Visitors

• Jing Zhou
  1. Jing obtained competitive China Scholarship Council funds and from January 2011—January 2012, she visited my lab working on multi-robot division of labor.

Outreach

Public talks and seminars

I cultivate an active participation in local programs that place a focus on public discussion and involvement in science and technology. Some recent activities include:

• On the 28th May 2013, I gave an invited talk to the Houston Skeptic Society about Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. ,
• I was the invited speaker for the Bryan Science Café on 18 Jan. 2011.
• I spoke about my research at Rock the Republic (Oct. 2010)
• Participation in the Subversive Manifesto for Underground Technology (S.M.U.T.), I gave robot demonstrations (Sep. 2010), and was a featured speaker (Aug. 2010).

As a consequence of my outreach activities, I was invited to serve on the board of directors for the 2013 "SLAM-IT: Raising awareness of STEM through Local Arts and Music".

Events for high school students

I try to support efforts at all levels:

• I have served as a judge for the Texas Junior Science and Humanities Symposium several times (29 January 2011, 23 March 2012, April 3rd 2013);
• I have served as a judge for Texas Junior Academy of Science twice (Apr. 2010, Apr. 2012)
• Computer Science High School Contest (Judge: "Computational Thinking", Oct. 2009, "Texting", Oct. 2010).

Interfacing with the arts

My work on robotic theatre (see these papers: [1], [2], and [3]) included a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream which drew large (sold out audiences), and included outreach talks, discussions, and posters. Public press coverage of the work appeared in:

• Wired blog [18-Nov-2009]
• Engaget blog [18-Nov-2009]
• Autonomous Robots blog [8-Dec-2010]

It was also featured as NPR Science Friday Video (02/05/2010).

I also make an effort to lecture (and attend lectures) outside of my immediate discipline. For example, I gave a seminar to the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences (Apr. 2010).