Abstract
Autonomous micro aerial robots can operate in three-dimensional, indoor and outdoor environments, with applications to search and rescue, first response and precision farming. The speaker will provide an overview of his work, and describe the challenges in developing small, agile robots and his recent work in the areas of control and planning, state estimation and mapping, and coordinating large teams of robots.
About the speaker
Prof Vijay Kumar received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Ohio State University in 1987. He joined the University of Pennsylvania since then, and is currently the UPS Foundation Professor, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Computer and Information Science, and Electrical and Systems Engineering. He is also the Assistant Director of Robotics and Cyber Physical Systems at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Prof Kumar’s research group works on creating autonomous ground and aerial robots, designing bio-inspired algorithms for collective behaviors, and on robot swarms. He has served on the editorial boards of IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, ASME Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics and Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics.
Prof Kumar received numerous awards including the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the US National Science Foundation, the Ferdinand Freudenstein Award from the 5th National Conference on Mechanisms and Robotics, the World Technology Network Award and many best paper awards at conferences. He is a Member of the US National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
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