Prof. Meek receives NSF NRI grant: Biologically-inspired, hybrid quadruped robot control

This research project is about designing better legs for legged robots. When a robot needs to move across rough terrain, as would be the case when searching for victims in a disaster area, legged robots have advantages over wheeled or tracked robots. They can traverse such terrain more easily, for example, stepping over fallen beams and bricks. However, legged robots are inherently more complex. They have many more joints and are more difficult to control. The goal of the project is to use ideas from nature to overcome some of these difficulties. The shape and compliance of four-legged animals...

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Prof. Leang receives NSF grant to work with UAVs

Project title: PFI:BIC — Enhanced Situational Awareness Using Unmanned Autonomous Systems for Disaster Remediation, $800,000 (9/15/2014 – 9/14/2017) Team: PI: Kam K. Leang; Co-PIs: W. Yim (UNLV), G. Bebis, C. Murray, and G. Kent (UNR).  Industry partners: Drone America and SpecTIR The goal of this project is to enhance the situational awareness capabilities of law enforcement agencies and first responders by employing unmanned autonomous systems (UAS) with high-resolution sensing and imaging capabilities for disaster remediation. Law enforcement agencies and first responders face significant challenges during an emergency event, such as a natural or anthropogenic disaster (earthquake, tsunami, fire, hurricane,...

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Prof. Leang receives NSF grant: COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: HIGH-SPEED AFM IMAGING OF DYNAMICS ON BIOPOLYMERS THROUGH NON-RASTER SCANNING

Prof. Leang and collaborators at the Boston University receive $697,835 NSF grant: COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: HIGH-SPEED AFM IMAGING OF DYNAMICS ON BIOPOLYMERS THROUGH NON-RASTER SCANNING.   The primary aim of this project is to create a novel high-speed atomic force microscope (AFM) imaging system with frame rates of on the order of 100 frames/second. While the creation of this instrument may have a significant impact on a broad range of application areas, the primary target is the study of biomolecular processes. The extremely fast frame rate and long range will allow for the direct visualization of dynamic process that previously could...

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