Robotics Ph.D. student, Dejun Guo (pictured on the right), advised by robotics faculty Kam K. Leang (pictured on the left) and member of the DARC Lab, University of Utah Robotics Center, won the 2017 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Dynamic Systems and Control Conference (DSCC) Best Student Paper Award, held October 11-13, 2017 in Tysons Corner, Virginia. This conference and competition represent the best of the brightest minds in the field. For reference, the other finalists were from Texas A&M University, Villanova University, MIT/Northeastern University, UC Berkley, and University of Texas at Dallas. Co-authored by Prof. Leang, Guo’s paper entitled, “Position and Linear Velocity Estimation for Position-Based Visual Servo...
Read MoreMechanical Engineering – Tenure-Track Faculty Position in Robotics
Mechanical Engineering – Tenure-Track Faculty Position in Robotics The University of Utah Robotics Center (robotics.coe.utah.edu) is seeking outstanding candidates with research interests and expertise in robotics and related systems, for a tenure-track appointment at the assistant or associate rank in the Department of Mechanical Engineering with a Fall Semester 2018 starting date. Candidates with exceptional background and experience may be considered at a higher rank. Candidates must have an established record of published research, must exhibit strong potential for extramural funding within their area of expertise, and are expected to develop a vigorous research program. Candidates must also be qualified to teach...
Read MoreHermans’ and Abbott’s ISRR 2017 papers accepted
Two papers by robotics faculty were recently accepted to the International Symposium on Robotics Research (ISRR): “Planning Multi-Fingered Grasps as Probabilistic Inference in a Learned Deep Network” by Qingkai Lu, Kautilya Chenna, Balakumar Sundaralingam, and Tucker Hermans. “Controlling Homogeneous Microrobot Swarms In Vivo Using Rotating Magnetic Dipole Fields”, by Jake J. Abbott and Henry C. Fu ...
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Popek, Hermans, and Abbott Win Best Paper Award in Medical Robotics at ICRA 2017
Katie Popek, Tucker Hermans, and Jake Abbott’s paper entitled, “First Demonstration of Simultaneous Localization and Propulsion of a Magnetic Capsule in a Lumen Using a Single Rotating Magnet,” was recently awarded the Best Paper Award in Medical Robotics at the 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Singapore. ICRA is the largest annual international robotics conference, and is the flagship conference of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. Abbott is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hermans is an assistant professor in the School of Computing, and Popek recently earned her Ph.D. in Computing (Robotics Track) while conducting research...
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Research paper by robotics student Sundaralingam and Prof. Herman on manipulation accepted for publication in Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS)
Balakumar Sundaralingam’s and Tucker Hermans’ research paper entitled, “Relaxed-Rigidity Constraints: In-Grasp Manipulation using Purely Kinematic Trajectory Optimization” was recently accepted in Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), 2017. Congratulations!...
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Prof. Hermans receives new NSF CRII award for $175,000, project entitled, “CRII: RI: Enabling Manipulation of Object Collections via Self-Supervised Robot Learning”
Congratulations to robotics faculty Prof. Hermans for receiving new NSF CRII award for $175,000. The project is titled, “CRII: RI: Enabling Manipulation of Object Collections via Self-Supervised Robot Learning” Project ABSTRACT: While manipulation of individual objects in cluttered, real-world settings has received substantial attention, the problem of directly manipulating collections of objects has been left unexplored. This project investigates to what extent robots can autonomously manipulate such object collections. This project facilitates autonomous manipulation methods suitable for use in home robotic assistants. Such assistive robots stand to make a substantial impact in increasing the quality of life of older adults...
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Popek, Hermans and Abbott ICRA 2017 paper selected as one of the finalists of Best Medical Robotics Paper Award
Katie Popek, Tucker Hermans and Jake Abbott’s submitted paper entitled: “First Demonstration of Simultaneous Localization and Propulsion of a Magnetic Capsule in a Lumen Using a Single Rotating Magnet” has been selected as one of the finalists of Best Medical Robotics Paper Award of ICRA 2017. Congratulations to Katie, Tucker and Jake!...
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Prof. Jake Abbott receives new $385k NIH grant for telerobotic eye surgery
Project title: Quantifying the Benefits of Head-mounting in Telemanipulated Robotic Eye Therapies Many of the up-and-coming therapeutic protocols in ophthalmology are technically difficult, near or beyond the limits of human ability, and are being attempted by only a few surgeons. Surgeon hand tremor combined with patient movement due to breathing and snoring place a lower limit on achievable precision. Over the past few years, with the support of Intuitive Surgical, Abbott and his collaborators have developed a robotic manipulator that is more precise than all prior systems designed for robot-assisted eye surgery, and which is small and light enough...
Read MoreAccepted 2017 ICRA papers by Utah Robotics Faculty and Students
The following papers by Utah Robotics faculty and students were recently accepted to the 2017 ICRA: P. Sabetian and J. Hollerbach, “A 3 Wire Body Weight Support System for a Large Treadmill”, IEEE Int. Conf. Robotics and Automation, 2017, to appear. J. J. Abbott, J. B. Brink, and B. Osting, “Computing Minimum-power Dipole Solutions for Interdipole Forces using Nonlinear Constrained Optimization with Application to Electromagnetic Formation Flight, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, accepted. K. M. Popek, T. Hermans, and J. J. Abbott, “First Demonstration of Simultaneous Localization and Propulsion of a Magnetic Capsule in a Lumen using a Single Rotating...
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Prof. Mark Minor receives new $1.75M NSF grant for smart helmets
Project title: Reducing Traumatic Brain Injury Risk with Smart Collision Detection and Mitigation The goal of the project is to reduce the risk of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) through smart technology that collects sensory data to predict and characterize impacts in real-time, optimizes protective mechanisms based on impact characteristics (e.g., direction, velocity), and transmits final impact attributes to a database for further analysis and injury risk prediction. This technology will substantially improve TBI prevention and diagnosis in motor vehicle crashes, sports, and industrial accidents. The unique technology will leverage musculoskeletal and biomechanical computational models linking head linear and angular...
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