Abhishek Narula and Peter Gaskell check through an order of Mbot PICO+ chips in the summer before assembling the fall fleet of robots.
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.
Members of Dimitra Panagou’s lab test out a team of networked autonomous vehicles at M-Air.
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.
A smoother experience for robotic prosthetic leg users is the aim of a University of Michigan project that has received renewed support from the National Institutes of Health. The R01 grant of $3 million will also enable the implementation of the researchers’ improved control program on a commercially available robotic prosthetic leg.
Sit to stand, stand to walk, up and down stairs and inclines—the human body shifts among these activities almost thoughtlessly. But these transitions are hard for robots, and robotic prosthetic legs have the additional challenge of not being hooked into the human user’s central nervous system to stay synchronized with their body.
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.
Using a simple and convenient touchscreen interface, the algorithm learns the assistance preferences of the wearer. Video: Levi Hutmacher.
Taking inspiration from music streaming services, a team of engineers at the University of Michigan, Google and Georgia Tech has designed the simplest way for users to program their own exoskeleton assistance settings.
Of course, what’s simple for the users is more complex underneath, as a machine learning algorithm repeatedly offers pairs of assistance profiles that are most likely to be comfortable for the wearer. The user then selects one of these two, and the predictor offers another assistance profile that it believes might be better. This approach enables users to set the exoskeleton assistance based on their preferences using a very simple interface, conducive to implementing on a smartwatch or phone.
Autonomous aerial vehicles are flown at M-Air, an advanced robotics testing facility for air, sea, and land, on North Campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI. Photo: Joseph Xu
“As a contributing member, the University of Michigan is enabling advancements at the forefront of research on autonomous aerospace vehicles and systems,” said Dimitra Panagou, associate professor of robotics and aerospace engineering, and U-M’s site director for CAAMS.
Roboticists descend on the Motor City for the 2023 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) from October 1st through 5th. IROS serves as a significant annual platform for robotics researchers to present and investigate advancements in intelligent robots and smart machines. Researchers from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor have a short commute this year, as they showcase the work done at Michigan.
Below are highlights of what Michigan roboticists are bringing this year.
Jessi Carlson leads a summer camp activity for Discover Engineering. Photo by Marcin Szczepanski, Michigan Engineering.
The community among the Robotics Department is a key feature that sets it apart from other institutions. Many of our roboticists cite the collegiality and positive culture as the reason for joining Michigan as a student, faculty, or staff member. While each of us do our part in furthering this spirit through actions great and small, there are those who dedicate an extra amount of time in doing so.
To honor these leaders in community service, we established the Robotics Outreach Ambassador program in 2021. The title is given to those who have completed a certain amount of outreach work over the past academic year, and to a few standouts nominated by others. All of them exhibit enthusiastic outreach, a value of Michigan Robotics.
The 2023 Robotics Outreach Ambassadors are:
Arsha Ali
Brandon Apodaca
Hannah Baez
Zahraa Bazzi
Kaleb Ben Naveed
Kevin Best
Joseph Breeden
Emily Bywater
Jessi Carlson
Jaiwei Chen
Dylan Colli
Luis Cubillos
Challen Enninful Adu
Zariq George
Grant Gibson
Alia Gilbert
Karis Hu
Mohamad Louai Shehab
José Montes-Pérez
Eva Mungai
Mark Nail
Chris Nesler
Wami Ogunbi
Miquel Oller Oliveras
Liz Olson
Xiangyu Peng
Thomas Power
Abigail Rafter
Emma Reznick
Samanta Rodriguez
Anja Sheppard
Andrea Sipos
Katharine Walters
Nick Wohlfeil
Chae Woo Lim
Maggie Wu
Ziyou Wu
The wide range of community activities often goes beyond the frequent lab tour–though that will always be a favorite of those interested in robotics. A few highlight events from the past year include:
Educating the public on the current state of robotics, students led and helped put together an event to show how exoskeletons might impact our future.
Worked with Boy Scouts to earn merit badged and participated in a panel discussion for Girl Scout Leaders, addressing the gender gap in STEM and discussing factors of success for women in engineering.
Planned and hosted “How to Grad School” workshops in collaboration with FAMU-FSU, NSBE, and SWE.
Participated in the SHPE, the largest gathering of Hispanics in STEM, speaking about grad school and the Robotics Department at U-M.
Assisted with the Discover Engineering Camp, teaching students about Arduino code and breadboards, human factors, industrial engineering, optimization, and building a sunflower project.
The range and number of organizations that our students find time to work with is astounding. We are proud of these students and all the others who make an effort toward improving local and global communities.
A Digit robot holds a box in the Ford Robotics Building. Photo: Marcin Szczepanski
Michigan roboticists, many representing the new University of Michigan Robotics Department, will be presenting a total of nine papers at Robotics Science and Systems (RSS). Their research covers a wide range of topics from robot teams and trust propagation to trajectory design and motion planning. The RSS conference is held in Daegu, Korea, from July 11 to July 14.
In addition to the nine accepted papers, two of the papers are nominated for awards of Best Paper and Best Student Paper. Below is a summary of all the submissions.
Congratulations to Professor Elliott Rouse, who has earned the Robotics Department Faculty Award for his exceptional work in robotics. The award recognizes his achievements in several areas, including serving on the Robotics Executive Committee and being a key advocate for the establishment of the new Robotics Department, creating and teaching the new undergraduate course ROB 311: How to Build Robots and Make Them Move, and for his significant strides in advancing the field of robotics.
Bringing a positive attitude, honest approach, and rigorous observational mindset, Rouse’s work produces exceptional results from curriculum design to research.
