News Archive
Seminar - Marc Deisenroth June 19
Marc Deisenroth from Technische Universität Darmstadt will be giving a talk on June 19 entitled "Bayesian Machine Learning for Controlling Autonomous Systems." Klaus 1116W, 2:00 p.m.
Seminar - Aubrey Shick June 18
Aubrey Shick from CMU will be giving a talk on June 18 entitled "The Romibo Robot Project - Designing an evolving open-source social robot for special needs therapy research." TSRB 133, 1:00 PM, light refreshments will be provided.
Sponsored by funds from the Motorola Foundation Professorship
How Would You Like Your Assistant - Human or Robotic?
Roboticists are currently developing machines that have the potential to help patients with caregiving tasks, such as housework, feeding and walking. But before they reach the care recipients, assistive robots will first have to be accepted by healthcare providers such as nurses and nursing assistants. Based on a Georgia Institute of Technology study, it appears that they may be welcomed with open arms depending on the tasks at hand.
Full text of this article in GT Newsroom.
Tech to Study Use of Drones for Monitoring Highway traffic
Researchers at Georgia Tech are studying the potential use of drones to monitor I-285 and other congested highways for backups or help with accident investigations to clear roads faster.
Full text of the article in AVIATIONPROS.COM
Unmanned Aircraft - Commonplace in Civilian Settings
"In order to make the aircraft safer and more efficient, you want the aircraft to take on more of that cognitive role," said Charles Pippin, researcher at the Georgia Tech Research Institute. "Then if they have an issue or aren't able to come up with an answer on their own, then query the human and say what should I do with this case?"
Full text of the article in 11Alive.
Seminar - Brett Browning June 12
Brett Browning will be giving a presentation at 2pm in the boardroom of GTRI Headquarters, at 250 14th St (free parking).
The Pros and Cons of Killer Robots
Georgia Tech roboticist Professor Ronald Arkin argues that killer robots would actually be more humane than human soldiers, because they’d never fire out of fear for their own safety and would never act out of vengeance or spite.
Full text of the article in The Daily Beast.
Dawn of the Bot? New Era Nears, Experts Say
Science fiction is quickly taking a back seat to science fact. Just look at A Roadmap for U.S. Robotics drafted by the country’s leading roboticists. By 2030, it says, robots will be everywhere. Henrik I. Christensen, director of the Robotics & Intelligent Machines Center at Georgia Tech and co-author of the Roadmap for U.S.
Ants Provide Intel for Improving Robot Locomotion
Future teams of subterranean search and rescue robots may owe their success to the lowly fire ant, a much despised insect whose painful bites and extensive networks of underground tunnels are all-too-familiar to people living in the southern United States. Watch a video of this project at RIM Media Page.
Helper Robots to Care for the Aging
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed Cody, a robotic nurse the institute says is “gentle enough to bathe elderly patients.” A recent Georgia Tech study found that older people were intrigued by the idea of robotic assistants in the home, but a robot’s appearance played a large role in what they will trust the machines to do. Older people want robots that look human for tasks that involve intelligence, like recommending which medicine they need to take.
Robotics Highlighted in President's Spring 2013 Update
The President’s Update, now available online, provides a high-level overview of Georgia Tech’s impact, as well as research, innovation, student, faculty, and staff accomplishments. The breakthrough research that Georgia Tech is doing in robotics is gaining national and international attention.
Robot Nurses?
Roboticists are currently developing machines that have the potential to help patients with caregiving tasks, such as housework, feeding and walking. But before they reach the care recipients, assistive robots will first have to be accepted by healthcare providers such as nurses and nursing assistants. Based on a Georgia Institute of Technology study, it appears that they may be welcomed with open arms depending on the tasks at hand.
Robotics Arm Mimics Human Behavior
Charlie Kemp, director of Georgia Tech’s Healthcare Robotics Lab, his graduate students and researchers at Meka Robotics have developed a control method that works in tandem with compliant robotic joints and whole-arm tactile sensing. This technology keeps the robot’s arm flexible and gives the robot a sense of touch across its entire arm.
Freed From Its Cage, the Gentler Robot
In a recent New York Times interview, Henrik Christensen and Andrea Thomaz discussed gentler industrial robots. Designed with sophisticated algorithms and sensing technologies, these robots work and play well with others. Now, it's safe for them to come out from behind their protective fences to work shoulder-to-shoulder with people.
Sea Turtles and FlipperBot Show How to Walk on Granular Surfaces Like Sand
For sea turtle hatchlings struggling to reach the ocean, success may depend on having flexible wrists that allow them to move without disturbing too much sand. A similar wrist also helps a robot known as “FlipperBot” move through a test bed, demonstrating how animals and bio-inspired robots can together provide new information on the principles governing locomotion on granular surfaces.
Robot Swarms Seen as Guardians Against Future Threats
In his interview with Reuters, Magnus Egerstedt, RIM faculty member and Schlumberger Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, suggests that swarm robotics can and will be used in security and defense where groups of robots can cover large areas.
Robot Swarms Seen as Guardians Against Future Threats
In his interview with Reuters, Magnus Egerstedt, RIM faculty member and Schlumberger Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, suggests that swarm robotics can and will be used in security and defense where groups of robots can cover large areas.
Spotlight on Healthcare Robotics at Georgia Tech
Faculty members in the Robotics & Intelligent Machines Center (RIM) at Georgia Tech are researching ways that robots can assist people with performing simple tasks on a daily basis that they cannot do by themselves. Robotics technology allows for a significant improvement in quality of life and a reduction in the cost of support by allowing people to live independently for a longer period of time. Meeting the increased demands for economical and sustainable assistive solutions is one of the primary focuses of RIM’s healthcare robotics research.
ARC - RIM Industry Day 2013
The ARC-RIM Industry Day is a workshop bringing together leaders and researchers from industry and academia to discuss challenges, opportunities, and new trends in logistics, supply chain management, display advertisement, energy efficiency, and related algorithms. Organized by the Robotics & Intelligent Machines Center (RIM) and the Algorithms & Randomness Center (ARC), the event is FREE, but pre-registration is requested by emailing Nina White.
Robots Are Not Killing Jobs
In a recent interview with Steven Cherry for IEEE Spectrum’s “Techwise Conversations,” Henrik Christensen, director of the Robotics & Intelligent Machines Center (RIM) at Georgia Tech, dispels many of the myths surrounding the threat of automation to the American workforce.
Henrik Christensen Presents New Roadmap for U.S. Robotics
Undergraduate Students Conducting Research in Robotics
Ayanna Howard, Motorola Foundation Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and director of the Human-Automation Systems Laboratory (HumAnS), has been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Summer Undergraduate Research in Engineering (SURE) continuing grant for her proposal to add a robotics component to Georgia Tech’s SURE program.
Georgia Tech's All-Star Lineup for National Robotics Week
April 6-14 is National Robotics Week, an annual celebration of all things automated from around the country. Hundreds of events are planned in robotics laboratories and factories to showcase the fast-growing importance of robots in the modern world, from manufacturing to health care, national defense and security to agriculture and transportation.
Engineering Style of Dance for Robots and People
A dancing robot is nothing new. A quick search on YouTube will yield videos of robots dancing to Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Gangnam Style, the Macarena and more. But at the Georgia Institute of Technology, researchers are taking robots and dance to a higher level. Instead of programming a robot to copy an existing dance such as those in the online videos, Amy LaViers, a Ph.D. candidate in electrical and computer engineering, is defining the various styles of human movement and creating algorithms to reproduce them on a humanoid robot.
RIM Faculty Promotions
The Robotics & Intelligent Machine Center’s faculty members have technically diverse backgrounds and conduct innovative research to advance robotics. Recently, six of RIM’s outstanding faculty members received promotions within their academic units in the Colleges of Computing, Engineering, and Science:
Magnus Egerstedt has been appointed the Schlumberger Professor
Magnus Egerstedt has been appointed the Schlumberger Professor. Magnus joined the Georgia Tech faculty in 2001 and conducts research in the areas of control theory and robotics, with particular focus on control and coordination of complex networks, such as multi-robot systems, mobile sensor networks, and cyber-physical systems. He leads the Georgia Robotics and Intelligent Systems Laboratory, where he currently advises 15 graduate students.
"Terradynamics" Could Help Designers Predict How Legged Robots Will Move on Granular Media
Using a combination of theory and experiment, researchers have developed a new approach for understanding and predicting how small legged robots – and potentially also animals – move on and interact with complex granular materials such as sand.
Henrik Christensen Presents New Roadmap for U.S. Robotics
The Robotics Caucus Advisory Committee of the U.S. Congress hosted a briefing to present A Roadmap for U.S. Robotics: From Internet to Robotics–2013 edition.
Robot Warriors: Lethal Machines Coming of Age
On a carpet in a laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Professor Henrik Christensen's robots are hunting for insurgents. They look like cake-stands on wheels as they scuttle about. Christensen and his team at Georgia Tech are working on a project funded by the defence company BAE systems. Their aim is to create unmanned vehicles programmed to map an enemy hideout, allowing human soldiers to get vital information about a building from a safe distance.
Alan Wagner Receives Air Force Young Investigator Program Award for Social Robotics Work
Combining psychology and high-end robotics research, Alan Wagner, a research scientist in the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) and the Robotics & Intelligent Machines Center (RIM), works to create robots that will interact with a wide variety of people in as many different social situations as possible.