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Thomas Howard
PhD Student

Associated centers: NREC and FRC

Email address: thoward@andrew.cmu.edu

Mailing address:
Carnegie Mellon University
Robotics Institute
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Jump to: Research interests | Keywords | Projects | Publications

I am interested in developing control and path planning algorithms for outdoor mobile robots which reason about their environment and known vehicle dynamics. Typically, rough terrain and vehicle dynamics are ignored at the path planning and control level, resulting in the generation of paths which are incorrectly assumed to be continuous and if followed, would not meet goal position and orientation state constraints. Terrain shape does not necessarily need to be treated as an unknown disturbance since a world model is usually known and used elsewhere in outdoor mobile robot planning systems.

My recent research has involved developing rough terrain trajectory generation algorithms as part of the Mars Technology Program. Our research group's efforts have resulted in a rough terrain trajectory generator which linearizes and inverts forward models of propulsion, suspension, and motion to find parameterized body-frame controls which meet arbitrary boundary state constraints. We have implemented these algorithms on hardware for local path planning and path tracking.

control, factory and warehouse automation, field robotics, mobile robots, motion planning, obstacle avoidance, and space robotics

• Tartan Racing - Carnegie Mellon University is teaming with General Motors to compete in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge.
• UGCV PerceptOR Integrated - The UPI (UGCV PerceptOR Integrated) program integrates and enhances the results from UGCV and PerceptOR to increase the speed and autonomy of unmanned ground vehicles operating in complex terrain. By combining the inherent mobility of Spinner with advanced perception techniques including the use of learning and prior terrain data, the UPI program stresses system design across vehicle, sensors and software so that the strengths of one component compensate for the weaknesses of another.
• Urban Challenge
• Very Rough Terrain Nonholonomic Trajectory Generation and Motion Planning for Rovers - We are developing rough terrain trajectory generation algorithms for local path planning and optimal regional motion planning methods using a constrained search space.

Note: This list may not be comprehensive. It contains only those publications in the RI publications database. Entries are listed in reverse chronological order.

• Field Experiments in Rover Navigation via Model-Based Trajectory Generation and Nonholonomic Motion Planning in State Lattices
  M. Pivtoraiko, T. Howard, I. Nesnas, and A. Kelly
  Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Automation in Space (i-SAIRAS '08), February, 2008. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [941 KB] copyrighted

• State Space Sampling of Feasible Motions for High Performance Mobile Robot Navigation in Highly Constrained Environments
  T. Howard, C. Green, and A. Kelly
  Proceedings of the 6th International Conferences on Field and Service Robotics, July, 2007. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [2007 KB] copyrighted

• Terrain Aware Inversion of Predictive Models for Planetary Rovers
  A. Kelly and T. Howard
  Proceedings of the Nasa Science and Technology Conference, June, 2007. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [587 KB] copyrighted

• Terrain Aware Inversion of Predictive Models for High Performance UGVs
  A. Kelly, T. Howard, and C. Green
  Proceedings of the SPIE Defense and Security Symposium, April, 2007, pp. 6561-6566. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [1454 KB] copyrighted

• Optimal Rough Terrain Trajectory Generation for Wheeled Mobile Robots
  T. Howard and A. Kelly
  International Journal of Robotics Research, Vol. 26, No. 2, February, 2007, pp. 141-166. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [9400 KB] copyrighted

• Trajectory and Spline Generation for All-Wheel Steering Mobile Robots
  T. Howard and A. Kelly
  Proceedings of the the 2006 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS '06), October, 2006, pp. 4827 - 4832. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [1862 KB] copyrighted

• Constrained Optimization Path Following of Wheeled Robots in Natural Terrain
  T. Howard, R.A. Knepper, and A. Kelly
  Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on Experimental Robotics 2006 (ISER '06), July, 2006. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [751 KB] copyrighted

• Terrain-Adaptive Generation of Optimal Continuous Trajectories for Mobile Robots
  T. Howard and A. Kelly
  Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Automation in Space (i-SAIRAS '05), September, 2005. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [379 KB] copyrighted

• Trajectory Generation on Rough Terrain Considering Actuator Dynamics
  T. Howard and A. Kelly
  Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Field and Service Robotics (FSR '05), July, 2005. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [260 KB] copyrighted