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Illah Nourbakhsh
Associate Professor

Associated centers: VASC and CFR

Email address: illah@ri.cmu.edu

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

For more information, see my personal homepage.

Jump to: Research interests | Keywords | Labs & groups | Projects | Publications

I am interested in educational robotics and human-robot interaction. Below are some ongoing projects.

The Personal Rover Project aims to create and disseminate robots that excite and inspire children and adults with regards to science and technology.

The Telepresence Robot Kit is a new project that, together with the Center for Innovative Robotics, creates a platform-independent means for non-roboticists to innovate and create with robotic technologies.

The CMUcam Project creates a series of low-cost vision-based solutions for rich sensory input to be used on low-cost robots.

The Global Connection Project has a charter involving bringing peoples of diverse cultures and spatial diversity together, using robotic technologies as well as earth-browsing overlays with extreme fidelity. This project has also been playing a major role in international disaster relief efforts.

quality-of-life technology

• CREATE: Community Robotics, Education and Technology Empowerment - CREATE brings together our mission in furthering Human-Robot Interaction with our desire to disruptively redefine how communities can make sense of their context through the use of robotic technologies.
• Human-Robot Interaction Group - We are interested in many aspects of human-robot interaction related to how humans and robots can work safely and effectively together.
• Manipulation Lab - The Manipulation Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University investigates fundamental modes of manipulation under uncertainty.
• Robotics Education Lab - The Robotics Education Lab is a central resource to support courses and individual projects in robotics.

• Anthropocentric Robotics - The goal of this project is to improve human-robot interaction by using anthropological resesarch methods to study how people think about robots.
• BeatBots - We are developing robots that can participate in coordinated rhythmic social interactions with people.
• BowGo - We have developed BOWGO (patent pending) - a new kind of pogo stick that bounces higher, farther and more efficiently than conventional devices.
• Desktop Robotics - Is it possible to build robots which take the desktop as their task domain?
• Educational Robotics - We are developing both physical robots and curriculum that will make educational robotics viable at the middle school and high school levels.
• Global Connection Project - The Global Connection Project develops software tools and technologies to increase the power of images to connect, inform, and inspire people to become engaged and responsible global citizens.
• Quality of Life Technology Center - QoLT is a unique partnership between Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh that brings together a cross-disciplinary team of technologists, clinicians, industry partners, end users, and other stakeholders to create revolutionary technologies that will improve and sustain the quality of life for all people.
• Social Robots - We are developing robots with personality.
• Telepresence Robot Kit - To design, create, and disseminate robotics curricula and technologies that motivate young women and men to actively explore science and technology.
• The CMUcam Vision Sensor - We have developed CMUcam - a new low-cost, low-power sensor for mobile robots.
• The Personal Rover Project - We have developed the Personal Rover - a 18"x12"x24" highly autonomous, programmable robot.
• Toy Robots Initiative - The Toy Robots Initiative aims to commercialize robotics technologies in the educational, toy and entertainment fields.
• Urban Search and Rescue - We are developing Hybrid Teams of Autonomous Agents: Cyber Agents, Robots and People (CARPs) to address the challenges of urban search and rescue.

• Robot Diaries Interim Project Report: Development of a Technology Program for Middle School Girls
  E. Hamner, T. Lauwers, D. Bernstein, K. Stubbs, K. Crowley, and I. Nourbakhsh
  tech. report CMU-RI-TR-08-25, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, May, 2008. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [1691 KB] copyrighted

• Robot Diaries: Broadening Participation in the Computer Science Pipeline through Social Technical Exploration
  E. Hamner, T. Lauwers, D. Bernstein, I. Nourbakhsh, and C.F. DiSalvo
  AAAI Spring Symposium on Using AI to Motivate Greater Participation in Computer Science, March, 2008. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [293 KB] copyrighted

• CMUcam3: An Open Programmable Embedded Vision Sensor
  A. Rowe, A.G. Goode, D. Goel, and I. Nourbakhsh
  tech. report CMU-RI-TR-07-13, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, May, 2007. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [275 KB] copyrighted

• TeRK: A Flexible Tool for Science and Technology Education
  I. Nourbakhsh, E. Hamner, T. Lauwers, C.F. DiSalvo, and D. Bernstein
  Proceedings of AAAI Spring Symposium on Robots and Robot Venues: Resources for AI Education, March, 2007. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [3417 KB] copyrighted

• A Preliminary Study of Peer-to-Peer Human-Robot Interaction
  T.W. Fong, J. Scholtz, J. Shah, L. Flueckiger, C. Kunz, D. Lees, J. Schreiner, M. Siegel, L. Hiatt, I. Nourbakhsh, R. Simmons, R. Ambrose, R. Burridge, B. Antonishek, M. Bugajska, A. Schultz, and J.G. Trafton
  International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, IEEE, October, 2006. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [737 KB] copyrighted

• A Roadmap for Technology Literacy and a Vehicle for Getting There: Educational Robotics and the TeRK Project
  I. Nourbakhsh, E. Hamner, T. Lauwers, D. Bernstein, and C.F. DiSalvo
  Proceedings of IEEE RO-MAN 2006, September, 2006. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [171 KB] copyrighted

• Cognitive Evaluation of Human-Robot Systems: A Method for Analyzing Cognitive Change in Human-Robot Systems
  K. Stubbs, D. Bernstein, K. Crowley, and I. Nourbakhsh
  Proceedings of the 15th International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN 06), IEEE, September, 2006, pp. 59-65. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [326 KB] copyrighted

• A Constraint Optimization Framework for Fractured Robot Teams
  M. Koes, K. Sycara, and I. Nourbakhsh
  Proceedings of the Fifth International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS), May, 2006. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [106 KB] copyrighted

• Constraint Optimization Coordination Architecture for Search and Rescue Robotics
  M. Koes, I. Nourbakhsh, and K. Sycara
  Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2006, May, 2006, pp. 3977-3982. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [208 KB] copyrighted

• Mobile Robot Programming in Education
  J. Lalonde, C. Bartley, and I. Nourbakhsh
  International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May, 2006, pp. 345 - 350. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [144 KB] copyrighted