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Christopher Urmson
Dir of Tech for Urban Grand Challenge

Associated centers: SRI and FRC

Email address: curmson@ri.cmu.edu

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

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

Research interests

I am generally interested in the development of mobile robots performing interesting tasks in the real world. To that end, I work to understand the interplay between motion planning algorithms and the tasks that they support, the development of new outdoor navigation algorithms for robots traversing cross country terrain, and appropriate architectures that allow their rapid development and reliable operation.

This section last updated - January 1999.

Research interest keywords

architectures, field robotics, mobile robots, obstacle avoidance, planning, and space robotics

Current Labs & Groups

Reliable Autonomous Systems Lab - We are developing reliable, highly autonomous systems (especially mobile robots) that operate in rich, uncertain environments.

Current Projects [Past projects]

Autonomous Ground Vehicle Design - Pursuing high speed navigation of unrehearsed terrain in pursuit of the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge	Grace - The Grace project is a collaboration among several schools and research labs to design a robot capable of fully performing the AAAI Grand Challenge.
Life in the Atacama - Robotic field investigation will bring new scientific understanding of the Atacama as a habitat for life with distinct analogies to Mars.	Tartan Racing - Carnegie Mellon University is teaming with General Motors to compete in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge.
Urban Challenge

Recent publications [View all 14 publications]

• A Robust Approach to High-Speed Navigation for Unrehearsed Desert Terrain
  C. Urmson, J. Anhalt, D. Bartz, M. Clark, T. Galatali, A. Gutierrez, S. Harbaugh, J. Johnston, H. Kato, P.L. Koon, W. Messner, N. Miller, A. Mosher, K. Peterson, C. Ragusa, D. Ray, B.K. Smith, J.M. Snider, S. Spiker, J.C. Struble, J. Ziglar, and W.L. Whittaker
  Journal of Field Robotics, Vol. 23, No. 8, August, 2006, pp. 467-508. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [3058 KB] copyrighted

• Preplanning for high performance autonomous traverse of desert terrain exploiting a priori knowledge to optimize speeds and to detail paths
  A. Gutierrez, T. Galatali, J.P. Gonzalez, C. Urmson, and W.L. Whittaker
  tech. report CMU-RI-TR-05-54, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, December, 2005. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [18575 KB] copyrighted

• Navigation Regimes for Off-Road Autonomy
  C. Urmson
  doctoral dissertation, tech. report CMU-RI-TR-05-23, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, May, 2005. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [10951 KB] copyrighted

• First Experiments in the Robotic Investigation of Life in the Atacama Desert of Chile
  D. Wettergreen, N. Cabrol, J. Teza, P. Tompkins, C. Urmson, V. Verma, M.D. Wagner, and W.L. Whittaker
  International Conference on Robotics and Automation, IEEE, April, 2005. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [526 KB] copyrighted

• Sun-Synchronous Robotic Exploration: Technical Description and Field Experimentation
  D. Wettergreen, P. Tompkins, C. Urmson, M.D. Wagner, and W.L. Whittaker
  The International Journal of Robotics Research, Vol. 24, No. 1, January, 2005, pp. 3-30. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [11573 KB] copyrighted

• High Speed Navigation of Unrehearsed Terrain: Red Team Technology for Grand Challenge 2004
  C. Urmson, J. Anhalt, M. Clark, T. Galatali, J.P. Gonzalez, J. Gowdy, A. Gutierrez, S. Harbaugh, M. Johnson-Roberson, H. Kato, P.L. Koon, K. Peterson, B.K. Smith, S. Spiker, E. Tryzelaar, and W.L. Whittaker
  tech. report CMU-RI-TR-04-37, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, June, 2004. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [5244 KB] copyrighted

• Approaches for Heuristically Biasing RRT Growth
  C. Urmson and R. Simmons
  IEEE/RSJ IROS 2003, October, 2003. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [152 KB] copyrighted

• A Generic Framework for Robotic Navigation
  C. Urmson, R. Simmons, and I. Nesnas
  IEEE Aerospace Conference 2003, March, 2003. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [748 KB] copyrighted

• Stereo Vision Based Navigation for Sun-Synchronous Exploration
  C. Urmson, M.B. Dias, and R. Simmons
  Proceedings of the 2002 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS '02), Vol. 1, September, 2002, pp. 805 - 810. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [1410 KB] copyrighted

• First Experiment in Sun-Synchronous Exploration
  D. Wettergreen, M.B. Dias, B. Shamah, J. Teza, P. Tompkins, C. Urmson, M.D. Wagner, and W.L. Whittaker
  International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May, 2002, pp. 3501-3507. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [1076 KB] copyrighted