The Robotics Institute

I am interested in creating robots that can intelligently interact with the environments they inhabit. Such interaction will require robots to be able to reason about the objects with which they are interacting, the geometry of their environments, uncertainty in sensing, and their own kinematics. Intelligent interaction will also require robots to construct plans for high level tasks, grasping, robot motion, and dynamic manipulation. However, planning is only the beginning since such robots will need to be able to react to unexpected obstacles, human interaction, and errors in manipulation. Plans must be devised to minimize the chances of such errors occurring but if and when these errors occur, the robot must possess robust controllers to compensate. Robots must also be able to recognize commonalities in the tasks they are presented with so that they can use previous experience to guide their decisions. My aim is to develop an intelligent interaction framework that efficiently manages the above issues so that robots can reach a new level autonomy.