Multi-robot coordination and cooperation are critical behaviors that improve team performance and enable new tasks in application areas like autonomous construction, agriculture, and extended operation in large unknown regions. This talk explores the utility of graph-based modeling and computational frameworks to improve the coordination and cooperation of multi-robot teams in a variety of problems. I […]
Traditional approaches for active mapping focus on building geometric maps. For most real-world applications, however, actionable information is related to semantically meaningful objects in the environment. We propose an approach to the active metric-semantic mapping problem that enables multiple heterogeneous robots to collaboratively build a map of the environment. The robots actively explore to minimize […]
Blood clotting is primarily responsible for stemming bleeding in vessel injury, comprising a protective mechanism called hemostasis. However, if a blood clot forms within a blood vessel when or where it is not needed, this can result in death and disability. Blood clots and thrombi are composed of blood cells embedded into a polymeric fibrin […]
Actuator reduction is especially important for aerial robots, where minimizing mass and conserving power is critical. Bistable mechanisms have been used to augment actuators by speeding up actuation time or allowing one direction of actuation to be passive. In this talk we will explore how bistable mechanisms can reduce the number of actuators needed in […]
Structural design optimization has long played a crucial role in engineering, often with the goal of creating stiff and lightweight structures for aerospace and other applications. However, optimizing structures against failure is also crucial and has been much less well explored. Failure via fracture and at interfaces is particularly challenging in design optimization as they […]
