CRR Logo     Collaborative Robotics Research


Principal Investigator - Dr. Thad Roppel
Sensor Fusion and Collaborative Robotics Laboratory
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department
Auburn University
Auburn, Alabama

Vision:

We will advance the state of the art in the ability of robots and humans to interact cooperatively in real-world situations. Our systems will provide natural communication modes (e.g., speech, sign language) between humans and robots, and will employ biologically-inspired fusion of sensory systems (e.g., vision, hearing, olfaction, etc.) to improve the ability of our machines operate effectively in real-world, dynamic environments.

Goals:

  • Demonstrate cooperative tasks involving teams of robots and humans.
  • Discover underlying principles of cooperation and apply these to human-machine collaboration.
  • Provide an opportunity for graduate students to conduct research in cooperative robotics.
  • Provide research experience for undergraduate students.
  • Conduct outreach to local K-12 schools to stimulate interest in science and technology among those students.
  • Contribute papers to regional, national, and international conferences and journals in the field of cooperative robotics.

Areas of particular interest:

  • RF communication: Investigate the use of adaptive, intelligent wireless communication links among robots and human interfaces (internet stations, etc.) using software radio. Consider the effects of time delay due to distance (e.g., interplanetary collaboration), internet propagation delay, and processing time. A typical scenario might involve a robot team in which the robots are outfitted with different types of communications transceivers. A particular robot, outfitted with a software-based dynamically reconfigurable radio transceiver, might receive a directive from a human controller and then act as a translator, broadcasting the message to the rest of the team using the protocol appropriate for each team member.
  • Natural human interfaces: Investigate the use of speech, sign language, body language, etc. to communicate with robots.
  • Use of vision for ranging and location.
  • Use of sensor fusion (vision, hearing, touching, smelling) to improve decision making.
  • Guided autonomy: Typical scenarios involve limited human oversight due to distance or communication lag. Robot teams must function autonomously for extended periods of time, but be able to accommodate updated directives from human controllers.

Literature, Conferences, and Web Sites:

 

Interesting robot movies:

Useful  Links

 

People
 

Graduate Students - Spring 2007:  Chris Wilson, Arthi Kothandaraman, Sudarshan Ramenahalli

  • Research teams - Summer 2006

    TourBOT: Jory Schossau (REU - visiting from Linfield College), Jerome Mcclendon, Westwood Presnall, Ryan Smith, Chris Wilson

    Cooperating Air / Ground Vehicles: Nick Cotton

    IEEE SoutheastCon: Mustafa Ali, Amanda Bowman, Jordan Britt, Chris Everitt, Heath Mims, Eric Mitchell, Andrew Putnam, Ben Pynes, Joel Shackleford, Jason West, Vincent Williams

    Research team (Spring 2005):
    Rama Narendran (PhD), Adam Ray (MS), Arun Raghunathan (MS)
    Undergraduates: Aaron Steiner, Abhishek Davray, Anthony Zhang,
    Clay Schwendeman, Steven Hawkins

     

    Research team - Summer 2005: 

    Rama Narendran (PhD), Adam Ray (MS), Arun Raghunathan (MS)

    Undergraduates: Clay Askew, Aaron Steiner, Steven Hawkins, Joel Hewlett, John Rogers, Isaac Rieksts

    Bulletin Board
    Bibliography
    Group Meeting Minutes
    Goals and Task Assignments for Spring 2005

    Goals and Task Assignments for Summer 2005 (posted soon!)

     

     

     

 
This web site is primarily intended as an internal site for the CRR group.
Page created February 10, 2005.
Last updated June 8,  2006.
Page maintained by Dr. Roppel