Category: Events

Each seminar highlights a different speaker who will discuss their latest research projects, cutting-edge technology or what is happening within certain technological industries. These industries include biomedical technologies or microsystems, assistive technologies, automation and intelligent systems, unmanned systems, advanced manufacturing and composite materials.

Abstract:

Climate change, extreme weather events, and water scarcity have severely impacted the agricultural sector. Under scarce conventional water supplies, a farm faces a decision between reducing production through deficit irrigation and leveraging alternative water and energy resources to continue producing large quantities of crops and these investments would have to be balanced against an unknown climate. Therefore, we develop a framework for farm investment decisions structured as a two-stage stochastic quadratically constrained linear program that maximizes farm profit over a 25-year period while considering an uncertain future climate and the costs of investing and operating various electricity and water technologies. We create four representative climate futures and two climate probability distributions that represent different beliefs that the decision maker might have about the likelihood of each climate scenario occurring. Then, we compare four solutions where decisions are made on information ranging from perfectly knowing the climate and weather to only the average precipitation. Our results show that expected profit and crop yield heavily depend on a decision maker’s given climate probability distributions. Aggressively preparing for an extreme climate can cause significant losses if a more moderate climate is realized. Furthermore, given a future climate, year-to-year weather variability can also corrode the potential cost savings from investing in alternative resources. The insights from this framework can help agricultural decision makers determine how to address climate uncertainty, water scarcity, and to a limited degree weather variability via investments in alternative water and electricity resources that can help improve resilience and fortify profits.

Bio:

Erick C. Jones Jr. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial, Manufacturing and Systems Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington.  He obtained a PhD from the Operations Research and Industrial Engineering program at the University of Texas at Austin and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Texas A&M University.  He is a fellow of GEM, NSF INFEWS, and DOE MLEF and pursues research that can enhance quality of life by improving access to sustainable resources and economic opportunities, particularly where a lack of physical infrastructure or resources presents a major obstacle. He has worked with the Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute, Los Alamos National Labs, and the Houston Health Department to address energy poverty, CCS infrastructure, and equitable COVID-19 supply chains, respectively. In general, he specializes in using smart sensors and AI-enabled data to inform simulation and multi-system optimization models that optimize both investment and operational decisions. These models can be used to help decision makers plan and prepare for a future with an increasing frequency of extreme weather events, climate risk, and resource scarcity by investigating how resilience, efficiency, and self-generation strategies can mitigate these risks and present new opportunities.

Date:

May 3, 2022

Time:

12:00pm

Location:

UTARI Auditorium

Each seminar highlights a different speaker who will discuss their latest research projects, cutting-edge technology or what is happening within certain technological industries. These industries include biomedical technologies or microsystems, assistive technologies, automation and intelligent systems, unmanned systems, advanced manufacturing and composite materials.

Topic:

Soft Actuation technologies for physical Human-Robot-Interactions

Abstract:

The ever-growing demand of wearable and mobile electronic devices, electric vehicles, grid-scale electrical storage, and other energy storage systems requires the advancement of lithium (Li) batteries of high energy density and improved stability and safety. One of the most promising approaches is to replace the existing graphite anode in Li-ion bat

The requirements for actuation technology suitable for rehabilitation/wearable robotics are fundamentally different than those for industrial robots. Operation at close vicinity to humans, safety is of the foremost concerns for rehabilitation robotic platforms. In addition, the ability to store and release energy, which does not exist in the industrial actuators, is greatly beneficial for rehabilitation robotics, especially for repetitive tasks such as walking. Furthermore, being able to adjust the mechanical softness in rehabilitation applications is a plus if not a must! Understanding the working principles and mechanical properties of biological actuators, i.e., skeletal muscles, are key in realizing suitable soft actuators for rehabilitation applications. “Soft actuators” is an emerging field in robotics that has shown promising advantages for rehabilitation applications over traditional robotic platforms.
In this talk, some of the recent advances in developing soft actuators will be discussed and pros and cons of these new soft actuators will be highlighted, towards bringing some insights into the future artificial muscles that can match performances of the skeletal muscles. Finally, some future research directions will be presented that try to understand how humans adjust their mechanical stiffness to cope with different situations in our daily life. Understanding these coping mechanisms is vital in order to develop new robotic prosthetics/exoskeletons for mobility impaired people and amputees.

Biography:

Amir Jafari received his BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Isfahan University of Technology in Iran in 2002 and 2006, respectively. He received his Ph.D. degree in Robotics from Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) in 2011. He then moved to Bio-Inspired Robotic Lab (BIRL) at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) as a postdoctoral researcher, the lab that then moved to University of Cambridge in UK. In 2014. From 2014 to 2016, he was a scientist Agency of Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore. From 2016 to 2021, he was an assistant professor with the department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Since September 2021, he is an associate professor with the department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Texas.

Dr. Jafari’s research interests lie primarily in the area of Rehabilitation Robotics, Artificial Muscles and Soft Actuators. He has authored more than 50 scientific articles in prestigious robotic journal and conferences such as IEEE Transaction on Mechatronics, Advanced Functional material and IEEE/ASME International Conference on Robotics and Automations (ICRA). He holds 6 international patents and edited a book entitled as: Soft Robotics in Rehabilitation, that has been published by Elsevier. Dr. Jafari is an associate editor for IEEE Robotic and Automation Letter (IEEE RA-L), a top scientific journal in the field of Robotics. He has been the chair for 3 international robotic workshops in Switzerland (2011), Australia (2018) and the USA (2019). Dr. Jafari’s research works have been cited by other researchers more than 2000 citations according to Google Scholar. He has received more than $1M federal and international research grants, including a prestigious early CAREER award from National Science Foundation (NSF).

Date:

January 28, 2022

Time:

12:00

Location:

Teams

Each seminar highlights a different speaker who will discuss their latest research projects, cutting-edge technology or what is happening within certain technological industries. These industries include biomedical technologies or microsystems, assistive technologies, automation and intelligent systems, unmanned systems, advanced manufacturing and composite materials.

Topic:

Phase-field Simulation of Li Dendrite Growth in Lithium Metal Battery

Abstract:

The ever-growing demand of wearable and mobile electronic devices, electric vehicles, grid-scale electrical storage, and other energy storage systems requires the advancement of lithium (Li) batteries of high energy density and improved stability and safety. One of the most promising approaches is to replace the existing graphite anode in Li-ion batteries with the lithium metal anode, which has the highest theoretical capacity (3860 mAh/g), low density (0.53g/cm3), and lowest negative electrochemical potential (-3.04V vs. standard hydrogen electrode). However, a critical issue that impedes the wide application of Li metal battery is the uncontrollable Li-ion electrodeposition in the form of Li dendrites or filaments. These needle- or branch-like dendrites can eventually penetrate the separator of the cell, which creates serious problems such as lowered Coulombic efficiency, large mechanical deformation of the electrodes, reduced battery life cycles, and catastrophic internal short circuit. In the first part of this seminar, I will review the underlying physical and electrochemical mechanisms of Li plating and stripping, as well as the existing theoretical and experimental studies on the inhibition of Li dendrite formation and growth. Next, I will demonstrate our recent work on phase-field simulation of the mechanical suppression of Li dendrite growth in solid electrolyte of Li metal batteries. Finally, I will discuss how the microstructure of the nanofillers embedded solid composite electrolyte can be tailored to regulate the Li-ion transport, and eventually to realize a smooth electrode/electrolyte interface during the electrodeposition. Our work provides a deeper understanding of the Li dendrite growth mechanism, as well as a design strategy for the solid composite electrolyte for improved Li anode stability.

Biography:

Dr. Ye Cao is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering at University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). He is also a member of the Institute for Predictive Performance Methodologies (IPPM) at the UTA Research Institute. Before joining UTA, he was a Postdoc Research Associate in the Center of Nanophase Materials Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Dr. Cao obtained his Ph.D. degree in Materials Science and
Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University. His research focuses on the mesoscale phasefield simulations, and machine learning in materials sciences. His current topics include charge transport in oxide-based resistive random-access memories, interfacial stability in Li batteries, and ferroelectric domain structure and switching in multi-functional ferroelectric thin films and heterostructures. Dr. Cao has authored/co-authored ~ 50 journal publications. His research projects have been sponsored by National Science Foundation and American Chemical Society.

Date:

December 3, 2021

Time:

10:45am

Location:

Teams

Each seminar highlights a different speaker who will discuss their latest research projects, cutting-edge technology or what is happening within certain technological industries. These industries include biomedical technologies or microsystems, assistive technologies, automation and intelligent systems, unmanned systems, advanced manufacturing and composite materials.

Topic:

STABILITY AND PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT OF COOPERATING TEAMS OF MULTI-AGENT SYSTEMS

Abstract:

Traditional control design methodologies can guarantee stability and performance of systems modeled as linear time invariant systems. However, when multiple such “optimal” vehicles are put together in a team, what guarantees for stability and performance can one expect? This talk focuses on this aspect. The well-known linear parameter varying control methodology is adopted to develop a full envelop robust controller for high performance aerial vehicles. A novel distributed version of this controller will be introduced that addresses the challenge of the computational effort required for synthesizing a robust controller for the group. This novel framework provides performance guarantees and can be rapidly evaluated for sufficiently large groups. The presentation will also discuss some procedures to compute stability and robustness margins as well as input time delays to address the communication among multiple vehicles. The results are less conservative and more accurate than the current state-of-the-art algorithms. Some interesting modalities that allow hackers to compromise a mission will be shown that are derived purely from this robust control framework. The presentation will focus on a novel uncertainty quantification framework which allows us to compute the sensitivity of the performance to individual vehicle connectivity – some intuitive connection topologies will be discussed in this context. While the frameworks mentioned previously will be shown in the context of multiple cooperating unmanned vehicles, the presentation will also underscore the applicability to many classes of mechanical, and aerospace systems.

Bio:

Dr. Kamesh Subbarao is Professor and director of the Aerospace Systems Laboratory (ASL) in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). He received his PhD from the department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A & M University, College Station in 2001. After his PhD he worked as an Applications Developer at The MathWorks Inc. (2001-2003) in the Controls and Systems Identification and Estimation Toolboxes group. His research interests span flight mechanics, simulation and control, astrodynamics, nonlinear and adaptive control, linear and nonlinear filtering/estimation approaches, cooperation and coordination for multiple unmanned vehicles subject to measurement uncertainties and distributed time delays

Dr. Subbarao’s research has been funded by DARPA, NSF, AFRL, ONR, NASA, Lockheed Martin, Whirlpool Inc., Nextgen Aeronautics and Hypercomp Inc. He received the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2021, and the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company Excellence in Teaching Award in 2016. Previously he received the AIAA Foundation Award for “Model Reference Adaptive Control” in 2001. He has also been nominated by the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering as well as the College of Engineering for numerous other teaching and research awards, including Provost’s Teaching Award, Board of Regents Teaching Award, Outstanding Young Faculty Award, Provost’s Excellence in Research Award. He was also nominated for the Outstanding Academic Advisor Award in 2018-19 and again in 2020-21. He has authored and co-authored more than 175 journal and peer reviewed conference publications.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (FRAeS), and the American Astronautical Society. He is also an Associate Fellow of AIAA, and Senior Member of IEEE, and ASME

Date:

October 29, 2021

Time:

12:00pm

Location:

UTARI Auditorium

7300 Jack Newell Blvd. S, Fort Worth, 76118

or on Teams

Each seminar highlights a different speaker who will discuss their latest research projects, cutting-edge technology or what is happening within certain technological industries. These industries include biomedical technologies or microsystems, assistive technologies, automation and intelligent systems, unmanned systems, advanced manufacturing and composite materials.

Topic:

Attack Detection & Mitigation for Control Systems

Abstract:

It used to be that in order to poison the waterhole, you needed to be at the waterhole. Likewise, guarding the well involved asking a person to watch out for bandits. Now, the city water supply can be attacked by a hacker with a laptop on the other side of the world. The same is true for most of our critical infrastructures such as water, power, fossil fuel refining and pipeline transmission as well as large segments of industry that include chemical processing, robotic assembly, and other forms of automation. While the modernization of control processes has led to unprecedented levels of productivity and efficiency, the coupling of the physical processes with an overarching cyber communication control layer opens up new vulnerabilities for such so called cyber-physical systems. In this presentation I will describe the perspective we take on attack detection and mitigation, which is a rigorous approach to balancing detection sensitivity with a practical level of false alarms.  This rigorous approach enables quantifying the potential impact of attackers that wish to remain undetected as well as designing control systems to be less vulnerable to such attacks. 

Bio:

Dr. Ruths received a B.S. in Physics from Rice University, M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering (Columbia University) and Electrical Engineering (Washington University in Saint Louis), and a Ph.D. in Systems Science and Applied Mathematics from Washington University in Saint Louis.  In 2011, Dr. Ruths joined Singapore University of Technology and Design as a founding faculty member where he served as an assistant professor in Engineering Systems and Design for five years.  As of August 2016 he is an assistant professor with appointments in Mechanical Engineering and Systems Engineering at University of Texas at Dallas.  His research includes studying the fundamental properties of controlling networks, bilinear systems theory, security of cyber-physical control systems, and solving computational optimal control problems focused on neuroscience and quantum control applications.

Topic:

Set-based Hierarchical Model Predictive Control

Abstract:

Model Predictive Control (MPC) is a leading approach for the control of constrained systems, where input and state constraints are directly imposed in the underlying optimization problem. Guaranteed constraint satisfaction and stability of the closed-loop system are well understood for the case of a single centralized controller. When the complexity of a system prohibits a centralized control approach, hierarchical MPC can be used to decompose control decisions across multiple levels of controllers. However, with a complex network of interacting MPC controllers operating at different timescales, it becomes very challenging to design each individual controller such that constraint satisfaction and stability of the overall closed-loop system can be guaranteed.

This talk presents how set-based coordination mechanisms can be used within a hierarchical MPC framework to provide guaranteed feasibility of each controller in the hierarchy and the satisfaction of state and input constraints for the closed-loop system. In particular, it will be shown how the unique features of zonotope and constrained zonotope set representations are key enablers of the proposed set-based coordination mechanisms. Several numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the key features, performance, and scalability of the set-based hierarchical MPC approach.

Bio:

Justin Koeln received his B.S. degree in 2011 from Utah State University in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 2013 and 2016, respectively, from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in Mechanical Science and Engineering. He is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Dallas in the Mechanical Engineering Department. He was a NSF Graduate Research Fellow and a Summer Faculty Fellow with the Air Force Research Laboratory. His research interests include dynamic modeling and control of thermal management systems, model predictive control, and hierarchical and distributed control for electro-thermal systems.

Date:

Friday, October 1, 2021

Time:

12pm-1pm

Location:

Microsoft Teams

Each seminar highlights a different speaker who will discuss their latest research projects, cutting-edge technology or what is happening within certain technological industries. These industries include biomedical technologies or microsystems, assistive technologies, automation and intelligent systems, unmanned systems, advanced manufacturing and composite materials.

Topic

Around-the-Ear Sensing Systems for HCI, BCI, and Healthcare

Abstract

This talk introduces computing devices that can be worn around the ears to sense brain signals, muscle signals, eye movement signals, and facial skin activities. Since the human head and face are the sources of multiple important bio-signals such as brain, eyes, facial muscles, and teeth/jaw/head activities, building ear-worn wearable devices could enable a wide range of applications ranging from human-computer interaction, facial expression tracking, behavioral monitoring, just to name a few. In this talk, I will discuss experiences and lessons learned through realizing ear-worn sensing devices for (1) tongue-teeth human-computer interaction, (2) 3D facial animation, and (3) face-hand contact tracking. I will also discuss other opportunities that the ear-computing system could bring and system challenges that need to be addressed to unleash its potential.

Bio

VP Nguyen is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington. He directs the Wireless and Sensor Systems Lab at UTA, where he and his team focus on building novel wearable, mobile, and wireless sensing systems for human and environmental monitoring. He is the recipient of the SONY Faculty Innovation Award, CACM Research Highlights 2020, ACM SIGMOBILE Research Highlight 2017 and 2020, Best Paper Award at ACM MobiCom 2019, Best Paper Runner up Award at ACM SenSys 2018, ACM Best Paper Nominee at ACM SenSys 2017, Best Paper Awards at ACM MobiCom-S3 2016-2017.

Save the Date!

Friday, August 27, 2021

Time

12pm – 1pm

Location

Microsoft Teams

Each seminar highlights a different speaker who will discuss their latest research projects, cutting-edge technology or what is happening within certain technological industries. These industries include biomedical technologies or microsystems, assistive technologies, automation and intelligent systems, unmanned systems, advanced manufacturing and composite materials.

Topic

Pedestrian Safety in the Presence of Self-Driving Vehicles: Virtual Reality Experiment

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) has proven to be a useful tool for conducting human factors research in interface design. With the development and promotion of autonomous vehicle (AV) technology, researchers are focusing on designing different types of interfaces to induce trust in road users toward this new technology. The goals of this research were to use VR to investigate pedestrians’ understanding of proposed designs of external features on AVs and to explore how the presence of an operator inside the vehicle influences pedestrians’ preference for these features. VR headset tracking, survey-based responses, and video-recorded body movements were used to collect data on pedestrian responses to three operator statuses and seven feature types. Pedestrians preferred both “walk” in text and verbal message saying “safe to cross” as clear and comforting features on an AV. They perceived the distracted operator condition as to be an inconvenient situation even for the AV equipped with visual or audible features. Older people found the features more helpful and people with higher innovativeness rated the feature ideas with higher ratings.

Bio

Dr. Shuchisnigdha Deb is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering at The University of Texas at Arlington. Dr. Deb has graduated from Mississippi State University with her Doctoral degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering. Her research focuses on Human-Technology Interaction. Dr. Deb has been using Simulators, mobile learning environments, and AR/VR to expose people in virtual environments in order to investigate and improve their task performance and behavior.

Date
2/28/2020

Time
12pm – 1pm

Location
7300 Jack Newell Boulevard South
Fort Worth, TX 76118-7115
817-272-5900
https://utari.uta.edu/

The UTARI Seminar will be held Friday, April 26th, at noon (12pm).

Each seminar highlights a different speaker who will discuss their latest research projects, cutting-edge technology or what is happening within certain technological industries. These industries include biomedical technologies, assistive technologies, automation and intelligent systems, unmanned systems, advanced manufacturing and composite materials.

Speaker

Dr. Mahdi Haghshenas

Topic

REHAB Glove: A Soft Robotic Hand Exoskeleton for Rehabilitation, Assistive Motion, and Human Performance Augmentation

Abstract

The emerging field of soft robotics along with the current advances in materials science and manufacturing techniques provide potential solutions to address the limitations in conventional robotic systems. This enables 3D printing and fabrication of novel flexible and shape-changing actuation mechanisms such as fluidic elastomer actuators or tendon-driven systems integrated into robotic structures to create versatile and adaptive wearable rehabilitation and assistive devices. These approaches are attractive for upper-body exoskeletons and wearable orthoses as they help reduce the complexity, size, and cost associated with current state-of-the-art rehabilitation and assistive devices. Over the past decade, several soft robotic exoskeletons have been demonstrated based on these approaches; however, dynamic modeling and control of these systems and their physical interactions with human body are still a challenge due high nonlinearity of material properties and associated degrees-of-freedom. This talk presents the design and development of a soft robotic hand exoskeleton (REHAB Glove) based on a novel pneumatic soft-and-rigid hybrid actuator for rehabilitation and assistive motion in stroke and cerebral palsy patients. The kinematic and dynamic compatibility of the current hand exoskeleton with human biomechanics were examined and validated through analytical as well as human motion experimental studies which will be demonstrated here. In addition, the current theoretical works including development of dynamic models for torque characterization of these soft actuators along with forward and inverse quasi-static algorithmic formulations for study of the dynamics and control of the human-soft exoskeleton interaction will be discussed. Furthermore, validation of these theoretical models through finite element numerical simulations and experimental studies will be presented. Finally, the other related projects including, soft robotic hand exoskeleton for virtual reality-based rehabilitation gaming, soft robotic bilateral therapy, soft robotic wrist orthosis, and 3D-printed soft robotic mechanisms will be briefly discussed.

Bio

Mahdi Haghshenas-Jaryani, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scientist in the Biomedical Technologies Division at The University of Texas at Arlington Research Institute (UTARI). He is focused on computational modeling and designing of assistive and preventive care biomedical devices.

He received his Ph.D. degree from The University of Texas at Arlington in 2014, M.S. degree from Sharif University of Technology, Iran, in 2009 and B.S. degree from University of Tehran, Iran, in 2005, all in Mechanical Engineering. Before joining UTARI, his research focused on multiscale computational modeling and simulation of physical and biological systems at the micro-nanoscales, especially the dynamic behaviors of motor proteins like myosin, kinesin and dynein. He has authored or co-authored over 15 peer-reviewed scientific articles. He is a member of ASME, IEEE, and APS societies.

Date

4/26/19

Time

12pm – 1pm

Location

7300 Jack Newell Boulevard South
Fort Worth, TX 76118-7115
817-272-5900
utari.uta.edu

UTARI Seminar is held last Friday of each month at 12:00PM (noon). November’s seminar will be delayed from the 30^th to 12/7/19. Each seminar highlights a different speaker who will discuss their latest research projects, cutting-edge technology or what is happening within certain technological industries. These industries include biomedical technologies or microsystems, assistive technologies, automation and intelligent systems, unmanned systems, advanced manufacturing and composite materials.

Speaker

Dr. Wendy Shen

Topic

Engineering microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) to satisfy the biological requirements of nature

Abstract

Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) have demonstrated significant strides in implantable medical devices and biosensors by enabling local, miniaturized diagnostics and therapies with superior functionality. However, a key challenge in the application of traditional MEMS devices for clinical diagnostics and therapeutics lies at the interface between the device and the complex biological and physiological environment. In this presentation, I will introduce a paradigm shift with the development of biological materials and smart materials–based MEMS devices for physiological and biological interfacing technology. First, implantable and wearable devices must be both biologically and mechanically compatible with the host environment to overcome the foreign body response. To address these challenges, I will introduce natural materials based devices for neural interfacing and transcutaneous sensing. These devices are not only able to provide rich physiological information, but also provide a more biomimetic approach to seamlessly interface with the local host environment. Second, wireless interrogation is desired to minimize implant footprint for many healthcare and environmental applications. Towards this goal, I will introduce biosensors featuring magnetoelastic sensing modality, in which mechanical energy is converted to magnetic energy, to support wireless detection.

Bio

Wen Shen is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). She is also a faculty member at the Institute for Predictive Performance Methodologies at the University of Texas at Arlington Research Institute. She attended Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, where she received her B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering and minored in Biological Engineering in 2005. Dr. Shen then pursued her M.S. (2010) and Ph.D. (2011) degrees in Probability & Statistics and Materials Engineering, respectively, from Auburn University, working with Professor Bryan Chin. She then moved to Georgia Institute of Technology (2011) and University of Pennsylvania (2014) as a postdoctoral fellow, working with Professor Mark Allen. Before joining UTA, she was a Senior Research Engineer in the Singh Center of Nanotechnology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests are in the development of MEMS based sensors and actuators, such as bio-mimetic devices for physiological-interfacing technology, and those harnessing magnetic sensing methodologies to wirelessly interrogate biological systems.

Date

12/7/18

Time

12pm (noon)-1pm

Location

7300 Jack Newell Boulevard South
Fort Worth, TX 76118-7115
817-272-5900
utari.uta.edu

UTARI Seminar is held the last Friday of each month at 12:00PM (noon). Each seminar highlights a different speaker who will discuss their latest research projects, cutting-edge technology or what is happening within certain technological industries. These industries include biomedical technologies or microsystems, assistive technologies, automation and intelligent systems, unmanned systems, advanced manufacturing and composite materials.

Speaker

Dr. Nicholas Gans

Topic

Vision-Based Distributed Formation Control of Autonomous Vehicles

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become increasingly smaller and affordable, while their onboard computational and communication capabilities have advanced significantly. It is now conceivable to deploy UAVs to collaboratively map and monitor an environment, inspect infrastructures, deliver goods, or manipulate objects. In these applications, the ability to bring the UAVs to a desired geometric shape is a fundamental foundation upon which more sophisticated activities and tasks can be constructed.

Dr. Gans will present a novel control strategy for a team of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to autonomously achieve a desired formation using only visual feedback provided by the UAVs’ onboard cameras. This effectively eliminates the need for global position measurements. The proposed pipeline is fully distributed and encompasses collision avoidance. In our approach, each UAV extracts feature points from captured images and communicates their pixel coordinates and descriptors among its neighbors. These feature points are used in our novel pose estimation algorithm, QuEst, to localize the neighboring UAVs. Compared to existing methods, QuEst has better estimation accuracy and is robust to feature point degeneracies. We demonstrate the proposed pipeline in a high-fidelity simulation environment and show that UAVs can achieve a desired formation in a natural environment without any fiducial markers.

Bio

Nicholas Gans is a Clinical Associate Professor in Electrical Engineering at The University of Texas at Dallas. His research interests include robotics, nonlinear and adaptive control, machine vision, and autonomous vehicles. His current research interests includes self-optimizing systems, novel vision-based estimation and control algorithms, and distributed control of multi-agent systems. These topics are applied in a wide variety of applications including autonomous vehicles, driver assistance, surveillance and search and rescue in challenging environments, powered prosthetics and surgical robotics. Dr. Gans has published over 100 conference and journal papers, and he holds three patents in these topics.

Dr. Gans earned his BS in electrical engineering from Case Western Reserve University in 1999, then his M.S. in electrical and computer engineering in 2002 and his Ph.D. in systems and entrepreneurial engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2005. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Florida and as a postdoctoral associate with the National Research Council, where he conducted research on control of autonomous aircraft for the Air Force Research Laboratory and developed the Visualization Laboratory for simulation of vision-based control systems. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, Robotics and Automation Society and Control Systems Society.

Date

10/26/18

Time

12pm (noon)-1pm

Location

7300 Jack Newell Boulevard South
Fort Worth, TX 76118-7115
817-272-5900