The Michigan Robotics Newsletter, Spring 2022
Note: these posts were migrated from Twitter’s Revue newsletter after it shut down in January, 2023. Unfortunately links will not redirect at this time, but we hope to find some time to go through these and relink in the future.
Welcome to the Michigan Robotics Newsletter, a summary of what’s happening in the University of Michigan Robotics community.
Research
Exoskeletons with personalize-your-own settings
To transform human mobility, exoskeletons need to interact seamlessly with their user, providing the right level of assistance at the right time to cooperate with our muscles as we move. To help achieve this, Kim Ingraham, David Remy, and Elliott Rouse gave users direct control to customize the behavior of an ankle exoskeleton.
People emotionally tied to robots can undermine relationships with co-workers
Research by Sangseok You and Lionel Robert indicates that these bonds can be detrimental as workers become more attached to the robot than their colleagues.
VIRDO: Visio-tactile Implicit Representations of Deformable Objects
Youngsun Wi and Nima Fazeli present “an implicit, multi-modal, and continuous representation for deformable-elastic objects.”
TAMPC: A Controller for Escaping Traps in Novel Environments
Sheng Zhong, Zhenyuan Zhang, Nima Fazeli and Dmitry Berenson “propose an approach to online model adaptation and control in the challenging case of hybrid and discontinuous dynamics where actions may lead to difficult-to-escape ‘trap’ states, under a given controller.”
Having The Right Attitude: How Attitude Impacts Trust Repair in Human-Robot Interaction
To better understand how individual attitude can influence trust repair strategies, Connor Esterwood and Lionel Robert propose a theoretical model that draws from the theory of cognitive dissonance.
Congrats
Talia Moore earns Robotics Faculty Award
The first Robotics Departmental Faculty Award is in recognition of Moore’s “high impact accomplishments benefiting Robotics and the College of Engineering.“
Ella Atkins wins 2022 AIAA Intelligent Systems Award
Atkins was selected for her outstanding, creative, interdisciplinary solutions in the theory and deployment of intelligent autonomous aerospace vehicles over the past two decades.
Necmiye Ozay receives IEEE CSS Antonio Ruberti Young Researcher Prize
Ozay’s research has already impacted the field of hybrid and cyber-physical systems, and become part of real-life systems.
Dawn Tilbury receives SAE award for Women Leaders
Tilbury received the J. Cordell Breed Award for Women Leaders for outstanding service to her community.
Other congratulations
Lionel Robert became a Senior Member of IEEE
X. Jessie Yang received the IOE Richard Wilson Faculty Scholar Award
David Fouhey received an NSF CAREER Award
Vineet Kamat received the ASCE Construction Management Award
Honglak Lee will lead the new LG AI Research Center
Look
A peek into our new course, Robotics 102: Intro to AI & Programming
Ri3D 2022 Robot Technical Overview | Michigan Robot in 3 Days
The next must-have for the office? Katherine Behar from Baruch College hosted an art pop-up in our atrium featuring self-driving office chairs. The chairs avoid paper and, if one is stuck, they all start spinning in place.
Maani Ghaffari: Combining learning and geometry for robot perception and navigation
Lionel Robert: Robots in Healthcare: Where Is All This Really Going?
David Held: Perceptual Robot Learning
PODCAST: Turning Students Into Full Stack Roboticists
Damen Provost, Managing Director of Michigan Robotics, talks about what being a ‘roboticist’ means.
Michigan Robotics publishes many courses online, which can be freely accessed through sites like GitHub and YouTube. These courses typically include all lecture videos, notes, textbooks, homework, projects, and exams.
Read
U-M, Humotech partner to bring open-source bionic leg to research labs
The open-source, artificially intelligent prosthetic leg designed by researchers at the University of Michigan will be brought to the research market by Humotech, a Pittsburgh-based assistive technology company.