When robots make mistakes, a free tool for Raspberry Pi robots, and why cooking matters for AI
plus Mbot goes to Washington
Welcome to the Michigan Robotics newsletter, a summary of what’s happening in the University of Michigan Robotics community.
Have a shorter attention span these days? We’re posting a few shorts over on YouTube (along with much longer, in-depth videos).
Research
Even Robots Make Mistakes: How Humans Walk with Imperfect Exoskeletons
Researchers Man I Wu and Leia Stirling assessed the impact of exoskeleton accuracy on walking behavior, finding that when the devices do not operate properly, some people adjust quickly while others compensate with their ankle or hip, expending more energy than necessary.
Tyler Toner, Vahidreza Molazedeh, Miguel Saez, Dawn Tilbury, and Kira Barton effectively control automotive wire harnesses with a single manipulator.
CRKD: Enhanced Camera-Radar Object Detection with Cross-modality Knowledge Distillation
To bridge the performance gap between the high cost LiDAR-Camera systems and the already widely deployed Camera-Radar systems, Lingjun Zhao, Jingyu Song, and Katherine Skinner develop a cross-modality knowledge distillation framework.
Learning Surface Terrain Classifications from Ground Penetrating Radar
To help mobile robots determine the type of terrain on which they are operating to aid downstream tasks such as autonomous navigation and planning, Anja Sheppard, Jason Brown, Nilton Renno, and Katherine Skinner utilize ground penetrating radar.
Robots can allow humans to multitask, but few secondary tasks transmit data in real-time and are openly available; this paper presents the spot report task as an open-source secondary task for use in HRI experiments, by Arsha Ali, Wonse Jo, Kayla Riegner, Jonathon Smereka, Samantha Dubrow, Lionel Robert, and Dawn Tilbury.
Toward Personalized Tour-Guide Robot: Adaptive Content Planner based on Visitor's Engagement
While many tour guide robots rely heavily on pre-recorded content, limiting engagement, the team proposes tour-guide robots that are dynamic, adaptable companions that cater to individual visitor needs and preferences, from Yanran Lin, Wonse Jo, Arsha Ali, Lionel Robert, and Dawn Tilbury.
Autonomy Acceptance Model (AAM): The Role of Autonomy and Risk in Security Robot Acceptance
To study how humans are accepting the deployment of security robots, researchers explored the relationships on acceptance, autonomy, and risk, with Xin Ye, Wonse Jo, Arsha Ali, Samia Cornelius Bhatti, Connor Esterwood, Hana Andargie Kassie, and Lionel Robert.
$1.8M awarded for biomedical research projects
Among the awarded, a project led by Robert Gregg with co-investigator Elliott Rouse "envisions a powered energy-assist ankle orthosis that offers a novel conservative treatment for ankle arthritic deformities."
Watch
Eva Mungai describes how to help bipedal robots achieve stable motion no matter what they run into through developing robust controllers and reliable fall prediction algorithms.
Watch alum Marcela De los Rios work on the Disney Robotics team, and read the IEEE Spectrum explainer on the impressive work.
Joseph Kim highlights work on Advanced Air Mobility, including assured contingency landing management, including solutions for when a system might be in distress, and centralized and distributed AAM traffic management to ensure seamless AAM operations.
Wami Ogunbi delivered three commencement addresses: for the College, for the University, and for the Black Celebratory. Watch her commencement to fellow Engineering graduate students, and read about Wami’s inspirational journey.
This first instance of ROB 450 in Winter 2024 challenged students to synthesize the knowledge acquired through their Robotics undergraduate courses at the University of Michigan to use a systematic and iterative design and analysis process to solve a real open-ended Robotics problem.
Build
Tool for Raspberry Pi robot builders
The Neurobionics Lab released a free tool for people who use the Raspberry Pi as a microprocessor and connect remotely from your PC. Using the tool, you can build an RPi OS image that will automatically connect to known wifi networks and email its IP address to SSH.
Read
Open-Source Leg develops new website
The powered prosthetic project invites students just starting their journey in the field of prosthetics, engineers seeking to apply their skills to make a real-world impact, and researchers aiming to advance the state of the art to join their community.
New course: Design for Human Robot Interaction
Review one of the newest courses taken by both undergraduate and graduate students, taught by Patrícia Alves-Oliveira.
From the Kitchen to the Lab: Why Cooking Became AI’s Favorite Dish
Jason Corso writes on why the cooking domain has been a key ingredient in computer vision and machine learning for the last decade.
A day in the life of an Engineering student
These students are dedicated to their project teams: they build autonomous boats, Formula SAE racing cars, and radio-controlled and autonomous aircraft.
Congrats
Dawn Tilbury elected to National Academy of Engineering
One of engineering’s greatest honors, the organization underscored her work in manufacturing network control and human-robot interaction.
Dimitra Panagou earns Research Excellence award
Panagou’s research has the potential to create safe networked control systems across a vast number of fields, from aerial swarms to satellite constellations, connected vehicles, human-robot networks and beyond.
Chad Jenkins, Abhishek Narula, Samantha Price earn Department awards
Key accomplishments from each include starting up the robotics undergraduate program, building out the MBot educational robotics platform, and overseeing the growth of staff headcount to support the department.
Economic Exo paper is Editors’ Choice of Communciations Engineering
Leo Medrano, Gray Thomas, Drew Margolin, and Elliott Rouse's paper on the economic value of wearing an exoskeleton earned this distinction.
Andrea Sipos awarded the Susan Lipschutz Award
The award honors those who have demonstrated exceptional scholarly achievement, a sense of social responsibility, and an interest in the success of women in the academic community.
Anouck Girard named Thurnau Professor
In recognition of extraordinary contributions to undergraduate education, such as Girard’s quadcopter quidditch outreach efforts.
Lionel Robert named senior member of INFORMS
As a senior member, Robert was appreciated for his involvement, contribution and engagement with INFORMS, the largest association for decision and data sciences.
Wami Ogunbi earns three Michigan distinctions
In addition to earning her PhD, Wami was recognized for her work with the North Campus Dean's MLK Spirit Award for Mentoring and Inspiration, received the Spectrum Center’s Intersectional Advocacy Award, and was inducted into the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society.
Joseph Breeden recognized with two Michigan awards
Joseph received the Richard F. and Eleanor A. Towner Prize For Distinguished Academic Achievement from the College of Engineering, as well as the 2024 Professor Pierre T. Kabamba Award for graduate student excellence in controls systems from the Aerospace Department.
Parting shots
