Dr. Nikos Papanikolopoulos
   Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN

  Teams of robots equipped with communication, sensing, computation, and grasping capabilities have potential for tremendous impact on a wide range of applications such as search/rescue, surveillance, infrastructure protection, scientific exploration, and smart environments. In this talk, the development of a modular hardware and software infrastructure is discussed in order to investigate the relationship between the capabilities of individual units and the collective capability of the entire robotic team.

Biography

  The major innovation of our work lies in the creation of a flexible design spectrum for both research and education based on the capabilities of the individual units. On the lower end of the spectrum, the basic design (“Explorer”), a robot based on a Gumstix unit and earlier robot designs from the University of Minnesota, provides an inexpensive and yet significantly more powerful solution than existing systems. On the higher end of the spectrum, the platform ``MicroVision,'' a robot based on the Intel Pentium M processor and RoboAudioStix board, provides real-time video streaming and processing using standard off-the-shelf hardware and open-source video algorithms. All these devices stem from the UMN Scout platform, one of the first miniature, fully functional robotic systems.

Food

 N/A

Directions

 The meeting will be held in Conference Room 1K at the Lockheed Martin Corporation, 3333 Polot Knob Road, in Eagan