Carnegie Mellon Names Veteran Mobile Robot Building to Direct the National Robotics Engineering Consortium

PITTSBURGH--Carnegie Mellon University has named Robotics Institute research scientist John E. Bares as the new director of its National Robotics Engineering Consortium (NREC). The consortium was established in 1994 with a $2.5 million grant from NASA's Office of Advanced Concepts and Technology to commercialize mobile robotic technologies the agency has developed over the years by working directly with American Industry.

Bares succeeds David Pahnos who was instrumental in conceiving and implementing the original vision of the consortium, but has resigned from the university to pursue other interests.

Bares gained international recognition as a principal investigator on the Dante II project, which involved a walking, rappelling robot that explored the crater of an active volcano in Alaska, in 1994.

He earned his bachelor's, master's and doctor's degrees in civil engineering from Carnegie Mellon in 1985, '87 and '91, respectively. As a student, he worked on several groundbreaking robotics projects, including machines designed to decontaminate and clean up a damaged nuclear reactor at the Three Mile Island power plant near Harrisburg, Pa.; the Terregator, a wheeled robot critical to the university's early robotic outdoor navigation work, and Ambler, a 12-foot-tall, six legged prototype Mars rover. Bares led the design and fabrication of Ambler's structural and mechanical systems, and received two patents for its unique walking configurations.

After completing his Ph.D., Bares joined the robot research and development group at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Takasago, Japan, where he developed a robot for inspecting steam distribution pipes. After 15 months at Mitsubishi, he was recruited back to Carnegie Mellon to work on Dante.

Bares' present research focuses on projects that involve full-cycle, conception to testing of intelligent machines for hazardous environments, construction and heavy industry applications.

"The National Robotics Engineering Consortium is especially important to Carnegie Mellon because it provides the university with the opportunity to collaborate with industry and government on impactful technological projects," said Carnegie Mellon Provost Paul Christiano. "John Bares provides the stongest possible combination of technical ability and management skills. We are extraordinarily fortunate to have such a talented person leading the center."

Bares will share his management duties with the consortium~s new associate director Anthony J. "Tony" Stentz, a senior research scientist at the Robotics Institute. Stentz is also a Carnegie Mellon alumnus with many years' experience in developing and deploying mobile robots. During his career, Stentz, has concentrated on developing autonomous robotic machines that automate industrial, agricultural, mining and off-road navigation operations. He has also worked on aircraft that take off and land autonomously.

He received a bachelor~s degree in physics from Xavier University in 1982, and earned master's and doctor's degrees in computer science at Carnegie Mellon in 1984 and 1989, respectively. He joined the Robotics Institute as a research scientist in 1989, and in 1995, was named senior research scientist and associate director of the Field Robotics Center.

Early in his career, Stentz worked on vision systems for the Terregator and software for integrating vision, planning and mapping into the Navlab autonomous vehicle. An algorithm he developed at that time has been upgraded and is now being tested in a pair of HMMWV vehicles.

Stentz is presently working on a project funded by Joy Mining and NASA to develop and commercialize technologies for automating underground mining. He is a principal investigator on the Demeter autonomous crop harvesting project and another involving robotic technologies for mass excavation in mines, quarries and construction sites.

According to Bares, the NREC is working on five major projects--excavation with Caterpillar Corp., an autonomous harvester with New Holland North America, materials handling with Ford Motor Co., and underground mining with Joy Manufacturing. The consortium is also part of a U.S. team developing a robot that will be used to help clean up the site of a damaged reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine.

"We will continue to fulfill NASA's mission for the consortium by setting up ways to transfer their technology to industry through NREC projects," said Bares. "We want to get a pipeline going from NASA to the American robotics industry where we make a match between companies and technologies and add value to each match. There are financial advantages, resource advantages and technological advantages for basing developmental projects at the National Robotics Engineering Consortium."

"John has proven that he is an excellent and energetic leader through his work on the Ambler, Dante II and construction robot projects," said Robotics Institute Director, Takeo Kanade. "Together with Tony Stentz, he will bring the NREC to the next stage of fulfilling its goal of technology transfer."

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