Basic Research & Tasks
Basic Research | Task | Presentation

Exact Cellular Decomposition - Incremental construction of exact cellular decompositions that are formulated in terms of critical points of Morse functions.	Topological Mapping - All robots that do not use pre-placed landmarks or GPS must employ a localization algorithm while mapping an unknown space, hence the term Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). We use a topological approach to SLAM and then suggests how it can be used in mapping and covering unknown spaces with a robot experiencing dead-reckoning error.
Retract-like structures for Euclidian Spaces - Sensor based motion planning using hierachical Voronoi graph.	Retract-like structures for SE(2) and SE(3) - Motion planning algorithm for thr rod-shaped robots, based on distance measurements.

Simultaneous Localization and Mapping - We are developing a geometric mapping strategy that directs a mobile robot to explore an unknown environment while taking into consideration sensor and encoder uncertainty.	Modular Distributed Manipulator System - An array of cells, each of which can induce a vectored force to an object resting on the cell. The cells collectively transport and manipulate objects resting on the array.
Snake Robot Design - Analyzing the factors that are of importance in designing a snake robot, and implementing new designs.	Motion Planning for the Snake Robot Creating algorithims for computer control of hyper-redundant manipulators existing in high dimension configuration spaces.
Ultrasonic Sensor Resolution Improvement - Improved the azimuth resolution of conventional polaroid ultrasonic sensors by intersection arcs, filtering the intersections, and then taking the median. The result in our experiments is a 10-fold improvement in azimuth resolution.	Planar Coverage - Sensor based coverage of unknown environments using exact cellular decompositions.
Constrained Controlled Coverage - Coverage of two dimensional surfaces embedded in three dimensions with emphasis on uniform coverage.	Mobile Platform Design - Mechanical design of a differential drive mechanism for outdoor coverag
Visual Localizarion - The visual localization system is being developed to give a mobile robot the ability to locate its own position. The system exploits a CCD camera and colored landmarks and yields a robust and accurate localization performance.	Probabilistic Coverage - Recognition of mine patterns using statistical methods.

Half hour overview talk