People

Researcher Profiles

Faculty

Ph.D. & Assistant Professor

Department of Aerospace Engineering

2130 Learned Hall The University of Kansas

Lawrence, KS, 66045

Doctoral Students

• File:Hiro.jpgHiroaki Nakano
• File:Walter small2.jpgDaqing Yi

Masters Students

• C. Kristopher Alder

Undergraduate Students

• Joe Hoehne

• Andrew Wallace

• Tanis Reed

• Manuel Márquez

Lab Alumni:

• TJ Gledhill
• Kyle Blatter
• File:Lanny.jpgLanny Lin
• File:AlanPortrait.jpgAlan Atherton
• File:DanielBrown.jpgDaniel Brown
• File:PHOTO.jpgSpencer Clark
• File:Image.jpgShin-Young Jung
• Sean Kerman
• Brian Pendleton

Nathan Wonnacott Mike Roscheck, Timothy Major, Yisong Guo, Tyler Gill, Philip Cook, Clayton Lemons, Spencer Gardner, Michelle Farmer, Robert Brown, Amy Glaves, Jon Whetten, Sukhbat Tumur-Ochir, Jonathan Link, Mercedes Kurtz, Mario Alberto Garcia, Abe Austin, Dhruv M. Saxena, Curtis Nielsen and Ben Hardin, Jacob Crandall, Joseph Cooper, Morgan Quigley, Brian Buss, Nathan Rackliffe, Bob Ricks, Alan Olsen now with Anybots, Jeff Stimpson, Tom Palmer

Research Objectives

• How to support Wilderness Search and Rescue operations with UAV technologies?
• How to apply assistive robotics technologies to help treat children with Autism in clinical settings?
• Research HRI techniques to improve task performances for human and artificial agents working as a team.
• Multi-agent management and learning.
• Probability Maps for lost person behavior to support Wilderness Search and Rescue

Current Projects

File:ReadyToLaunch.JPG

UAV used in research

• WiSAR Project: WiSAR stands for Wilderness Search and Rescue. This is a joint project with the Computer Vision lab and the MAGICC lab. The goal is to use technology to support Wilderness Search and Rescue operations. In our lab, we are interested in the following topics:
  • Modeling/predicting lost-person behavior
  • Interactive probability distribution
  • Sliding autonomy in UAV path-planning
  • UAV control interface and HRI ideas
  • Incident Support Management System for Heterogeneous Agents

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Therapist-in-the-loop Assitive Robotics

• TiLAR Project: TiLAR stands for Therapist in the Loop Assistive Robotics. This is a joint project with several other departments in the university (Mechanical Engineering, Communication Disorders, Psychology). The goal is to use Assistive Robotics technologies to help therapists treat children with Autism in clinical settings. In our lab, we are interested in the following topics:
  • Identify traits of the robots (form, shape, functions, etc.) that affect autistic children's behaviors.
  • Design human-robot interfaces that enable the therapists to choreograph ("program") a robot's behaviors.
• HuBIRT: HuBIRT stands for Human-interaction with Bio-Inspired Robot Teams. This is a joint project with the University of Central Florida, the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Porto.
  • Common literature repository for this project.
  • Interesting videos on biological and bio-inspired systems
  • Extending fan-out
  • Metrics of Performance
  • Interfaces and Role Allocation
• Tele-operation of a robotic arm with augmented virtual reality