Looking forward to this week's seminar! We have a special guest this week: Rob Ambrose, who is currently faculty at Texas A&M University. He has an impressive history with NASA, including being the person behind Robonaut. He's a guest of the university president, so we need to make a particularly strong showing at seminar this week - make sure to come help us pack the room.

As a reminder, everyone is expected to come to the seminar. We’ve got a strict no-device policy. We also have, as always, coffee and coffee cake.

For the spring term, we're in Rogers Hall 230. Seminar is at 10am Friday. See you then!

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Prototyping New Robotic Solutions

Rob Ambrose, University Distinguished Professor in Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M

Abstract: A series of complex problems will be described through the eyes of a team charged with designing and building first generation robotic solutions for space and national security challenges. The evolution of the robot technology will be charted through a series of prototypes, with observations about how the team matured and engaged partners. Challenges in manipulation, wheeled mobility, inspection, telepresence, perception, legged locomotion, autonomy, dexterity, free flyers, wearable systems, and various combinations of mobile-manipulation will be described. Component development will be noted where new inventions enabled the system solution. The talk will finish with new challenges being addressed for the US Army and US Space Force.