All posts by Lilly Clark

Dr. Tyler Reid, co-founder and CTO of Xona Space Systems, discusses a new type of global navigation satellite system (GNSS). Xona Space Systems plans to provide centimeter-level positioning accuracy and will serve the emerging autonomous vehicle community, where precise navigation is key. Reid discusses the advantages and technical challenges of a low Earth orbit (LEO) solution.

Tyler Reid

Tyler Reid is co-founder and CTO of Xona Space Systems. Previously, Tyler worked as a Research Engineer at the Ford Motor Company in localization and mapping for self-driving cars. He has also worked as an engineer at Google and as a lecturer at Stanford University, where he co-taught the GPS course. Tyler received his PhD (2017) and MSc (2012) in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford and B.Eng. (’10) in Mechanical Engineering from McGill.

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Prof Brendan Englot, from Stevens Institute of Technology, discusses the challenges in perception and decision-making for underwater robots – especially in the field. He discusses ongoing research using the BlueROV platform and autonomous driving simulators.

Brendan Englot

Brendan Englot received his S.B., S.M., and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007, 2009, and 2012, respectively. He is currently an Associate Professor with the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. At Stevens, he also serves as interim director of the Stevens Institute for Artificial Intelligence. He is interested in perception, planning, optimization, and control that enable mobile robots to achieve robust autonomy in complex physical environments, and his recent work has considered sensing tasks motivated by underwater surveillance and inspection applications, and path planning with multiple objectives, unreliable sensors, and imprecise maps.

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Credits: Marco Pavone

Lilly interviews Stephanie Schneider, a PhD candidate at Stanford working on unconventional space robotics. Schneider explains her work on Reachbot, a long-reach crawling and anchoring robot, which repurposes extendable booms for mobile manipulation. They discuss the challenges and exciting elements of robotic prototyping for low-gravity or otherwise unique environments.
https://youtu.be/0RqFgOHqz7E

Stephanie Schneider

Stephanie Schneider is a Ph.D. candidate in Aeronautics and Astronautics in the Autonomous Systems Laboratory at Stanford, working with Professor Marco Pavone. She received her BS in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University in 2014. Stephanie’s research interests include real-time spacecraft motion-planning, grasping and manipulation in space, and adaptive control for autonomous robotics.

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In this episode, our interviewer Lilly speaks to Alex Wallar, co-founder and CTO of The Routing Company. Wallar shares his background in multi-robot path-planning and optimization, and his research on scheduling and routing algorithms for high-capacity ride-sharing. They discuss how The Routing Company helps cities meet the needs of their people, the technical ins and outs of their dispatcher and assignment system, and the importance of public transit to cities and their economics.

Alex Wallar

Alex Wallar is Co-founder and CTO of the Routing Company, an on-demand vehicle routing and management platform that partners with cities to power the future of public transit. Previously he was pursuing a PhD in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT, conducting research on mathematical optimization for high-capacity ride-sharing.

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In this episode, our interviewer Lilly speaks to Alex Wallar, co-founder and CTO of The Routing Company. Wallar shares his background in multi-robot path-planning and optimization, and his research on scheduling and routing algorithms for high-capacity ride-sharing. They discuss how The Routing Company helps cities meet the needs of their people, the technical ins and outs of their dispatcher and assignment system, and the importance of public transit to cities and their economics.

Alex Wallar

Alex Wallar is Co-founder and CTO of the Routing Company, an on-demand vehicle routing and management platform that partners with cities to power the future of public transit. Previously he was pursuing a PhD in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT, conducting research on mathematical optimization for high-capacity ride-sharing.

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Lilly interviews Chris Lee, a graduate student at Oregon State University. Lee explains his research on marsupial robots, or carrier-passenger pairs of heterogeneous robot systems. They discuss the possible applications of marsupial robots including the DARPA Subterranean Competition, and some of the technical challenges including optimal deployment formulated as a stochastic assignment problem.

Chris Lee

Chris Lee is pursuing a Master of Science in Robotics at Oregon State University, having received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Buffalo. His research is in robotic exploration, frontier extraction, and stochastic assignment.

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In this episode, Lilly interviews Giovanni Beltrame, Professor of Computer and Software Engineering at École Polytechnique de Montréal where he directs the Making Innovative Space Technology (MIST) lab. Beltrame highlights the technical challenges of exploring another planet with a swarm of robots controlled by an astronaut operator. They discuss minimizing cognitive load for the operator, analog missions to volcanic lava tubes on Earth, and spherical hopping robots for the moon.

Giovanni Beltrame

Giovanni Beltrame received the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of Illinois, Chicago, in 2001, the Laurea degree in computer engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, in 2002, the M.S. degree in information technology from CEFRIEL, Milan, in 2002, and the Ph.D. degree in computer engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, in 2006. He worked as an engineer at the European Space Agency until 2010, and he is currently a Professor at École Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada, where he directs the MIST Laboratory.

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In this episode, Lilly interviews Amanda Prorok, Professor of Computer Science and Technology at the University of Cambridge. Prorok discusses her research on multi-robot and multi-agent systems and learning coordination policies via Graph Neural Networks. They dig into her recent work on self-interested robots and finding explainability in emergent behavior.

Amanda Prorok

Amanda Prorok is an Assistant Professor (University Lecturer) in the Department of Computer Science and Technology, at Cambridge University, and a Fellow of Pembroke College. She serves as Associate Editor for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (R-AL) and Associate Editor for Autonomous Robots (AURO). Prior to joining Cambridge, Prorok was a postdoctoral researcher at the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, where she worked with Prof. Vijay Kumar. She completed her PhD at EPFL, Switzerland, with Prof. Alcherio Martinoli.

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In this episode, Lilly interviews Afshin Doust, CEO of Advanced Intelligent Systems. Doust explains the company’s modular, robots-as-a-service subscription business model. They discuss robotic solutions for the agricultural industry, disinfecting robots to combat COVID19, and other exciting new developments at AIS.

Afshin Doust

Afshin Doust is the Chief Executive Officer of Advanced Intelligent Systems (AIS). He is a seasoned entrepreneur with professional experience in finance, sales, business consulting, and strategic management with a keen interest in assembling teams to resolve business challenges.  Afshin took the role of CEO at AIS in 2016, with the goal to lead the team towards the vision of creating innovations in autonomous robotic solutions for a wide range of applications.

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• AIS Press: COVID-19 Robots
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In this episode, Lilly interviews Afshin Doust, CEO of Advanced Intelligent Systems. Doust explains the company’s modular, robots-as-a-service subscription business model. They discuss robotic solutions for the agricultural industry, disinfecting robots to combat COVID19, and other exciting new developments at AIS.

Afshin Doust

Afshin Doust is the Chief Executive Officer of Advanced Intelligent Systems (AIS). He is a seasoned entrepreneur with professional experience in finance, sales, business consulting, and strategic management with a keen interest in assembling teams to resolve business challenges.  Afshin took the role of CEO at AIS in 2016, with the goal to lead the team towards the vision of creating innovations in autonomous robotic solutions for a wide range of applications.

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• AIS Press: COVID-19 Robots
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Lilly interviews Bernhard Thomaszewski, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Montréal and research scientist at ETH Zurich. Thomaszewski discusses his background in animation at Disney, his current work on mechanical metamaterials and digital fabrication, and how physics-based modeling has connected the dots.

Bernhard Thomaszewski

Bernhard Thomaszewski is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research at the University of Montréal. Until June 2017, he was a Research Scientist at Disney Research Zurich, heading the group on Computational Design and Digital Fabrication. Thomaszewski obtained his Master’s degree and PhD (Dr. rer. nat) in Computer Science from the University of Tübingen. Before joining Disney, he spent a year at the computer graphics group at ETH Zürich.

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In this episode, Lilly interviews Jonathan Sauder, the Principal Investigator of a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts project to design a rover for the surface of Venus. Sauder explains why exploring Venus is important and why previous surface missions have only lasted a few hours. They discuss his innovative wheeled-robot concept, a hybrid automaton rover which would be mostly mechanical and powered by wind.

Jonathan Sauder

Jonathan Sauder is a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Fellow and Senior Mechatronics Engineer at NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in the Technology Infusion Group focused on innovative concepts.  He is also a lecturer of “Design Theory and Methodology” and “Advanced Mechanical Design” at the University of Southern California, where he received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering.

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In this episode, Lilly Clark interviews Kris Zacny, the Vice President of Exploration Technologies at Honeybee Robotics.  They discuss two focuses of development at Honeybee: technology for finding extinct extraterrestrial life and technology for in-situ resource utilization. Zacny speaks about the design and operation of current flight projects, and why drilling technology is key to these missions.

Kris Zacny

Dr. Kris Zacny is VP and Senior Research Scientist at Honeybee Robotics. His interests include space mining, sample handling, soil and rock mechanics, extraterrestrial drilling, and In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU). He co-founded Exploration Technology Division (EX), based in Altadena, CA. EX, with over 100 employees, focuses on developing space mining robots.

In his previous capacity as an engineer in South African underground gold, diamond, and coal mines, Dr. Zacny managed numerous mining projects and production divisions. This hands-on experience related to drilling and mining became invaluable in developing such technologies for space. Dr. Zacny received his PhD (UC Berkeley, 2005) in Geotechnical Engineering with an emphasis on Extraterrestrial Drilling and Mining, ME (UC Berkeley, 2001) in Petroleum Engineering with emphasis on Drilling and Materials Science, and BSc cum laude (U. Cape Town, 1997) in Mechanical Engineering. He participated in several Antarctic, Arctic, Atacama, and Greenland expeditions. Dr Zacny has approx. 200 publications, he has been a PI/Co-I on approx. 50 projects, he has over 40 NASA New Technology Records and four NASA Group Achievement Awards.

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In this episode, Lilly interviews Nathan Michael, Professor and Director of the Resilient Intelligent Systems Lab at the Robotics Institute within Carnegie Mellon University. They discuss introspection, adaptation, and evolvement in robotics. Michael speaks about topics in state estimation and distributed perception, and other challenges in control, perception, and cognition for both single and multi-robot systems.

Nathan Michael

Nathan Michael is an Associate Research Professor and the Director of the Resilient Intelligent Systems Lab at the Robotics Institute within Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Professor Michael’s research seeks to enable the development of self-sufficient robots and teams of robots that can respond to disasters; robots which can perform the tasks of first responders in order to reduce the number of people placed in harm’s way. His research employs the principles of resilient intelligence and persistent knowledge to enable robots to innovate to solve complex problems, to overcome unanticipated challenges and to learn from their experiences. Applications of Professor Michael’s work include the use of autonomous robots to explore earthquake-damaged buildings and the deployment of unmanned aerial systems to inspect nuclear reactor cores and measure radiation levels.

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In this episode, Lilly interviews Dr. William Crowe, CEO of High Earth Orbit (HEO) Robotics. The mission of HEO Robotics is to provide high quality imagery of satellites, space-debris and resource-rich asteroids. Crowe discusses the technical challenges which make robotics and satellites similar like computer vision and controls, and those where traditional robotics approaches aren’t suitable like localization and mobility. He explains new trends in the satellite industry, and the need for high quality imagery.

William Crowe

William Crowe is CEO of High Earth Orbit Robotics, a company that performs health checks on satellites by assessing data on images they take from other satellites. He has a PhD in Astrodynamics, where his research focused on the use of swarms to characterize asteroids, especially those that fly closer than the Moon. William sees a future where we use the resources of space in space to better our Earth.

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