Aerial Robot Swarms
Vijay Kumar, UPS Foundation Professor
School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Pennsylvania
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
10:15-11:15 a.m.
Biodesign Auditorium (BDB 105)
Download and share the flier
Autonomous micro aerial robots can operate in three-dimensional, indoor and outdoor environments, with applications to search and rescue, first response and precision farming. Vijay Kumar will provide an overview of our work, and describe the challenges in developing small, agile robots and our recent work in the areas of control and planning, state estimation and mapping, and coordinating large teams of robots.
Bio
Vijay Kumar, Ph.D., is the UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and on sabbatical leave at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy where he serves as the assistant director for robotics and cyberphysical systems. He has been on the faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics with a secondary appointment in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania since 1987.
In addition, Kumar has served as the deputy dean for Research in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, directed the GRASP Laboratory, a multidisciplinary robotics and perception laboratory, and was the chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics. He also served as the deputy dean for Education in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
A Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and a member of the National Academy of Engineering, his research interests are in robotics, specifically multi-robot systems, and micro aerial vehicles.
Kumar received his Bachelor’s of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 1987.