Keynote Speaker
Keynote Speech
Teams of robots equipped with communication, sensing, computation, and grasping capabilities have potential for tremendous impact on a wide range of applications such as search/rescue, surveillance, infrastructure protection, scientific exploration, and smart environments. In this talk, the development of a modular hardware and software infrastructure is discussed in order to investigate the relationship between the capabilities of individual units and the collective capability of the entire robotic team.
The major innovation of our work lies in the creation of a flexible design spectrum for both research and education based on the capabilities of the individual units. On the lower end of the spectrum, the basic design (``Explorer''), a robot based on a Gumstix unit and earlier robot designs from the University of Minnesota, provides an inexpensive and yet significantly more powerful solution than existing systems. On the higher end of the spectrum, the platform ``MicroVision,'' a robot based on the Intel Pentium M processor and RoboAudioStix board, provides real-time video streaming and processing using standard off-the-shelf hardware and open-source video algorithms. All these devices stem from the UMN Scout platform, one of the first miniature, fully functional robotic systems.
Biography
Nikos P. Papanikolopoulos (IEEE Fellow) received the Diploma degree in electrical and computer engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, in 1987, the M.S.E.E., and the Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1988 and 1992, respectively. Currently, he is the Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota and Director of the Center for Distributed Robotics and SECTTRA. His research interests include robotics, computer vision, sensors for transportation applications, and control. He has authored or coauthored more than 200 journal and conference papers in the above areas (fifty five refereed journal papers). He was finalist for the Anton Philips Award for Best Student Paper in the 1991 IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) and recipient of the best Video Award in the 2000 IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation. He was a McKnight Land-Grant Professor at the University of Minnesota for the period 1995-1997 and has received the NSF Research Initiation and Early Career Development Awards. He was also awarded the Faculty Creativity Award from the University of Minnesota. One of his papers (co-authored by O. Masoud) was awarded the IEEE VTS 2001 Best Land Transportation Paper Award. He has received grants from DARPA, DHS, U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, Sandia National Laboratories, NSF, Johnson Controls, Microsoft, INEEL, USDOT, MN/DOT, Honeywell, and 3M. He was member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Administrative Committee (ADCOM) for five years, Local Arrangements Chair for ICRA 1996, Vice-Chair for the 2001 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), America Program Chair for ICRA 2004, Program Chair for ICRA 2006, and America Program Chair for IROS 2007. He was also Chairman of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Technical Committee on Robot Vision for the period 2000-2006. He is the General Chair for ICRA 2012 and Associate Editor for three journals. Finally, he is an Area Editor for the RAS Conference Editorial Board.