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Dec3
EVENT DETAILSmore info
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Join the Center for Robotics and Biosystems December Seminar
Speaker: Chen Li, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering and Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics at Johns Hopkins University
Date and Time: Friday, December 3 at 3:00 p.m. CT
Location: Hybrid Seminar in Tech LR3 and Zoom
Zoom Link: https://tinyurl.com/CRBSeminar
• NU-authenticated attendees will be automatically admitted. Others, please email Amy Nedoss at amy.nedoss@northwestern.edu to be admitted from the waiting room.
Abstract
We understand fairly well how terrestrial animals use and control interaction with the environment to generate and stabilize near-steady-state, single-mode locomotion such as walking and running on relatively flat surfaces, and many bio-inspired robots are becoming robust at doing so. It is because we understand such interaction as well as we do that we have Boston Dynamics robots. However, robots are still far from robust in being able to traverse (not avoid) complex 3-D terrain with obstacles as large as themselves, an ability required for applications like search and rescue in rubble and debris, environmental monitoring in forests and mountains, and sample collection through cluttered extraterrestrial rocks. By contrast, many animals do so at ease by dynamically transitioning across different modes of locomotion. Here, we review our lab’s progress towards filling this gap by revealing how to use and control physical interaction with the environment to make locomotor transitions. We take an interdisciplinary, integrative approach at the interface of biology, engineering, and physics. Considering the heterogeneity of complex 3-D terrain, as a first step, we abstract from it distinct model challenges and create platforms analogous to wind/flow tunnels to enable controlled, repeatable experiments. We study legged and limbless model organisms (cockroaches and snakes) capable of robust locomotion in complex 3-D terrain in these platforms and develop techniques to measure locomotor-terrain interaction in detail. We also create and test robotic physical models of the animals to further enable systematic locomotor parameter variation and controlled studies of feedforward and feedback control strategies. Finally, we perform physics modeling to understand how locomotion emerges from physical interaction and can be controlled by the animal or robot. For the abstracted locomotor challenges, the general physical principles and strategies revealed already advanced robot performance. We are working towards further understanding how to sense physical interaction during locomotion and use feedback control and reactive planning to enable robust transitions across heterogeneous complex 3-D terrain.
Bio
Chen Li is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and a faculty member of Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics at Johns Hopkins University. He earned B.S. and PhD degrees in physics from Peking University and Georgia Tech, respectively, and performed postdoctoral research in Integrative Biology and Robotics at UC Berkeley as a Miller Fellow. Dr. Li’s research aims at creating the new field of terradynamics, analogous to aero- and hydrodynamics, at the interface of interface of biology, robotics, and physics, and using terradynamics to understand animal locomotion and advance robot locomotion in the real world. Dr. Li won several early career awards, including a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface, a Beckman Young Investigator Award, and an Army Research Office Young Investigator Award, and selection as a Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow by the National Academy of Sciences. He has won a Best PhD Thesis award at Georgia Tech and several best student/highlight/best paper awards (Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology, Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, Advanced Robotics, IROS).
To learn more, visit Terradynamics Lab at: https://li.me.jhu.edu/.
TIME Friday, December 3, 2021 at 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
LOCATION LR3 / 151, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Amy Nedoss amy.nedoss@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Center for Robotics and Biosystems
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Apr22
EVENT DETAILS
lessGuiding with Touch: Haptic Feedback for Enhancing Human Motor Performance
Recent advances in virtual reality simulation and robotics have changed the way that motor skills are trained, yet the feedback that most trainees receive when working in these environments is still delayed, subjective, and qualitative, which does not provide the maximum support for rapid acquisition of motor skill. In this talk, I will describe our research on identifying objective and quantitative metrics that capture motor skills in a few different tasks, and I will present our methods for employing real-time haptic feedback and guidance. We have shown that different implementations of haptic guidance provided via kinesthetic feedback can have either negative, neutral, or positive effects on motor performance and skill acquisition. More recently, we have shifted to provide cutaneous haptic feedback for guidance or performance feedback. We have shown that low-level properties of movements (e.g., smoothness) made in the performance of several motor tasks—including surgery in both virtual and robotic environments—are highly correlated with high-level performance outcomes. We encode these movement properties as simple haptic cues that are conveyed to the trainee in real-time, and evaluate the effect on skill acquisition. This talk will highlight our progress over the past decade in implementing real-time haptic feedback via wearable devices to train complex motor skills.
Marcia O’Malley’s research addresses issues that arise when humans physically interact with robotic systems, with a focus on wearable robotics and haptics for training and rehabilitation in virtual environments. She has twice received the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching at Rice University. O’Malley was a recipient of both the ONR Young Investigator award and the NSF CAREER Award. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. At Rice, she has been recognized with Rice’s Presidential Award for Mentoring, the Graduate Student Association Faculty Teaching and Mentoring Award, and the Rice University Faculty Award for Excellence in Research, Teaching, and Service.
TIME Monday, April 22, 2024 at 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
LOCATION LR3, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Jeremy Wells jeremywells@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Mechanical Engineering (ME)
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Apr30
EVENT DETAILS
lessOn the Design and Manufacture of Structures for Flightworthy Gas Turbines
by Apostolos Karafillis
Chief Consulting Engineer
Structures and Additive Design
GE Aerospace
Abstract
The design and manufacture of gas turbine components presents unique technical challenges that highlight the relevance and importance of the disciplines of mechanical and aerospace engineering. In this presentation, we will focus on describing the fundamental technical requirements for parts of flightworthy gas turbines and will then share examples of designs and innovations to meet these requirements. The talk will include the description of typical loading conditions and operating environments, and the description of how these requirements guide the selection of design features, materials, and manufacturing methods. We will discuss three specific examples: The selection of features and architecture of a bearing housing, the design of a turbine frame with a mix of metallic and composite materials, and the development of methods for characterizing the performance of components manufactured with non-traditional methods. Through these examples, it will be shown that successful hardware design requires the combination of robust design methods, rigorous implementation of the principles of mechanics of materials, and the development of design and manufacturing innovation.TIME Tuesday, April 30, 2024 at 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
LOCATION 1.350, Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center map it
CONTACT Jeremy Wells jeremywells@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick - Mechanical Engineering (ME)
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May3
EVENT DETAILSmore info
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Speaker: Russ Tedrake, Toyota Professor of EECS, Aero/Astro, ME at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and VP of Research at Toyota Research Institute
Title: Dexterous Manipulation with Diffusion Policies
Date and Time: Friday, May 3 at 11:30 AM CT
Location: Tech ESAM M416 and Zoom
Zoom Link: https://tinyurl.com/CRBSeminar
• NU-authenticated attendees will be automatically admitted. Others, please email amy.nedoss@northwestern.edu to be admitted from the waiting room.
Abstract:
At the Toyota Research Institute (TRI), we've been working on behavior cloning for dexterous manipulation. Building on the Diffusion Policy framework that we've recently developed in collaboration with Shuran Song, we now have a very solid pipeline for taking ~50-100 bimanual haptic teleop demonstrations and turning that into a surprisingly effective visuomotor (+tactile) policy. Because there is no explicit state representation required, these skills work equally well manipulating deformable, liquid, or other difficult to model tasks as they do for more traditional rigid-object manipulation. We're actively scaling this up into the multi-task setting and now see a plausible path towards "Large Behavior Models". This behavior cloning pipeline is working incredibly well, and must be understood deeply in the broader context of output-feedback control. Time permitting, I'll also tell you a bit about some new results in optimization-based planning and control, and where they might fit in the age of foundation models.
Bio:
Russ Tedrake is the Toyota Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, and Aero/Astro, and he is a member of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL). He is also the Vice President of Robotics Research at Toyota Research Institute (TRI). He received a B.S.E. in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1999, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2004. Dr. Tedrake is the Director of the MIT CSAIL Center for Robotics and was the leader of MIT’s entry in the DARPA Robotics Challenge. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, the MIT Jerome Saltzer Award for undergraduate teaching, the DARPA Young Faculty Award in Mathematics, the 2012 Ruth and Joel Spira Teaching Award, and was named a Microsoft Research New Faculty Fellow. His research has been recognized with numerous conference best paper awards, including ICRA, Robotics: Science and Systems, Humanoids, Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control, as well as the inaugural best paper award from the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Whole-Body Control.
TIME Friday, May 3, 2024 at 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
LOCATION M416, Technological Institute map it
CONTACT Amy Nedoss amy.nedoss@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Center for Robotics and Biosystems (CRB)
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May8
EVENT DETAILSmore info
lessThe Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts is a collaboration between the Art Institute of Chicago and materials science-related departments at Northwestern University to pursue objects-based and objects-inspired scientific research. Materials research benefits ongoing work in conservation, archaeology, art history, and curatorial scholarship.
Learn how the Center uses materials research to care for art objects in sustainable, innovative ways with Maria Kokkori, Senior Scientist in the Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts. She will be in conversation with Corey Byrnes, Northwestern Associate Professor of Chinese Culture and co-founder/co-director of the Environmental Humanities Workshop in Kaplan Humanities Center.
This event is presented by the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science in conjunction with exhibition Actions for the Earth: Art, Care & Ecology.
TIME Wednesday, May 8, 2024 at 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
LOCATION Block Museum of Art, Mary and Leigh map it
CONTACT Block Museum of Art block-museum@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR Block Museum of Art
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Jun10
EVENT DETAILSmore info
lessMcCormick School of Engineering PhD Hooding and Master’s Degree Recognition Ceremony
TIME Monday, June 10, 2024 at 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
LOCATION Welsh-Ryan Arena
CONTACT Amy Pokrass amy.pokrass@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
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Jun10
TIME Monday, June 10, 2024 at 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
LOCATION Welsh-Ryan Arena
CONTACT Amy Pokrass amy.pokrass@northwestern.edu EMAIL
CALENDAR McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science