Drs.Maria Gini and Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos Photo by Jonothan Chapman

Internationally known for robotics research and education, the department of Computer Science and Engineering houses four sites where state-of-the-art robotics research takes place. These special facilities, linked to specific areas of research and named, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Vision Lab (AIRVL), Undergraduate Robotics Lab, Collaborative Systems Lab (CSL) and the Center for Distributed Robotics, enable students to participate daily in creating the future. Faculty members, Dr. Maria Gini, Dr. Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos, and Dr. Richard Voyles, each experts in their respective fields, direct on-going projects with both graduate and undergraduate students.

Over the last few years, the AIRVL has been building an infrastructure for the rapid prototyping of small robotic systems. These facilities include a large number of embeddable microcontrollers, various sensors and actuators, and modular structural components. Common toys, including LEGO® Technic building blocks and remote-controlled car bodies, some modified with attached sensor and actuator components, provide the "modular structural components," as well as cheap, standard interfaces for rapid assembly. To brainstorm on a given project, these components can be quickly assembled to create a wide variety of new robotic systems, exploring alternative solutions to the same problem.

Utilizing these rapid prototyping capabilities, the most prominent project of the robotics labs is sponsored by the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The 3-year contract is for the construction of a distributed robotic system of mini-robots for use in surveillance, de-mining and counter-terrorist operations. Tiny robots about the size and shape of a pickle, will be remotely deployed by larger robots about the size of a dog.

Using their small size as camouflage, these "mini-bots" will be able to perform their tasks undetected, keeping soldiers out of harm's way in unpredictable situations. This five-million dollar project is a collaborative effort among three academic departments (Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering) and three local companies (MTS Systems, Architecture Technology Corp., and Honeywell).

Contributing to microtechnologies, this DARPA project must address the difficulties in producing sufficient computational power for vision and intelligent movement on the scale of a centimeter. In parallel, the Computer Science and the Engineering Departments must develop the controller software. However, due to the complexity involved in the construction of such hardware, a robotic platform is not always available for testing. Therefore, rapid prototyping is essential so that both the controller software and the hardware can be developed in parallel.

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