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Department of Computer Science
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA
EDUCATION
Ph.D. Computer Science, University of Utah 1988
M.S. Mechanical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University 1984
B.A. Physics, Franklin and Marshall College 1980
B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Washington University 1980
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
- 1995 - present:
- Associate Professor, Department of Computer
Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts.
- 1988 - 95
- Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science,
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts.
- 1988 - present
- Co-Director of the Laboratory for Perceptual
Robotics, Department of Computer Science,
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts.
- 1984 - 88:
- Research and Teaching Assistant, Departments of Computer
Science and Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake
City, Utah.
- 1981 - 82:
- Systems Design Engineer, General Electric Company Edison
Engineering Program, Louisville, Kentucky.
- 1980:
- Washington University Technical Associates, St. Louis,
Missouri.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
My research focus is the integration of Artificial Intelligence and
Control Theory for autonomous robot control. I have been investigating
the use of sensor-rich component automation as a means of enhancing the
flexibility of robots applied to a diverse range of tasks.
A central focus of this work is computationally tractible controllers for
complex, highly redundant systems.
The approach entails on-line composition of a control basis
for manipulation tasks. Constraints on the expression and composition of
control have been established which preserve stability and convergence
characteristics in the integrated system.
We have applied this paradigm to a 20 DOF hand/arm system, to a homebuilt
legged platform and to a non-holonomic mobile platform as well.
Also underway is a research
program to characterize and exploit the underlying predictability of these
control architectures to facilitate process scheduling. This work is
focussed on evaluating process control alternatives with respect to quality,
timeliness, and throughput in real-time, flexible automation. In the future,
this work will be applied to autonomous robot control, to ``agile'' low
volume manufacturing systems, and to control for intelligent vehicles and
highway systems.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
- Huber, M. and Grupen, R., ``2D Contact Detection and
Localization Using Proprioceptive Information.'' IEEE
Transactions on Robotics and Automation, 10(1):23-33, 1994.
- Connolly, C., and Grupen, R., ``On the Applications of
Harmonic Functions to Robotics,'' In Journal of
Robotic Systems, 10(7):931-946, October, 1993.
- Grupen, R., Huber, M., Coelho, J,. and Souccar, K., In
``Distributed Control Representation for Manipulation Tasks,''
IEEE Expert, Special Issue on Intelligent Robotic Systems,
Ed. R. Arkin, 10(2):9-14, 1994.
- Coelho, J. and Grupen, R., ``Optimal Multifingered Grasp
Synthesis,'' the IEEE Conference on Robotics
and Automation, San Diego, CA, May, 1994.
- Grupen, R. and Souccar, K., ``Manipulation-Based Spatial
Isotropy: A Kinematic Reflex,'' In MCPA'93 - Workshop on
Mechatronical Computer Systems for Perception and Action,
Halmstad, Sweden, June 1-3, 1993.
- Gullapalli, V., Barto, A., and Grupen, R., ``Learning Admittance
Mappings for Force-Guided Assembly,'' the IEEE
Conference on Robotics and Automation, San Diego, CA, May, 1994.
- Singh, S., Connolly, C., Grupen, R., and Barto, A., ``Robust
Reinforcement Learning in Motion Planning,'' Neural
Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 1993.
- Connolly CI, Grupen RA, ``Nonholonomic Path Planning Using Harmonic
Functions,'' the 1994 IEEE Conference on Intelligent
Robots and Systems (IROS '94), Munich, Germany.
- Coelho, J., Grupen, R., ``A Control Basis for
Multifingered Grasps,'' submitted to the Journal of Robotic
Systems, August, 1995.
- Stan, M., Burleson, W., Connolly, C., and Grupen, R., ``Analog
VLSI for Robot Path Planning,'' accepted by Journal of VLSI
Signal Processing, Special issue on Analog Computation, 1993.
COLLEAGUES/RECENT COLLABORATORS
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