Department of
Mechanical Engineering
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (Joint Appt.)
Texas A&M University
124 Mechanical Engineering Office Building
College Station, TX 77843
My research interests center around theoretic methods in hybrid systems
and nonlinear control, with a heavy emphasis on applications to bipedal
robotic walking---both formally and through experimental
validation. A large component of my research is to use human
locomotion as a template for constructing formal theories for robotic
walking. In addition, I explore geometric methods in robotic
walking and hybrid systems, along will studying behavior unique to
hybrid systems such as Zeno behavior and stability theory.
I received a BS in
Mechanical Engineering and a BA in
Mathematics from the University of St. Thomas in 2001. I received a MA
in Mathematics and a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer
Sciences and the University of California, Berkeley in 2006 with
Shankar Sastry. I
was a Postdoc at Caltech from 2006-2008 with John Doyle. At UC
Berkeley, I was the recipient of the 2005 Leon O. Chua Award for
achievement in nonlinear science and the 2006 Bernard Friedman Memorial
Prize in Applied Mathematics. In 2010 I received both the NSF
CAREER award for my research on bipedal robotic walking and its
applications to prosthetic devices.
News and Notes:
Performed robustness tests on AMBER,
pushing the robot until it breaks. It responds in a very
"human-like" manner during these experiments. The results of these
tests can
be seen here:
AMBER is Walking! Not only does AMBER
walk, but the robot is able to handle disturbances and uneven terrain
all using only a single human-inspired controller.
We achieved the first human-inspired
walking with NAO:
I received an NSF CyberPhysical Systems
award for "An Integrated Approach to Modeling and Simulating Robot
Designs"!
AMBER, the bipedal robot being
developed
by my lab, takes its first steps in 2D:
Testing AMBER in 3D with Feet:
The mechanical phase of the
construction
of my lab's 3D bipedal Robot, Amber, has been
completed.
Videos of my research, including
seminar
talks, simulation and experimentation results can be found at:
I received
the 2009 Norman Hackerman Research Program (NHARP) Award!
I received
the 2010 NSF CAREER Award for the "Closing the loop on walking: From
Hybrid Systems, to Bipedal Robots to Prosthetic Devices and Back"!
[4/22/10]
Resume and Publication page has been updated (for the first time in a
long time)
[4/22/10]
Research group, AMBER lab,
website
is
up
(website
is
still
in
initial
phase)
[4/01/09]
Code and movies for the CDC papers on bipedal walking with knees and
feet in 2D and 3D can be found here.
"Abstractness, sometimes hurled as a
reproach at mathematics, is its chief glory and its surest title to
practical usefulness."
-Eric Temple Bell
"Good general theory does not search
for the maximum generality, but for the right generality."
-Mac Lane
"The whole concept of a category is
essentially an auxiliary one; our basic concepts are essentially those
of a functor and of a natural transformation ."
