Schedule
Thursday 9/14
[8:30am – 9:20am] Breakfast
[9:20am – 9:30am] Welcome!
[9:30am -11:00pm] Session 1
9:30 – 9:45 |
Ankur Mehta, UCLA |
Vision: Lowering barriers to robotics research [PDF] |
9:45 – 10:00 |
Giacomo Zuccon, UC Irvine |
Design of a Robot for Early Stage Gait Rehabilitation [PDF] |
10:00 – 10:15 |
Jonathan Realmuto, UC Riverside |
Leveraging biological principles for advancing human-robot physical interaction |
10:15 – 10:30 |
Erdem Bryik, USC |
Efficient Robot Learning via Interaction with Humans |
10:30 – 10:45 |
Luis Guerrero-Bonilla, Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey |
Defense and Surveillance with Control Barrier Functions |
10:45 – 11:00 |
Tania Morimoto, UCSD |
Enabling advancements in medical care through the design of flexible robots and haptic interfaces |
[11:00am – 11:15am] Coffee Break
[11:15am – 12:15pm] Keynote 1
11:15 – 12:15 |
Magnus Egerstedt Stacey Nicholas Dean of Engineering, |
Robots in the Wild: Constraint-Based Control Design for Long Duration Autonomy |
[12:15pm – 1:00pm] Lunch
[1:00pm – 3:00pm] Poster Session
Full list of posters available below!
[3:00pm – 5:00pm] Workshops and lab tours
Please expand the descriptions below to learn more about the workshops and lab tours.
Robot Ecology: Robots in the Wild
Host: Magnus Egerstedt, Alex Nguyen
Location: 1310 ISEB
Description: Robots are increasingly leaving the confines of laboratories, warehouses, and manufacturing facilities, venturing into agriculture and other settings where they must operate in uncertain conditions over long timescales. However, the deployment of robots over truly long time-scales poses problems that are fundamentally different from those faced by robots deployed in factories or other controlled settings, where operating conditions exhibit only limited variability, power is readily available, and regularly scheduled maintenance routines ensure that minor technical problems do not accumulate to produce catastrophic failures. What is needed is an understanding of the tight coupling between robot (animal) and its environment (habitat). This workshop will discuss how to combine ecological principles with more classical robotics to provide a formal approach to constraint-based control design and help inform the design of slow and energy-efficient robots which can take full advantage of the environments they inhabit.
Bot-in-a-box: Kickstarting robotics education towards accessible, easy-to-deploy, hands-on, out-of-box robotics educational bootcamps
Host: Ankur Mehta
Location: 4211 Engineering Gateway
Description: The workshop aims to address the challenges surrounding robotics education accessibility and inclusivity, ensuring that it becomes available to all students and teachers, regardless of their background. Discussing our experiences and educational kits, we will dive into the technical aspects of robotics, various teaching approaches, costs, and resource availability. Participants are encouraged to bring their kits, materials, and experiences to the discussions to uncover the diverse point of view and approaches.
Through interactive demonstrations and activities, we hope the participants can better understand what kits are trying to communicate and what could be barriers for the users. Our primary goal is to share, experience, and discuss the barriers that prevent teachers and students from robotic education, and then lead to future actions to improve their teaching and classrooms by executing the workshop outcome. We will explore and discuss strategies to make robotics education more accessible, engaging, and exciting, encouraging students to pursue further studies and careers in related fields.
Participants will better understand robotics education challenges and foster an inclusive learning environment. Through discussions, hands-on activities, and networking opportunities, we intend to empower teachers, future educators, and students with the knowledge, tools, and approaches necessary to integrate robotics education effectively into their teaching and learning practices, positively impacting the future of education.
We hope that participants can return and gather their own executions and results by the next symposium.
Fabricating Fabric-Based Soft Pneumatic Actuators for Wearable Robots
Host: Jonathan Realmuto
Location: 3161 Engineering Gateway
Description: We will provide a hands-on tutorial on fabricating pneumatic based soft actuators particularly suited for body-mounted applications. The actuators are fabricated using textiles (fabrics) with different material properties and joined together through sewing. The tutorial will include detailed fabrication principles for rigidizeing and bending actuators, and basic mounting principles to attached the actuators to the body. We will also provide some theoretical considerations for design principles.
Lab Tours 1
Rehabilitation and Augmentation Lab (EG 2123). PI: Alexandra Voloshina. The research focus of the lab aims to bridge the gap between wearable assistive devices, their users, and the environment. Specifically, we aim to advance the integration of robotic devices, such as exoskeletons and lower-limb prostheses, into the everyday lives of individuals, particularly those with gait disabilities. Our work also includes the development of wearable sensors and feedback devices for improved rehabilitation in home and clinical environments.
Robotics and Automation Lab (Cal State Fullerton, EG 2123). PI: Nina Robson. The laboratory has extensive experience in the areas of Mechanical Systems Design, Robotics, Biomechanics and Developing Technologies to aid people with disabilities. Current research interest is on human motion planning with reduced mobility with the goal of developing novel technologies to facilitate the recovery of patients with neurological disorders.
UC Irvine Biorobotics Lab (EG 3151/3150). PI: David Reinkensmeyer. Our goal is to develop innovative technologies that help people recover after neurologic injuries such as stroke and spinal cord injury based on an understanding of neuromuscular control and plasticity mechanisms. We are also using such technologies, along with computational models of neuro-recovery, to help assess and enhance emerging neuro-repair therapies.
Robot Ecology Lab (ISEB 6900). PI: Magnus Egerstedt. The Robot Ecology Lab focuses on the robust deployment of large teams of mobile robots in terms of coordinated decision and control strategies. Particular applications of interest include environmental monitoring, precision agriculture and transportation systems.
Lab Tours 2
Magnetic Microsystems and Microrobotics Laboratory (EG 1103). PI: Camilo Velez Cuervo. What would you do with robots the size of plankton? Our vision is to create a swarm of functional autonomous robots, each the size of a bacterium, working together to solve complex problems independently, such as wastewater treatment. We aim to enhance the autonomy and functionality of these micro-robots through advanced research in manufacturing techniques for magnetic materials and complex microsystems, including sensors and actuators.
MicroSystems Lab (EG 2115/2110). PI: Andrei Shkel. The Microsystems Laboratory at the University of California Irvine conducts the cutting edge research and provides rigorous multidisciplinary academic training in the field of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS). The Laboratory assumes a leadership role in the development of chip-scale gyroscopes and Inertial Measurement Units (IMU). Researchers in the laboratory are skilled in the full cycle of development, including theory, design, modeling, fabrication, control electronics, packaging, and hands-on experiment. The innovations are fueled by funding from the government and private industry.
Kia Cooperative Systems Lab (EG 3112). PI: Solmaz Kia. The lab research interests, in a broad sense, include networked control systems, decentralized/distributed algorithm design for multi-agent systems, nonlinear control theory and robotics.
Cognitive Anteater Robotics Lab (2328 Social and Behavioral Sciences). PI: Jeffrey Krichmar. In the Cognitive Anteater Robotics Laboratory (CARL) at the University of California, Irvine, we are designing robotic systems whose behaviors are guided by large-scale simulations of the mammalian brain. Because these simulated nervous systems are embodied on a robot, they provide a powerful tool for studying brain function. Moreover, because these cognitive robots are embedded in the real-world, the system’s behavior and function can be tested similarly to that of an animal under experimental conditions. We have studied perception, operant conditioning, episodic and spatial memory, and motor control through the simulation of brain regions such as the visual cortex, the hippocampus, the cerebellum, and the neuromodulatory systems. The behavior and neuronal dynamics of these systems were directly compared with empirical data from experimental psychology and neuroscience experiments.
[5:00pm – 8:00pm] Reception (Pacific Ballroom in the Student Center)
Friday 9/15
[8:30am – 9:30am] Breakfast
[9:30am -10:45am] Session 2
9:30 – 9:45 |
Jeff Krichmar, UCI |
Neurorobotics: Connecting the Brain, Body, and Environment
|
9:45 – 10:00 |
Jessica Gonzalez and Zari Magnaye, CSU Dominguez Hills |
Budget-Constrained Traveling Salesman Problem: a reinforcement Learning Approach [PDF] |
10:00 – 10:15 |
Jesse Zhang, USC |
Bootstrap Your Own Skills: Learning to Solve New Tasks with Language Model Guidance |
10:15 – 10:30 |
Iman Adibnazari, UCSD |
Full-Body Optimal Control of a Swimming Soft Robot Enabled by Data-Driven Model Reduction [PDF] |
10:30 – 10:45 |
Justin Quan, UCLA |
Swinging To Traverse Gaps For A Lightweight Mobile Robot With Highly Extendable Limb [PDF] |
[10:45am – 11:00am] Coffee Break
[11:00am – 12:00pm] Keynote 2
11:00 – 12:00 |
Henrik I. Christensen Qualcomm Chancellor’s Chair of Robot Systems, |
Challenges and Opportunities in Robotics |
[12:00pm – 1:00pm] Lunch
[1:00pm – 2:15pm] Industry panel
We are thrilled to invite you to an open discussion with incredible leaders from industry and academia. We are thankful to our panel members for sharing their thoughts, experiences, and advice!
Panel Members:
Christian Salinas, Robotics Project Engineering, GrayMatter Robotics
David Reinkensmeyer, Professor of MAE, Anatomy and Neurobiology, Biomedical Engineering, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, UC Irvine
Henrik I. Christensen, Qualcomm Chancellor’s Chair of Robot Systems, Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, UC San Diego
Errol Arkilic, UCI Chief Innovation Officer, Executive Director of UCI Beall Applied Innovation
Pratul Singh, Senior Engineering Manager, Automation and Controls, Masimo
[2:15pm – 3:30pm] Session 3
2:15 – 2:30 |
Efrain Mendez, UCI |
World’s Smallest Autonomous Aquatic Robot [PDF] |
2:30 – 2:45 |
Zhenghui Su, USC |
Visual-Haptic Integration for Enhanced Emotion Communication [PDF] |
2:45 – 3:00 |
Hamid Jafarkhani, UCI |
Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Coverage Control Under Domain and Connectivity Constraints |
3:00 – 3:15 |
Michael Rose, UCLA |
Exploring the importance of natural proprioceptive feedback on referred neuromuscular control [PDF] |
3:15 – 3:30 |
Xinlei Yu, USC |
Exploring Electrotactile Stimulation as a Modality for Sensation Illusion on the Arm [PDF] |
[3:30pm – 3:45pm] Coffee Break
[3:45pm – 5:00pm] Session 4
3:45 – 4:00 |
Michael Richardson, CSU Long Beach |
Pneumatic Digital Logic to Control Next-Generation Soft Robots [PDF] |
4:00 – 4:15 |
Yusuke Tanaka, UCLA |
SCALER: A Multi-modal Versatile Dynamic Free-Climber Robot |
4:15 – 4:30 |
Zhuonan Hao, UCLA |
Modeling and Characterization of Bacteria-inspired Bi-flagellated Mechanism with Tumbling [PDF] |
4:30 – 4:45 |
Sukjun Kim, UCSD |
Electrostatically Driven, 15 mg Hexapod Microrobot |
4:45 – 5:00 |
Ethan Fulcher and John Bush, USC |
Robotic Legs as Novel Regolith Sensors for Earth and Planetary Explorations |
[5:00pm – 5:10pm] Closing Remarks
[5:10pm – …] Optional Dinner Mixer (on your own)
Posters (Thursday 9/14)
1 |
Alexander Schperberg, UCLA |
Planner for Robotic Free-Climbing using Reinforcement Learning |
2 |
Alexander Thoms, UCLA |
Graph-Based Structural Joint Pose Estimation in Non-line-of-sight Condition |
3 |
Edward Ng, UCLA |
Modular affect-sensing wearable to promote social interactions |
4 |
Alisha Chulani, Harvey Mudd College |
Fish-Robot Interaction Modeling [PDF] |
5 |
Yunti (Anna) Xu, UCSD |
An Online Shape Control Method for Concentric Tube Robots [PDF] |
6 |
Anoush Sepehri, UCSD |
A Soft Robotic Wrist Orthosis for Continuous Passive Motion Rehabilitation |
7 |
Francisco Morales Puente, Pomona College |
Creating Dynamic Simulation Environments With Unreal Engine 5 [PDF] |
8 |
Anwesha Chattoraj, UCLA |
Simulating Plastically Deforming Laminae for Compliant Robot Design |
9 |
Armin Pomeroy, UCLA |
Finite Element Analysis and Optimization of a Compliant Tibial Stem [PDF] |
10 |
Behziz Bita, UCLA |
IRISS—High Precision Minimal Invasive Surgical Robotics System for Ophthalmology [PDF] |
11 |
Bryon Tjanaka, USC |
Training Diverse High-Dimensional Controllers by Scaling Covariance Matrix Adaptation MAP-Annealing [PDF] |
12 |
Cody Simons, UC Riverside |
SUMMIT: Source-Free Adaptation of Uni-Modal Models to Multi-Modal Targets [PDF] |
13 |
Daniel Chen, UCSB |
Advancing Robotic Anchoring with Intelligent Load Distribution [PDF] |
14 |
Dezhong Tong, UCLA |
A Mechanics-based Neural Controller for Rope Deployment on the Rigid Substrate |
15 |
Donipolo Ghimire, UC Irvine |
Multi-agent coverage for heterogenous agents with anisotropic and spatially probabilistic coverage footprint [PDF] |
16 |
Ethan Lee, UC Irvine |
Mark II, Autonomous Heat-Seeking Water Robot [PDF] |
17 |
Haotian Hang, USC |
Parsimonious flow sensing strategies exploit traveling wave character to track hydrodynamic trails [PDF] |
18 |
Harrison Espino, UC Irvine |
Online and Continuous Neuromorphic Robotic Navigation [PDF] |
19 |
James Clinton, Harvey Mudd College |
Investigating motor-spring trade-offs in robotic mechanisms at different sizes [PDF] |
20 |
Jinyoung Kim, UCLA |
Eye Blink Electromyography Study and Neuromuscular skeletal Model of Upper Eyelid |
21 |
Kenneth Tiet, USC |
OdditDB: Auditable and Adaptable Database System for Enhancing Robotics Data Integrity [PDF] |
22 |
Khandaker Nusaiba Hafiz, UC Riverside |
System identification of a periodic impedance model during dynamic manipulation [PDF] |
23 |
Minwon Seo, UC Irvine |
Human-Assisted Robotic Sensing for Dynamic Target Tracking [PDF] |
24 |
Mohmmad sina Nabiee, UCLA |
Origami Counter for time based decisions [PDF] |
25 |
Mrunmayi Mungekar, UCLA |
Bistable Soft Kirigami Deployables [PDF] |
26 |
Natalie Lim, Harvard-Westlake School and USC |
Generational Differences in Empathy for Semi-Autonomous Robots [PDF] |
27 |
Omar Curiel, UCLA |
Twist-Tilt Quadcopter for Fully Actuated Motion |
28 |
Omey Manyar, USC |
Physics-Informed AI for Enabling Robots to Learn Autonomous Tool Manipulation [PDF] |
29 |
Ophelie Herve, UCLA |
A Robotic Pipeline to Evaluate ACL Injury Prevention Measures [PDF] |
30 |
Parth Paritosh, UCSD |
Distributed Variational Inference for Online Estimation |
31 |
Pengcheng Cao, UCSD |
Cluster-based Dynamic Object Filtering via Egocentric Motion Detection for Building Static 3D Point Cloud Maps [PDF] |
32 |
Raphael Napinas, Cal Poly Pomona |
Playing Catch with Boston Dynamics’ Spot [PDF] |
33 |
Richard Lin, UCSD |
Beyond Off-the-shelf Electronics: towards easier custom PCBs and integrated robot co-design [PDF] |
34 |
Robert Bloom, UCSD |
H3Kit: Hand-Held Haptic Kit |
35 |
Sachi Bansal, UCLA |
An Osseointegrated Prosthetic Thumb and Skin Prelamination Model to Restore Function and Sensation in Patients with Amputations of the Interphalangeal Joint of the Thumb [PDF] |
36 |
Sandeep Kollannur, USC |
Designing an Open Source 32-Channel Portable Vibrotactile Toolkit [PDF] |
37 |
Sandeep Kollannur, USC |
Designing Vibrotactile Wearable Haptic Harness Toolkit [PDF] |
38 |
Sepehr Ghassemi, UCLA |
Investigation and analysis of a single leg single DOF buoyancy assisted robot with walking and hopping capabilities [PDF] |
39 |
Seung Heon Lee, USC |
Beyond Sight: The Role of Kinesthetic Feedback in Redirected Walking within Virtual Reality [PDF] |
40 |
Shihan Lu, USC |
Active Acoustic Sensing for Robot Manipulation [PDF] |
41 |
Shilpa Rao, UCLA |
Inductive proximity sensing for an electromagnetically attached prosthetic limb [PDF] |
42 |
Shivam Kumar Panda, UCLA |
Vision-based Stem Phenotyping in Canola using Unmanned Ground Vehicle [PDF] |
43 |
Tuo Liu, UC Riverside |
Modeling and design optimization of pneumatic beam actuators [PDF] |
44 |
Wooyeong Cho, UCLA |
Sensor Planning Framework for State Estimation under Limited Resources [PDF] |
45 |
Xiaopan Zhang, USC |
An Interactive Servo Motor Matrix for Diverse Skin-Slip Touch Feedback [PDF] |
46 |
Yang Chen, USC |
Towards Enabling Complex Touch-based Human-Drone Interaction [PDF] |
47 |
Yongkyu Lee, UCLA |
Monocular Vision-based Autonomous Navigation of Agricultural Robots in Row Crop [PDF] |
48 |
Yuchen Li, UCLA |
Optimal Gimbal Control with Inverted Pendulum Configuration |
49 |
Yusuke Tanaka, UCLA |
REMS: A Bot-in-a-Box Robotics Education Framework [PDF] |
50 |
Zida Wu, UCLA |
Efficiently Learning Nash Equilibrium to Mean Field Games for Large-scale Multi-agent System [PDF] |