• [Jan 2016] The Piazza link to CSE 468/568:Robotics algorithms for Spring 2016 is up.
• Our new project on sensing on MAVs is in the news [UB News][Smithsonian][IEEE Spectrum][Living Science][NBC News]
• [May 2015] Our NSF Medium proposal on sensing for MAVs is funded.
• [Mar 2015] Our proposal on a community for excellence on Sustainable Manufacturing and Advanced Robotic Technologies (SMART) is accepted. Very excited to get started on this multi-disciplinary initiative.
• The Piazza link to CSE 468/568: Robotics algorithms is up.
• Our ICRA paper titled "A lightweight vision sensor for MAV guidance" has been accepted. Here is the accompanying video.
• I am currently looking for masters students interested in working with me on a few embedded systems and robotics projects. If you are skilled in programming, and are able to spare 10-15 hrs a week, drop me an email.
• Intel has generously donated ten Intel Galileo boards for research. Please drop me an email if you are interested in some embedded projects.

• I'm teaching a re-designed CSE 468/568: Robotics Algorithms in Spring 2014. I will follow this textbook loosely. It will be an introduction to Robotics from a Computer Science perspective. Topics will include kinematics, perception, and algorithms for localization, planning, and navigation. It will likely include programming assignments to be done using ROS, written assignments, a mid-term, and a final. I expect the course to be fairly intense, both in the material covered, and the programming exercises. With the adequate background, expect to spend an average of about 10-15 hours a week. This course should be of interest to anyone enthusiastic about robotics from CSE as well as other departments in SEAS. If you have issues registering, don't worry. I'm happy to grant access to anyone interested as long as we have space in the class. This also applies to sophomores and juniors as well.

  • Pre-requisites: Linear Algebra, Probability, C++ programming (at an intermediate to advanced level)
  • I am told that it satisfies the AI core course requirement for the CSE Masters program.

Karma: Karma is a framework to program and coordinate micro-aerial vehicle (MAV) swarms. Karma proposes a programming model where the application can be specified as a set of behaviors. Each behavior produces and consumes information on execution. The control flow is specified as dependencies on the presence of such information. Karma also divides the world where the application is being executed into Regions. This allows users to build complex applications from simple behaviors. Our target tracking application is only 50 lines of code.

Simbeeotic: Simbeeotic is an event-driven simulator written in Java to simulate Micro-Aerial Vehicle swarms. It is built on JBullet, a 6 degree-of-freedom physics engine. One can implement control behaviors, attach virtual sensors, and simulate virtual worlds. It is easy to quickly simulate swarm behavior, design custom control algorithms, network behavior, and run repeated simulations. Simbeeotic is open-source and available on github.

Modern embedded systems bring unique challenges of their own. I am interested in the challenges that are brought about by the integration of novel sensors, energy limitations, as well as networking of modern embedded systems. Previously, I have helped build a table-top robot called the Robomote that was designed to be a mobile node in a sensor network. We used it to study level set detection in a mobile sensor network. I have also helped study power-awareness issues in embedded systems by adaptive voltage-frequency scaling without loss of QoS for particular applications such as streaming video.