From Self-Driving Cars to Surgical Robots: Reality or Science Fiction?（セミナー・シンポジウム）
From Self-Driving Cars to Surgical Robots: Reality or Science Fiction?
A Practitioner's View of Robotics and Automation
Sept 10th, 2013 15:30-17:00
IS Auditorium
Abstract
Robotics and Automation is becoming more commonplace than we expect or would like to
believe. Yet, there is a huge disconnect between the Society's expectations and what the
practitioners and researchers can agree on. As a roboticist and as a beneficiary of such
technologies, I will share my views on emerging technologies in robotics and automation and
will provide an assessment of the state of the art and how (if) we can bridge the existing gaps and
how such technologies can serve humanity to improve the quality of life in under-served and
under-developed communities. In this talk, I will make a case for of my research in quantitative
and objective evaluation of intelligent systems in general, and in particular, will present testing
and evaluation of industrial mobile robots operating in unstructured and dynamic environments.
It will also outline my related efforts in bringing together the community to collectively address
this problem from end-users', vendors' and developers' points of view. A variety of videos from
several appropriate domains, including my work in robotics and automation from manufacturing
robots in warehouses to robots in humanitarian applications, will be featured.
Biography
Raj Madhavan is an associate research scientist with the Institute for Systems Research, and a member of the Maryland Robotics Center at the University of Maryland, College Park (currently on leave) and was a guest researcher with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA (until June 2013). He received his Ph.D. in Field Robotics from the University of Sydney, ME (Research) in Systems Engineering from the Australian National University, and BEEE from the College of Engineering, Anna University, India. Over the last 18 years, he has contributed to various topics in field robotics, and systems and control theory. His current research interests include autonomous vehicle navigation in unstructured environments, performance evaluation and testing, benchmarking, and standardization of intelligent systems, and the application of robotics and automation technologies for promoting humanitarian causes in a variety of domains. He has edited two books and four journal special issues, and has published over 170 papers in archival journals, conferences, and technical reports. Dr. Madhavan has served as an invited independent judge for robotics competitions, has given numerous invited presentations in research organizations in several countries, has served on program committees of premier robotics, automation, and control conferences, and on numerous national and international panels. He currently serves as the Vice President of the Industrial Activities Board, Chair of the Standing Committee for Standards Activities, and Chair of the Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology (SIGHT) within the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. He can be contacted via email at <raj.madhavan@ieee.org>. More details are available from <http://www.isr.umd.edu/faculty/madhavan/>.
