Self-Driving Cars to Humanoids: CETA Faculty Tatoglu and Sohn Present Their Robotics Research at International Conference

CETA Robotics faculty Dr. Akin Tatoglu and Dr. Kiwon Sohn published and presented a total of six papers at the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exhibition (IMECE) in Pittsburg, PA on the week of Nov 9-15, 2018. ASME’s International Mechanical Engineering and Exposition is the largest interdisciplinary mechanical engineering conference in the world. Dr. Tatoglu and Dr. Sohn contributed to four and three papers respectively. Their work included four faculty, one research engineer, two graduate and seven undergraduate students.

Tatoglu’s “Autonomous Mobile Robotics Research Group” focuses on designing and developing alternate locomotion mechanisms with agile maneuver capabilities, implementation of their visual localization and motion control systems.

Sohn’s “Assistive Robot Team (ART)” focuses on development of the intelligent robot systems which can help and assist labors in various human-centered environments which include laborious task-spaces in industry and dangerous work-areas such as disasters.

Tatoglu’s published research includes an aerial vehicle visual navigation system titled “Performance Analysis of UAV Visual Landmark Tracking Under Rapid Motion” which was scripted with his graduate student Eric Jacobson. This paper studies localization techniques of an aggressively moving drone. His second paper was about miniaturizing robotic arms titled “Low Cost Robotic Arm Manipulator Controller with Single Stage Fluid Valves” which is co-authored with CETA research engineer Claudio Campana. Tatoglu’s work with Dr. Eoin King to improve safety of self-driving cars is also published: “On Self Driving Car Safety: Occupancy Map Modification with Rapid Emergency Vehicle Detection” which presents a solution for rapid emergency vehicle detection especially for self-driving cars or mobile robots.

Sohn’s published research includes a self-driving humanoid platform titled “Development of Lower Body for Vehicle Driving Robot, HART” which was researched and written together with ART’s lead students: Mark Markiewicz and Stefan Keilich. This paper presented the teams’ recent progress on development of full-sized humanoid, HART (Human Assistive RoboT). His second paper was about service robot with IoT connectivity titled “Service Robot Design for Uses in Human Centered Environments” which is co-authored with his advised design team students: Ethan Morris, Shaun Merrill, Thomas Currier and Obioma Ulebor.

Dr. Sohn and Dr. Patricia Mellodge co-authored with Dr. Tatoglu to publish their graduate student Sarah Lamb’s work titled “Control Analysis of a 3D Self Balancing Inverted Pendulum and Cart System for Stability in the Event of a Sensor Failure”.