Invited presentation by Peter Whitney and Taskin Padir, Northeastern University, USA: A Progress Report on Team Northeastern’s Avatar Technology
 |
Peter Whitney is an assistant professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University, engaged in research on human-safe, medical, and collaborative robot systems, through advances in mechanical design, soft-composite engineering, and multi-sensory feedback control. He obtained his PhD in 2012 at Harvard University, working with Prof. Robert Wood on pop-up book style micro-composite MEMS fabrication and insect-scale experimental aerodynamics, and worked as a postdoc under Jessica Hodgins at Disney Research (CMU) on human-safe robot design, which culminated in the development of "Jimmy", a human-safe mechanically tele-operated robot puppet. His research is funded by grants from NSF CHS, NSF NRI, ONR, and the ARM Institute. |
 |
Taskin Padir holds concurrent positions as an associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northeastern University and an Amazon Scholar. His research is on experiential robotics, human-robot teaming at the extremes, and embodied artificial intelligence. He received his PhD from Purdue University. He is the Founding Director of the Institute for Experiential Robotics at Northeastern. |
Team Northeastern won the 3rd Place Prize at the ANA Avatar XPRIZE challenge. This talk will provide a summary of our work leading to the challenge participation. We will discuss our ongoing work on improving our avatar and operator interface technologies to achieve seamless teleexistence and successful task completion in practical applications including rehabilitation, manufacturing, and future of work.