Robotics

Research in robotics includes collective robotics, multi-robot systems, visual robot navigation, visual servoing, tele-robotics and mobile manipulation. In visual robot navigation, we are investigating issues related to visual simultaneous robot localization and mapping (SLAM). Research in visual servoing is concerned with robot motion guided by real-time video tracking. In tele-robotics, we are interested in compensating for operator visual feedback time delays using incremental 3D capture and rendering of the remote work area, and we work with Canadian Space Agency, etc. in a joint project on mobile manipulation.

Research Groups

• Computer Vision and Robotics Research Group: designs and builds vision-based software for autonomous and semi-autonomous control of manipulators and mobile manipulators focusing on applications for unstructured environments.
• Autonomous Robot Navigation: We develop algorithms that allow mobile to navigate autonomously using vision and other types of sensing. This problem is referred to as visual SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) in which our work has been focused in three areas: visual loop closure detection, visual homing and illumination-invariant scene description.
• Robotics research and education across U of Alberta

Courses