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Research Interests
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Haptic Interface for Medical and Biological Applications Multibody Dynamics, Simulation and Control Robotics and Manipulation Differential Algebraic & Variational Inequalities in Control & sImulation (DaVinci) Rehabilitation Engineering Mechanism Design and Virtual Prototyping Mechatronics and Instrumentation |
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The advent of haptic interaction in virtual environments could be compared
to the contribution sound made to motion pictures. Advanced modeling
techniques and the proliferation of computational power open up many
exciting avenues for engineers to explore, especially in the field of
developing automated and intelligent tools to improve the efficiency
and accuracy of biological or medical procedures.
We
use the principles from contact dynamics for
planning and coordination of large groups of autonomous mobile robots
in cooperative tasks. This idea enables a hybrid decentralized control
framework for trajectory generation and controller design. The robots
use visual information and rely on a biomimic quorum-sensing response
system to avoid physical collisions with moving obstacles, to maintain
or change formation with other robots, and to perform cooperative manipulation
tasks in a modular and scalable fashion.
Nearly
15 million individuals in the U.S. have limited arm and hand movements
that make it difficult or impossible for them to operate household and
office electronic equipment such as computers, wheelchairs, and robotic
aids. Our goal is to create the framework for design, virtual
prototyping, evaluation, and manufacturing of user customized rehabilitation
aids.
Adding
touch to the ways human users interact with virtual objects represents
an opportunity to profoundly expand the digital realities. The goal
of this research is to gain better understanding of the dynamics of
touch – contact interaction between nominally rigid or
deformable objects, and to provide physically sound computer simulation
models and algorithms.
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