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Simulation has become the evaluation method of choice for many areas of distributing computing research. However, most existing simulation packages have several limitations on the size and complexity of the system being modeled. Fine…
Recent advancements in robotics have transformed industries such as manufacturing, logistics, surgery, and planetary exploration. A key challenge is developing efficient motion planning algorithms that allow robots to navigate complex…
Although reproducibility is a core tenet of the scientific method, it remains challenging to reproduce many results. Surprisingly, this also holds true for computational results in domains such as systems biology where there have been…
Robustness, the ability of a system to maintain performance under significant and unanticipated environmental changes, is a critical property for robotic systems. While biological systems naturally exhibit robustness, there is no…
Accessibility is one of the most important features in the design of robots and their interfaces. This thesis proposes methods that improve the accessibility of robots for three different target audiences: consumers, researchers, and…
The potential benefits of autonomous systems have been driving intensive development of such systems, and of supporting tools and methodologies. However, there are still major issues to be dealt with before such development becomes…
The growing ambition for space exploration demands robust autonomous systems that can operate in unstructured environments under extreme extraterrestrial conditions. The adoption of robot learning in this domain is severely hindered by the…
Usability engineering is situated in a much larger social and institutional context than is usually acknowledged by usability professionals in the way that they define their field. The definitions and processes used in the improvement of…
Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning have created a general perception that AI could be used to solve complex problems, and in some situations over-hyped as a tool that can be so easily used. Unfortunately,…
Software architecture related issues are important for robotic systems. Architecture centric development and evolution of software for robotic systems has been attracting researchers attention for more than two decades. The objective of…
As robots become increasingly prominent in diverse industrial settings, the desire for an accessible and reliable system has correspondingly increased. Yet, the task of meaningfully assessing the feasibility of introducing a new robotic…
In an effort to penetrate the market at an affordable cost, consumer robots tend to provide limited processing capabilities, just enough to serve the purpose they have been designed for. However, a robot, in principle, should be able to…
Assembly of large scale structural systems in space is understood as critical to serving applications that cannot be deployed from a single launch. Recent literature proposes the use of discrete modular structures for in-space assembly and…
Traditional robots have rigid links and structures that limit their ability to interact with the dynamics of their immediate environment. For example, conventional robot manipulators with rigid links can only manipulate objects using…
For most of human history, we have not thought systematically about how and why we incorporate aspects of the natural world into our designs. The lack of a systematic approach has resulted in inconsistencies in motivations and methods that…
Simulators are a critical component of modern robotics research. Strategies for both perception and decision making can be studied in simulation first before deployed to real world systems, saving on time and costs. Despite significant…
Whether a robot can perform some specific task depends on several aspects, including the robot's sensors and the plans it possesses. We are interested in search algorithms that treat plans and sensor designs jointly, yielding…
This vision paper presents initial research on assessing the robustness and reliability of AI-enabled systems, and key factors in ensuring their safety and effectiveness in practical applications, including a focus on accountability. By…
In the area of recommender systems, the vast majority of research efforts is spent on developing increasingly sophisticated recommendation models, also using increasingly more computational resources. Unfortunately, most of these research…
Edge Computing is a promising technology to provide new capabilities in technological fields that require instantaneous data processing. Researchers in areas such as machine and deep learning use extensively edge and cloud computing for…