Deepak Bapna

Phone: (412) 268-8158
Fax: (412) 268-5895
Email: deepak@ri.cmu.edu
Web: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~deepak

Interests

Education

Ph.D. Project: High Bandwidth Communication from Moving Vehicles . Developing a communication system for high bandwidth communication from vehicles moving in rough terrain. The challenge is to point the antenna on the robot towards the receiver in presence of disturbances as the robot traverses a rough terrain.

Master's Thesis: Stability of Sliding Systems with Friction Subject to Varying Normal Stress Analyzed the stability of sliding systems with friction and which operate at very low velocities (such as pointing and tracking mechanisms and precision applications). Derived a stability condition that covers a large range of mechanisms.

Experience

• Developed CAD package for design of control panels.
• Investigated new product development and foreign collaboration.

• Analyzed stick-slip phenomenon using state variable models.
• Studied effect of normal force coupling on stability of sliding systems.
• Found minimum stiffness required to make the system stable (no stick-slip).

• Jan. 97 - Dec. 97, 3-Dimensional Calculus, Dept. of Mathematical Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.
• Sept. 96 - Dec. 96, Differential Equations, Dept. of Mathematical Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.
• Sept. 94 - Dec. 94, Differential and Computational Geometry, The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.
• May 92 - July 92, Thermodynamics, Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA .
• Sept. 90 - Dec. 90, Sept. 91 - Dec. 91, Strength of Materials, Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA.

Projects

Lunar Rover Initiative: Lead for the communication system, thermal system and frequency licensing for the program. The mission involves a 1000km traverse of a rover on the moon, visiting historical landing sites, and involving audience participation through teleoperation and high-quality images and video return.

DanteII: Investigated methods for estimating sinkage of Dante's leg. Dante is a 8-legged walking robot which explored the volcano, Mt. Spurr in July 1994. Also, developed a sensor to measure the exit angle of the tether.

Xavier: Xavier is an indoor mobile robot developed for office delivery tasks. Implemented obstacle avoidance and trash detection for Xavier using laser line striper. Participated in 1994 AAAI robot competition held at Seattle.

Manipulation: Programmed Merlin 6-axis Robot to perform writing. Designed and implemented a compliant pen to take into account the unevenness of the writing surface.

Nuclear: Designed inspection mechanisms for remote inspection of a nuclear vessel. The primary objective was to enable the mechanism to carry sensors to all the locations in the vessel. Various conceptual designs were considered, two of which were designed in detail.

Courses

Computer Skills

Publications

• "An Innovative High Bandwidth Communication System for Mobile Robots", Deepak Bapna, James Teza, Eric Rollins and William Whittaker, 27th International Conference on Environmental Systems , Lake Tahoe, Nevada, USA, July 14-17, 1997.

• "Atacama Desert Trek: A Planetary Analog Field Experiment", Red Whittaker, Deepak Bapna, Mark W. Maimone, and Eric Rollins, i-SAIRAS'97 , Tokyo, Japan, July 14-16 1997 (to be published).

• ``Earth-Moon Communication from a Moving Lunar Rover'', Deepak Bapna, Martin Martin and Red Whittaker, Proceedings of the 42nd International Instrumentation Symposium, San Diego, CA , May 5-9, 1996, pp613-622.

• ``Technology and Demonstrations for a Lunar Rover Expedition'', Lalitesh Katragadda, John Murphy, Dimitrios Apostolopoulos, Deepak Bapna, Red Whittaker, 1996 SAE International Conference on Environmental Systems , Monterey, CA.

• ``An Edutainment Based Lunar Mission and Related Spectrum Issues'' , Deepak Bapna and William Whittaker, Space Frequency Coordination Group Meeting , Bangalore, India, Dec 1995.

• "Design of a Day/Night Lunar Rover", CMU-RI-TR-95-24 , June 1995 The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.

• "Direct Communication from a Lunar Rover to Earth Enabled by Precision Pointing" , D. Bapna, W. Whittaker and N. Colella, International Lunar Exploration Conference, San Diego, Nov, 1994.

• ``Perturbation Stability of Frictional Sliding with Varying Normal Force,'' P. Dupont and D. Bapna, ASME Journal of Vibration and Acoustics , to appear.

• ``Stability of Sliding Frictional Surfaces with Varying Normal Force,'' P. Dupont and D. Bapna, ASME Journal of Vibration and Acoustics , Vol. 116, No. 2, April, 1994, pp. 237-242.

Awards

• "Best Tutor Award" by Carnegie Mellon Action Project (CMAP), 1996.
• "Maharana Fateh Singh Award" for excellent performance during undergraduate studies, 1990.

Other

• Robo Czar, Robotics Students Organization, CMU, 1997.
• Social Czar, Robotics Students Organization, CMU, 1996.
• Department Representative, Graduate Students Organization, 1995.
• India Net Coordinator, 1994-1995.

Other Interests

• Photography, Travelling, Cricket, Movies.

email: deepak@ri.cmu.edu
finger: deepak@gs164.sp.cs.cmu.edu

Last Modified: Sunday, 13-Jul-1997 11:54:23 EDT