Abstract for the November 7, 1997 Robotics Institute Seminar


Warning:
This page is provided for historical and archival purposes only. While the seminar dates are correct, we offer no guarantee of informational accuracy or link validity. Contact information for the speakers, hosts and seminar committee are certainly out of date.


Advances in Dynamical Modeling, Navigation, and Control of Underwater Robotic Vehicles

Louis L. Whitcomb
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Johns Hopkins University

4:00pm, Adamson Wing, Baker Hall

Abstract
The maneuvering performance of present-day underwater robotic vehicles is limited by a variety of problems in dynamical modeling, actuation, control, and navigation. This talk reports recent advances by the speaker and collaborators in the areas of navigation, actuator modeling, and closed-loop model-based control of underwater vehicles, and discusses open research issues. These issues will be examined in the context of recent field deployments of the Jason and Argo II underwater robotic vehicles at full ocean depth in the Mediterranean Sea and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

Biographical Sketch
Louis Whitcomb received his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and his doctorate in electrical engineering from Yale University in 1984 and 1992, respectively. In 1984-86 he was with GM-Fanuc Robotics in Detroit. In 1993-1995 he held post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Tokyo and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He has received a 1996 CAREER award from the National Science Foundation and a 1997 Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research. Whitcomb holds appointments as Visiting Investigator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University.

For appointments, please contact the host: Sanjiv Singh, ssingh@frc.ri.cmu.edu


Last Modified on: Mon Oct 27, 1997

The RI Seminar Home Page: www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~mcm/seminar.html
Email: robsem-list-request@cs.cmu.edu