MMAE Seminar - Design of Robotic Mechanical Systems for Motion Generation: Recent Results & Research Challenges

Armour College of Engineering's Mechanical, Materials & Aerospace Engineering Department will welcome Dr. Pierre Larochelle, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Robotics and Spatial Systems Laboratory at the Florida Institute of Technology, on Thursday, January 21st to present his lecture, Design of Robotic Mechanical Systems for Motion Generation: Recent Results & Research Challenges.

Abstract

This talk will summarize recent results with regard to the synthesis and analysis of spatial, spherical, and planar robotic mechanical systems for motion generation tasks. First, recent results for exact and mixed exact-approximate motion generation tasks are discussed. Second, we present kinematic and kinetic analysis techniques that assist designers in their efforts to yield viable solutions to motion generation tasks. Finally, we propose two research challenges that, when successfully overcome, will yield transformative step changes in the design of robotic mechanical systems. The synthesis and analysis techniques presented here have applications in exact and approximate motion synthesis, kinematic and static analysis of open and closed spherical and spatial kinematic chains, and spatial motion interpolation.

Biography

Pierre Larochelle (Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, University of California at Irvine) is an Associate Dean and a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Florida Institute of Technology. His research focuses on the design of complex robotic mechanical systems and enabling creativity and innovation in design. He is the founding director of the Robotics and Spatial Systems Laboratory (RASSL), has over 100 publications, holds two US patents, and has served as a consultant on robotics, automation, machine design, creativity & innovation, and computer-aided design. He serves as an Associate Editor for the ASME Journal of Mechanisms & Robotics and Secretary of ASME's Design Engineering Division. He has served as Chair of the ASME Mechanisms & Robotics Committee (2010-2014) and as an Associate Editor for the ASME Journal of Mechanical Design and for Mechanics Based Design of Structures & Machines. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and a member of Tau Beta Pi, Pi Tau Sigma, IEEE, ASEE, and the Order of the Engineer.