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Autonomy, AI & Robotics

$7.5M MURI to rethink game theory

Prof. Subramanian is the lead PI on a collaborative project to improve the accuracy of modern game theory predictions and produce better outcomes.

OptoGPT for solar cells, smart windows, and more

Taking advantage of the transformer neural networks that power large language models, engineers can get recipes for materials with the optical properties they need.
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Andrew Owens receives NSF CAREER Award for research to improve machine perception systems

Prof. Owens’ research will help fully autonomous systems interact with their environments without human supervision.

Vijay Subramanian awarded $7.5M MURI to rethink game theory in dynamic environments

Prof. Subramanian is the lead PI on a collaborative project to improve the accuracy of modern game theory predictions and produce better outcomes.

Aline Eid receives MTRAC Award to commercialize radar vision for autonomous indoor navigation

Prof. Eid will partner with the industry startup Atheraxon to market technology for automated guided vehicles in warehouse environments and beyond.

OptoGPT for improving solar cells, smart windows, telescopes and more

Taking advantage of the transformer neural networks that power large language models, engineers can get recipes for materials with the optical properties they need.

Report issued on state of intelligent vehicle dependability and security

Safe operation of fully autonomous vehicles on public roads is not anticipated in the near future.

Understanding attention in large language models

How do chatbots based on the transformer architecture decide what to pay attention to in a conversation? They’ve made their own machine learning algorithms to tell them.

A coaching bot for students learning coding, computational Machine Learning, and AI

Prof. Raj Rao Nadakuditi is developing a generative AI coaching bot that provides feedback to strengthen self-regulated learning skills.

Michigan and ECE advancing computer vision at CVPR 2023

Look at some of the ways ECE and other University of Michigan researchers are using computer vision for real-world applications.

Olivia Lee awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship for brain-machine interfaces that could improve control of robotic prostheses

Lee designs implantable and wearable electronics to help restore movement to those who have lost limbs or have been paralyzed.

Focused ambitions

While hunger for an artificial intelligence that can think like a human remains unsated, AI continues to appear in our lives in smaller ways.

Walking and slithering aren’t as different as you think

New mathematical model links up slithering with some kinds of swimming and walking, and it could make programming many-legged robots easier.

Community-builder Leon Pryor takes Detroit’s FIRST Robotics program to new heights

Having excelled in careers at Microsoft, Amazon, and now Meta, the alum and renowned video game engineer co-founded The Motor City Alliance to make Detroit a powerhouse for FIRST Robotics teams

Atkins chairs National Academies report on speeding discovery with automated research workflows

Prof. Emeritus Daniel Atkins III chaired and Prof. Al Hero served on a National Academies committee that published a new report describing the impact of artificial intelligence and automated research workflow technologies in propelling research and scientific discovery.

Teaching Machine Learning in ECE

With new courses at the UG and graduate level, ECE is delivering state-of-the-art instruction in machine learning for students in ECE, and across the University

Immune to hacks: Inoculating deep neural networks to thwart attacks

The adaptive immune system serves as a template for defending neural nets from confusion-sowing attacks

Research on modeling time-variant systems earns Brockett-Willems Outstanding Paper Award

Prof. Peter Seiler co-authored the paper that focuses on reachability analysis for a variety of systems, including aircraft control and autonomous vehicles.

Peter Seiler named IEEE Fellow for his impactful contributions to robust control theory

Prof. Seiler’s contributions to Matlab’s Robust Control Toolbox and to the control of vehicle platoons have resulted in major industrial applications.

Mimicking a human fingertip's sensitivity and sense of direction for robotic applications

With the help of 1.6 million GaN nanopillars per sensor, the University of Michigan team was able to provide human-level sensitivity with directionality on a compact, easily manufactured system

$1.7M to build everyday exoskeletons to assist with lifting, walking and climbing stairs

The modular exoskeleton system will help workers and the elderly, boosting ankle, knee and/or hip joints by mounting new motors to off-the-shelf orthotics.

$1M for open-source first-responder robots

An open-source perception and movement system, to be developed with NSF funding, could enable robots that partner with humans in fires and disaster areas.

Faster path planning for rubble-roving robots

Splitting the path into difficult and easy terrain speeds up path planning for robots that use “hands” to maintain balance on uneven ground.

$20M NSF AI-EDGE Institute aims to transform 5G and beyond networks

University of Michigan is a core member of a new NSF-led Institute that is a collaboration between 11 institutions, three government research labs, and four global companies

$7.5M MURI to make dynamic AI smarter and safer

Researchers from four U.S. institutions aim to pull the best from control theory and machine learning to build safer mobile, intelligent systems.

Helping robots learn what they can and can’t do in new situations

What should a robot do when it cannot trust the model it was trained on?

3D motion tracking system could streamline vision for autonomous tech

Transparent optical sensor arrays combine with a specialized neural network in new University of Michigan prototype

U-Michigan, Ford open world-class robotics complex

The facility will accelerate the future of advanced and more equitable robotics and mobility

Fairer AI for long-term equity

Prof. Mingyan Liu is a key member of a project to mitigate bias in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning systems for long-term equitable outcomes.

New grant to expand open source control software for an intuitive robotic prosthetic leg

University of Michigan researchers have been awarded an NSF grant to design an open source framework for robotic prosthetic legs that function more naturally and offer a wider range of capabilities.

Space motor helps make robotic prosthetic leg more comfortable and extends battery life

Getting rid of some gears enabled a free-swinging knee, regenerative braking and brought the noise level down from vacuum cleaner to fridge.

The Wolverines Behind the Next Generation of Autonomous Vehicles

The Center for Entrepreneurship profiles a team of EECS students, who are working to develop the next generation of delivery vehicles.

Live public street cams are tracking social distancing

Voxel51, a U-M startup led by Prof. Jason Corso, uses custom AI to continuously track vehicle, cyclist, and pedestrian traffic in real time at some of the most visited places in the world.

A World Record for Robotic Deep Freeze Walking

Cassie Blue, the bipedal robot, takes advantage of the 2019 polar vortex to set a record-breaking walk.

AI-powered Whatsapp Bot fights fake news in India

CE undergrad Amulya Parmar designed a machine learning algorithm to curb fake news as part of the Tavtech Fellowship program.

U-M researchers provide control software to ensure autonomous vehicles stay in their lane

The team was awarded a Best New Application Paper Award by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society for their work developing reliable control systems for Lane Keeping and Adaptive Cruise Control.

First programmable memristor computer aims to bring AI processing down from the cloud

Circuit elements that store information in their electrical resistances enable a brain-like form of computing, storing and processing information in the same place.

Six teams of ECE researchers make the finals at AP-S/URSI 2019

Second Prize overall went to doctoral student Xiuzhang Cai for his radar target classification research applicable to autonomous vehicles.

Computer vision: Finding the best teaching frame in a video for fake video fightback

The frame in which a human marks out the boundaries of an object makes a huge difference in how well AI software can identify that object through the rest of the video.

Advancing AI for Video: Startup launches powerful video processing platform

Voxel51 uses AI processing to identify and track objects and activities through video clips.

SLAM-ming good hardware for drone navigation

Researchers built the first visual SLAM processor on a single chip that provides highly accurate, low-power, and real-time results.

More efficient machine vision technology modeled on human vision

Prof. Robert Dick and advisee Ekdeep Singh Lubana developed a new technique that significantly improves the efficiency of machine vision applications

Jason Corso on artificial intelligence

The most exciting use of AI for me focuses around a better collective use of our available resources, says Prof. Corso.

Paper award for training computer vision systems more accurately

PhD student Jean Young Song offers an improved solution to the problem of image segmentation.

Exoskeletons compete to boost strength of rescue workers

Five college teams test robotic suits that could enhance humans’ abilities.

Dmitry Berenson receives NSF CAREER Award to advance a robot’s ability to handle soft objects

Berenson works to improve the ability of autonomous robots to handle soft, deformable objects.

Necmiye Ozay receives ONR Young Investigator Award to advance research in autonomous systems

Research will focus on how autonomous vehicles adapt to wide-ranging changes.

Getting people moving – Walking exoskeletons could mobilize disabled patients

Prof. Jessy Grizzle has long said that his work in robotics could one day be used to help the disabled. Now he and his group, alongside French company Wandercraft, are working to make that claim a reality in the form of walking exoskeletons.

Latest two-legged walking robot arrives at Michigan

Built to handle falls, and with two extra motors in each leg, the new robot will help U-M roboticists take independent robotic walking to a whole new level.

BigANT tackles the wave field

Prof. Shai Revzen’s lab in ECE has developed an inexpensive technique to rapidly fabricate a variety of useful robots.

Dmitry Berenson helps robots play nice with people

Putting our arm movements into code.

Building more stable four-legged robots

A biologist turned roboticist takes a closer look at dog gaits to help design better movements for four-legged robots.

How to build a BigANT – Shai Revzen’s critter-inspired robots

How to build fast and cheap robots

Shai Revzen part of a new five-institution MURI focused on the control of dynamic systems

As a member of the DDOTS to PICS MURI, Revzen will advance modeling and control of dynamic systems.

CASSIE: A tougher, lighter bipedal robot with eyes

New walking robot based on birds

U-M first in line for new bird-inspired walking robot

Cassie is the first offering from new startup Agility Robotics, and is loosely modeled on the cassowary, a flightless bird similar to an ostrich.

$1.1 million grant to develop robot emergency response capabilities

Office of Naval Research has awarded Dmitry Berenson, an assistant professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, $1.1 million to help advance emergency response capabilities for robots.

COVE: a tool for advancing progress in computer vision

Centralizing available data in the intelligent systems community through a COmputer Vision Exchange for Data, Annotations and Tools, called COVE.

Necmiye Ozay receives NASA Early Career Faculty Award for research in cyber-physical systems

Prof. Ozay’s award-winning work will be used in future space missions

EECS research highlighted at 2016 Robotics: Science and Systems Conference

The University hosted the 2016 Robotics: Science and Systems Conference, which allowed attendees to hear about the latest in robotics through talks, presentations, workshops, and tutorials.

MARLO makes initial attempt at the Wave Field

For now, Grizzle and his graduate students are only attempting the easiest routes, between the grassy two- to three-foot moguls, over smaller undulations that he calls “merely very difficult.”

An award winning radar system for collision avoidance and imaging

Armin’s research is focused on the development of a sub-millimeter-wave radar system for the next generation of navigation and imaging sensors.

Michigan shines at the National Robotics Initiative 5 year anniversary

The NRI is a multi-agency effort to accelerate the development and use of robots that work beside or cooperatively with people.

MARLO, the free-standing two-legged robot, conquers terrain with innovative control algorithms

The robot’s feedback control algorithms should be able to help other two-legged robots as well as powered prosthetic legs gain similar capabilities.

Students receive prizes for simulating the best landing of a rocket booster

The goal of the class project was to control the safe landing of a rocket booster after it disengaged from the portion of the rocket that would continue into Space.

Necmiye Ozay receives CAREER award for research in cyber-physical systems

Cyber-physical systems are smart, networked systems with embedded sensors, processors, and actuators that are designed to interact with the physical world.

ECE welcomes new engineering robotics center

The center, to be built on North Campus, will offer state-of-the-art facilities in a 3-story, 100,000 square foot building.

ECE’s ideas worth spreading – TEDxUofM

Profs. Shai Revzen and Herbert Winful spoke about their passion for their work at the sixth annual conference, themed “Constructive Interference”.

Jessy Grizzle Delivers Distinguished University Professorship Lecture on Bipedal Robots

The lecture covered the different iterations of Prof. Grizzle's world-renowned bipedal creations since he started work on Rabbit in 1999.

HEV fuel economy meets drivability in Outstanding Control Systems Paper

The research aimed to find a happy medium between fuel economy and drivability in hybrid electric vehicles.

Necmiye Ozay awarded DARPA Young Faculty Award for research in cyber and physical systems

Prof. Ozay’s research interests lie at the broad interface of dynamical systems, control, optimization and formal methods with applications in system identification, verification and validation, autonomy and vision.

ECE welcomes four new faculty for 2014-15 academic year

These faculty deepen ECE’s areas of expertise in computer vision, communications and information theory, environmental remote sensing, and laser-plasma interactions.

Two-legged robot walks outside at U-M

MARLO and its counterparts represent the second bipedal robot model in the world with a gait that isn't flat-footed.

Research in distributed networks earns Notable Paper Award at AISTATS

The research provides a way to efficiently reveal relationships between even distant entities in a network.

Cockroaches and Robots: Reverse engineering the balance systems of animals

These new insights could one day help engineers design steadier robots and improve doctors’ understanding of human gait abnormalities.

Translating animal movement into better robotic design

Revzen believes that his findings can be used to engineer better man-made devices, including prosthetic limbs and complete robots.

Bourne Pursuit: Improving computer tracking of human activity

Researchers have found a way to improve a computer’s human-tracking accuracy by looking at where the targets are going, but also at what they’re doing.

Robots Building Better Maps: For robots and other mechanical creatures

Nick’s primary research involves creating algorithms that decipher what the cameras and lasers are detecting to generate a map.

Jessy Grizzle Honored with Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize from IEEE Control Systems Society

This prestigious honor recognizes distinguished contributions to control systems science and engineering.

Sid Bao earns Best Student Paper Award for Computer Vision Research

Bao’s research is in Semantic Structure from Motion, a new framework for jointly recognizing objects as well as reconstructing their underlying 3D geometry.

MABEL the bipedal robot

MABEL, at one time the world’s fasted running bipedal robot, now sits in the biomechanics exhibit at the Chicago Field Museum.

Gyemin Lee receives Best Paper Award for research in machine learning for biomedical diagnosis

Lee’s primary motivation is to apply his research methods to hematopathology, the study of blood-related diseases.

Best Paper Award in Automation Research

The award was given at the IEEE Conference on Automation and Engineering. Congratulations, Lindsay!

Jessy Grizzle Named the Jerry W. and Carol L. Levin Professor of Engineering

Prof. Grizzle combines research excellence with teaching excellence.