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Michigan hosts 7th annual Learning for Dynamics & Control Conference

The conference attracted 300 people from around the world to discuss the latest cross-disciplinary approaches in this new scientific area.

Qing Qu Receives 2025 Google Research Scholar Award for Developing Efficient Generative AI Models

Prof. Qu’s research aims to reduce the cost and complexity of fine-tuning and training large-scale foundation models, while advancing the accessibility and sustainability of high-performance generative AI.

Electrical and Computer Engineering curriculum prepares students to join the AI revolution

Herbert Winful part of MURI team investigating AI-guided self-organization in nonlinear systems

Prof. Winful adds his unique expertise on the behavior of coupled semiconductor laser systems to a collaborative $9M project led by researchers at Yale University.

Andrew Owens named 2025 Sloan Research Fellow

Owens will use the Sloan Research Fellowship to support his research on the development and utility of computer vision systems that learn from multisensory data.

Bridging gaps in rural health care with AI-powered mobile clinics

General practitioners with AI help could make diagnoses, run and interpret tests, and perform procedures like specialists.

Kickstarter for Buddie: open source, AI-enabled earbuds

Collaborating faculty at the University of Michigan and Fudan University are crowdfunding a new wearable AI audio interface to enable always-listening context awareness, improve privacy, and allow AI application developers to try new ideas.

New generative AI model can reconstruct a high-quality, sparse-view 3D CT scan with a much lower X-ray dose

Improvements move the deep learning technique towards use in 3D medical imaging.

Andrew Owens’ research group uses visual illusions to test the limits of diffusion models

Members of Andrew Owens's research group, Daniel Geng, Aaron Park, and Ziyang Chen, are using ambiguous image generation to understand diffusion models.

Fifteen papers by ECE researchers to be presented at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems

Topics of accepted ECE NeurIPS papers include diffusion models, large language models, multi-armed bandit models, and more.

ECE faculty design chips for efficient and accessible AI

Faculty specializing in architecture, hardware, and software innovation accelerate machine learning across a range of applications.

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.

Matthew Raymond recognized for research using ML techniques to design new types of medicine

Doctoral student Matthew Raymond wants to facilitate the development of new and groundbreaking nanomedicines.

Can Yaras recognized for his research aimed at efficient algorithms for LLMs

Doctoral student Can Yaras wants to reduce the carbon footprint of AI.

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.

Leveraging artificial intelligence for early detection of lung cancer

Predictive models developed by an interdisciplinary U-M research team have improved early lung cancer detection beyond traditional measures, with the potential to save lives.

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.

Hun-Seok Kim appointed as inaugural Samuel H. Fuller Early Career Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Prof. Kim is a world leader in efficient algorithm and VLSI design for wireless communication, signal processing, computer vision, and machine learning.

New textbook teaches students about matrix methods and their real world applications

Linear Algebra for Data Science, Machine Learning, and Signal Processing, written by ECE Professors Jeffrey Fessler and Raj Nadakuditi, provides an accessible and interactive guide to matrix methods.

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.

Fourteen papers by ECE researchers to be presented at the International Conference on Machine Learning

Accepted papers for the ICML conference span topics including deep representation learning, language model fine-tuning, generative modeling, and more.

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.

GenAI diffusion models learn to generate new content more consistently than expected

Award-winning research led by Prof. Qing Qu discovered an intriguing phenomenon that diffusion models consistently produce nearly identical content starting from the same noise input, regardless of model architectures or training procedures.

Linking online and offline social networks to better predict real world impact

Prof. Lei Ying leads a new MURI that is focused on the interplay between online and offline networks and how they could impact disruptive behavior and events.

Improving generative AI models for real-world medical imaging

Professors Liyue Shen, Qing Qu, and Jeff Fessler are working to develop efficient diffusion models for a variety of practical scientific and medical applications.

Neural Collapse research seeks to advance mathematical understanding of deep learning

Led by Prof. Qing Qu, the project could influence the application of deep learning in areas such as machine learning, optimization, signal and image processing, and computer vision.

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.

Designing Synthetic Human Gut Microbiome with AI

Prof. Al Hero was interviewed and gave a presentation about his research using machine learning to improve our understanding of the human gut

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

Machine learning begins to understand the human gut

The new computer model accurately predicts the behavior of millions of microbial communities from hundreds of experiments, an advance toward precision medicine.

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

Qing Qu receives CAREER award to explore the foundations of machine learning and data science

His research develops computational methods for learning succinct representations from high-dimensional data.

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

Using neural networks and machine learning to design the first universal decoder for the next generation of wireless systems

PhD student Mohammad Vahid Jamali has been awarded a Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship to work on developing a single neural decoder that can decode several channel codes at once.

$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.

Profiles in ECE: Rucha Apte (MS ECE 2021)

From the internships that inspired her interest in signal & image processing and machine learning to late night study sessions at the Duderstadt to her background in classical dance, Master’s student Rucha Apte shares her journey with us.

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

Qing Qu uses data and machine learning to optimize the world

A new faculty member at Michigan, Qu’s research has applications in imaging sciences, scientific discovery, healthcare, and more.

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.

New machine learning method improves testing of stem-like tumor cells for breast cancer research

To improve the prediction and identification of stem-like cancer cells, Prof. Euisik Yoon’s group developed a method that is 3.5 times faster than the standard approach.

Xueru Zhang awarded Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship

Zhang is working to improve data security and address important ethical issues related to AI and discriminatory data sets.

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.

Hun-Seok Kim receives CAREER Award to facilitate Internet of Things connectivity

Kim takes an interdisciplinary approach to tackle challenges in heterogeneous classes of energy-efficient and versatile communication systems.

Machine Learning takes over the EECS Atrium

Students in EECS 545: Machine Learning, taught by Prof. AL Hero, presented their final projects in a poster session sponsored by KLA.

Creating a place where kids of all abilities can play together

Prof. Hun-Seok Kim helped design iGYM, an augmented reality system that allows disabled and able-bodied people to play physical games together.

Enabling large-scale testing of cancer drugs with machine learning

Prof. Euisik Yoon and his team developed a new machine learning tool that enables large-scale testing of cancer drug effectiveness with microfluidics.

Machine Learning and Systems: A conversation with 2020 Field Award winners Al Hero and Anders Lindquist

Hero and Lindquist took a few minutes to talk about the impact of machine learning on Signal Processing and Control Systems, and what they plan to do about it

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.

Laura Balzano receives NSF CAREER Award to improve machine learning for big data applications

Her research deciphering messy data sets will first tackle applications in genetics and computer vision.

Crafting better digital systems with ECE PhD student Jie-Fang Zhang

Zhang is recognized with the Chia-Lun Lo Fellowship for his work designing hardware solutions that could help support computer vision and machine learning.

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

Blue Sky: Up to $10M toward research so bold, some of it just might fail

Inspired by startup funding models, Michigan Engineering reinvents its internal R&D grant structure.

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.

Mingyan Liu, 2018 Distinguished University Innovator, talks about her company and data science commercialization

Mingyan Liu, recipient of the 2018 Distinguished Innovator of the Year award, gave a talk about her startup company and participated on a panel discussing data science commercialiation.

Laura Balzano partners with 3M to advance research in big data

Prof. Laura Balzano received a 2018 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award to advance her research in Big Data.

Exoskeletons compete to boost strength of rescue workers

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

Students win prizes for improving image processing techniques for liver cancer detection and much more

Students in EECS 556: Image Processing, explore methods to improve image processing in applications such as biomedical imaging and video and image compression

Andrew Wagenmaker awarded NSF Fellowship for machine learning

Wagenmaker will utilize the award as he pursues his doctoral degree at the University of Washington.

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.

$1.6M toward artificial intelligence for data science

DARPA is trying to build a system that can turn large data sets into models that can make predictions, and U-M is in on the project.

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

Mingyan Liu: Confessions of a pseudo data scientist

Liu’s most recent research involves online learning, modeling of large-scale internet measurement data, and incentive mechanisms for security games.

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.

Steven Parkison earns NSF Fellowship to design tools for the future of autonomous cars

The goal of Steven’s research is to improve vision-based perception systems on cars and to create an extra layer of safety.

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”.

Jason Corso receives Google Faculty Research Award

Prof. Corso believes that this research could make it easier to search for certain types of videos on the web.

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.

Research in machine learning earns Notable Paper Award at AISTATS 2014

Prof. Scott’s research is in the field of machine learning, and his paper builds upon “supervised pattern classification.”

Students to use IBM Watson Cognitive Computing System in class

Michigan is one of seven universities IBM is partnering with to give students access to the technology.

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.