• Current People

  • PI: Aman Behal, Ph.D. Dr. Aman Behal is the Principal Investigator for this assistive robotics project. He received his Masters Degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India. He later received his Ph.D. from Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina. He is currently an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida.	Zhao Wang Zhao Wang is a graduate student in EE at the University of Central Florida. His research interest are in the areas of control for robots with kinematic uncertainties, eye-in-hand visual servoing, robust path planning, and obstacle avoidance.
    Jose Suarez Jose Suarez received his bachelors degree (2009) and masters degree (2011) from the University of Central Florida in computer engineering and electrical engineering respectively. Currently he is a PhD student in the department of EECS at UCF, and his research interests lie in the areas of controls and system identification. His current research is on the design of model-free controls for airfoils under unsteady aerodynamic loading.	Lingfei Zhi Lingfei Zhi is a graduate student in EECS department at the University of Central Florida. He has experience in programming and computational biology, and currently works on nonlinear dynamic characterization of neuronal systems.
    Kun Zhang Kun Zhang is a graduate student majoring in Electrial Engineering at the University of Central Florida. His research interest are in modeling of the stretch reflex arc, control science in biology and system identification.	Nicholas Paperno Nicholas Paperno is a graduate student at the University of Central Florida. His interests are in the area of robotics and medical technology.
    Christopher Echanique Christopher Echanique is an undergraduate student and YES scholar at the University of Central Florida pursuing a degree in Computer Engineering. As an Honors in the Major participant, he is currently performing research under the supervision of Dr. Behal on the characterization of a resonate-and-fire model of a neuron.	Tyler Stigliano Tyler Stigliano is an undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida pursuing a degree in Computer Science. Currently he is working on integrating the Hokuyo Laser onto the UCF-MANUS robotic arm.
    Richee Ramsahoye Richee Ramsahoye is an undergraduate senior attending the University of Central Florida majoring in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering. He works on the system identification of the stretch reflex arc as well as the modeling of its components.	Stephen Sheldon Stephen Sheldon is an undergraduate student and RAMP scholar at The University of Central Florida. He is currently pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Computer Science. His current role is working on the hardware and 3D mapping for the UCF-MANUS robotic arm.

• Past People

  • Dae Jin Kim, Ph.D. Dae Jin Kim received his Ph.D. from the KAIST, Daejeon, South Korea in 2004. He focused on control strategies for the gross and fine motion control of the robot. During his stint, he was also responsible for directly overseeing all the projects in the lab on the assistive robotic device.	Andrew Martinez Andrew Martinez is a student at Bishop Moore Catholic High School. He helped out Joshua Treadway in the UCF Smart Hand Project at Assistive Robotics Lab, UCF. He assisted Joshua in working with the sensor systems and hardware systems that are being used in the UCF-MANUS arm.
    Melissa Smith Melissa Smith is an undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida. Majoring in psychology and having robotics experience, she works on the human factors analysis of the robot.	Taylor Stewart Taylor Stewart is an undergraduate and an EXCEL student at the University of Central Florida pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering. He has experience in programming and some robotics, and deals with the debugging and creation of programs for the robot.
    Rebekah Hazlett-Knudsen Rebekah Hazlett-Knudsen, MSW is a visiting instructor in the UCF School of Social Work and is currently completing the final year of her Ph.D. in the Public Affairs program at UCF. As a collaborative partner with the Assistive Robotics Lab, she draws upon her practice and research experience to provide qualitative analysis of the preferences and needs of assistive robotics users.	Joseph Nichols Joseph Nichols is an undergraduate student and EXCEL scholar at the University of Central Florida pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering. He has experience in programming and is currently working on debugging modules of code for the UCF-MANUS robotic arm.
    Simon Echeverry Simon Echeverry is an undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida. Simon was designed and developed the first version of our Graphical User Interface. His design served as a model for further development the GUI.	Rafael Guerra Rafael Guerra is an undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida. Rafael worked on calibrating the camera on the robot to be used with object recognition. He also established a system of relating the camera's coordinate system in space with that of the gripper (hand) on the robot.
    Anant Vemuri Anant Vemuri is a graduate student at the University of Central Florida. He worked on the object recognition for the robot using a feature extraction algorithm and feature tracking algorithm. He also worked on developing a proper scheme for delegating the processes and routines the robot must go through in a way that is as close to real time operation as possible.	Jinyin Zhang Jinyin Zhang was a grad student who worked on improving the object recognition module. She worked on (i) Integrating geometric constraints into the feature matching algorithm (ii) Improving the robustness of the algorithm to construct a homography based on the method of virtual parallax (iii) Debugging the code for removing distortion in the captured images.
    Kishore Reddy Kishore Kumar Reddy has a Bachelor of Technology degree in Electrical and Communication Engineering from Sree Vidhyanikethan Engineering College, Thirupathi, India. He did his Master of Sciences in Electronic Systems and Engineering Management from Fachhochschule S�dwestfalen, Soest, Germany (Hochschule Wallis, Sion, Switzerland) and Bolton University, UK. He was a graduate student in Electrical Engineering at Clarkson U. and UCF. His primary research was in the area of Nonlinear Dynamic Modeling of Physiological Systems.	Jun Chen Jun Chen was a graduate student in EE at the University of Central Florida. His research interests included nonlinear characterization of the stretch reflex arc, and deterministic and stochastic neuronal modeling.
    Marcos Hernandez Marcos Hernandez is an undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida. He worked on computation and computer vision related aspects for the robot. His project was to develop code in C/C++ to implement a bag of features algorithm to find best matches from a scene in a template database.	Christopher Hamilton Christopher is an undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida. He completed the communication system for the robot, worked on the speech and vision recognition, and maintains public relations.
    Brandon Gilzean Brandon Gilzean is an undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida. He implemented a series of touch sensors for the robot, to assist in picking up and grabbing objects with the robot.	Ryan Lovelett Ryan Lovelett was an undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida. He completed the Graphical User Interface for our robot, and assisted on integrating a head tracking interface into the robotic system.
    Nicole Palmer Nicole "Nikki" Palmer is an undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida, majoring in Mechanical Engineering. She plans to minor in Mathematics and intelligent robotic systems.	Joshua Miller Joshua Miller is an undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida. Joshua created the interface between the computer and the device that physically controls the movement of the robotic arm. In addition, he design and fabricated a camera mount for the CCD camera used as well as configuring the computer to digitize signal from the camera to be used for computer vision.
    Esteban Guerra Esteban Guerra is an undergraduate student at the University of Central Florida. He worked on developing the first generation smart grabber for the robotic hand.	Lin Cao Lin Cao received his bachelor's degree from Tongji University, China. During his stint as a graduate student in the Assistive Robotics Laboratory, his work focused on disparity from dense stereo, object recognition and segmentation in unstructured environments, as well as real-time detection and tracking of features from sparse stereo.
    Joshua Treadway Joshua Treadway is an Undergraduate Electrical Engineer at University of Central Florida. He worked on the Sensor and Hardware portion of the project. He mostly worked taking sensor and mounting setups and adding them to the robotic arm to help gain data on the environment around it.