WPI Research Publication

FALL 2012

WPI Research is the research magazine of Worcester Polytechnic Institute. It contains news and features about graduate research in the arts and sciences, business, and engineering, along with notes about new grants, books, and faculty achievements.

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Robots have proved their worth in well-regulated environments, such as the assembly line, where they can be pre-programmed to perform repetitive, highly constrained tasks. But even in factories, robots need to be re-programmed or even re-engineered when a new product or process alters the parameters of their work. WPI researchers are designing more versatile robots and intelligent agents that can learn quickly and adapt to the challenges they'll face in varied and unpredictable environments — like our own homes. Robots for the Real World Robots That Reach Out and Touch Eduardo Torres-Jara, assistant professor of computer science and robotics engineering, is on a mission to broaden the way robots experience the world. In particular, he is working to expand a robot's sensory abilities beyond vision. "I am inspired by the geometry and functionality of the sensory systems that exist in nature," he says. He looks to solutions that have evolved in the animal world, such as how rodents use whiskers — rather than vision — to guide them through narrow passages, or how birds "read" wind conditions with data relayed by multiple sensors on their wing feathers. He's especially interested in how tactile feedback can be harnessed to improve robot function in locating and manipulating objects. Up to this point, he says, most of [5] By Joan Killough-Miller

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