Robert Platt Jr., Ph.D. robert[dot]platt-1[at]nasa[dot]gov I am the technical lead for Robonaut control and autonomy in the Dexterous Robotics Laboratory Johnson Space Center, NASA. I am also an Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Rice University. I completed my Ph.D. studying control-based dexterous grasping and manipulation at the Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics Department of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Research

I study robotic force domain problems such as grasping, manipulation, and climbing as a means to better understand robot control and intelligence in general. The central computational issues for force domain interactions result from noisy and partially observable environments and the fundamentally large space of available robot policies. I am also particularly interested in the relationship between robotics and machine learning: how machine learning ideas can be applied to robotics and what kind of new approaches are suggested by the study of robotics. In all of my research, I also look to biological systems (humans and animals) for inspiration.

For more information (and videos), please see my research summary.

Teaching

Introduction to Robotics (MECH 498), Fall 2007. This course provides a mathematical introduction to many of the key ideas important to intelligent robot systems. The focus of the course is on the analysis and control of manipulators, ranging from low-level continuous control of the manipulator using kinematic and inertial models to higher-level approaches to path planning and autonomous function. We will cover forward kinematics, differential kinematics, dynamics, control, path planning, and machine learning techniques that include reinforcement learning, lazy-learning techniques, and probabilistic methods.

Publications

Thesis