Robotics
Where hardware, software and machine intelligence come together.
Our research is interdisciplinary and focuses on sensing, planning, reasoning, and control of single and multi-agent systems, including both manipulation and mobile robots. We strive to develop algorithms and methods for factory automation, smart building and transportation applications using machine learning, computer vision, RF/optical sensing, wireless communications, control theory and signal processing. Key research themes include bin picking and object manipulation, sensing and mapping of indoor areas, coordinated control of robot swarms, as well as robot learning and simulation.
Quick Links
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Researchers
Devesh K.
Jha
Diego
Romeres
Daniel N.
Nikovski
Arvind
Raghunathan
Stefano
Di Cairano
Yebin
Wang
Mouhacine
Benosman
Toshiaki
Koike-Akino
William S.
Yerazunis
Karl
Berntorp
Scott A.
Bortoff
Radu
Corcodel
Siddarth
Jain
Tim K.
Marks
Ye
Wang
Matthew E.
Brand
Rien
Quirynen
Bingnan
Wang
Avishai
Weiss
Jianlin
Guo
Jonathan
Le Roux
Hassan
Mansour
Marcel
Menner
Philip V.
Orlik
Koon Hoo
Teo
Anthony
Vetro
Pedro
Miraldo
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Awards
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AWARD Best student paper award at RSS22 Date: June 29, 2022
Awarded to: Weizhe Chen
MERL Contact: Diego Romeres
Research Area: RoboticsBrief- Weizhe Chen, a current intern at MERL from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA, won the best student paper award at the Robotics Science and Systems (RSS) 2022 conference. The research at Weizhe Chen's university leading up to the awarded paper titled 'AK: Attentive Kernel for Information Gathering', proposes a novel non stationary kernel called, Attentive Kernel, for Gaussian Process Regression. The novel kernel is used to guide a planner to accumulate more valuable data in an elevation mapping task.
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AWARD MERL Researcher Devesh Jha Wins the Rudolf Kalman Best Paper Award 2019 Date: October 10, 2019
Awarded to: Devesh Jha, Nurali Virani, Zhenyuan Yuan, Ishana Shekhawat and Asok Ray
MERL Contact: Devesh K. Jha
Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Control, Data Analytics, Machine Learning, RoboticsBrief- MERL researcher Devesh Jha has won the Rudolf Kalman Best Paper Award 2019 for the paper entitled "Imitation of Demonstrations Using Bayesian Filtering With Nonparametric Data-Driven Models". This paper, published in a Special Commemorative Issue for Rudolf E. Kalman in the ASME JDSMC in March 2018, uses Bayesian filtering for imitation learning in Hidden Mode Hybrid Systems. This award is given annually by the Dynamic Systems and Control Division of ASME to the authors of the best paper published in the ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems Measurement and Control during the preceding year.
See All Awards for MERL -
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News & Events
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NEWS MERL launches Postdoctoral Research Fellow program Date: September 21, 2022
MERL Contacts: Philip V. Orlik; Anthony Vetro
Research Areas: Applied Physics, Artificial Intelligence, Communications, Computational Sensing, Computer Vision, Control, Data Analytics, Dynamical Systems, Electric Systems, Electronic and Photonic Devices, Machine Learning, Multi-Physical Modeling, Optimization, Robotics, Signal Processing, Speech & AudioBrief- Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) invites qualified postdoctoral candidates to apply for the position of Postdoctoral Research Fellow. This position provides early career scientists the opportunity to work at a unique, academically-oriented industrial research laboratory. Successful candidates will be expected to define and pursue their own original research agenda, explore connections to established laboratory initiatives, and publish high impact articles in leading venues. Please refer to our web page for further details.
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NEWS Yebin Wang appointed as an Associate Editor for ICRA 2023. Date: September 15, 2022
MERL Contact: Yebin Wang
Research Areas: Control, Dynamical Systems, RoboticsBrief- Yebin Wang, a Senior Principal Research Scientist in MERL's Electric Machines and Devices, is serving as an Associate Editor for the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2023.
As the flagship conference of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, ICRA will bring together the world's top researchers and most important companies to share ideas and advances in our field.
- Yebin Wang, a Senior Principal Research Scientist in MERL's Electric Machines and Devices, is serving as an Associate Editor for the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2023.
See All News & Events for Robotics -
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Internships
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CV1703: Software development in ROS for robotic manipulation
MERL is offering an internship position for non-research software development for robotic manipulation. The scope of the internship is to develop robust ROS packages by refactoring existing experimental code. The position is open to prospective candidates with very strong programming skills in ROS (Robot Operating System) using C++ primarily and Python respectively. The selected intern will have a software engineering role rather than research oriented. The position is open to both senior undergraduate students and master students. Flexible start and end dates.
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CA1728: Safe data-driven control of dynamical systems under uncertainty
MERL is looking for a highly motivated individual to work on safe control of data-driven, uncertain, dynamical systems. The research will develop novel optimization and learning-based control algorithms to guarantee safety and performance in various industrial applications, including autonomous driving. The ideal candidate should have experience in either one or multiple of the following topics: optimal control under uncertainty, (robust and stochastic) model predictive control, (convex and non-convex) optimization, and (reinforcement and statistical) learning. Ph.D. students in engineering or mathematics with a focus on control, optimization, and learning are encouraged to apply. A successful internship will result in submission of relevant results to peer-reviewed conference proceedings and journals, and development of well-documented (Python/MATLAB) code for MERL. The expected duration of the internship is 3-6 months, and the start date is Summer 2022.
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CA1864: Motion planning and control: Design and experimental validation
MERL is seeking a highly motivated intern to collaborate in the development and experimental validation of control and motion planning methods in various robotic testbeds (quadrotors and mini-cars) at MERL. The ideal candidate is enrolled in a Masters/PhD program in Electrical, Mechanical, Aerospace Engineering, Robotics, Computer Science or related program, with prior experience in motion planning, control, optimization and their application in mobile robots, including experimental validation. The successful candidate is proficient in ROS, C/C++ and Python, and at least familiar with MATLAB. The expected duration of the internship is at least 3 months with possible extensions and with a flexible start date in the Fall 2022.
See All Internships for Robotics -
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Recent Publications
- , "Motion Planning and Model Predictive Control for Automated Tractor-Trailer Hitching Maneuver", IEEE Conference on Control Technology and Applications (CCTA), August 2022.BibTeX TR2022-109 PDF
- @inproceedings{Wang2022aug,
- author = {Wang, Zejiang and Ahmad, Ahmad and Quirynen, Rien and Wang, Yebin and Bhagat, Akshay and Zeino, Eyad and Zushi, Yuji and Di Cairano, Stefano},
- title = {Motion Planning and Model Predictive Control for Automated Tractor-Trailer Hitching Maneuver},
- booktitle = {IEEE Conference on Control Technology and Applications (CCTA)},
- year = 2022,
- month = aug,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2022-109}
- }
- , "Imitation and Supervised Learning of Compliance for Robotic Assembly", European Control Conference (ECC), July 2022.BibTeX TR2022-099 PDF
- @inproceedings{Jha2022jul,
- author = {Jha, Devesh K. and Romeres, Diego and Yerazunis, William S. and Nikovski, Daniel N.},
- title = {Imitation and Supervised Learning of Compliance for Robotic Assembly},
- booktitle = {European Control Conference (ECC)},
- year = 2022,
- month = jul,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2022-099}
- }
- , "EEG-GAT: Graph Attention Networks for Classification of Electroencephalogram (EEG) Signals", International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society (EMBS), DOI: 10.1109/EMBC48229.2022.9871984, July 2022.BibTeX TR2022-097 PDF
- @inproceedings{Demir2022jul,
- author = {Demir, Andac and Koike-Akino, Toshiaki and Wang, Ye and Erdogmus, Deniz},
- title = {EEG-GAT: Graph Attention Networks for Classification of Electroencephalogram (EEG) Signals},
- booktitle = {International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society (EMBS)},
- year = 2022,
- month = jul,
- publisher = {IEEE},
- doi = {10.1109/EMBC48229.2022.9871984},
- issn = {2694-0604},
- isbn = {978-1-7281-2782-8},
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2022-097}
- }
- , "Python-based Open Source Package for Optimization of Contact-rich Systems", Robotics: Science and Systems, June 2022.BibTeX TR2022-089 PDF
- @inproceedings{Raghunathan2022jun,
- author = {Raghunathan, Arvind and Jha, Devesh K. and Romeres, Diego},
- title = {Python-based Open Source Package for Optimization of Contact-rich Systems},
- booktitle = {Robotics: Science and Systems},
- year = 2022,
- month = jun,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2022-089}
- }
- , "Robust Pivoting Manipulation Using Bilevel Contact-Implicit Optimization", RSS Workshop on The Science of Bumping into Things, June 2022.BibTeX TR2022-090 PDF
- @inproceedings{Shirai2022jun,
- author = {Shirai, Yuki and Jha, Devesh K. and Raghunathan, Arvind and Romeres, Diego},
- title = {Robust Pivoting Manipulation Using Bilevel Contact-Implicit Optimization},
- booktitle = {RSS Workshop on The Science of Bumping into Things},
- year = 2022,
- month = jun,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2022-090}
- }
- , "Auto-Tuning of Controller and Online Trajectory Planner for Legged Robots", IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2022.3185387, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 7802-7809, June 2022.BibTeX TR2022-085 PDF
- @article{Schperberg2022jun,
- author = {Schperberg, Alexander and Di Cairano, Stefano and Menner, Marcel},
- title = {Auto-Tuning of Controller and Online Trajectory Planner for Legged Robots},
- journal = {IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters},
- year = 2022,
- volume = 7,
- number = 3,
- pages = {7802--7809},
- month = jun,
- doi = {10.1109/LRA.2022.3185387},
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2022-085}
- }
- , "PYROBOCOP: Python-based Robotic Control & Optimization Package for Manipulation", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), DOI: 10.1109/ICRA46639.2022.9812069, May 2022.BibTeX TR2022-057 PDF Software
- @inproceedings{Raghunathan2022may,
- author = {Raghunathan, Arvind and Jha, Devesh K. and Romeres, Diego},
- title = {PYROBOCOP: Python-based Robotic Control & Optimization Package for Manipulation},
- booktitle = {IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)},
- year = 2022,
- month = may,
- publisher = {IEEE},
- doi = {10.1109/ICRA46639.2022.9812069},
- isbn = {978-1-7281-9681-7},
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2022-057}
- }
- , "Synthesizing and Simulating Volumetric Meshes from Vision-based Tactile Imprints", IEEE ICRA 2022 Workshop on Reinforcement Learning for Contact-Rich Manipulation, May 2022.BibTeX TR2022-058 PDF
- @inproceedings{Zhu2022may3,
- author = {Zhu, Xinghao and Jain, Siddarth and Tomizuka, Masayoshi and van Baar, Jeroen},
- title = {Synthesizing and Simulating Volumetric Meshes from Vision-based Tactile Imprints},
- booktitle = {IEEE ICRA 2022 Workshop on Reinforcement Learning for Contact-Rich Manipulation},
- year = 2022,
- month = may,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2022-058}
- }
- , "Motion Planning and Model Predictive Control for Automated Tractor-Trailer Hitching Maneuver", IEEE Conference on Control Technology and Applications (CCTA), August 2022.
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Videos
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[MERL Seminar Series Spring 2022] Hybrid robotics and implicit learning
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[MERL Seminar Series Spring 2022] Exact Structural Analysis of Multimode Modelica Models
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[MERL Seminar Series Spring 2022] Self-Supervised Scene Representation Learning
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[MERL Seminar Series 2021] Learning to See by Moving: Self-supervising 3D scene representations for perception, control, and visual reasoning
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Robotic Research at MERL
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Control of Mechanical Systems via Feedback Linearization Based on Black-Box Gaussian Process Models
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Modelica-Based Modeling and Control of a Delta Robot
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Towards Human-Level Learning of Complex Physical Puzzles
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Assembly of Belt Drive Units
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Examples of Robotic Manipulation
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Tactile-RL for Insertion: Generalization to Objects of Unknown Geometry
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Cooperating Modular Goal Selection and Motion Planning for Autonomous Driving
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Deep Reactive Planning in Dynamic Environments
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Monte Carlo Probabilistic Inference for Learning Control
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Experimental Validation of Reachability-based Decision Making for Autonomous Driving
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Software Downloads
