Welcome
to Neil's Home Page
Under continuous construction
(created: 8/2/98, last modified: 07/15/06)
I received
my Ph.D. from the University
of Notre Dame on October 6, 2006. I graduated with an MSME
from the University of
Florida
where I was a
member of the ICE group. Prior to starting graduate school, I was
employed at Bethlehem Steel's Burns Harbor plant in Chesterton, Indiana
from June 1990 to June 1996. Shortly after I left, Bethlehem
declared bankruptcy. Read into that what you wish!
Postdoc
presentation at Stevens
Institute of
Technology, Hoboken, NJ, October 31, 2005
Movie clips from the presentation
- avi
of steering-using-piecewise-constant-inputs applied to a simple car
(~0.5 Mb)
- mpg
of the robot showing efficacy of the analytical solution to the inverse
kinematics (~6 Mb)
- mpg
of the robot finding an object based on tactile feedback (~11 Mb)
Postdoc
presentation at The
Lerner Research
Institute, Cleveland, OH, December 8, 2005
movie clips
- avi
of steering-using-piecewise-constant-inputs applied to parallel parking
a simple car
(~0.5 Mb)
- wmv
of the robots finding and lifting a soccer ball and cube based on
tactile feedback (~14 Mb)
- avi
of robots rotating a playground
ball. The rotation axis cuts the ball at the point shown.
Thus it is a fixed point, and should only rotate and not translate
during rotation. (2.1 Mb, 06/08/06)
- avi of
robots translating a cube while grasping it on its edges using
compliant fingers. (2.4 Mb, 06/11/06)
- avi of
robots rotating a cube while grasping it on its edges using compliant
fingers. (2.3 Mb, 06/11/06)
- razzle dazzle
(4.4 Mb, 06/29/06) ... how'd he do that?
- avi of robot
performing an iterative Lie bracket to reposition the finger (5.8 Mb,
06/29/06)
- avi of robot
performing an iterative Lie bracket while in contact with the ball (5.9
Mb, 06/29/06)
- avi
of robots performing a manipluation of the ball consisting of 6, 10o
fixed-point rotations with a single Lie bracket reconfiguration between
each I (5.8 Mb, 06/29/06)
- avi
of robots performing a manipluation of the ball II (5.9 Mb, 06/29/06)
- wmv of I and II above
(1.7 Mb, 07/08/06)
- avi
of robots performing a Lie bracket motion on the ball without moving
the ball (5.9 Mb, 06/29/06)
- wmv of robots rotating
the ball 45o with Lie bracket reconfiguration (14.2 Mb, accelerated version 8.5 Mb,
07/08/06)
- wmv of robots doing a
full reconfiguration after a 15o rotation of the ball (13.1
Mb, accelerated version
7.8 Mb, 07/08/06)
- wmv of robots trying
and failing to rotate the ball 30o about an axis through
(-1, 1, 1) (12.3 Mb, accelerated
version 7.4 Mb, 07/08/06)
- video of robots acquiring the ball based on force sensor
threshold with fixed fingertip displacement (avi-1 (3.6 Mb), avi-2 (4.6 Mb), wmv (2 Mb) ) vs. a fuzzy
controller (avi-1 (2.5
Mb), avi-2 (3 Mb), wmv (1.3 Mb) ). Note
that one robot under threshold control doesn't contact the ball due to
variability in the sensor's signal. However, under fuzzy control
immediately after it does (avi
2.2 Mb).
The dissertation has been submitted! It's also
available here (pdf version)
- Biomimetic Sensing for Robotic Manipulation (final version 10/30/06)
- front matter, 8/31/06
- chapter 1: Introduction, 8/31/06
- chapter 2: Planning A Plan, 8/31/06
- chapter 3: Theoretical Background, 8/31/06
- chapter 4: Prior Work, 8/31/06
- chapter 5: Methods and Prelimary Results, 8/31/06
- chapter 6: Results 8/31/06
- back matter, 8/31/06
- Hyperlinked dvi (but no pictures, 8/31/06)
574-631-3424 
574-631-8341 