Emerging Trends in Robotics
Research Worldwide
Nikos Papanikolopoulos
McKnight Presidential Endowed Professor
Department of Computer Science and
Engineering
University of Minnesota
TIME Special Issue
TIME Cover
New Reality
Kiva was purchased by Amazon for 11
times sales ($775 million).
Surgical robotics (da Vinci robot).
Google car.
Stratasys purchased Makerbot for $403
million.
iRobot has a capitalization of $1 billion.
Minnesota has the most FIRST Robotics
teams per capita than any other state in
the nation.
History
PUMA 560 Robot
Humanoid Robots
Courtesy: Honda Corp.
Honda’s
Asimo Robots
Honda’s Asimo
Courtesy: Honda Corp.
Other Interesting Robots
Other Interesting Robots
Robotics for Mental Health
Robotics for Cancer Detection
The Scout Family of Robots
Miniature Solar UAV
Solving the Nitrogen Deficiency
Detection Problem in Corn Fields
Dimitris Zermas, David Mulla, and Mike
Bazakos
Financial and Environmental
Issues
Minnesota Statistics
- 100,000 tons more Nitrogen applied than what is
needed, potentially polluting water sources.
- 20% yield lost because of Nitrogen deficiency.
Goals
- Reduce Nitrogen fertilizer (saving $100 million).
- Improve yield harvesting (gain $835 million).
Findings
Suggest the amount of
nitrogen fertilizer based on
the number of deficient
leaves!
Update the state of corn
plants every day!
Low cost cameras and
UAVs!
Detection Results
Cyan: Visible nitrogen
deficiency
Yellow: The deficiency is
not clearl due to lack of
nitrogen
Achieved 100% accuracy
on data collected over
2014 and 2015!
Estimating the Biomass
We can create 3D
models of corn plants
to measure their
biometrics.
The methodology will
be tested this year in
real corn plants under
real world conditions.
Future of Robotics
Robots are making money and are attracting the attention of the big players.
Robots and humans are coming closer.
Robotic armies (UAVs, UGVs, etc.).
Medical and nano-robotics.
Social robotics.
Human brain and robotics.
Future of Robotics
URL Information
Videoclips and papers can be found at:
http://distrob.cs.umn.edu
Questions?
Questions?
Robotics, Sensing and
Manufacturing Initiative
Strengths of the University/State
Broad interdisciplinary university/college teams
Innovative local manufacturing and design industry
Mayo and UMN Medical School
Committed workforce
Strong student body
Metropolitan setting with global reach
Markers for Effective Growth
Focused expansion in selected areas
Strategic hiring with emphasis on excellence
Increased national and international awareness for the initiative
Technology transition
Fostering collaborations with industry
Attract and retain the best students and scientists
Thrust Areas
Agriculture
Manufacturing
Medicine
Outreach and Commercialization
Acknowledgements
This material is based upon work supported
by National Science Foundation through
grants #CNS-0224363, #IIS-0219863, and
#CNS-0324864, Microsoft Inc., INEEL, and
the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency, MTO (“Distributed Robotics”
Program), ARPA Order No. G155, Program
Code No. 8H20, issued by DARPA/CMD
under Contract #MDA972-98-C-0008
