The Autonomous Robots Lab at the University of Nevada, Reno celebrates its first year and invites students, faculty and the public to a day full of discussions, presentations and live demonstrations of robotic technology Friday, March 31, 2017.
"Come to learn about the state of the art in robotics, identify research opportunities and discuss how robotics can change our societies," Kostas Alexis, computer science and engineering assistant professor and director of the robotics lab, said.
For the public, the Robotics Day begins with a live demonstration, in the Applied Research Facility flight arena from noon to 1:30 p.m., of aerial robotic exploration where the robot will seek and find objects. At 2 p.m., the main event begins at the Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center with a welcome by Mridul Gautam, vice president for research and innovation.
Alexis will give a history and specifics of the great strides made in the first year for the lab. Invited for this talk, Sebastian Scherer from Carnegie Mellon University will provide an overview of the robotics research activities taking place at the Robotics Institute, one of the top robotics groups in the world.
For students and faculty, the day begins at the Applied Research Facility with tours of the labs at 9 a.m., followed by presentations about multi-modal mapping, introduction to LiDAR ranging, the University's Intelligent Mobility project, NAASIC - the University's autonomous systems research and innovation center.
For students, the Robotics Day continues after the presentations at the Applied Research Facility for presentations on GPU Programming for Robots and a presentation on Autonomous Aerial Robots Navigation by lab team member Christos Papachristos. The day ends with aperitifs and a movie about robots.
"We have a growing community of robotics research," Alexis said. "We want students to learn all they can about the programs and how they can become a part of that community. This Robotics Day is an ideal time to do that."
For more information or questions, email autonomous.robots.lab@gmail.com or kalexis@unr.edu.
