I am a Research Professor in the Robotics Institute  of the School of Computer Science. I also hold a courtesy appointment in Mechanical Engineering.  I have been on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University since 2000 

I am a co-founder of Mesh Robotics LLC which creates technology for off-road navigation and autonomy. We enable high-speed navigation in unstructured environments with applications in agriculture and transportation. 

Previously I was a Research Fellow at the Australian National University and a National Research Council Research Associate at the NASA Ames Research Center. 

I received a Ph.D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon in 1995 from which I also hold an M.S. in Software Systems and a B.S in Mathematics/Computer Science. In 1986 I began my affiliation with the Field Robotics Center. 

 If you really want excruciating detail, here is my curriculum vitae.

I concentrate on robotic explorers performing meaningful tasks. I apply robotics to exploration underwater, on land, and in the air and space and investigate multi-modal perception, endurance navigation, resource-cognizant planning, scientific data classification and evaluation, and human-robot interaction.  To create systems specialized to exploration in extreme environments, I also develop mechanisms and mobility for robots.  My work spans concept formulation through system synthesis to field experimentation. 

My research is producing new planetary rovers and creating robots that can investigate and survey lunar sites and perform useful work like drilling and prospecting for resources. Field experiments on Mauna Kea in Hawaii demonstrated kilometer-scale autonomous traverse in lunar-like soils. My work in robotic navigation has resulted in autonomous descent into craters with lunar-analogue slope and scale in eastern Washington.  I led research in sun-synchronous navigation, conducting field experiments well above the Arctic Circle on Devon Island in Canada. Our rover Hyperion executed 24-hour long traverses tracking the ever-present sun as it explored, results that are relevant today in the exploration of the moon. Recently the MoonRanger project has produced a micro-rover capable of lunar navigation and mapping of volatile distribution.

I have been involved since the inception of research in space exploration at the Robotics Institute.

My current research has focused on science autonomy, enabling rovers to make decisions about exploration based on analysis of scientific instrument data on the fly.  Field demonstration of robotic geologic mapping in the Atacama Desert, Chile , Amboy Lava field, California and deserts in Arizona and Utah combines rock detection, spectrometer targeting, and geologic classification to inform navigation that maximizes expected information gain. The result is automated geologic mapping.  An outcome of this work is software for robust detection and classification of rocks which has led to the reimplementation of these algorithms for the Mars rovers and its utilization on Mars.

Developing automated geologic mapping is an example of my research approach which emphasizes field experimentation.

At the Australian National University, my research investigated model-free reinforcement learning and adaptive methods for vehicle control and sensor-based servoing for guidance underwater. While at the NASA Ames Research Center, I developed a behavior-based control architecture for planetary rovers and conducted field experiments that first demonstrated visual servo-control for single-command approach to geologic features. As a postdoctoral researcher in the Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA, we collaborated with the Robotics Institute for the Nomad project and developed panoramic visualization methods and the virtual dashboard telepresence concept for remote driving that enable 220 kilometers of traverse in the Atacama Desert. This system also enabled the first remote detection of a fossil. 

In my doctoral research I investigated control and planning for legged robots for Mars exploration, but prototyped systems for the investigation of terrestrial volcanoes. That research created a hybrid control architecture for parameterized behavior-based control and deliberative guidance of walking. I developed planning and control algorithms for the Ambler, a large six-legged walking robot. I also instigated (and investigated) the Dante projects to create walking robots to explore volcanic craters and collect information about their physical properties and activity. Dante's expeditions took me to Mount Erebus, Antarctica and to Mount Spurr, Alaska.

I am recognized for deploying robots around the world in polar and desert environments, and into volcanoes, caves, and locations that compel scientific investigation without human presence. Field investigations with innovative robots in challenging environments are the hallmark of my work.

I have led projects in robotic exploration using robots to investigate the geology and biology of the Atacama Desert in Chile using the rover Zoë.  It surveyed over 250km autonomously measuring the distribution of micro-organisms.My students and I have created of autonomous rovers that can map the presence, location and abundance of microorganisms. These robotic systems have created first biogeologic maps of regions of the Atacama Desert in Chile and in 2004 established single-command, multi-kilometer autonomous traverse, a milestone for planetary rovers.  We have created systems to prove the concept of sun-synchronous exploration.  Demonstrated in the Canadian high arctic, this capability enables solar-powered robots to reason about limited resources and achieve multi-day traverse in conditions of continuous polar daylight.  I am involved in a variety of projects including developing technologies for lunar exploration, designing wheels and mobility for Mars rovers, studying life in flooded sinkholes and caverns in Mexico and investigating the health of coral reefs here on Earth.  I'm interested in robotic agriculture and challenges of off-road mobility in general.

I have advised 17 Ph.D. and 33 M.S. students in robotics.  Many have gone on to careers in space exploration or field robotics.  If you are interested in working with me, this is how to contact me.

I chair the Ph.D. program in Robotics, which involves overseeing the curriculum for doctoral study and advising students and faculty on educational objectives and process.  

I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in Systems Engineering. The capstone project in the Robotics Undergraduate Major begins with Robotics Systems Engineering.

I am an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Field Robotics and regularly review manuscripts for the International Journal of Robotics Research, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, and other academic journals as well as the major conferences in robotics.  With my students and co-investigators, I have published 150 papers in areas of robot perception, planning, learning, control, human interaction and autonomy.  

My work has appeared in the popular media including magazine features in Science, Time, Discover, National Geographic, Popular Science, and IEEE Spectrum; in articles in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and USA Today as well as hundreds of local and international newspapers; in radio interviews including NPR and BBC; and on television on CNN, National Geographic, and Discovery channels.  My work has appears online at Wired.com, Space.com, Slashdot.org, and Wikipedia.org.