Current Projects 

Artificial Life as a Framework for Complex Systems Design

• Developing a novel framework incorporating Artificial Life (ALife) principles for designing complex adaptive systems.  

Airborne Minefield Detection

• Developed a C++/IPP (Intel Performance Primitives) based application for image registration using optical flow and anomaly detection using RX(Reed-Xiaoli) detector.
• Developed a Qt based frontend GUI.
• Developing a parallel version of the application using MPI.

Previous Projects 

Individual-Based Artificial Ecosystems for Design and Optimization (Mechanical Engineering Master's Thesis)

• Developed an individual-based (agent-based) framework inspired by naturally occurring ecosystems for solving engineering design and optimization problems.

• Developed individual level behaviors comparable to ecosystem level processes.
• Demonstrated ecosystem level processes like population dynamics, niche formation, adaptation to environment as emergent phenomena from individual level processes.
• Modified these natural ecosystems to solve design and optimization problems. Modifications were also made to improve the computational efficiency of the model without the loss of generality.
• As a proof of concept, developed an individual-based predator prey ecosystem to solve the problem of parameter estimation for binary texture synthesis.

Directional Vision Based Multi-Robot Formation Control

• A Decentralized behavior based framework for multi-robot formation control using only directional vision.
• Leader-follower based robot formations are considered.
• Used a single vision sensor for formation detection, formation maintenance, and formation modification.
• The hardware consists for 4 SRV-1 robots from Surveyor Corporation. 

Face Recognition using Eigenfaces and Neural Networks

• Course project for Introduction to Neural Network Applications (CS378).
• Designed a feedforward backpropagation neural network for face recognition from facial images.
• Used PCA for dimensionality reduction.
• Project was implemented in MATLAB.

Dynamic Modeling of a Quadrupedal Robot with Bounding Gait

• Course project for Advanced Dynamics of Machines (ME413).
• Developed the equations of motion of a Quadrupedal robot with bounding gait.
• The project is divided into three phases
  • Phase One - Developed the equations of motion for a single legged hopping robot.
  • Phase Two - Developed the equations of motion for a quadrupedal robot with bounding gait.
  • Phase Three - Maple Simulation.

Learning Applied to Ground Robotics (LAGR)

• Member of the UMR LAGR team. Served in the capacities of a programmer and system administrator.
• Developed an innovative learning architecture for vision-based navigation of autonomous ground robots.
• Represented visual information using a novel feature-flow model incorporating a view-centric approach.
• Developed and implemented algorithms for vision based perception and navigation planning for off-road navigaiton.

Visualizing Rigid Body Collisions

• Course project for Java GUI and Visualization (CS342).
• Developed a simulation for visualizing the dynamics of multiple balls in a container (rigid body collisions without friction and gravity).
• The user is allowed to add a single ball or multiple balls to the simulation (10 Maximum).
• In the single ball mode, the user can select the color, size and speed of the ball.

Using Open Source Software for Real Time Geospatial Applications - A Feasibility Study

• Conducted a survey on current open source geospatial solution  to assess their ability to be part of a real time web-based geospatial analysis system.
• Tested various libraries like GDAL/OGR, Proj4, GEOS, JTS Topology Suite and GeoTools.
• Tested various applications like UMN Mapserver, OSSIM, QGIS, PostGIS, GeoServer and uDig.
• Among the several possibilities UMN Mapserver was selected for the project.

Six Legged Robot

• Designed and fabricated a six legged robot, with its associated gait mechanism and control system.

Beowulf Cluster

• A 4-node Beowulf cluster was setup and custom configured research group cluster. 

Optical Flow

• A C++/OpenCV based program to calculate optical flow was developed as part of the LAGR project.

Prediction of Engineering Properties of Continuous Fiber Reinforced Composite Lamina

• Undergraduate senior design project.
• Developed a Finite Element model of a GFRP lamina.
• Predicted the variations in the engineering properties of the lamina with the variation in fiber angle.
• Simulation was performed in ANSYS.