Robots

Researchers from Vanderbilt University and The Ohio State University are teaming up to develop next-generation robotic technology that can help older adults living with forms of dementia through a grant from the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health. The five-year grant, totaling $3.13 million, will support… Read More

Nilanjan Sarkar, professor of mechanical engineering, watches Brandon Roberson, a teen with Asperger’s syndrome, learn the rules of the road with the virtual reality driving simulator. April is National Autism Awareness Month A recent CDC announcement reports that one in 88 children have an Autism Spectrum Disorder, up from… Read More

Vijay Kumar delivers the John R. and Donna S. Hall Engineering Lecture in Jacobs Believed In Me Auditorium. (Joe Howell/Vanderbilt University) Aerial robot superstar Vijay Kumar gets that there are good reasons for the Federal Aviation Administration to look askance at drone use. There are… Read More

  Undergraduates and Jianing Liu (CE’16) and Ashley Peck (ME'17) are helping design the robot kits. A visit by Adventure Science Center campers helped them see how young students would interact with the kits. (Heidi Hall/Vanderbilt University) Pietro Valdastri’s STORM lab is a cacophony of whirring motors… Read More

Pietro Valdastri Vanderbilt University researcher Pietro Valdastri won a $400,000 National Science Foundation CAREER Award with his proposal, not only to design and build capsule robots capable of finding internal disease, but also to make sure his discoveries are used in education at all levels. Valdastri, an… Read More

Ph.D. candidate David Comber, left, and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Eric Barth For those most severely affected, treating epilepsy can mean drilling into the skull – invasive, dangerous and with a long recovery period. But a team based at Vanderbilt University School of Engineering wondered: What… Read More

  Robots simulating radiation damage (left) and normal function (right). After the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster, investigators used robots to determine the extent of the damage and begin cleaning up. The question is how well robots can stand up… Read More

Four Vanderbilt School of Engineering faculty members have been awarded a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to create new tools, including a web-based modeling and simulation infrastructure, intended to help speed up the development of miniature medical capsule robots. The four-year project – Cyber-Physical Systems: Integrated Modeling,… Read More

Nilanjan Sarkar Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering is featured in an article “Us. And them. Robots are being created that can think, act, and relate to humans. Are we ready?” that appeared in the August 2011 issue of National Geographic. [Other robots are making tentative forays into the treacherous terrain… Read More

Are you ready for robots in the ER? A group of computer engineers at Vanderbilt University is convinced that the basic technology is now available to create robot assistants that can perform effectively in the often-chaotic environment of the emergency room. The specialists in emergency medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical… Read More