*Presentation will be recorded.
Abstract:
In recent years, rapid advances in robotics and automation technologies have thoroughly revolutionized the manufacturing industries. At the same time, increasing interests in nanotechnology and biological sciences have led to the necessity of robotics and automation at micro and nano scales. This seminar discusses state-of-the-art techniques in robotic manipulation across varied scales, ranging from microscopic objects and biological cells to automated manufacturing of sub-centimeter industrial components.
For robotic micro-manipulation, we propose innovative robotic and control techniques involving the development of micro-hands with laser-driven fingertips. These coordinated laser-driven fingertips enable the manipulation of biological cells or microscopic objects various tasks, including grasping, rotation, movement, bimanual and cooperative manipulation in the micro-world. Additionally, we address the automation of assembly processes for larger sub-centimeter components, employing off-the-shelf industrial robots and advanced techniques encompassing object pose estimation, robotic picking, motion planning, and precise component assembly. Our research findings have been published in top-tier international journals and conferences in robotics and control theory, including IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Automatica, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.
Bio:
Minh Ta (Member, IEEE) received the Ph.D. degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, in 2018, with two awarded doctoral research scholarships. He is currently a postdoctoral research associate with the Coordinated Science Laboratory, University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign (UIUC). His research interests include robotic micro-manipulation, cooperative control, grasping, formation control of multi-agent systems, pose estimation, and robotic assembly. He was the main contributor to several research proposals, and one of them was granted $750,000 SGD. He was invited and served as session chair/co-chair and technical program committee member at many international conferences and is serving as a reviewer for many top-tier journals and flagship conferences in the field. He has been as a Teaching Assistant at NTU since 2015 and has been supervising and mentoring more than 20 undergraduate/graduate students. He won the Best Student Paper Award from IEEE RCAR, Japan, in 2017.