Smart Vehicles
Surveillance Drones
Robots are solving some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Engineers are at the core of these solutions, skillfully suiting robots and computers to fulfill situational needs. As one of the top seven robotics programs recognized by Analytics Insight, BU graduate students are “pushing the boundaries of robotic systems to the next level.”
Systems Engineering PhD candidate Guang Yang (‘20) works on a surveillance drone project in the Robotics Lab. Yang is responsible for flagging safety concerns and correcting the behavior. He spends his time optimizing algorithms and running tests, getting closer and closer to producing consumer-ready technology.
“You have to constantly check back to the real world application to see [if the calculations] on paper actually make sense in the real world,” Yang said. When the drone project is finished, it will have multiple industrial applications such as search and rescue and monitoring crop growth.
Interdisciplinary Advancements
Noushin Mehdipour (SE PhD ’20) also works at the BU Robotics Lab and takes a theoretical approach to robotic systems. As a 3rd year PhD student, Mehdipour is emerging as a top researcher and appreciates working in an interdisciplinary environment with researchers from different backgrounds and engineering disciplines. Her research is a combination of applied machine learning and optimization, data analysis, and control theory.
Smart Cars & Sustainability
Arian Houshmand works at the CODES Lab on a self-driving car project, ARPA-E NEXTCAR. His goal is to reduce the amount of energy these cars consume. Traffic increases energy consumption, so Houshmand’s team is programing the cars to avoid and also reduce traffic. Houshmand designs algorithms that deploy a communication system between the cars. The system enables cars to share information about traffic patterns and react accordingly. For Houshmand, a perk of this project is contributing to the greater good and improving the environment. He also appreciates the real-world experience.
“When you’re in school, usually, you don’t have a chance to implement your algorithms,” Houshmand said.
Self-driving cars are tested at M-City in Ann Arbor, Michigan, while local tests are conducted in the CODES lab. Earlier this year, Houshmand and his lab mates designed a scaled-down model of M-City to mimic real-life test simulations. The project is highly collaborative, with contributors based at the University of Delaware, University of Michigan, Oak Ridge National Lab and Bosch.
BU systems engineers are conducting robotics research at multiple dedicated laboratories and research centers on campus. A key research area within the Division of Systems Engineering is automation, robotics and control. This area encompasses cyber-physical systems, teams of autonomous agents, networked control systems, image-guided surgery, control of material processes and nanoscale systems.