Research Projects
DARPA Subterranean Challenge - Team CERBERUS: CollaborativE walking & flying RoBots for autonomous ExploRation in Underground Settings - CERBERUS envisions a system of walking and flying robots equipped with multi-modal perception systems, navigation and mapping autonomy, and self-organized networked communications that enable robust and reliable navigation, exploration, mapping, and object search in complex, sensing-degraded, stringent, dynamic, and rough underground settings. Team CERBERUS is based on the collaboration between a team of experts that for the last years have been at the forefront of walking and flying robots research. This includes: Professor Kostas Alexis, director of the Autonomous Robots Lab at the University of Nevada, Reno; Professor Marco Hutter of the Robotic Systems Lab at ETH Zurich; Professor Roland Siegwart of the Autonomous Systems Lab at ETH Zurich; Professor Mark Mueller of the HiPeR Lab at U.C. Berkeley; Sierra Nevada Corporation based in Sparks, Nevada and Flyability based in Switzerland. Funding: Up to $4.275million (funded per phase) plus up to $2million in prizes.
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RI: Small: Learning Resilient Autonomous Flight Behaviors by Exploiting Collision-tolerance - this NSF grant emphasizes on survivable autonomous navigation of collision-tolerant flying robots exploiting both rigid and compliant designs as well as hybrid systems-based reinforcement learning methods. Funding: $389,634. Principal Investigator: Kostas. Project Period: 10/01/2020-09/30/2023. Award Number: 2008904
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Nevada NASA Space Grant Consortium Research Infrastructure- SpaceBadgers - Robotics for Underground Space Mining Operations - this grant emphasizes on undergraduate research on space mining robotics. Funding: $31,698. PI: Kostas Alexis, Co-PI: Mircea Nicolescu
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RET Site: Cross-disciplinary Research Experiences on Smart Cities for Nevada Teachers: Integrating Big Data into Robotics - this NSF grant emphasizes on research experiences for Nevada Teachers in the fields of Robotics and Big Data. The "Robocity" testbed will be designed and used to provide tangible experiences that are transferable to the classroom across K12 levels. Funding: $581,073. PI: Kostas Alexis, Co-PI: Lei Yang, SP: George Bebis, Jacque-Ewing Taylor, Dave Feil-Seifer, Richard Kelley, Hung La, Sushil Louis, Monica Nicolescu, Hao Xu, Feng Yan, Dongfang Zhao, Candice Gaytan
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REU Site: Collaborative Human-Robot Interaction - grant awarded to Profs. David Feil-Seifer (PI), Shamik Sengupta (Co-PI), Monica Nicolescu (SP), Hung La (SP) and Kostas Alexis (SP). Funding $360,000
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Knowledge Fund: Mine Inspection Robotics - this project aims to develop aerial robotic systems capable of providing autonomous exploration, inspection, mapping and surveillance in underground mines. ”. Funding of the project comes from the Nevada Knowledge Fund, while it is further supported and strongly based on the collaboration with Barrick Gold Corporation. Funding: $398,174 in direct funding and $380,000 in indirect funds.
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NRI: Collaborative Research: Multi-Modal Characterization of DOE-EM Facilities - this National Robotics Initiative project is funded by DOE (DOE-EM0004478) and aims to provide new autonomous robotic systems to monitor, inspection and multi-modal (Rad/Chem/3D) map nuclear facilities. Funding for CMU: $1,022,229 - Funding for UNR: $349,058.
Update: The project is further extended to also include the scope of work for the "PCAMS: Pipe Crawling Assay Measurement System" proposal with additional $163,130 for UNR (sub-award from CMU). |
Motion Analysis Flight Training Arena: Our Lab partners with Motion Analysis to develop safe flight training and experimentation supported with motion capture systems. $12,000
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IEEE CEMRA: Drones Demystified! Our lab received an educational award as a response to the RAS-CEMRA solicitation. $10,000
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Improving UAV Vehicle Safety: Algorithms for Computer Vision Based Detect and Avoid and Failure-Resistant Control, 2015-2016. Nevada System of Higher Education (Knowledge Fund). $ 140,000, PI: David Feil-Seifer, co-PI Kostas Alexis.
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NVIDIA Hardware Grant 2015: Our lab is supported with NVIDIA Hardware based on our proposed activities in the field of aerial robotics research.
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IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology (RAS-SIGHT) 2016 - Call for Humanitarian Projects: Our lab received an award from RAS-SIGHT.
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Multi-Modal Localization for autonomous cars and prototype vehicle development. This research project is funded by the Nevada Center of Applied Research and is including collaboration with the local public transportation authorities towards the integration of autonomy technologies in the relevant services.
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Intelligent Mobility. This research project is funded by the Knowledge Fund of the State of Nevada and in collaboration with the Private Sector. It refers to research on autonomous driving and autonomous public transportation. Funding: $3,121,830
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