Aaron D. Ames - "Toward the Robots of Science Fiction"

Science fiction has long promised a world of robotic possibilities: from humanoid robots in our everyday lives, to wearable robotic devices that restore and augment human capabilities, to swarms of autonomous robotic systems forming the backbone of the cities of the future, to robots enabling exploration of the cosmos.

Achieving the promise of science fiction will require imbuing machines with the dynamic locomotion behaviors that humans display with deceptive ease—navigating everything from daily environments to uneven and uncertain terrain with efficiency and robustness.

This talk will present the first steps toward achieving this goal on bipedal and humanoid robots with the result being dynamic and efficient locomotion displaying the hallmarks of natural human walking. The translation of these ideas to robotic assistive devices along with a wide range of safety-critical systems will be demonstrated with a view toward realizing the robots of science fiction.

Aaron D. Ames is Bren Professor of Mechanical and Civil Engineering and Control and Dynamical Systems at Caltech, in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science.

This is a free event; no tickets or reservations are required.

Reserved section tickets are available to members of the Friends of Beckman Auditorium and the Caltech Associates.