iRobot: since 2008	Boston Dynamics: 2003-2008	Yale University: 1985-90	M1 Monopods: 2001-02
Chief Roboticist	Director of Robotics	Robot Juggling	Robot Jockey Racing
I just joined iRobot's research group to work on mobile manipulation!	As Director of Robotics I got to contribute to BigDog, LittleDog, RiSE, RHex. As BigDog chief engineer I spent most of my time on BigDog.	My PhD project was 'robotics in intermittent dynamical environments'. I developed a planar juggling robot and the "mirror algorithms" to juggle and catch balls.	A prototype jockey ridden hopping robot that controlled forward speed, hopping height, and pitch balance, the jockey did sideways balance and steering.
McGill University: Ambulatory Robotics Lab Projects (1991 - 2003)
The Heroes	Monopod I (1992 - 1994)	Monopod II (1993 - 1997)	CARL (1993 - 1995)
Throughout my McGill years I have had the privilege and great pleasure to work with and learn from many brilliant students and engineers. Every one of them has been instrumental to the projects shown here. I am deeply grateful to all of them.	Monopod I was inspired by Raibert's one-legged hoppers, with actuation and control laws adapted for low power electric motors. It ran at 1 m/s with a mechanical power consumption of 150 W.	Monopod II ran at 1.2 m/s using only 68 W of mechanical power - the most energy efficient running robot at the time. It reduced power for swinging its leg during flight by saving and restoring energy in a hip spring, and synchronizing the leg swing and vertical hopping motion.	To study light weight anthropomorphic legs, we built CARL (Compliant Articulated Robot Leg). It had four revolute degrees of freedom, two were actuated by a novel transmission that used two concentric antagonistic LADDs. A revolute polymeric spring provided knee compliance.
Scout I (1996 - 1998)	Scout II (1998 - 2003)	Scout II-k (1998 - 2000)	PAW (2001 - 2006)
The first quadruped developed at ARL, designed to test what can be done with stiff legs and one motor per leg. The simplest quadruped ever designed, Scout I performs an amazing variety of dynamic behaviors including walking, turning, side-stepping, and step climbing.	Scout II shows the viability of simple dynamically stable robots with ONLY ONE MOTOR PER LEG and springy legs. Scout II walks and runs (in a bound gait) up to 1.3 m/s. Also the first robot ever to gallop!	To explore trotting gaits on Scout II, we gave it passive (unactuated, but lockable) knee joints.	PAW is similar to Scout II but with actively driven wheels at each foot. This 3-in-1 design lets you use wheels, legs or both, to roll, run, bound, and gallop.
Research RHex (1999 - 2003)	Bipedal RHex (2002 - 2005)	Rugged RHex (2003)	AQUA RHex (2003)
To study simple robot designs inspired by biology, the hexaped RHex was developed in collaboration with researchers at U. Michigan and U. California at Berkeley. RHex has shown unparalleled versatility and a remarkable ability to navigate all sorts of rough terrain.	Using only two actuated degrees of freedom (its two hind leg motors) RHex runs at 1.25 m/s on two hind legs and is the simplest dynamically stabilized running biped robot yet!	RHex's rugged big brother. Developed in spring of 2003 to become one of the final contestants for the Army's Future Combat Systems' small unmanned ground vehicles, and the base of the AQUA RHex.	RHex's underwater sibling. Replacing the legs with flexible paddles permits full 3D underwater mobility. This project continues at McGill AQUA Project.
Scorpion (2001 - 2002)	LSAGCM (2000 - 2002)	Direct Drive (1992 - 1997)	Sony AIBO (1999 - 2000)
With other investigators from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Autonomous Intelligent Systems, and MIT, we developed concepts and simulations for a compliant-leg version of Frank Kirchner's Scorpion robot.	The Localisation System for Autonomous Golf Course Mowers project applied robotics and automation to a commercial TORO golf course lawnmower. See also Carnegie Mellon, our research partner and project lead.	For his PhD project (co-supervision Buehler and Hollerbach), Farhad Aghili developed direct drive motor designs, controls, force sensors and motion control strategies for both direct drive motors and direct drive robots. He also built a complete direct drive motor dynamometer system and validated the concepts.	We participated in the World Robocup challenge in its first two years. The McGill Red Dogs team trained a team of four SONY Aibo robot puppies to play soccer.