Nabin K. Malakar, Ph.D.

NASA JPL
I am a computational physicist working on societal applications of machine-learning techniques.

Research Links

My research interests span multi-disciplinary fields involving Societal applications of Machine Learning, Decision-theoretic approach to automated Experimental Design, Bayesian statistical data analysis and signal processing.

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Interested about the picture? Autonomous experimental design allows us to answer the question of where to take the measurements. More about it is here...

Hobbies

I addition to the research, I also like to hike, bike, read and play with water color.

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Thursday, May 9, 2013

tactile Simultaneous Localization and Mapping using Whiskers

There are few ways of learning. Based upon the methods the learners are classified as:


  • visual learners;
  • auditory learners;
  • kinesthetic learners or tactile learners


In robotics, we have seen examples of using audio and visual sensors to learn the surroundings. I came across this tactile learners called Shrewbots (Or may I call them the whisker-bots). Shrewbots use the technique called tSLAM (tactile Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) to sense its environments by using few actuated whiskers. See the video:


Below you can see the tSLAM at work!

Read more:
“Simultaneous Localization and Mapping on a Multi-Degree of Freedom Biomimetic Whiskered Robot,” by Martin J. Pearson, Charles Fox, J. Charles Sullivan, Tony J. Prescott, Tony Pipe, and Ben Mitchinson from the Bristol Robotics Laboratory and Sheffield University's Adaptive Behaviour Research Group, was presented this week at ICRA 2013 in Germany. via ieeeSpectrum
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/shrewbot-whiskered-robot-tslam

Plus, you should follow BotJunkie to see some weird and interesting stuffs:
http://www.youtube.com/user/GerbilGod7?feature=watch

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