Cheetah research and robotics development | Join the seminar by Amir Patel
What do cheetahs, robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning have in common? For now, we know that they are linked by an exceptional scientist – Professor Amir Patel from the University of Oxford, who will soon visit NASK with his seminar “Studying Cheetahs Through the Lens of Robotics.” We look forward to your participation!
Manoeuvrability is paramount to survival for animals and will be equally important to legged robots if they are to ever leave the safety of the laboratory. The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is the pinnacle of manoeuvrability and can rapidly accelerate and initiate turns at high-speed on unpredictable terrain. However, biomechanics researchers are still far from understanding the whole-body control of cheetah locomotion as conventional GPS/IMU collars cannot provide the required data. In this talk Amir will discuss his lab’s efforts towards the challenging problem of understanding the locomotion of the cheetah. They do this through the lens of robotics and employ novel techniques including multi-body modelling, feedback control, computer vision & deep learning, physical robots, and trajectory optimization. These results are also relevant to the design of future legged robotic systems which will perform time-critical tasks in unstructured world.
Amir Patel is an Associate Professor, University of Cape Town. Amir Patel is a robotics researcher with over 15 years of experience in both industry and academia. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Cape Town (UCT), as well as the director of the African Robotics Unit (ARU). His research involves studying the manoeuvrability of robotic and biological systems such as the cheetah. He has held visiting professor positions at Carnegie Mellon University and Johns Hopkins University. Some of his accolades include a Google Research Scholar (one of the first two African recipients), two Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Fellowships, a Mathworks Research Award (the first ever African recipient) and the National Research Foundation (NRF) Emerging Researcher Award. He is currently a visiting professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford hosted by Prof. Andrew Markham.
„Studying the cheetah has been exciting as it requires us to innovate on many fronts to understand the animals. It is multi-disciplinary as it requires us to develop new techniques for sensing locomotion but also results in novel systems (algorithms) for the field of robotics.” – says Amir Patel.
The seminar will take place on September 27, at 2pm in NASK (Kolska 12). The event is open to anyone interested in the topic, but due to the limited number of seats, registration at this link is mandatory. The lecture will be held in English only.
The seminar will be streamed live on NASK’s Youtube channel.
