RI Seminar: Raj Madhavan : Humanitarian Robotics and Automation Technologies

Raj Madhavan
Founder and CEO, Humanitarian RoboticsTechnologies, LLC

April 22, 2016

Abstract
Robotics and automation technologies hold immense promise in transforming people’s lives across various communities around the globe. However, there exists a huge disconnect between what is possible from an engineering and scientific viewpoint and what the expectations of the general public are. The problem lies in the fact that we have not seen many practical solutions that can be deployed in a truly useful and effective fashion towards making a difference in the quality of lives of people. In this talk, I will describe my current work focusing on the applied use of robotics and automation technologies for the benefit of under-served and under-developed communities by working closely with them to sustain developed solutions. This is made possible by bringing together researchers, practitioners from industry, academia, local governments, and various entities such as the IEEE Robotics Automation Society’s Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology (RAS-SIGHT), NGOs, and NPOs across the globe. I will discuss a demining challenge that I have co-organized for the last two years with the intent of producing an open-source solution for detecting and classifying unexploded ordnance buried in minefields. I will also outline my recent efforts in the technology and public policy domains with emphasis on socio-economic, cultural, privacy, and security issues in developing and developed economies.

Speaker Biography
Raj Madhavan is the Founder & CEO of Humanitarian Robotics Technologies, LLC, Maryland, U.S.A. and a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Robotics with AMMACHI Labs at Amrita University, Kerala, India. He has held appointments with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (March 2001-January 2010) as an R&D staff member based at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (March 2002-June 2013), and as an assistant and associate research scientist, and as a member of the Maryland Robotics Center with the University of Maryland, College Park (February 2010-December 2015). He received a Ph.D. in Field Robotics from the University of Sydney and an ME (Research) in Systems Engineering from the Australian