UNL Robotics - Research

Medical Robotics

Robots are becoming, to a greater and greater extent, a routine part of surgical care. They also find application in diagnostic procedures, physical rehabilitation, tele-medicine, and social/behavioral therapy. At the University of Nebraska, we are at the cutting edge of surgical robotics research, innovating with robotic designs that allow the surgeon more control and involve less invasive procedures for patients. We are also pursuing various other aspects of medical robotics including swallowable microrobots for automated gastrointestinal health diagnosis and therapy and pediatric gait rehabilitation.

Faculty working in this area include:

Aerial Robotics

aerial robot flying next to Memorial Stadium Aerial robots can be quickly deployed to hard to access locations to collect data with higher spatial and temporal resolution than existing approaches. In addition, aerial robots can interact with the environment to aid scientists and other users. At the University of Nebraska, we are investigating aerial robots for applications ranging from high throughput crop phenotyping and collecting water samples to coordinating groups of ground robots. We investigate fundamental challenges in enabling safe and dependable operation in field conditions, collaborative control of heterogeneous sets of robots, aerial mobile networking, and enabling physical interaction of aerial robots with objects in the world.

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Ground Robotics

Ground robots can be deployed in a variety of settings from agricultural, automotive, and tactical scenarios. Autonomy in road vehicles has the potential to transform the way we move around our cities. Agricultural ground robots can move through and around crops to apply spray, collect leaf samples, take collect data useful to growers, while tactical robots can assist soldiers in the field collecting valuable surveillance data. We investigate fundamental challenges in enabling ground robots to move safely through their surroundings and collaborate with other ground and air vehicles.

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Multi-Agent and Multi-Robot Systems

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Agronomy Robotics

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Educational Robotics

Group of people standing in a large room with glass ceiling The University of Nebraska has been involved in STEM outreach, particularly related to engineering education, since 2006 with a locally inspired outreach program into the K-12 community. The question of how to reach a large audience with limited time and resources was answered In 2008, with the help of engineering students in the department of Computer and Electronics Engineering who helped design the CEENBoT educational robot with attributes suitable for K-12 and University STEM education.

A custom graphical programming interface and firmware were also designed to operate the robot. This educational robotics “kit” making program was then transferred to over 100 middle school science and math teachers and over 10,000 students have been exposed for teaching STEM fundamentals in K-12. Informal science education outside of classroom has been one of the benefits to this STEM outreach program.

Since 2010, the Nebraska Robotics Expo has been held annually at the Strategic Air and Space Museum during E-Week with over 1,000 participating students attending with their families. The CEENBoT Showcase teams up with First LEGO league to sponsor this event. The Nebraska Robotics Expo serves as the premier outreach event for robotics in the region, involving strong support from local industry sponsors and participation by STEM affinity groups such as the Nebraska Engineers Roundtable, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and the Omaha Maker Group.

Faculty working in this area include: