REU Site: Research Experience in Design and Construction of Autonomous Robots and Machine Learning

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

The REU in the Machine Intelligence Laboratory (MIL) in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida (UF) will focus on the design and construction of autonomous robots and machine learning. The student activity builds on the success of our previous REU sites, our NSF-ILI sponsored Intelligent Machines Design Laboratory (IMDL), and the research activities of the MIL. Our undergraduate activities have resulted in large numbers of undergraduate-authored research papers, future graduate thesis topics, and concepts for potential consumer-friendly robotic products. Each of the twelve undergraduate participants will design and construct two autonomous robot platforms: one personal robot (which the participant can take back to their home institution) and a larger autonomous platform as a part of a group project. Participants will study, research, develop and test machine learning algorithms by implementing them in their two autonomous agents. REU participants will be carefully guided by two faculty members and a graduate teaching assistant in the process of development and testing of novel machine learning paradigms, propelling them into the midst of state-of-the-art research in autonomous robots and machine learning.