Team Members
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Eric Anderson
System Adminstration, Networking, Programming, Neural Nets
Eric works at Centaur Technology in Austin as a Sr. Systems Administrator.
He is interested in robotics, AI, and neural networks. Eric has very
extensive experience administering Unix/Linux systems and at one point
he had a T1 coming into his house! Eric's role includes
system administration, system architecture and programming.
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Matt Bennett
Vision System, Radar / Sonar, Electrical Systems
Matt received his Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering in 1991 from
the University of Maryland. After UMD, he went to work for the Army
Research Lab, performing research and development in the field of Ultra
Wide Band Synthetic Aperture Radar, ultimately mounting the radar on a
150' boom lift. While working at ARL he earned his Master's Degree from
Johns Hopkins University. In 1998, he moved to Austin and began working
at the University of Texas's Applied Research Lab. At ARLUT, he was
involved in the development of autonomous oceangoing robotic buoys used
for scoring ballistic missile tests. After ARLUT, he worked with Andrew
Corporation, designing cellular accessories. Currently, he works for
Dell, designing and testing LAN on motherboard interfaces.
Matt is an automotive and motorcycle enthusiast. On the road, sometimes
he drives a 200 hp supercharged Miata, other times, sportbikes. Off the
road, he enjoys aggressive trail riding.
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Tobias Berthold
Vehicle Control, Navigation
Tobias Berthold is a Masters student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
at The University of Texas at Austin, with plans to continue for a Ph.D. He works with the Command and Data
Handling System team, developing onboard software for the
FASTRAC satellites.
His interests include spacecraft trajectory optimization, autonomous space missions, human-machine interfaces,
and advanced propulsion. He is also the cofounder of the software library for space flight, located at
http://jat.sourceforge.net.
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Kevin Blanchard
Vision System & Navigation
Over 10 years of experience in Information Technology with 7 years of
specialty in computer security, engineering and integration.
Kevin is a recent Austin transplant from
Washington, DC. He has worked with many large government agencies as a
security engineer, engineering lead and project manager, and having an
active role in the design, management and implementation of complex
systems for the DoD. Kevin has been involved in designing, trouble
shooting and running QA for multiple military grade surveillance and
reconnaissance robots and served as an engineering mentor for his local
US FIRST high school robotics team.
Kevin's first published recognition for his work was in July 1993 (at
the age of 16) in Windows User Magazine for a program named Download Buddy.
In his free time, Kevin's hobbies include playing with his dogs,
robotics, bioinformatics and learning the viola.
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Derek Bridges
Analog and Power Electronics
Over 20 years experience doing hardware design and manufacturing.
MSEE and BSEE degrees from The University of Texas at Austin.
Derek studied electrical engineering at UT Austin back in the days when
RTL meant resistor-transistor logic. After working for two companies in
Austin, Derek went to Silicon Valley where he worked for Westinghouse,
Boeing Aerospace/NASA, and Telco Systems. Derek came
back to Austin in 1994 and has since worked for Ten X Technologies,
Venable Industries, Trymer Company and Cirrus Logic.
Interests include simulation and construction of analog and power
electronics and mechanical design.
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Jonathan Brogdon
Control Theory, Systems Programming
Jon has over 12 years of experience in embedded systems programming for
medical devices and communications systems. Jon is a Senior Software
Engineer at Cisco Systems in Austin working on Ethernet switches for
service provider applications.
This is Jon's second time around at Cisco, having worked there previously
in a group that developed DSL equipment. In between his first and second
stints at Cisco, Jon worked at a startup and at Agere Systems on network
processors. Prior to working at Cisco, Jon developed control
software for DSL transceivers at Motorola in Austin. After graduating in
1992 with a BSEE from the University of Houston, Jon worked as a Software
Engineer at Intermedics in Angleton, Texas, where he developed software
for an implantable pacemaker programmer. Jon also taught C/C++ and
electronics at the junior college level during this time. While in
college, he also worked as a programmer in the Computational Neuroscience
Department at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, writing software to
collect/filter sample data from neural networks.
Jon married his college sweetheart, and has 3 wonderful children.
Interests include: communication systems, information theory, robotics,
reading (histories, biographies, and contemporary fiction), and sports.
Jon is a huge baseball fan.
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Dr. John Bunda
Programmer & Systems Integration
Over 25 years of software and hardware design experience, from microprocessor
architecture to distributed near-real-time software systems software.
John began his technology career in 1977 in software, working in systems design, implementation, and project
management for Unisys and IBM. He later returned to graduate school, earning a Ph.D. in Computer Science
from The University of Texas at Austin (1993). He has since done microprocessor architecture and performance
analysis at Somerset, the IBM/Motorola/Apple joint venture, at IBM Austin, and at Centaur Technology.
He has also served as CTO of Protrader Technologies, LP., a direct-access securities brokerage,
designing and implementing real-time market data and trading systems. Protrader was sold to Instinet Group in
2001. He then helped start and served as CIO of Transcend Capital, LP, and has held advisory positions for
several local start-ups, and has owned and run several businesses. John is currently back at Centaur Technology
writing floating point microcode for a next-generation VIA microprocessor.
He's also a automotive technology enthusiast, maintaining and driving his 1990 BMW M3.
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Tom Crispin
Programmer & Systems Integration
Over thirty years experience designing and building a wide range of quality
software from low-level device drivers to application suites to scientific
simulations and games. Specializes in tight, fast assembly code. Skilled
in debugging and optimizing unfamiliar programs. Enjoys working on hard problems.
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Glenn R. Currie
Mechanical Systems, Vehicle Integration
Glenn is a founding member and on the board of directors
for The Robot Group Inc. in Austin, Texas,
www.robotgroup.net.
When in this capacity, he tries to keep everyone out of trouble.
Sometimes he is successful :-)
The Robot Group projects have been chronicled in Newsweek, and
other print media. The group has also been featured on ABC's
"Good Morning America", The Discovery Channel's series
"Invention" as well as a Discovery Channel special
"Legacy of Leonardo".
Glenn has a degree in computer science from the University of
Texas at Austin. He has worked for the McDonald Observatory
and was on the team that developed the Guide Star Selection System
for the Hubble Space Telescope. Glenn also did image processing in support
of the Outer Planet Satellite project (Pioneer and Voyager probes).
Glenn worked for Tandem computers for 8 years and worked
on projects including developing diagnostics
for the first fault tolerant Unix computer. Later Glenn was the team
lead in developing the remote diagnostic system for the first fault
tolerant computer running the Japanese "CTRON" operating system
for NTT, the phone company of Japan.
Glenn works at North Shore Circuit Design in Austin where he helps design a
wide variety of electronic devices including wireless telemetry, automated
livestock inoculation, and microprocessor demo boards.
Glenn works with a variety of operating systems, and is usually asked to
help with the lower level software tasks on projects, including device
drivers and embedded code. North Shore does many types of
new product prototypes and Glenn gets to have fun welding, woodworking and
machining of plastics to help bring these creations to life.
Glenn has been interested in robots most of his life and has a long term
project with The Robot Group referred to as The Robot Brain.
Glenn is also a very active amateur radio operator, call KD5MFW, and works
with emergency communications in the Austin area.
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Robert Dunlap
Mechanical Systems, Vehicle Control & Integration
Robert graduated in 1991 from Cornell University with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering.
From 1991 to 1998 he worked as a process engineer and control engineer for chemical
plants, leading teams in international locations such as China and Saudi Arabia.
From 1998 to 2002 he was employed by Emerson as a principal engineer and consultant
in the hydrocarbon and life sciences industries. During the 1990's he invested in and
operated a vending machine company and a restaurant. A 2004 MBA graduate of the University
of Texas McCombs School, Robert concentrated in finance and entrepreneurship, and led an
academy teaching innovation to MBA students. His teams have placed in the Idea-to-Product
competition and in international design innovation competitions. In 2004 he started
Core/Global Consulting, LLC, a technical business research firm, and has consulted on
financial, innovation, media, and technical issues. Robert has published in and been
quoted in Control Engineering, Hydrocarbon Processing, and Plant Services. He has worked
professionally in 11 countries and has visited more than 30.
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Patrick Dyson
System software, hardware integration, and project management
Patrick received a degree in Mathematical Science from Rice University in 1988.
He spent five years at Apple Computer writing system and network software
including real time control software for the first industry trackpad. He managed
a software team at Splash technology that built communication and control software
for high speed printers. Currently at Sun Microsystems managing a software development
team creating Identity Management products.
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Mark Ebersole
Vehicle Control, Sensors & Navigation
Over 25 years experience in real time operating systems (RTOS), microkernel,
and embedded operating systems design
Mark has 15 years of experience with simulation systems for commercial and
military fixed wing and commercial rotary wing aircraft, navigation and tactics
systems, air traffic simulation, flight management computers, aircraft flight
controls, hydraulic systems, power distribution, and servo mechanical systems.
Mark has spent another 12 years in embedded systems programming and microprocessor systems design.
In addition, Mark has a background in project management, budget and planning.
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Christopher Hopeman
System Integrator / GPS Specialist
Yet another Engineer from Rice (BSEE, 2000, Lovett), Christopher Hopeman spent
three years at Motorola as a systems engineer with their Driver Information
Systems group and later with their Digital, Audio, Radio, Telematics group.
While there he was the product engineer responsible for the high-level hardware
design and integration of a 32-bit automotive development computer
(www.mobilegt.com).
Chris recently received his Master of Engineering degree from M.I.T., where he
specialized in Logistics. His thesis dealt with Radio Frequency Identification
(RFID) tags and sensors in the semiconductor industry.
As a third generation automotive engineer, Chris has a well-founded interest in
racing. While an intern in the Motor City, he ran several SCCA rallies, sitting
in both the driver and navigator seats. And more recently, Chris nearly totaled
his private vehicle at the Texas World Speedway.
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Dan Horowitz
Technical Writer
Dan has a degree in Mass Communications / Journalism from
Texas State University-San Marcos (Southwest Texas).
Dan is currently a technical writer / editor / analyst for Dell
where he has worked for 7 years.
During his career at Dell Dan has also managed
a team of technical writers, and worked in technical support and customer escalations.
Before starting work at Dell Dan was a writer, copyeditor, and editor for a few different
small publications, did some freelance feature and technical writing, spent a year at UT in the
Masters program in Communications, and was also an office manager for a small technology startup.
Dan is an avid runner and cyclist and recently came very close to qualifying for the Boston Marathon.
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Rex Jackson
Electromechanical Design, CAD, Vehicle Integration
10 years experience as a machinist in the oil field industry. 20 years
experience with The University of Texas at Austin Center for Electromechanics.
At the Center for Electromechanics Rex spent the initial 10 years fabricating and assembling high power
kinetic energy weapon systems. More recently, Rex has been designing and
building 3D solid models of advanced energy storage devices for hybrid electric
vehicles and active suspension systems for a wide variety of military vehicles.
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Eric Lundquist
Software Development, Vehicle Integration
Eric Lundquist is the past President of the The Robot Group of Austin. He
served as President (2004, 2003, 2002), Vice President (2000), and as a
Board member (2001). In his tenure with the group, he has organized
numerous public appearances including: the South By SouthWest Interactive
Conference and the Insomniac with Dave Attell television show on Comedy
Central. In addition, he has created robotic props used in motion pictures
that were shot in Austin such as Spy Kids and even created an animatronic
head for the local independent film Armadillo News. He has since created
numerous other robots and enjoys helping others in getting their creations
to work.
Eric has a BS in Computer Science from the University of Texas Pan
American and a certificate from the University of Dallas in
Telecommunications Management that included 15 graduate course hours.
An Austin resident for over 10 years, Eric works for a large
telecommunications firm. He has over 23 years of experience in software
development ranging from: assembly language operating system device
drivers, to business applications in COBOL and RPG II, to SQL databases and
Object Oriented Java and C++ applications. Building robots is a way for
Eric to "get his hands dirty" with real mechanical equipment and leverage
his software experience at the same time.
Eric is "Married with Children" with 4 children ranging in ages from 23 to
10. He also has 2 dogs and 3 cats. When not going quietly insane, Eric
enjoys reading science fiction and listening to heavy metal rock.
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Arturo Martin-de-Nicolas
Vision System & Navigation
Over 27 years experience in microprocessor high performance programming.
Art has been programming microprocessors since 1979
when he built a Heathkit amateur radio station in Costa Rica (TI2AOK). With
help from a friend he connected it to an Apple II computer and programmed
the 6502 microprocessor to transmit and receive Morse Code.
Art joined IBM in 1983 with degrees in Electrical Engineering
and Computer Science from Rice University. At the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center he developed
an emulator of the IBM PC using dynamic translation and then led the team in
Austin that turned it into a product for IBM workstations.
Art defined PowerPC instructions to improve the performance
of X86 emulation.
Art has 10 years experience writing x86 micro-code for the VIA family of microprocessors. Twelve of Art's inventions have been granted US patents.
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Jorge Martin-de-Nicolas
Team Leader -- Vision System & Navigation
Over 20 years experience in engineering and computer science.
Jorge graduated from Rice University with a Masters in Computer Science and a
Masters in Civil Engineering. After graduation he worked in California for an
engineering company in San Francisco in many diverse projects. Some projects were
done for the David Taylor Research Center (a research branch of the US Navy) and
involved a motion simulator predicting the motion of an underwater structure at
varying ocean depths and surface wave conditions, and a simulator predicting tension
in a fiber optic cable during deployment given varying ocean depth and deployment
vessel speed. Another project done for the California Department of Transportation
consisted in the nonlinear analysis of highway superstructures which survived the
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
Later projects in Jorge's career took him to Silicon
Valley where he concentrated on database applications and software development on
multi-threaded distributed systems.
Jorge currently works at Voxpath Networks in Austin developing
next-generation Voice Over IP telephony applications.
In his spare time, Jorge likes to tinker with his cars (which is probably part
of the reason why they always sound like they are in need of a good tune-up).
When Jorge recently moved from California to Texas he sadly parted with his
trusty (and rusty) old friend: his 1977 Toyota Corolla which took him and his
brothers through college. Jorge can now be found tinkering with his other
twenty-something-year-old car: his 1984 318i (but John's 1990 M3 runs a lot
better! :-)
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Juan Martin-de-Nicolas
Mechanical Systems, Vehicle Integration
Over 20 years experience working with machinery and mechanical systems.
Juan graduated Magna Cum Laude from ASU in Business
Administration with a concentration in Computer
Information Systems and Accounting. Juan worked in
the textile machinery industry, buying and selling
equipment all over the world. In the 90's Juan and
his brother Jorge created an interactive online database
for machinery. Juan's travels have taken him to China,
Australia, Europe and South America.
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Donald W. McCauley
Vision System & Logic design
Over 20 years experience designing microprocessors and computer systems
with IBM and Intel.
Don received a BSEE degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1976.
Completed one year of graduate study prior to starting work with IBM in
upstate New York in 1977. Moved to Austin, Texas in 1993. Joined Intel
in 1999.
Don has 11 patents issued or pending. Currently a researcher at Intel's
Microprocessor Technology Lab in Austin, Texas.
Interests include bicycling an average of 1000 miles a year.
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Rich McGill
Mechanical Systems & Vehicle Control
9 years in Industrial Manufacturing Engineering & Operations & 8 years in Computer Science
At The University of Akron (AACSB Accredited), he earned a Bachelor of Sciences degree in
Management of Information Systems, a minor in Business Management Technology, and a
Certificate in Supervision & Management. Certified by the Microsoft Corporation as an
expert developer (MCSD) and systems engineer (MCSE) in Microsoft technologies. Member of
Golden Key National Honor Society and Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society.
During his Industrial Manufacturing career, Rich worked in supporting 10 medium to large-sized
production facilities. He has experience in operating and repairing heavy machinery and
engineering and implementing designs and solutions to solve automation problems, to improve
efficiency, and to increase machine capacities. Eventually he moved into a position of managing
a team of engineers and mechanics for various special projects.
As a software engineer, he excels in analyzing systems to determine problem areas, developing,
managing, and implementing specific software solutions. In his current position he designs,
develops, and supports a wide-range of enterprise applications. In his spare time he likes to
read a lot to keep up-to-date on some of the latest technologies and science discoveries.
Popular Science is one of his favorite magazines.
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Dan Miner
Control Systems Design
Dan Miner has a B.S. degree in Computer and Systems Engineering from
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and is currently employed at Centaur
Technology where he does architecture and microcode design for their
x86 processor chips. Before that, he worked at Digital Equipment Corp.
doing architecture and microcode work in the VAX CPU group and the
workstation graphics board groups. During his career, all projects he
has worked on have shipped for revenue.
From High School to the present, Dan has always been interested in
electronics and software projects as a hobby outside the workplace.
He also has a lathe and milling machine in his garage and spends some
time machining metal parts for various projects. Hobby robotics is
just one of the areas that his interests and experience have been useful.
Dan prides himself in being a bit of Jack-of-all-trades (but master of none).
This is especially useful in robotics which is a complex blend of mechanical,
electrical and software systems.
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Mark Moldenhauer
Venture Capital
Mark Moldenhauer is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate with a Masters in Accounting.
He actively participates in the financial matters relating to the team and
its DARPA entry.
Mr. Moldenhauer is a successful entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in
the merger and acquisition business. During that period of time he successfully
concluded over 25 business combinations and served on the Board of Directors of
more than 20 public companies. He is presently retired but continues to create
and develop new business endeavors.
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Stephen Polkowski
Embedded Real Time Kernel and Systems Integration
Over 14 years experience in microprocessor programming and verification.
Stephen joined IBM in 1991 with a degree in Electrical Engineering from
the Pennsylvania State University. He first developed software to verify
the integrity of SCSI devices on Unix platforms. Later, he joined a team
of programmers that developed an IBM PC emulator for IBM workstations.
This team also went on to develop a hybrid PC emulator that used hardware
acceleration on the PowerPC.
Stephen currently works at Centaur Technology where he is responsible for
verifying the VIA family of x86 microprocessors. He has over eight years
of programming experience in C and assembly language on Windows and Unix
platforms. His responsibilities include BIOS programming, device driver
development, and lab debugging. In 1998, Stephen completed his Masters of
Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Texas.
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Cody Powell
3-D Graphics, Vision System
Cody graduated from Trinity University with a degree in Economics and
Computer Science. Since then, he has worked for American Innovations,
an Austin-based software company specializing in applications for the
oil and gas industry. He currently leads the Graphics and UI team for
one of AI's product families. He is also presently enrolled in the
University of Texas at Austin's math department as a non-degree seeking
student. His interests include the stock market, racquetball, and his
ongoing quest to create the world's finest peanut butter sandwich.
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Jens Roever
Vision System, Video Standards, DSP Design
Jens lives in California and works for Philips in a group that does "multimedia"
chips such as the Nexperia PNX1500 which is a video DSP "and-then-some" chip.
Several years back Jens built the Video Input Processor (VIP) that is still
being used in pretty much all Philips TriMedia based video boards, so he is
quite familiar with different video standards.
WEBMASTER NOTE: Jens made the big mistake of sending me a sample screenshot from
his webcamera, showing the result of applying a Laplace edge detection algorithm as he waved
into the camera :-) Now I can blackmail him into sending me a real picture
for our website. Jens never indented for me to use his webcam shot in such a
nefarious way, but I couldn't resist ;-)
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Alok Vaid
Vehicle Control, Sensors, Sonar
Alok is a graduate student in Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas at
Austin with specialization in Controls and Dynamics. He received his
Bachelor's Degree in Manufacturing & Automation Engineering from Delhi
Institute Of Technology, India.
In India, he worked on a project with Suzuki for two years, which was aimed to
develop an anti-collision device for automotive systems. This system titled
"Safe Cruising System" ensures automatic, intelligent and adaptive control of
the vehicle by automatic control of brakes and throttle. Project details can
be seen on
Alok's research website at UT.
Alok's research group have
filed for its patent. An Indian newspaper, Deccan Herald, applauded their work
on an article published September 30, 2003.
In addition to his interest in vehicle controls, Alok also has proclivity for
programming. He is working on deploying a distributed scientific application
(EON) over the Internet using standard client-server model based on TCP/IP
protocols at UT Austin (http://eon.cm.utexas.edu). His work consists of
writing client sever code, writing scripts for server, making dynamic
webpages which interact with the database system, and finally maintaining the
database system.
Alok tries to keep himself updated with latest research in automotive systems
like By-Wire technologies and Intelligent Transportation System. He is also a
great Robotics enthusiast with a dream of making a Humanoid robot some day!!!
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Tony Welch
Webmaster
Tony (aka Frosty) is now a web program manager, but past stints include web
designer, art director, LAN manager, InfoSys director, CAD operator and a cook.
WEBMASTER NOTE: Tony is being characteristically modest! He is also a
great soccer player, both as a goal keeper and as a field player :-)
Oh... and by the way... I guess I am not Webmaster anymore :-) I guess
technically now I am the Immediate-Past-Webmaster.
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Alan Zubatch
Control Systems Design, DSP Design
Alan received his BSEE from The University of Texas at Austin in December 2003.
He got his basic introduction to electronics from the Navy which also showed
him around the Asian Pacific Rim. After he got out of the Navy, Alan took 3 months to drive
around the country and then worked for a year in Dallas before entering UT.
Alan has worked at the UT Applied Research Laboratories for five years
doing hardware design for military communication systems.
He is currently working on DSP based radio design and other embedded projects.
Alan's other interests include getting his project car back together (again), rock
climbing, and he is considering doing a track day on his motorcycle.
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Advisors
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Dr. Anthony R. Cassandra
Advisor, System Architecture Lead
Tony received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Brown University
working on planning, decision making and machine learning systems. He
has applied some of this research to robot navigation problems and has
been a participant in AAAI robot competitions. Prior to his academic
career, he worked as a machinist as well as a non-destructive testing
inspector, gathering useful practical experiences in design,
manufacturing, metallurgy and quality control.
After graduating, he worked in doing research and development at MCC
where he worked on distributed agent systems, complex event detection
and semantic brokering. Tony moved on to work for a few early-stage
start-ups where he did everything from system administration, system
design, programming, testing, managing software teams, conducting
market analysis, as well as being the Director of Engineering
(effectively acting as the CTO).
He has since been an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at
St. Edward's University in Austin, TX, where he played a major role in
designing and implementing the network and computing infrastructure
for a new Computer Science Laboratory.
More recently, he has worked as a consultant to Telcordia Technologies
for a DARPA funded research project that is attempting to improve the
robustness to failure of a distributed military logistics system. He
presently is a Research Fellow in the Psychology Department at the
University of Texas at Austin where he is using his expertise
in optimal decision making to help understand human spatial
navigation.
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Dr. Derek C. Dyson
Advisor
Dr. Derek Dyson is a Professor Emeritus in Chemical Engineering from Rice University.
He obtained his B.S. in 1955 from the University of Cambridge and his Ph.D. in 1966
from the University of London. Dr. Dyson's research interests include interfacial phenomena
and enhanced oil recovery.
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Dr. Benjamin Kuipers
Advisor
Dr. Benjamin Kuipers holds an endowed Professorship in Computer Sciences
at the University of Texas at Austin. He investigates the representation of
commonsense and expert knowledge, with particular emphasis on the effective
use of incomplete knowledge. He received his B.A. from Swarthmore College,
and his Ph.D. from MIT. He has held research or faculty appointments at MIT,
Tufts University, and the University of Texas. His research accomplishments
include developing the TOUR model of spatial knowledge in the cognitive map,
the QSIM algorithm for qualitative simulation, the Algernon system for knowledge
representation, and the Spatial Semantic Hierarchy model of knowledge for robot
exploration and mapping. He has served as Department Chairman, and is a Fellow
of AAAI and IEEE.
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Jack O'Quin
Advisor, Operating Systems and Realtime Processing
Jack O'Quin has a degree in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin
and twenty years experience doing Operating System software development.
Currently playing jazz bass and developing realtime audio software for
Linux, Mac OS X and BSD Unix systems.
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Dr. Thomas W. Rioux
Advisor
Dr. Tom Rioux received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (Transportation Engr.) from
the University of Texas at Austin where he began developing computer software in 1967
as an undergraduate student. Dr. Rioux has practiced as a professional engineer and
conducted research in transportation engineering and traffic operations for some 27 years.
Dr. Rioux worked with KLD Associates, Inc., of Huntington Station, New York,
to implement the intersection conflict checking logic and the lane change logic
from the Texas Model for Intersection Traffic in the TRAF-NETSIM network traffic
simulation model for the Federal Highway Administration.
Dr. Rioux was the leader of the team that developed the Interactive Graphics
Intersection Design System for the Texas Department of Transportation. He has
been affiliated with the Center for Transportation Research from 1970 until 1976
and since 1988. He has been principal investigator for several TxDOT and TNRCC
projects and served as research staff for numerous other TxDOT projects.
Dr. Rioux teaches a graduate course for civil and architectural engineering students
on Computer Methods in Civil Engineering, and he teaches the computer lab portions of
roadway design and airport design classes.
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Dr. Brian Stankiewicz
Advisor
Dr. Brian Stankiewicz, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology
and Center for Perceptual Systems at the University of Texas, studies spatial
navigation and object recognition.
Dr. Stankiewicz's laboratory is interested in understanding human cognition
using both behavioral and computational modeling. More specifically, his research
focuses on how people recognize objects (object recognition) and how people
perceive and navigate through three-dimensional spaces (spatial navigation).
His research uses virtual reality environments
to help pinpoint the information and process needed to navigate through large-scale
spaces such as a building or city.
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Dr. Peter Stone
Advisor
Dr. Peter Stone is a computer scientist with research specialization in
artificial intelligence.
He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University
and before joining The University of Texas at Austin he was a Senior
Researcher in the Artificial Intelligence Principles Research Department
at AT&T; Labs Research.
His long-term research goal is to create complete, robust, autonomous
agents that can learn to interact with other intelligent agents in a
wide range of complex, dynamic environments. Dr. Stone's contributions
are mainly in the areas of machine learning, autonomous agents and
multiagent systems, robotics, and e-commerce. Past application domains
have included robot soccer, autonomous bidding agents, intelligent
traffic management, and social agents.
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Thomas M. Taylor
Advisor
Over the last twenty years, from filing his first patent at the age of seventeen,
Tom Taylor has generated dozens of commercially successful technological innovations
and significantly affected the course of digital entertainment, PC technology and
the Internet.
Tom is currently CEO of Crossflux Inc. Most recently, Tom was founder and
CEO of Workfire Networks Inc., which developed the world's foremost standalone
server-side technology for accelerating Web content. Workfire was acquired by
Packeteer (NASDAQ: PKTR) in a $100 million transaction. Previously, Tom was
founder & CEO of MSound International, a venture that developed advanced digital
sound technology for PCs. MSound was acquired by PMC-Sierra (NASDAQ: PMCS). Tom was
also CTO of the team that built the world's first full Java application for the PC,
which was also the first -- and most commercially successful -- Web acceleration software
program for PCs. In addition, he has acted as special technical advisor in numerous
technology developments, such as high-definition television (HDTV), digital video
editing systems, and digital signal processing subsystems.
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Dr. Preston S. Wilson
Advisor
Dr. Wilson is a faculty member of the
Acoustics
and
Dynamic Systems & Control
programs of the Mechanical Engineering Department at The University of Texas
at Austin. He joined the College of
Engineering faculty in August of 2003 after serving as a Post-Doctoral Research
Fellow at Boston University, where he studied sound propagation and scattering
in bubbly liquids, and the acoustics of water-saturated marine sediments.
Previous experience includes 3 years as a research engineer at
Applied Research Laboratories, The University of Texas. Selected research areas
were: The acoustics of marine mammal sonar, development of a seismoacoustic
mine detection sonar, seismoacoustic vehicle detection sensors and the
Combustive Sound Source (a safe and inexpensive alternative to explosive sound
sources for use in underwater acoustics experiments).
In 2004 Dr. Wilson received a $300,000 Office of Naval Research Entry-Level
Faculty Award in Ocean Acoustics for his Project
Investigation of the Acoustics of Marine Sediments Using an Impedance Tube.
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Additional Resources
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Patrick Doane
3D Graphics
Patrick Doane has a B.S. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon and
is the Vice President of XL Games America, which is currently
developing an online racing simulation. He has worked in the game
industry for over 5 years with a focus on graphics and network
programming. Patrick has also worked for 3 years in the semiconductor
industry, developing simulation and verification tools.
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Hillary A. Ryan
Thunderhill Ranch President
Mr. Ryan has offered
Thunderhill Ranch
as a testing ground for Austin Robot Technology's vehicle.
Thunderhill Ranch is near Llano, 60 miles west of Austin and has 1,000
acres of varying terrain in the Texas Hill Country.
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Hugo J. Silva
Documentary Video Production
Over 20 years experience in film / video production, duplication and mechanics.
Hugo has been a member of the St. Theresa's Catholic Church Television crew for
the past 17 years, performing as a camera operator, producer and director of the
mass. He has shown exemplary skills in directing several cameras, audio technicians
and graphics to produce the weekly mass which is broadcast every Sunday on Austin's
Local Access Channel.
Hugo found his call to video production while filming football games in high school.
He has produced several documentary style videos for sporting events, weddings and
special events in past 20 years. He received an Associate Degree from Austin Community
College in Radio, Television & Film in the Fall of 1999. He was a member of the Austin
Community Television (ACTV) group from 1994 to 2000.
Hugo has been working in the computer software industry for the past 5 years for EPSIIA,
an Austin company specializing in secure, high-volume document archival and retrieval.
Hugo's enthusiasm for the project and the attention to detail he exemplifies with his
video productions will prove him to be a valued member of the team.
Lights... Camera... Action!!
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Monte G. Williams
Public Relations
Monte Williams is an Austin, Texas-based consultant specializing in all
forms of corporate communications. Mr. Williams has consulted on crisis
management and media strategy for a number of clients in the public and
private sectors in both the U.S. and overseas. He has extensive experience
setting up strategic media plans and corporate press operations, and has
consulted for companies operating under tight regulatory constraints including
public investment pools, electric utilities, state-run lotteries, and the
pharmaceutical industry.
Williams' political/media experience includes stints as campaign press
secretary and speechwriter for Texas Gov. Ann Richards, Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock,
U.S. Sen. Bob Krueger and U.S. Rep. J.J. Pickle. Before 1983, Williams was
a reporter for KNOW-AM, a Peabody-Award winning radio news station in Austin.
Additionally, Mr. Williams was an Executive Story Editor for Steven Spielberg's
ABC drama HIGH INCIDENT, and has written for ABC's comedy SPIN CITY and USA
Network's drama COVER ME as well as pilots for NBC and CBS.
Williams is a member of the Writers' Guild of America, and is represented in
Hollywood by the Endeavor Talent Agency. Mr. Williams is a graduate of DePauw
University and is married with three sons, Max, Evan and Jake.
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