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Join us this month as Professor Jonathan Kelly discusses the robotics revolution. The oft-heard expression “the robots are coming” is certainly true. But when? Is the recent media frenzy over drones and self-driving cars just hype? Or is there hope that robots will have meaningful impact in the near term? The overarching goal of my research is to deliver on the promise of robotics as a technology that improves human lives (that is, hope not hype). As such, in this talk, I will describe recent work in my laboratory on robotic systems designed to independently explore the surfaces of other worlds, to collaboratively assist people in performing challenging manufacturing tasks, and to help mobility-impaired individuals navigate through the world. I will close by discussing hype versus hope: what realistic changes can we expect soon due to advances in robotics, and what challenges still lie ahead?

Dr. Jonathan Kelly is a Dean’s Catalyst Professor at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) and the Director of the Space & Terrestrial Autonomous Robotic Systems (STARS) Laboratory. Before joining the University of Toronto, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Kelly received his PhD degree from the University of Southern California, where his dissertation work focused on sensor fusion for robust robot navigation. Prior to graduate school, he was a software engineer at the Canadian Space Agency in Montreal. His research interests lie primarily in the areas of estimation and machine learning for navigation, mapping, and manipulation tasks.