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Robotic Arm Videos

In spring 2009 I worked on contract project to build prototype software to plug in an electric vehicle charging connector into the socket on the vehicle.  The hardware consisted of a 3-DOF robotic arm with a mid-range Logitech web camera mounted on the end effector.  The algorithm scanned the camera image for a high-visibility target of known shape and size, computed the 3-d position in space relative to the end-effector and the inverse-kinematics to perform the plug-in action.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2LAwxoQeIZiMTIwQjEwNTRFMjlDMkY2OTowLjM/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2LAwxoQeIZiMTIwQjEwNTRFMjlDMkY2OTowLjI/view?usp=sharing

 

 

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US Patent – System and method for detecting vehicle proximity in an electrical vehicle supply equipment

US9440549B2 – System and method for detecting vehicle proximity in an electrical vehicle supply equipment – Google Patents

A system and method is provided for detecting vehicle proximity in an electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE). A sensor may be configured to detect a presence of a vehicle within a predetermined distance of the EVSE. A processor may be configured to determine that the vehicle is in proximity of the EVSE in response to the sensor detecting the presence of the vehicle.

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US Patent: System and Method for Remote Payment for an Electric Vehicle Charging Station

US20140164196A1 – System and Method for Remote Payment for an Electric Vehicle Charging Station – Google Patents

A system and method is provided for billing transactions associated with an electric vehicle charging station (EVCS). A server may receive a station identifier associated with the EVCS from a computing device. The station identifier may be retrieved by decoding a code at the computing device.

During my tenure at SemaConnect, I’ve contributed to a number of patent applications, a few of which have been granted.

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Acknowledgement

A shout out to Nicolas Pinto for the acknowledgement for some contract work I did back in 2009.   https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775908/

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Canesta 3-d imaging camera contest award.

Of note

Amy D. Waterman, Ph.D., Gerhild Williams, Ph.D., Paul S.G. Stein, Ph.D., John Heil, Ph.D., Chengjie Xiong, Ph.D., and more…

Relevant excerpt:

Roman Stanchak and Michael Dixon, graduate students working with Robert Pless, Ph.D., assistant professor of computer science and engineering, in the Media and Machines laboratory, each received a Canesta 3-D imaging camera for their research paper as part of a national contest. Each camera is worth $7,500. …

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COBRAS – A collaborative brainstorming tool

Traditional person-to-person group brainstorming suffers from three major limitations: (1) free riding; (2) productivity blocking; and (3) evaluation apprehension. An ideal electronic brainstorming tool should address these shortcomings while retaining the dynamic, interactive nature of group brainstorming. Moreover, while the nominal goal of brainstorming is to maximize the number of ideas generated, a variety of secondary goals have been proposed as also having value[1]. In particular, it has been suggested that brainstorming helps build organizational memory in terms of design decisions and creates a ‘status auction’. To address these limitations and secondary goals, we have created an online collaborative mind-mapping tool called COBRAS (Collaborative Online Brainstorming by Roman And Saket). Mind-maps are visual representations of ideas and how they are connected to each other[2]. They are usually laid out like a tree which makes it easy to identify relationships and has been proven to help transfer memory into long-term memory and increase recall[2].

References
Robert I. Sutton and Andrew Hargadon. Brainstorming Groups in Context: Effectiveness in a Product Design Firm. Administrative Science Quarterly, Volume 41, Pages 685-718, 1996
Tony Buzan. The Mind Map Book. New York: Penguin, 1991