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Name: San Diego: The Hub for the New Age of Robotic Innovation
Start: 2014-08-12T00:00:00-07:00
End: 2014-08-12T23:59:59-07:00

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San Diego: The Hub for the New Age of Robotic Innovation

August 12, 2014

San Diego: The Hub for the New Age of Robotic Innovation

Join CommNexus, UC San Diego, Brain Corporation and 3D Robotics to discuss how innovation in the field of robotics is rapidly accelerating, offering the potential to transform how humans interact with the world around us.

Albert P. Pisano, Dean of the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering will provide an overview of UC San Diego’s focus on contextual robotics technologies, which represents a convergence of engineering and cognitive science disciplines to advance robotics systems for the benefit of society. Professor Thomas Bewley, Director of the UCSD Coordinated Robotics Lab, will explore how robotics is being transformed by modern cellphone electronics and software, 3D design tools, 3D printing, custom printed circuit board fabrication, and crowd funding. Professor Bewley will explore how situational awareness and feedback control can help small, simple vehicles overcome large, complex obstacles, and how new algorithms for coordinating squads of agile robotic vehicles can help protect human life, grow food, and better respond to environmental hazards like fires, contaminant plumes, and hurricanes.

Dr. Eugene M. Izhikevich, a computational neuroscientist known for his contributions to the theory of spiking networks, will focus on discussing how if robots had brains, they could learn like animals. This way, anyone who could build a robot would be able to train it much like a pet.

Tim McConnell, Head of Engineering at 3D Robotics, will describe the work being done with unmanned aerial vehicles, including autonomous missions, agricultural and enterprise projects, large scale 3D mapping, and new Follow Me capability.

During the reception, you won’t want to miss the exciting robotics demos representing San Diego’s most advantageous emergent companies! Mark your calendars; we will see you August 12^th.

GIVEAWAY! **Meet MiP and take him home!**
Visit Professor Tom Bewley and his student team from UC San Diego during the reception for an introduction to MiP and a chance to take him home! All event attendees are invited to participate simply by dropping off your business card at their demo table during the reception. The lucky winner will be announced on stage during Tom’s presentation! MiP will also be accompanied by a selection of exclusive UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering regalia! Remember to come prepared with one of your business cards for a chance to win.

Promotional giveaways brought to you by: UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, WowWee and UCSD Coordinated Robotics Lab.

PANELISTS: [wc_row][wc_column size=”one-third” position=”first”] [/wc_column][wc_column size=”two-third” position=”last”] Albert “Al” Pisano Dean of Jacobs School of Engineering, UCSD
Albert P. Pisano began his service as Dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering on September 1, 2013. Pisano holds the Walter J. Zable Chair in Engineering and serves on the faculty of the departments of mechanical and aerospace engineering and electrical and computer engineering. Pisano is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to the design, fabrication, commercialization, and educational aspects of MEMS. Prior to his appointment at UCSD, Pisano served on the UC Berkeley faculty for 30 years where he held the FANUC Endowed Chair of Mechanical Systems. Pisano was the senior co-director of the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center (an NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Center), director of the Electronics Research Laboratory (UC Berkeley’s largest organized research unit), and faculty head of the Program Office for Operational Excellence, among other leadership positions. Since 1983, Pisano has graduated over 40 Ph.D. and 75 M.S. students. From 1997 to 1999, Pisano was a program manager for the MEMS Program at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Pisano earned his undergraduate (’76) and graduate degrees (’77, ’80, ’81) in mechanical engineering at Columbia University. Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, he held research positions with Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Singer Sewing Machines Corporate R&D Center and General Motors Research Labs. Pisano’s research interests include: micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) wireless sensors for harsh environments (600°C) such as gas turbines and geothermal wells; and additive, MEMS manufacturing techniques such as low-temperature, low-pressure nano-printing of nanoparticle inks and polymer solutions. Other research interests and activities include MEMS for a wide variety of applications, including RF components, power generation, drug delivery, strain sensors, biosensors, micro inertial instruments, disk-drive actuators and nanowire sensors. He is a co-inventor listed on more than 20 patents in MEMS and has co-authored more than 300 archival publications. Pisano is a co-founder of ten start-up companies in the areas of transdermal drug delivery, transvascular drug delivery, sensorized catheters, MEMS manufacturing equipment, MEMS RF devices and MEMS motion sensors.

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[/wc_column][wc_column size=”two-third” position=”last”] Dr. Eugene M. Izhikevich Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO, Brain Corporation
Dr. Eugene M. Izhikevich is a computational neuroscientist known for his contributions to the theory of spiking networks. He pioneered a novel approach to spiking neurons that combines biological plausibility with efficient implementation. In 2005, he implemented the largest thalamo-cortical model, simulating the same number of neurons and synapses as the human brain. Dr. Izhikevich founded Brain Corporation to build a biologically detailed model of the mammalian brain to enable a new generation of robotic devices that can learn. Dr. Izhikevich has authored many peer-reviewed journal publications and two textbooks in computational neuroscience. He is the founder of Scholarpedia and the editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience and the Encyclopedia of Dynamical Systems. Dr. Izhikevich graduated from Moscow State University with an MS in Applied Mathematics and from Michigan State University with a PhD in Pure Mathematics. He was a Senior Fellow in Theoretical Neurobiology at The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego until 2009. For more on Dr. Izhikevich, visit his academic webpage, izhikevich.org

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[/wc_column][wc_column size=”two-third” position=”last”] Professor Thomas Bewley Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, UCSD
Prof. Thomas Bewley (BS/MS Caltech 1989, diploma VKI 1990, and, after a brief stint in the USAF, PhD Stanford 1998) works at the intersection of control theory, dynamics, fluid mechanics, numerical methods, and applied math, and has a particular interest in the analysis, estimation, and forecasting of environmental flow systems (e.g., large-scale contaminant plumes & hurricanes) with coordinated deployments of advanced robotic systems. Bewley directs the UCSD Flow Control & Coordinated Robotics Labs, two dynamic teams of talented PhD students working on a diverse yet complementary range of problems ranging from optimization theory and numerical methods for computational fluid dynamics to the development of cleverly simple and robust robotic vehicles capable of remarkably advanced maneuvers.

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[/wc_column][wc_column size=”two-third” position=”last”] Tim McConnell Director of Engineering, 3D Robotics
Tim McConnell, director of engineering, is responsible for engineering and product development at 3DR’s San Diego facility. Possessing over 25 years of experience developing robotics and embedded systems, Tim oversees project execution, engineering processes and coordinates activities between 3DR’s engineering department and the manufacturing facility in Tijuana. Tim’s background in robotics began with his bachelor’s thesis project at MIT, where he developed a calibration scheme for robots for the aircraft industry. Since then, he has managed multiple robotic development projects at Vision Robotics Corporation, specializing in autonomous, stereo vision based, mobile robots for commerce, agriculture and government. Prior to joining 3D Robotics in 2013, Tim served as EVP Engineering at Solekai Systems, running an 80-person engineering department in the consumer electronics and machine-to-machine areas. Tim also held management and engineering positions at Wind River, Doctor Design, AP Labs and Linkabit. Tim received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT.

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Questions?: Contact Brittany Bjerke at bbjerke@commnexus.org

DATE: Tuesday, August 12th 2014

TIME:
5:00PM – Registration/Reception/Networking/Robotics Demos
6:15PM – Program Begins
7:45PM – Program Ends

LOCATION:

Qualcomm Headquarters Building N, Irwin M. Jacobs Qualcomm Hall
5775 Morehouse Drive, San Diego, CA 92121

Regular Pricing: **(REGISTRATION CLOSES AT 12:00 NOON ON 8/7/14**
$45.00 – Pre-Registration
$50.00 – At-the-Door
FREE – Students & Military

[wc_highlight color=”yellow”]CommNexus Mentor Sponsor Employees Attend FREE![/wc_highlight] [wc_row][wc_column size=”one-fourth” position=”first”]