Fall 2026 GRASP on Robotics: Howie Choset, Carnegie Mellon University, “Snakes, Search, and Space: Taming Many Degrees of Freedom”
November 20 @ 10:30 am - 11:45 am
This will be an in-person event ONLY in Wu and Chen Auditorium.
ABSTRACT
Robots with many degrees of freedom can achieve remarkable capabilities, but realizing that potential requires methods that make complex, high-dimensional systems tractable, controllable, and useful. This talk will describe how my group designs, senses, plans for, and deploys high-DoF robotic systems, including snake robots, multi-agent systems, and modular robots. Each class of system draws on different foundations: geometric mechanics for snake robot locomotion, deferred planning and ergodic search for multi-agent systems, and learning-based methods for modular robots. Although there is no single unifying theory across these approaches, they share a common principle: reducing complex, high-dimensional problems to lower-dimensional representations that can be analyzed, controlled, and exploited. We evaluate these ideas by building complete robotic systems and testing them in demanding real-world settings. The resulting technologies have been deployed in applications ranging from minimally invasive surgery and urban search and rescue to manufacturing, municipal infrastructure, and assembly and servicing in space. I will begin the talk by discussing the six companies and one national manufacturing institute that my colleagues and I co-founded to translate these technologies from research into practice.
Presenter
Howie Choset - Learn More
Howie Choset is the Kavčić–Moura Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, with joint appointments in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering. He directs the Biorobotics Lab, where his research focuses on snake robots, medical and trauma robotics, and autonomy for robots operating in confined and unstructured environments. His work bridges foundational robotics theory with fielded and clinical systems addressing national priorities in medicine, manufacturing, search and rescue, infrastructure inspection, and space. Most recently, Choset traveled with his team to Venezuela following major earthquakes, where they deployed snake robots in collapsed structures as part of an international search-and-rescue effort. His group has also expanded its work into space robotics, including the recent launch of a robot into orbit as part of an effort to develop modular robotic systems for on-orbit assembly, servicing, and satellite life extension.
This work has led to six start-up companies and a federal manufacturing institute co-founded by Choset and his students and colleagues. Choset has also played a central role in shaping robotics education at Carnegie Mellon through the development of undergraduate programs and research initiatives. He is a Fellow of IEEE, AAAS, and AIAA and a recipient of numerous teaching and research awards recognizing sustained intellectual, educational, and real-world impact.