Abstract: 

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is the US federal agency tasked with developing measurement science in the support of standards and other resources that support US industrial and technological advancement. This includes everything from quantum mechanics research to selling standard peanut butter, but what does that actually mean when it comes to robotics? In this seminar we will give an introduction to the Measurement Science for Robotics and Autonomous Systems (MSRAS) program at NIST and explain how standards shape the robotics field at all stages from laboratory research and technology development to factory floor deployment and safety enforcement and regulation. A broad overview will be given for the current robotics research being conducted a NIST, which includes performance measurement metricsdevelopment, empirical benchmark designs, dataset generation, sensor and perception characterization, HRI reliability and reproducibility, physical and virtual model accuracy, and more. Active research will also be presented in more details on two projects: 1) The development of a baseline performance benchmark for humanoid robots, and 2) The Manufacturing Objects and Assemblies Dataset (MOAD), a publicly available dataset of 3D models for common manufacturing tasks to support the creation of visual identification modelsand manipulation control policies.

Bios: 

Ben Beiter is a Mechanical Engineer and research scientist in the Intelligent Systems Division (ISD) at NIST. There, Ben’s work focuses on metrology and standards for wearable and mobile robots, with a specific focus on powered exoskeletons and humanoid robots. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame, and PhD. In Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech, where he was a part of the Terrestrial Robotics, Engineering, and Controls Lab, with a research focus on Whole-Body Powered Exoskeletons. He now leads the Measurement Science for Humanoid Robots project at NIST, which isdeveloping a Baseline Benchmark for Evaluating Humanoid Robot capabilities. Ben sits on ASTM StandardsCommittees F45 on Robotics, Automation, and Autonomous Systems, F48 on Exoskeletons and Exosuits, and the ISO TC 299 US. Technical Advisory Group. 

Megan Zimmerman is a Computer Scientist and research scientist in the Manipulation and Mobility Systemsgroup of the Intelligent Systems Division (ISD) at NIST. Zimmerman’s work focuses on Artificial Intelligence, dataset development, tangible user interfaces, and enabling technologies for Human Robot Interaction(HRI) and robot manipulation. At NIST this work has developed to include benchmark development, metricsevaluation and meta-science analysis for the robotic manipulation and Human Robot Interaction fields.  Megan has served on multiple boards for advancing the state of the art in robotics and Artificial Intelligence internally and externally, including the 2022-2023 Engineering Laboratory representative for the NIST AI Community of Interest, and is a contributing member of the Metrics and Evaluation Working Group at the Advanced Roboticsfor Manufacturing Institute(ARM) and the Artificial Intelligence Metrics and Evaluation (AIME) Group at NIST. Zimmerman has a B.S. in Computer Science from University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she worked in the Interactive Robotics and Language Lab. She is currently working towards a masters in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University with a concentration on Artificial Intelligence and Human Centered Computing.

Event attendance will count for Colloquium credit