Skip main navigation

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Skip secondary navigation

Directory

John Dolan

Senior Systems Scientist – RI, ECE
Carnegie Mellon, 2006 –

Contact Information
 
Department Robotics Institute
Telephone (412)-268-7988
Email jmd@cs.cmu.edu
Website http://www.ri.cmu.edu/people/dolan_john.html

Research Interests

My research goal is to create systems and methodologies that allow groups of robots and humans to collaborate with one another to perform useful tasks. My research is motivated by an interest in the modeling and control of physical systems on the one hand, and in the creation of effective human-machine interfaces on the other. Given continuing technological advances in computing, sensing, actuation, and miniaturization, I believe that the nexus of these two interests is an increasingly exciting area to explore.

The pursuit of this research involves two complementary thrusts. On the one hand, robot systems should be endowed with maximal autonomy. Perception, actuation, planning, and even tasking should be performed with the smallest amount of human intervention possible. Human attention and intelligence are then freed for supervisory and remedial actions that transcend the current competence of the robot or group of robots being controlled. On the other hand, human users should have increasingly effective means of tasking, controlling, and communicating with robots. Human control of robots then becomes less burdensome and more intuitive, and users are able to oversee more complex tasks with greater numbers of robots.

In the News

Headshot of John Dolan

Keywords

mobile and space robotics, human-robot interaction, mechatronics, automated manufacturing

Education

PhD, 1991
Mechanical Engineering
CMU

ME, 1987
Mechanical Engineering
CMU

BSE, 1980
Mechanical Engineering
Princeton University



5000 Forbes Avenue / Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 / Phone: 412-268-7400 / Fax: 412-268-2860