AIML Special Presentation: Artificial Intelligence for Autonomous Scientific Exploration

David Wettergreen creates robots that explore and conducts field experiments in polar climates, deserts, underwater caverns, and volcanic craters. He has led numerous research projects including a decade of robotic investigation of microbial life in the Atacama Desert. His work in science autonomy enables robotic explorers to detect, classify, and evaluate geologic and biologic features to autonomously interpret and act upon their scientific observations. This work applies to space exploration and to applications in agriculture, forestry, ecology, and marine science.

Prof Wettergreen is a Research Professor at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University where he chairs the Robotics Ph.D. program. He has advised 48 graduate students (16 Ph.D.) and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses. Dr. Wettergreen obtained a Ph.D. in Robotics in 1995 from Carnegie Mellon and then conducted post-doctoral research at NASA Ames Research Center (1996-97) and was a Research Fellow at the Australian National University (1998-2000). He is an Associate Editor of the journal IEEE Transactions on Field Robotics and has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers.