Field Validation of Novel Low-Cost Underwater Robot for Deepwater Exploration and Characterization

Corina Barbalata

Co-Principal Investigator, Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Louisiana State University

Corina Barbalata, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at Louisiana State University in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, where she co-directs the Innovation in Control and Robotics Engineering Lab (iCORE Lab). Previously, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan. She obtained her doctorate from Heriot-Watt University, United Kingdom, and has a double master's degree in computer vision and robotics from the University of Burgundy and Heriot-Watt University. Her work is focused on proposing solutions for real-world robotics applications with social and environmental merits, with an emphasis on dynamic modeling, control, and visual motion planning for underwater robotics systems and collaborative industrial robotics.

William Ard

Research Assistant, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Louisiana State University

William Ard received a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering with a minor in robotics from Louisiana State University (LSU) in 2021. Following that, he began the pursuit of a graduate degree with the LSU Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, where he has worked as a member of the Innovation in Control and Robotics Engineering Lab (iCORE Lab), studying motion planning and computer vision in the domain of industrial and underwater robotics.

Donovan Gegg

Undergraduate Research Assistant, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Louisiana State University

Donovan Gegg is an undergraduate in the accelerated master's degree program at Louisiana State University (LSU) in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. His research interests are in the field of collaborative localization approaches and computer vision solutions for autonomous systems. While studying at LSU, Donovan has been working as an undergraduate research assistant in the Innovation in Control and Robotics Engineering Lab (iCORE Lab) exploring topics involving 3D reconstruction, deep learning, and multiagent systems.

Sierra Landreth

Graduate Student, Biological Oceanography, Florida State University

Sierra Landreth graduated from the University of West Florida with a bachelor's degree in marine biology and a minor in statistics. As an undergraduate, she worked in the Quantitative Marine Conservation Ecology Lab. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in biological oceanography at Florida State University in the Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science. She is a part of the Baco-Taylor Lab, and her research interests include deep-sea biology and the ecology of deep-sea coral.

Tianyi Zhang

Doctoral Candidate and Graduate Research Assistant, Robotics Institute, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University

Tianyi Zhang is a doctoral candidate in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). His research focuses on visual perception algorithms including 3D reconstruction, representation learning, localization, mapping, and their applications on field robots. As a member of the Deep Robot Optical Perception (DROP) Lab, Tianyi has worked on developing underwater robotic platforms and deployed them in the Great Lakes, Hawaii, Florida, and elsewhere. Tianyi received a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Tianjin University in China and a master’s degree in robotics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.