Category: faculty

Retired UGA Faculty/Staff
mvteachr@uga.edu

Dr. Chi Thai is an Associate Professor in the College of Engineering at UGA. He teaches the FYOS “Exploring Robotics” course to freshmen and “Embedded Robotics” course to engineering students. He also teaches introductory robotics to middle and high school students via the Duke TIP and Summer Academy programs.  His research areas include spectroscopy and stereo machine vision in applications to plant health detection and precision farming, and also in embedded robotics applications for theatrical environments.  He is developing an Agricultural Robotics project with 2 objectives HealthScan (real-time field scanning and map making of plant canopies health status) and PestScan (real-time scanning and storing of images of plant pests dislodged from plant canopies). In Theatre Robotics, his research goal is to remove the “human operator” from the interactions loop between a human actor and a humanoid robot with the following sub-goals:

1. capture and characterization of human actor meaningful gestures
2. develop a “Character Engine” (young/old, happy/sad) at the servo motors control level for humanoid robots.
3. develop a Theatre Planner/Learner tool using production systems tools such as CLIPS or SOAR and Hidden Markov Models.
4. develop a “human spectator” assessment tool using Clickers technology.

Associate Professor
Electrical & Computer Engineer
 706-542-4189
 ziontse@uga.edu
website

Areas of Specialty:
Medical Robotics, Human-Robot Interaction, Computer-Aided Surgery, MRI Imaging

Teaching Interests:

• Introductory Mechanical and Electrical Engineering courses
• Advanced courses on Robotics, LabView & Matlab Programming, Mechatronics, Controls, Mechanical Designs, Signal/Image Processing, Medical Imaging, and MRI Engineering.

Research Interests:

• Surgery:  Imaged-guided Prostate therapy,  Cardiac Catheter Surgery,  Haptic for Minimally Invasive Surgery,  Surgical training with visual/sensing augmentation
• Diagnosis:  MR Elastography,  MRI compatible Electro-Cardio-Gram (ECG),  MRI gating circuit,   MR Magic Angle Imaging,  Tactile sensing based Tumor Identification
• Rehabilitation:  Neuro rehabilitation stimulator under fMRI brain activity mapping

Academic Director
Retired UGA Faculty/staff
 potter@uga.edu
 website

Dr. Potter typically teaches the Introduction to Robotics class each fall semester.  The class, ARTI/CSCI-4530/6530, is an introduction to robotics with a focus on autonomous mobile robots.  The two major issues dealt with are (1) cognitive behavior and (2) motion.  Cognitive behavior addresses problem-solving using sensory inputs and desired goals.  The motion deals with aspects of movement from simple robotic arm movement to autonomous rovers in unknown environments.

In addition to being a regular faculty member in the computer science department, Dr. Potter is the Director of the Institute for Artificial Intelligence, an interdisciplinary institute offering an undergraduate AB degree in Cognitive Science and an MS degree in Artificial Intelligence.  The Institute’s website is www.ai.uga.edu.

Associate Professor
706-542-7295
javadm@uga.edu
website

Design and control of robotic-assisted systems for various applications including biomedical and power networks

Associate Professor
Career and Information Studies
706-542-3954
chanmin@uga.edu
website

Dr. ChanMin Kim is an assistant professor of Learning, Design, and Technology in the College of Education. Kim has expertise in motivation, emotions, virtual technologies, teacher education, technology integration, and online learning. Kim led a teacher technology integration project as a Co-PI (a U.S. Department of Education funded project entitled Comprehensive School Reform in Rural K-8 Schools in the Southeast: Integrative Technologies for Quality Initiatives). Kim worked with forty-two teachers from 8 poorly performing rural K-8 schools in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. Kim is currently working on the application of robotics to teacher education. Kim also serves on the organizing committee for the Asia-Pacific Robotics Festival hosted by the National Science Museum (www.science.go.kr) in South Korea.

Associate Professor
Career and Information Studies
706-583-8107
 jmativo@uga.edu

Dr. Mativo’s conviction is that technology is here to stay and mechatronics increasingly has, is, and will permeate all aspects of our lives. His involvement with Robotics stems from his broader study in mechatronics. He has researched, taught and provided service in the mechatronics field. His research included the design of an intelligent wheelchair for which he received a provisional patent. The intelligent wheelchair does double duty serving as a car seat and a wheelchair thus providing greater freedom of mobility to those with upper body strength, and for caregivers, it eliminates the need to transfer wheelchair-bound patients. Dr. Mativo also studied gains acquired by talented and gifted high school students who participated in a summer mechatronics program. He has taught Advanced Robotics and Automation to undergraduates aspiring to careers in industry and to those aspiring to become secondary teachers. He has published articles on student experiences in mechatronics and animatronics. He has developed and tested products using the finite element analysis and programmed Microchip’s PIC microcontrollers using Realizer™. In addition to working with software, Dr. Mativo has designed and machined and fabricated parts to adapt to robots to reach their desired goals.