REU Site: Undergraduate Robotics Research for Rural Appalachia

This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site at West Virginia University (WVU) will allow ten undergraduate students each year, mostly from the Appalachian region, to perform state-of-the-art robotics research that is relevant to the region. The goal of the investigator and mentor team is to open opportunities for students and promote STEM through robotics-related research, education, and outreach. Students will work in small groups in one of WVU’s robotics research laboratories while researching one of several themes. The site’s research themes are tailored to problems associated with enabling the use of mobile robotics in rural environments, which have challenging topography and/or are in densely forested areas. Participants will perform fundamental research leading to hands-on experimental demonstrations. The intellectual focus of the site will be research in the core robotics areas of motion planning, localization, coordination, autonomy, and locomotion. Projects will aim for demonstration in challenging field applications in rural settings. Examples of research themes robot swarm learning from biological systems, resilient motion planning and localization approaches for drones in forested regions, and legged robot design and wheeled robot perception and planning to enable traversing harsh terrains. The REU students will participate in weekly group research presentations, organized panel discussions on topics related to professional development, team-building activities, and a university-wide undergraduate research symposium. Participants will contribute to the state of the art within a specialized area of robotics, and faculty mentors will use group discussions to emphasize a holistic view of robotics systems and identify potential synergies and collaborations across sub-teams. This project is jointly funded by CISE IIS and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.