Allison Thackston

I had the honor of speaking at re:MARS about my favorite subject - robots!

Robots are increasingly becoming a vital component in a number of industries. Robots are able to complete more complex tasks at an impressive rate. This session discusses the anticipated future direction of and future fields of robotics application. Learn how to identify if robotics is the right solution for you, and hear about some upcoming opportunities and challenges in autonomous robotics.

I am honored to participate in the third Self-Driven Women event. I talk with Shilpa Gulati, and Congcong Li about some of the toughest and most interesting problems in ML and robotics and how it enables us to build a scalable driving autonomous driving tech stack. We also discuss their respective career journeys and answer live questions from the virtual audience.

I spoke at ROSWorld 2021 talking about my experience developing with VS Code, Docker, and ROS2.

Learn how to quick-start your ROS2 development with VSCode and Docker. I this talk I’ll share the tips, tricks, and hacks that I use to develop ROS2 projects.

This talk was based on my article covering how I use VSCode, Docker, and ROS2 together to create the ultimate software development kit.

Best practices for Robotic Software Engineering Panelists:

• Robert Bocchino (NASA)
• Arne Nordmann (Bosch)
• Allison Thackston (Waymo)
• Andreas Angerer (XITASO)

I am pleased to announce that I will be joining the Women in Robotics Board of Directors.

I was a panelist on Software Quality in ROSWorld 2020.

I was named one of the Women in Robotics You Should Know for 2020.

I’m honored to be on this list with such amazing Roboticists!

I’m joining Waymo!

I had such a great time as a Panelist at the Curiosity Conference! My panel was about the impact AI will have on education and what the future of education will look like in 20 years.

MIRACLE 2038: Co-Design An Empowering AI Future For All In 20 Years

I was featured in a post about International Women’s day on Silicon Valley Robotics.

I’m glad to be a part of such an accomplished group of women!

My teams work on Shared Autonomy was presented at the World Robot Summit by our CEO.

Looking forward to making ROS2 the best robot middleware ever!

My role is to help direct the development of ROS2 in a way that provides the biggest benefit to the community. I’m particularly excited about the security of ROS2 and am actively promoting ROS2 native interfaces in the web.

For the majority of my career in robotics, I have been using ROS - the Robot Operating System. It has definitely made a huge impact on the research community, and I have been fortunate to be a part of it.

Check it out, I'm in Wired!

Conference Paper, 2016 International Symposium on Experimental Robotics

A System for Multi-step Mobile Manipulation: Architecture, Algorithms, and Experiments

Abstract Household manipulation presents a challenge to robots because it requires perceiving a variety of objects, planning multi-step motions, and recovering from failure. This paper presents practical techniques that improve performance in these areas by considering the complete system in the context of this specific domain. We validate these techniques on a table-clearing task that involves loading objects into a tray and transporting it. The results show that these techniques improve success rate and task completion time by incorporating expected real-world performance into the system design.

HSR was hard at work training for its big debut in the US. (Must be in the US to view.)

https://youtu.be/wgdfpcVqSMs

I announced Google’s Cartographer package at ROSCon!

My lab got to play around with Google Cartographer. It was really fun to make this video with everyone! You can see how well Cartographer deals with a dynamic scenario.

I’m a contributing author!

See: ROS in space: A case study on Robonaut 2

I’m excited to be the first person to use HSR in the US!

It was a lot of fun filming with One Direction. Check out Robonaut drinking tea pinky-out!

I was asked to be the keynote speaker of the second day of ROSCon. I’m so proud to have been a part of the team that put ROS in space!

I was an invited speaker at the SpaceVision annual national conference of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space.

Panel: Relying on Robots: The Smart Choice for Dirty Jobs?

From the beginning of humanity’s exploration of space, unmanned systems have played a crucial role. Robotics enables the extension of the reach of the human imagination, and robots will continue as our early ambassadors in space. From rovers on Mars to the robotics arms on ISS, engineers have been able to do amazing things to further our extraterrestrial influence and understanding. With the onset of the private space industry, human ingenuity is being taken to another level to develop other groundbreaking technologies. How will we use AI techniques to interpret the vast amounts of information these systems send back to Earth? What form will these technologies take, and how will this be influenced by the destinations to which they journey? How will humans and robots cooperate to best achieve the aspirations of humanity?

Check out the nodelet version of the prosilica driver I wrote!

Additional features:

• Diagnostic Status of the state of the driver
• Automatic setting of StreamBytesPerSecond when multiple cameras connect
• NEW: Software trigger mode (when hardware triggering isn’t an option) This lets you request frames from multiple cameras allowing them to have the same timestamp for easier stereo processing.
• Automatic reconnection on driver failure

Paper published Jun 2014 i-SAIRAS Int. Symposium on AI, Robotics and Automation in Space

Abstract – Robonaut 2 (R2), an upper-body dexterous humanoid robot, has been undergoing experimental trials on board the International Space Station (ISS) for more than a year. R2 will be integrated with a mobility platform in 2014 an will be able to maneuver around the ISS. Allowing R2 to go mobile inside the ISS requires new developments on several fronts, necessitating mechanical, electrical, software, and safety system upgrades. The ISS has stringent safety requirements for systems that work with and around the human crew members, and a redundant safety monitoring system is required to satisfy these constraints. This system, for the most part, responds to a requirement that the robot can only impart a limited force on any structure, equipment, or crew members in the ISS. R2 satisfies this requirement using several different force monitoring systems. These and the other safety monitors and controllers will be discussed here.

2014 ISS Research and Development Conference, American Astronautical Society

Abstract – Robonaut 2 (R2) has completed its fixed base activities on-board the ISS and is scheduled to receive its climbing legs in early 2014. In its continuing line of firsts, the R2 torso finished up its on-orbit activities on its stanchion with the manipulation of space blanket materials and performed multiple tasks under teleoperation control by IVA astronauts. The successful completion of these two IVA experiments is a key step in Robonaut’s progression towards an EVA capability. Integration with the legs and climbing inside the ISS will provide another important part of the experience that R2 will need prior to performing tasks on the outside of ISS. In support of these on-orbit activities, R2 has been traversing across handrails in simulated zero-g environments and working with EVA tools and equipment on the ground to determine manipulation strategies for an EVA Robonaut. R2 made significant advances in robotic manipulation of deformable materials in space while working with its softgoods task panel. This panel features quarter turn latches that secure a space blanket to the task panel structure. The space blanket covers two cloth cubes that are attached with Velcro to the structure. R2 was able to open and close the latches, pull back the blanket, and remove the cube underneath. R2 simulated cleaning up an EVA worksite as well, by replacing the cube and reattaching the blanket. In order to interact with the softgoods panel, R2 has both autonomously and with a human in the loop identified and localized these deformable objects. Using stereo color cameras, R2 identified characteristic elements on the softgoods panel then extracted the location and orientation of the object in its field of view using stereo disparity and kinematic transforms. R2 used both vision processing and supervisory control to successfully accomplish this important task. Teleoperation is a key capability for Robonaut’s effectiveness as an EVA system. To build proficiency, crew members have attempted increasingly difficult tasks using R2 inside the Station.

Paper published at IEEE Humanoids 2013, IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robotics

Abstract—Robonaut 2 (R2), an upper-body dexterous humanoid robot, has been undergoing experimental trials on board the International Space Station (ISS) for more than a year. R2 will soon be upgraded with two climbing appendages, or legs, as well as a new integrated model-based control system. This control system satisfies two important requirements; first, that the robot can allow humans to enter its workspace during operation and second, that the robot can move its large inertia with enough precision to attach to handrails and seat track while climbing around the ISS. This is achieved by a novel control architecture that features a joint-level embedded impedance control law which is tightly interfaced with a kinematic and dynamic coordinated control system that resides on centralized processors. This paper presents the integrated control algorithm as well as several test results that illustrate R2’s safety features and performance.

I started my new job working on NASA’s Robonaut project in December of 2012.

Robonaut 2 is the first humanoid robot in space and was sent to the space station with the intention of taking over tasks too dangerous or too mundane for astronauts. Soon, he will be getting a new pair of legs to traverse the station and an entirely new operating system based on ROS.

White paper published in the Military Sensor Symposium Parallel Conference 2012.

Spot detection with solar glint suppression is the ability to recognize a small, bright target in an image while suppressing false alarms caused by solar glint. This paper focuses on algorithm performance and gives an overview of possible applications, a discussion of algorithms and image processing techniques, a description of test data and data collections, and an analysis of algorithm results

CROWS ISR was a project that focused on giving new life to decommissioned military hardware. Old CROWS (Common Remotely Operated Weapons Station) sensor package was updated to be used as inexpensive ground-based persistent surveillance. New software was written to access the camera and pan/tilt unit to enable use in a new mission area.

Find out more at Army ‘upcycles’, reuses old gear for new technologies