Darrell Dingerson, Graduate Mentor, at work
with additional funding from
The National Science Fouindation
Western Alliance To Expand Student Opportunities (WAESO)
Principle Investigator:
Graduate Student Mentor:
Reflexive and Cognitive Knowledge Representation in Autonomous Robots
This project seeks to increase student excitement in Computer Science and Engineering through involvement in research important to NASA's unmanned space program. The specific focus will be in the area of small-scale robots capable of autonomous exploration of planets, moons and other bodies in space. Faculty and students from New Mexico Highlands University will study the relationship between reflexive behaviors, as demonstrated in BEAM robotics, and higher level behaviors usually exhibited in robots equipped with computational resources and able to manipulate some knowledge representation scheme. One goal will be to determine what behaviors can best be implemented at the reflexive level and what behaviors need higher level processing. A second goal will be to integrate robotics into all levels of the Computer Science and Engineering curricula at New Mexico Highlands so as to both motivate students presently in these programs to complete their degrees and to recruit new students into the programs.
