Frank Hammond III

Frank  Hammond III

Frank Hammond III

Assistant Professor, School of Mechanical Engineering
Director, The Adaptation Robotic Manipulation Laboratory

Frank L. Hammond III joined George W. Woodruff George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering in April 2015. Prior to this appointment, he was a postdoctoral research affiliate and instructor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT and a Ford postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in 2010 from Carnegie Mellon University.

frank.hammond@me.gatech.edu

404.385.4208

Office Location:
UA Whitaker Room 4102

The Adaptation Robotic Manipulation Laboratory

  • ME Profile Page
  • Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Flexible Electronics
    • Human Augmentation
    Additional Research:

    Hammond's research focuses on the design and control of adaptive robotic manipulation (ARM) systems. This class of devices exemplified by kinematic structures, actuation topologies, and sensing and control strategies that make them particularly well-suited to operating in unstructured, dynamically varying environments - specifically those involving cooperative interactions with humans. The ARM device design process uses an amalgamation of bioinspiration, computational modeling and optimization, and advanced rapid prototyping techniques to generate manipulation solutions which are functionally robust and versatile, but which may take completely non-biomorphic (xenomorphic) forms. This design process removes human intuition from the design loop and, instead, leverages computational methods to map salient characteristics of biological manipulation and perception onto a vast robotics design space. Areas of interest for ARM research include kinematically redundant industrial manipulation, wearable robotic devices for human augmentation, haptic-enabled teleoperative robotic microsurgery, and autonomous soft robotic platforms.


    IRI Connections:

    Omer Inan

    Omer Inan

    Omer Inan

    Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
    Linda J. and Mark C. Smith Chair, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Omer T. Inan received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 2004, 2005, and 2009, respectively.

    He worked at ALZA Corporation in 2006 in the Drug Device Research and Development Group. From 2007-2013, he was chief engineer at Countryman Associates, Inc., designing and developing several high-end professional audio products. From 2009-2013, he was a visiting scholar in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford. In 2013, he joined the School of ECE at Georgia Tech as an assistant professor.

    Inan is generally interested in designing clinically relevant medical devices and systems, and translating them from the lab to patient care applications. One strong focus of his research is in developing new technologies for monitoring chronic diseases at home, such as heart failure.

    He and his wife were both varsity athletes at Stanford, competing in the discus and javelin throw events respectively.

    omer.inan@ece.gatech.edu

    404.385.1724

    Office Location:
    TSRB 417

    INAN RESEARCH LAB

  • ECE Profile Page
  • Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Flexible Electronics
    • Human Augmentation
    • Medical Device Design, Development and Delivery
    • Micro and Nano Device Engineering
    • Miniaturization & Integration
    • Robotics
    Additional Research:

    Medical devices for clinically-relevant applicationsNon-invasive physiological monitoringHome monitoring of chronic diseaseCardiomechanical signalsMedical instrumentation


    IRI Connections:

    Jeff Garbers

    Jeff  Garbers

    Jeff Garbers

    Principal Development Officer; VentureLab

    Jeff comes to VentureLab after 35 years in the personal computing industry, focusing on communications, mobility, Internet services, and usability. As a software developer and architect from the earliest days of the PC, Jeff has been instrumental in creating applications and co-founding companies that led their markets and were highly regarded by customers and the industry. He co-founded his first startup with his Georgia Tech graduate advisor in 1982, and sold his most recent company, Rover Apps, in 2013. Jeff earned an AB in Mathematics from Wabash College, and his MS in Information and Computer Science from Georgia Tech. His personal passions include FIRST Robotics and STEM education for young people.

    jeff.garbers@venturelab.gatech.edu

    Vlab Page

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Collaborative Robotics
    Additional Research:

    Collaborative Robotics; Innovation


    IRI Connections:
    IRI And Role

    Matthew Hale

    Matthew Hale

    Matthew Hale

    Associate Professor

    Matthew Hale joined the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech as an Associate Professor in the spring of 2024. His research interests include multi-agent control and optimization, deceptive decision-making, and applications of these methods to drones and other robots. He has received the NSF CAREER Award, ONR YIP, and AFOSR YIP. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, Matthew was Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida. He received his BSE from the University of Pennsylvania, and he received his MS and PhD from Georgia Tech.

    mhale30@gatech.edu

    Control, Optimization, & Robotics Engineering Lab

    Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Algorithms & Optimizations
    • Autonomy
    • Robotics
    Additional Research:

    Asynchronous network coordination Graph theory in multi-agent systems.Privacy in control 


    IRI Connections:
    IRI And Role

    Gary McMurray

    Gary McMurray

    Gary McMurray

    Deputy Director; Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines
    Division Chief | Robotics, Modeling, & Sensing for Agriculture; Georgia Tech Research Institute
    Principal Research Engineer; Georgia Tech Research Institute

    After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech, Gary McMurray interviewed for a number of jobs. Most were in the defense industry, and the job duties were very specific.

    “I joke about one job that was to design fuel pumps for the aft section of cargo planes,” McMurray recalled. “I asked, ‘Well, what if I want to design fuel pumps for the front section?’ They said, ‘No. That’s a different skill set.’”

    The job sounded too constraining and unappealing to McMurray, so he continued his job search, interviewing with the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) in 1989. He had been working in robotics, a relatively new field at the time.

    “I was looking for something in robotics, and GTRI was trying to get into robotics,” he said. “They didn’t have anybody working in that field at all, so I was really the first person hired to work in that area. It gave me an opportunity to start from scratch and develop something unique and different. I really enjoyed that.”

    Three decades later, McMurray still works at GTRI.

    “I wear two hats in the organization,” he said. He is the division chief for the Intelligent Sustainable Technologies Division, and an associate director for the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines (IRIM), working with director Seth Hutchinson.

    The Intelligent Sustainable Technologies Division conducts research to improve the human condition through transforming the agricultural and food systems, sustainable use and access to energy and water, and improving workplace safety and pandemic response. IRIM is an umbrella under which robotics researchers, educators, and students from across campus can come together to advance a wide variety of robotics activities at the Institute.

    The Intelligent Sustainable Technologies Division has approximately 36 research faculty and 40 students. The unit hires about 10% of all the students at GTRI and maintains close ties with the academic side of campus.

    “One of the things I enjoy in my role as a division chief is the ability to set the vision and mission,” McMurray said. “We’re a little bit different from the rest of GTRI because we don’t do the Department of Defense work. We work a lot with the campus, but we also work with other universities on sustainability projects regarding food or energy. The projects have the potential to make a big impact. I describe it as having one foot on the basic research side and one foot on the applied side. We have master’s and Ph.D. students doing cutting-edge basic research, and we’re also building systems and applying research and deploying things into the field.”

    The division’s food processing research includes improving yield, food quality, and food safety while minimizing the environmental impact by applying image processing, robotics, biosensors, and environmental treatment technologies. The division also conducts air quality research, including monitoring and reducing the effects of vehicular emissions.

    So, what’s the connection between food processing and auto emissions?

    “To solve problems in both of those areas we employ general research technologies — robotics, chemical and biological sensing, data analytics, machine learning, systems engineering, and then energy and materials,” McMurray said. “Approaches that work in traditional manufacturing may not work in the food industry. There is no CAD drawing for a boneless chicken breast or a chicken leg. Each one is different. It’s also wet, slippery, and could be spoiled.”

    That’s where sensing and data analytics come into play. The same applies to analyzing vehicular emissions.

    “When you look at food processing, our work really brings together all of these different skill sets. And then when you look at the data analytics side of air quality emissions, the team has the longest continuous set of data about air quality in the city. This has been the key database that the EPA uses for studying carbon emissions for automobiles,” McMurray said.

    After more than 30 years at GTRI, McMurray still gets excited when a plan comes together.

    “The most rewarding part of the work is when you can bring together the basic research and the applied, build a system that does something new and novel, put it into the field and test it, and have somebody come back and say, ‘That’s really cool. That worked.’”

    gary.mcmurray@gtri.gatech.edu

    404.407.8844

    GTRI FT

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Autonomy
    Additional Research:

    Robotics; Modeling; Controls


    IRI Connections:

    Brian Gunter

    Brian Gunter

    Brian Gunter

    Associate Professor

    Dr. Gunter is an Assistant Professor in Aerospace Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Rice University, and later his M.S. and Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in orbital mechanics. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, Dr. Gunter was on the faculty of the Delft University of Technology (TU-Delft) in the Netherlands, as a member of the Physical and Space Geodesy section. His research activities involve various aspects of spacecraft missions and their applications, such as investigations into current and future laser altimetry missions, monitoring changes in the polar ice sheets using satellite data, applications of satellite constellations/formations, and topics surrounding kinematic orbit determination. He has been responsible for both undergraduate and graduate courses on topics such as satellite orbit determination, Earth and planetary observation, scientific applications of GPS, and space systems design. He is currently a member of the AIAA Astrodynamics Technical Committee, and also serves as the Geodesy chair for the Fall AGU Meeting Program Committee. He has received a NASA group achievement award for his work on the GRACE mission, and he is also a former recipient of a NASA Earth System Science Graduate Fellowship. He is a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the American Geophysical Union (AGU), and the International Association of Geodesy (IAG).

    brian.gunter@ae.gatech.edu

    404.385.2345

    Office Location:
    ESM 205

    Reaearch Website

    Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Autonomy
    Additional Research:

    satellite geodesy; space systems; orbital mechanics; Earth and planetary observation; remote sensing


    IRI Connections: