Robotics, Machine Learning, and Computer Vision Research at United Technologies Research Center

Presenters: Dr. Andrzej Banaszuk, Dr. Edward Tunstel, Dr. Soumalya Sarkar, Dr. Ganesh Sundaramoorthi

Abstract: We will present a broad overview of UTRC’s Autonomous and Intelligent Systems Department research in the areas of autonomy, robotics, machine learning, and computer vision with applications in aerospace engineering, smart building, and additive manufacturing. We will also discuss employment and internship opportunities at UTRC

Speaker Bios: 

Dr. Andrzej Banaszuk is a Senior Director of Systems Department at the United Technologies Research Center. Before his current appointment he was a Program Leader of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems and Sikorsky Program Offices at UTRC. Since joining UTRC in 1997, he has conducted research in analysis, design, and control of dynamical systems applied to jet engines, rotorcraft, electric power networks, and buildings. Since 2000 he has led collaborative multi-university research teams in the area of flow control, control of combustion instabilities, robust design of large uncertain dynamic networks, and autonomy. He is an author of 44 journal papers, 72 conference papers, and 11 patents. For his work on active and passive control of flow instabilities in jet engines he received IEEE Controls Systems Technology Award in 2007. He became an IEEE Fellow in 2011. He was elected to the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering in 2015. He holds Ph.D. in EE from Warsaw University of Technology and Ph.D. in Mathematics from Georgia Institute of Technology. 

Dr. Edward Tunstel is an Associate Director of Robotics at the United Technologies Research Center. For the past decade, he was a Senior Roboticist at Johns Hopkins APL actively researching robotic intelligence, autonomous control, modular open systems, and human-collaborative robotics for national security and space applications. He also served as Space Robotics & Autonomous Control Lead at APL. During the prior two decades, he was with NASA JPL as a Senior Robotics Engineer and Group Leader of its Advanced Robotic Controls Group. There he served as a Mars rover systems engineer for autonomous navigation, and rover engineering team lead for mobility and robotic arm operations on the surface of Mars. He maintains expertise in autonomous field robotics & intelligent systems, in which he has authored over 150 publications and co-edited 4 books. Dr. Tunstel is a Fellow of the IEEE, President of the IEEE SMC Society, and a member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. He holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of New Mexico focused on intelligent robot control systems, and prior mechanical engineering degrees from Howard University, with a concentration in robotics.

Dr. Soumalya Sarkar, a Staff Research Engineer in the Systems Department at the United Technologies Research Center (UTRC), has more than six years of experience in Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Probabilistic Graphical Models, Anomaly Detection and Estimation, Sensor Fusion. He currently serves as the co-PI for a DARPA funded program and PI of corporate research funded programs in the area of machine learning for design of complex systems. He has co-authored 38 peer-reviewed publications including 17 journal papers, 2 book chapters and filed multiple US patents. Along with dual Master’s degrees (Mathematics and Mechanical Engineering), Dr. Sarkar has received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (focus area: machine learning for electro-mechanical applications) from Penn State University in 2015. 

Dr. Ganesh Sundaramoorthi is currently Principal Research Scientist at United Technologies Research Center.  He obtained his PhD in Electrical & Computer Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology in 2008, and he also obtained his undergraduate degrees (Computer Engineering & Applied Mathematics) from Georgia Tech in 2003.  He then did postdoctoral research in computer science at University of California, Los Angeles in the Vision Lab between 2008 and 2010.  He was then on the faculty of KAUST (King Abdullah Univ. of Science and Technology) in Electrical Engineering and jointly in Applied Mathematics from 2011-2018, where he directed a computer vision research group.  He has been an area chair for the computer vision conferences such as CVPR and ICCV.  His research interests are broadly in computer vision, and particularly in optimization algorithms for computer vision.