Alexis Maldonado's online CV

I am a scientific researcher and manager of the robotics laboratory at the Institute for Artificial Intelligence of the University of Bremen, in Germany. I work under the supervision of Prof. Michael Beetz, PhD.

Since moving our laboratory from TUM, I have mainly worked to set up and coordinate the new robotics lab in Bremen. This includes:

• designing and building our own autonomous robots (like TUM-Rosie and Boxy)
• maintaining our PR2 robot, and other robotics infrastructure
• integration of new sensors and actuators

Please see below for more details. And please don't miss the videos of my work at the bottom of the page!

Tagline: I ♥ Robots

Address:

Alexis Maldonado
Universität Bremen - AGKI/TZI
Am Fallturm 1 (TAB 1.55)
28359 Bremen
Germany

Tel: +49 421 218 64048

email: amaldo@cs.uni-bremen.de

Work website Google scholar profile Public images @ flickr Google+ URL

• Autonomous robot design, construction, and integration
• Manipulator control
• Robotic grasping
• Bringing together Robotics/Mechatronics and Artificial Intelligence
• Efficient and safe use of robots with compliant control

I've had extensive hands-on experience with the following robots:

• TUM-Rosie robot. I was the main developer of this robot (together with Ingo Kresse and Federico Ruiz), so I was involved in a lot of tasks done, including:
  • Mechanical and electrical construction from industrial components
  • Integration of different types of actuators (Pan/Tilt unit, KUKA LWR4 arms, robot hands, tilting laser scanner) into a coherent control architecture with time synchronization
  • Developed the driver for the DLR/HIT robotic hands (4 fingers)
  • Algorithms for robotic grasping using the DLR/HIT hands, including low-level recovery mechanisms, collision detection, grasp quality evaluation based on torque and position data
  • Development of Fingertip Laser Sensors for improving robotic grasping
  • Currently building a new version of this robot in Bremen, called Boxy. It has two KUKA LWR4+ arms, two DLR/HIT II hands, a movable torso, and an omni-directional platform developed in-house

• icub robot.
  • Maintened the hardware and developed software for the iCub robot we were awarded while at TUM
  • Co-developed the driver for the Xsens IMU inside the icubs head for YARP
  • Developed YARP ↔ ROS bridges

• PR2 robot
  • Hardware maintenance for the PR2 in Bremen
  • Extended the PR2 with a backpack computer, and mechanics to add a new Kinect-2 sensor

• Bender (based on a B21 robot)
  • Extended the B21 robot with industrial manipulators from Schunk
  • Created the Actuator-Array driver for Player/Stage for controlling the arms
  • Developed inverse kinematics algorithms for arm control

• Integrating complex robotics systems, from the low-level drivers, to high-level control executives
• Responsible for numerous project demonstrations, including TUM-Rosie preparing pancakes, cooking white sausages, making sandwhiches. (Please see videos below)
• Development of real-time capable systems in Linux, including communication to EtherCAT, CAN, and other field busses
• Integrating many types of sensors and actuators into the ROS middleware, including development of low-level drivers for various hardware and interfaces
• Kinematic calibration of robots, including hand/eye calibration to improve the precision of robotic manipulation
• Modelling of robots, including kinematics and mesh representations
• Numerous contributions to free software projects (e.g. ROS, YARP, Player/Stage/Gazebo)

• Mechanical design of robot components using Autodesk Inventor and Solidworks
• Can produce parts in metal (usually Aluminum-7075), with a complete workflow: CAD → CAM → CNC Mill/Lathe
• Building parts in acrylic/wood using a CO2 laser cuttter. Workflow: CAD → 2D slices → Laser cutter
• Can produce parts in PLA and ABS plastic using a 3D printer. Workflow: CAD → Mesh → 3D Printer
• Can operate a CNC Mill

• Design of miniature micro-controller boards (STM32), including 4-Layer PCB design using CadSoft Eagle, and assembly using SMD techniques
• Data acquisition system design for industrial settings
• Design and construction of the power distribution systems for TUM-Rosie and Boxy (Multiple voltage busses:48VDC, 24VDC, 12VDC, 5VDC)
• Emergency stop system design for the Boxy robot, including wired and wireless emergency stop buttons

• Coordinator of the CogMan project, financed by the Cognition for Technical Systems (CoTeSys) german excellence cluster. 2008-2011
• Experience guiding students in bachelor and master thesis projects, as well as international internships
• Coordinator of the demonstration program for the Y3 review meeting of the EU project RoboHow, where teams from 5 different european countries integrate their work together
• Experience leading small teams of developers (PhD students) working together on robotics software projects
• Responsible for the equipment of the new robotics laboratory at the Institute for Artificial Intelligence after Prof. Beetz, and his team, moved to Bremen from Munich. This included preparing the proposal to get funding for the equipment, to chosing and procuring the actual robots, sensors, components, and infrastructure.

• Programming languages: Extensive experience with C, C++, and Python. Also experience with Assembly, Lisp
• Operating Systems: Expert knowledge of GNU/Linux systems. Preferred distribution: Debian
• Selected software tools: ROS, git, cmake, ida dissasembler, MvTec Halcon, MoveIt!, Matlab

• PhD Student at Technische Universität München, Munich Germany. Supervised by Prof. Michael Beetz, PhD
• Recipient of a full DAAD Scholarship (German academic exchange service) for PhD studies in Munich. June 2004
• Lic. degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Costa Rica, emphasis on Digital Control. June 2004. GPA: 9.5/10. Graduation with honors
• University lecturer at the Electrical Engineering department at the University of Costa Rica. March 2003-June 2004
• Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (BSEE) at the University of Costa Rica. December, 2002. GPA: 9/10
• High school degree at Fridley High School, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. GPA: 4.0/4.0
• International exchange student as a part of the AFS (American Field Service) intercultural program in Minneapolis, Minnesota. January 1995 - January 1996. Afterwards AFS volunteer (student coach) until 1998

• Alexis Maldonado, Humberto Alvarez-Heredia, Michael Beetz, “Improving robot manipulation through fingertip perception”, In IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Vilamoura, Algarve, Portugal, 2012. Link to pdf
• Alexis Maldonado, Ulrich Klank, Michael Beetz, “Robotic grasping of unmodeled objects using time-of-flight range data and finger torque information”, In 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Taipei, Taiwan, pp. 2586-2591, 2010. Link to pdf

Complete list of publications

• Spanish: Native language
• English: C2 Level (Proficiency) as given by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
• German: C1 Level (Effective operational proficiency)