This grant supports the next generation of researchers in dynamic systems, robotics and control by providing funding for graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and junior faculty to travel to the Dynamic Walking Conference being held in May 2020. The aim of Dynamic Walking Conference is to provide insight into the fundamental principles that underlie legged locomotion and the dynamics of movement, both mechanical and biological. Critical, and overlapping, areas of interest are the design and control of autonomous walking robots, rehabilitation of humans and animals, and the design and control of prosthetic and exoskeletal devices. This annual conference includes a broad and growing community of roboticists and biomechanists. It encourages new and breaking results and aims to provide a forum for discussion and sharing of new ideas. This grant will be used to broaden participation from groups that are traditionally underrepresented in major robotics and biomechanics conferences, particularly from women, underrepresented minorities, and researchers from universities which do not typically have the funding to travel to these events.
This grant is specifically focused on broadening participation and greater inclusivity at the Dynamic Walking 2020 conference. Dynamic Walking is a single-track conference that focuses on all things related to walking and running of humans, animals, and robots. This including modeling system energetics, stability, and control; developing predictive principles and dynamic models; clinical evaluation and gait recovery for healthy and stroke, amputee, osteoarthritic, or other limited-mobility patients; analyzing empirical data in a conceptual framework; as well as design and evaluation of robots, prosthetics, and exoskeletons. Topics central to dynamic walking include energetics, stability and control, predictive principles and models, dynamic modeling, empirical data in a conceptual framework, and robot successes and failures. Participants include both academics and industry designers with a mixture of researchers studying human and animal legged locomotion and those designing and controlling walking robots. One goal of Dynamic walking is to bring together researchers from different fields, especially biomechanists and roboticists. Despite sharing a common interest in walking, these two groups typically lack a shared vocabulary and set of tools. As a result, a central focus for the conference is bridging these two disciplines and, ultimately, breaking down barriers.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
