Mihail Pivtoraiko is a Post Doctoral
Researcher at the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied
Mechanics, University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. and M.S.
degrees in
Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University in 2005 and 2012,
respectively, and his B.S.
degree in Computer Engineering and Physics, along with a minor in
French, from Portland State University in 2003. Mihail has over ten
years of experience in field work with autonomous mobile robots,
developing and testing the planning, control, perception and state
estimation algorithms. He has participated in DARPA projects
(PerceptOR, LAGR), as well as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars
Technology Program. He spent over a year at JPL performing research in
mobile manipulation and instrument placement for planetary rovers.
Mihail is a co-investigator and primary proposal author of an awarded
four-year program to study autonomous rover navigation under the
auspices of the JPL Strategic University Research Partnership. Mihail’s
research interests include improving the performance and reliability of
mobile robots operating outdoors or inside the home. In particular, his
focus is on motion planning and control, as well as their integration
with perception, estimation and other systems that enable capable
robots.