Source: https://vanderhook.info/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 10:18:42+00:00

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I am Josh VanderHook, a Research Technologist studying distributed systems at NASA JPL in the Maritime and Multi-Agent Autonomy group, where I have had the pleasure of working since 2015.
My main interests are distributed system design, Bayesian cooperative games, and pursuit-evasion games. More info here, here, and here.
At JPL, I work with the Maritime Robotics group. Our team's work was featured in the news. We're helping to design the worlds first fully autonomous naval vessel.
I completed my Ph.D in the department of Computer Science at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis in 2015. It was my great pleasure to work with Dr. Volkan Isler, and the Robotic Sensor Networks lab. My thesis concerned competitive, online algorithms applied to multi-robot path-planning for sensing. E.g., using robots to mine geo statistical data (see: Precision Agriculture) or track invasive species.
In my free time I enjoy boxing, climbing, camping, sailing, live music, and road-biking. I have also begun doing pro bono curriculm development for non-profit educational and STEM outreach organizations, including Mind Makers.
I encourage you to contact me directly if you are interested in discussing a possible project.
I'm leading a Keck Institute for Space Studies workshop on in-space computing networks to support space exploration.
We study distributed computation for a ground swarm exploring Mars.
J. VanderHook, Tiago Stegun Vaquero, Federico Rossi, Martina Troesch, Marc Sanchez-Net, Joshua Schoolcraft, Jean-Pierre de la Croix, Steve Chien Mars On-site Shared Analytics Information and Computing To Appear in 29th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling Berkeley, CA 2019.
We will present a distributed, semi-supervised autonomous system capable of high-speed transits in close formations.
The University of Minnesota Computer Science and Engineering dept did an interview! I now have my own Alumni Profile.
Wolf, Michael T., Amir Rahmani, Jean-Pierre de la Croix, Gail Woodward, Joshua Vander Hook, David Brown, Steve Schaffer, Marc Pomerantz CARACaS multi-agent maritime autonomy for unmanned surface vehicles in the Swarm II harbor patrol demonstration In Unmanned Systems Technology XIX vol. 10195, p. 101950O. International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2017.
Jean-Pierre de la Croix, Grace Lim, Joshua Vander Hook, Amir Rahmani, Greg Droge, Alexander Xydes, and Chris Scrapper. Mission modeling, planning, and execution module for teams of unmanned vehicles. In Unmanned Systems Technology XIX vol. 10195, p. 101950J. International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2017.
Patrick A. Plonski, J. VanderHook, V. Isler. Environment and Solar Map Construction for Solar-Powered Mobile Systems IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 32(1): 70-82, 2016.
Of course, I'm still working on the multi-robot SWARM project, which aims to add some pretty neat multi-robot collaboration between autonomous boats.
I've defended my thesis titled "Active Target Localization and Tracking with Application to Environmental Monitoring". I join NASA JPL in two weeks in the Estimation, Decision, and Control (347E) group.
Our Transactions paper has been accepted for publication.
This is not related to my work, but I wanted to pass along this essay. It captures my feelings on my impending (intended) graduation pretty well.
How's a tiny robot going to get through a busy harbor? How can a drunk efficiently find his house? Provably near-optimal obstacle avoidance without a priori maps, that's how.
I have passed my thesis proposal examination, and would like to thank my committee members for their valuable feedback and suggestions.
It was my pleasure to attend and present at the Multi-Robots workshop at IROS 2014 in Chicago.
My presentation at CCCG 2014 is during Session 9B, on Wednesday. Hope to see you there.
J. VanderHook, V. Isler. Pursuit and Evasion with Uncertain Bearing Measurements Proc. Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry 2014. 332-340.
I'd like to thank the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society for selecting me for the Charles and Dorothy Andrew Bird award!
Through a generous bequest to the University of Minnesota Foundation, [Sigma Xi] will present up to two awards named for Drs. Charles and Dorothy Bird to graduate students for outstanding research in the form of a paper or papers accepted for peer-reviewed journal publication.
It is my great pleasure to accept the Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship for the 2014-2015 year.
"The Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (DDF) program gives the University's most accomplished Ph.D. candidates an opportunity to devote full-time effort to an outstanding research project by providing time to finalize and write a dissertation during the fellowship year."
We discuss a pursuit-evasion game with uncertain sensing, and show evader-win strategies against a single pursuer.
J. VanderHook, P. Tokekar, V. Isler. Cautious Greedy Strategy for Bearing-Only Active Localization: Analysis and Field Experiments Journal of Field Robotics. pp 296-318, 31(2). April, 2014.
I'm proud to be awarded an ARCS Fellowship starting Fall 2013. The ARCS Foundation is "... determined to focus their philanthropic efforts helping the U.S. regain its technological superiority"
P. Tokekar, J. VanderHook, V. Isler. Sensor Planning for a Symbiotic UAV and UGV system for Precision Agriculture Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems Tokyo, Japan. pp 5321-5326, 2013.
J. VanderHook "Searching with Bearing Measurements" at Graduate Student Colloqium, May 10, 2013. University of Minnessota.
J. VanderHook, P. Tokekar, E. Branson, P. Bajer, P. Sorensen, V. Isler. Local-Search Strategy for Active Localization of Multiple Invasive Fish Springer Tracts on Advanced Robotis (STAR) 88, pp. 859-873, 2013.
My presentation is Tuesday afternoon, 5-5:30 in Ballroom D.
P. Tokekar, E. Branson, J. VanderHook, V. Isler. Tracking Aquatic Invaders IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine. pp 33-41, 20(3), September, 2013.
J. VanderHook, P. Tokekar, V. Isler. Cautious Greedy Strategy for Bearing-based Active Localization: Experiments and Theoretical Analysis. In: Proc IEEE Int. Conf. Robotics and Automation, 2012, pp 1787-1792.
SSR-RC is an industry-academia partnership at U-Penn, U of M, and Drexel University. I presented progress on using Android-powered devices to control mobile robots on the fly.
RSN will be presenting field results at the environmental monitoring workship at IROS '11.
P. Tokekar, J. VanderHook, and V. Isler. Active Target Localization for Bearing Based Robotic Telemetry. In Proc. IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems 2011. pp 488-493.
The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the University of Minnesota or NASA JPL.

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