Members of Georgia Tech Systems Research (GTSR), a lab directed by Fumin Zhang, attended the briefing and exhibition "Robots for Good" in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 2014. This event was held in conjunction with the Congressional Robotics Caucus, co-chaired by U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey of Georgia and U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania, to promote robotics technology for humanitarian, environmental, educational, medical, and search and rescue uses.

At the event, Zhang and his Ph.D. students in GTSR presented their work on maritime mobile sensor networks. By conducting various research surveys using marine mobile sensor platforms, they have contributed to environmental sensing and monitoring. During summer 2011, they conducted an oil spill survey in Louisiana using multiple autonomous marine vehicles, including two student-built and one commercial.

Starting in late 2011, the GTSR lab personnel participated in a number of underwater glider deployments in collaboration with the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography. In these deployments, underwater gliders collected data to investigate oceanic processes such as phytoplankton blooms. To increase the sampling performance of gliders, they studied the real-time guidance of gliders.

GTSR is based in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, where Zhang is an associate professor. Pictured in the top photo at the “Robots for Good” exhibition are (left to right) Dongsik Chang, Zhang, Klementyna Szwaykowska (a Ph.D. graduate of Zhang’s lab who now works at the Naval Research Lab), Shayok Mukhopadhyay, and Sean Maxon.