I am an incoming Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Colorado School of Mines (starting in January 2024) affiliated with the Robotics program. Currently, I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Maryland working with Michael Otte and I also contribute to the OpenBionics initiative.
I obtained my PhD in Electrical Engineering and my MS in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech. I received a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens and I hold a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of West Attica.
Links: CV, Google Scholar, Scopus, ORCID, Web of Science, Loop, GitHub, Twitter, YouTube
Open Positions
We are currently looking for two motivated and enthusiastic PhD students to join the MPALA Lab. The positions will start in Fall 2024 and they are fully funded (tuition and monthly stipend included).- Topic 1: Multi-robot active learning and motion planning
- Topic 2: Bi-manual manipulation with adaptive robot hands
If you are interested in joining our lab, please see the Join page for more details. Note that the deadline for PhD applications in both Mechanical Engineering and Robotics at Mines is December 15.
Research Interests
My primary research interests lie in the integration of robotics, control theory, and machine learning. What interests me most is the formulation of hybrid theoretical schemes and the development of novel robotic systems to bridge the gap between machine learning and autonomy. I am particularly interested in how learning algorithms and control theory can enable multi-agent systems to efficiently collaborate with minimal information exchange for robotic navigation, exploration, and manipulation tasks. Also, I contribute to the OpenBionics initiative on the design and development of affordable, open-source robot hands and prostheses.
Selected Publications
- Adaptive Exploration-Exploitation Active Learning of Gaussian Processes (IROS 2023) [pdf]
- Fully Decentralized, Scalable Gaussian Processes for Multi-Agent Federated Learning (arXiv 2022) [pdf]
- Online and Robust Intermittent Motion Planning in Dynamic and Changing Environments, (TNNLS 2023) [pdf]
- An Adaptive Actuation Mechanism for Anthropomorphic Robot Hands (Front. Robot. AI 2019) [pdf]
News
Aug 2023: Paper appears in IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems
June 2023: Paper accepted to IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
May 2023: Gave an invited talk at the Maryland Robotics Center Research Symposium
May 2023: Workshop paper accepted to IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Workshop on Communication Challenges in Multi-Robot Systems: Perception, Coordination, and Learning
Jan 2023: Paper accepted to American Control Conference (ACC)
Jan 2023: I am teaching a new course on autonomous multi-robot swarms (ENAE488O/ENAE788O) at the University of Maryland
Sep 2022: Paper accepted to International Symposium on Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARS)
Jul 2022: Paper accepted to IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC)
Jul 2022: I will be the General Co-Chair of the RSS Pioneers Workshop 2023
Jun 2022: Selected for the Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) Pioneers Workshop [Pioneers22]
May 2022: Chapter appears in Brain and Cognitive Intelligence Control in Robotics, Taylor & Francis Group, CRC Press
Mar 2022: New preprint is out
Jan 2022: I will be the Online Platform Chair of CoRL 2022
Jan 2022: Started my postdoc at the University of Maryland
Dec 2021: Defended my PhD dissertation in Electrical Engineering at Virginia Tech
Oct 2021: Paper appears in Frontiers in Neurorobotics
Jul 2021: Paper accepted to IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC)
May 2021: Paper appears in Robotics and Autonomous Systems
Feb 2021: Two papers [ICRA21-1], [ICRA21-2] accepted to IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Jan 2021: Paper accepted to American Control Conference (ACC)
Dec 2020: Passsed my preliminary exam (PhD proposal) in Electrical Engineering at Virginia Tech
Aug 2020: Paper accepted to IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics (SMC)
Jan 2020: Paper accepted to American Control Conference (ACC)
Oct 2019: Gave an invited talk at the Workshop on New Challenges in Humanoid Grasping and Manipulation (Humanoids)
Sep 2019: Paper accepted to ACM International Conference on Underwater Networks and Systems (WuWNet)
Aug 2019: Paper accepted to IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids)
Jul 2019: Paper appears in Frontiers in Robotics and AI
Apr 2019: Paper accepted to IEEE/RAS-EMBS International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR)
Mar 2019: Paper appears in IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems
Jan 2019: Paper accepted to American Control Conference (ACC)
Dec 2018: Defended my MSc thesis in Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech
Sep 2017: Paper accepted to IEEE Symp. on Adaptive Dynamic Programming and Reinforcement Learning (ADPRL)
Aug 2016: Started my graduate studies at Virginia Tech
Mar 2016: Graduated with a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering at National Technical University of Athens
Nov 2015: Won the 2nd place in 2015 Hackaday Prize with the OpenBionics Initiative
Oct 2015: Released an assembly guide for the OpenBionics prostheses
Sep 2015: Won the Robotdalen Innovation Award with the OpenBionics Initiative
Jul 2015: Paper accepted to IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
Jan 2015: Released an assembly guide for the OpenBionics robot hands
Videos & Presentations
You can check my YouTube channel for more videos and presentations.Contact
Email: kont@umd.edu
Office: 3242 Kim Engineering Building, College Park, MD 20742, USA