Stephen L. Smith
Professor, University of Waterloo
Research Group
Please see the Autonomous Systems Lab webpage for more detailed information on my research group.Postdoctoral Researchers
- Shamak Dutta (s7dutta (at) uwaterloo.ca)
- Research: Large-scale fleet optimization for planning and coordination
- Ali Noormohammadi Asl (a.noormohammadi (at) uwaterloo.ca)
- co-supervised with Kerstin Dautenhahn
- Research: Human-robot collaborative assembly
PhD Students
- Ruiqi Li (r298li (at) uwaterloo.ca)
- co-supervised with John Simpson-Porco
- Research: Data-driven control for autonomous systems
- Barry Gilhuly (barry.gilhuly (at) uwaterloo.ca)
- Research: Active perception and planning in dynamic environments
- Megnath Ramesh (m5ramesh (at) uwaterloo.ca)
- co-supervised with Baris Fidan
- Research: Motion planning for cleaning dynamic environments
- Tim Liusko (tim.liusko (at) uwaterloo.ca)
- Research: Planning and perception in dynamic scenes
MASc Students
- Ninghan Zhong (n5zhong (at) uwaterloo.ca)
- Research: Learning motion planners for uncertain environments
- Avraiem Isklander (avraiem.isklander (at) uwaterloo.ca)
- Research: Autonomous Ship Navigation in ice-covered waters
- Murphy Wu (x334wu (at) uwaterloo.ca)
- co-supervised with Michael Fisher
- Research: Learning-based tuning of model predictive controllers
- Anna Moskalenko (amoskalenko (at) uwaterloo.ca)
- Research: Safe and Legible robot navigation
- Jack Dai (zf3dai (at) uwaterloo.ca)
- co-supervised with Yash Vardhan Pant
- Research: Risk-aware motion planning with complex specifications
- Steven Caro (s2caro (at) uwaterloo.ca)
- Research: Learning environment physics for interactive robot planning
Past Postdocs
- Alex Botros (Postdoc, 2022-2023)
- Research: Lattice planners for efficient motion planning.
- Current Location: Director of Machine Learning and AI, Integrus, Hong Kong.
- Armin Sadeghi (Postdoc, 2021-2022)
- Research: Informative and safe local planning for autonomous vehicles.
- Current Location: Software Engineer, RideCo On-Demand Transit, Waterloo, ON
- Nils Wilde (Postdoc, 2020-2021)
- Research: Active preference learning for human-robot interaction
- Current Location: Assistant Professor, Computer Science, Dalhousie University
- Pamela Carreno Medrano (Postdoc, 2017-2019)
- Research: Human-robot collaboration for joint assembly tasks.
- Current Location: Lecturer (Assistant Professor) of Electrical and Computer Systems Eng., Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Past PhD Students
- Ali Noormohammadi Asl (PhD, Apr 2024)
- Thesis: Preference and Performance-Based Adaptive Task Planning in Human-Robot Collaboration
- co-supervised with Kerstin Dautenhahn
- Next Location: Postdoc in Autonomous Systems Lab, University of Waterloo
- Shamak Dutta (PhD, Apr 2024)
- Thesis: Resource Constrained Linear Estimation in Sensor Scheduling and Informative Path Planning
- Next Location: Postdoc in Autonomous Systems Lab, University of Waterloo
- Chuanzheng Wang (PhD, Feb 2024)
- co-supervised with Jun Liu
- Thesis: Safety-Critical Control for Dynamical Systems under Uncertainties
- Current Location: Senior Researcher at GeologicAI, in Markham, ON
- Abhinav Dahiya (PhD, Dec 2023)
- Thesis: Route Planning and Operator Allocation in Robot Fleets
- Next Location: Senior Researcher, General Motors, Warren, MI
- Alexander Botros (PhD, Dec 2021)
- Thesis: Lattice-Based Motion Planning with Optimal Motion Primitives
- Next Location: Postdoc in Autonomous Systems Lab, University of Waterloo
- Armin Sadeghi (PhD, Sept 2020)
- Thesis: Multi-robot Coverage and Redeployment Algorithms
- Next Location: Postdoc in Autonomous Systems Lab, University of Waterloo
- Nils Wilde (PhD, Sept 2020)
- Thesis: Specifying User Preferences for Autonomous Robots through Interactive Learning
- co-supervised with Dana Kulic
- Current Location: Postdoc at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Netherlands
- Next Location: Postdoc in Autonomous Systems Lab, University of Waterloo
- Ahmad Bilal Asghar (PhD, May 2020)
- Thesis: Multi-Robot Path Planning for Persistent Monitoring in Stochastic and Adversarial Environments
- Current Location: Postdoc, University of Maryland
-
Frank Imeson (PhD, Apr 2018)
- Thesis: Robotic Path Planning for High-Level Tasks in Discrete Environments
- Current Location: Senior Software Developer at Avidbots Corp. in Waterloo, ON.
- Haotian Zhang (PhD, Aug. 2016)
- Thesis: Estimation and Control of Dynamical Systems with Applications to Multi-Processor Systems
- Co-advised with Shreyas Sundaram
- Current Location: Software Engineer at Meta, Toronto
Past MASc Students
- Ahmed Hamouda (MASc, Oct 2024)
- Thesis: Uncertainty-aware motion planning for ground vehicle in unstructured uneven off-road terrain
- co-supervised with Baris Fidan
- Current Location: Robotics Engineer, Clearpath Robotics by Rockwell Automation, Kitchener, ON
- Rodrigue de Schaetzen (MASc, Aug 2024)
- Research: Autonomous navigation of vessels in icy waters
- Thesis: Local Navigation for Autonomous Maneuvering of Marine Vessels in Broken Ice Fields
- Current Location: PhD Student, Université de Montréal and Mila
- Anni Yue (MASc, Oct 2023)
- Yifan Cai (MASc, Jan 2023)
- Jean-Luc Bastarache (MASc, Nov 2022)
- co-supervised with Chris Nielsen
- Thesis: On Legible and Predictable Robot Navigation in Multi-Agent Environments
- Current Location: Software Engineer at Nokia, Ottawa, ON
- Olzhas Adiyatov (MASc, Aug 2022)
- co-supervised with Baris Fidan
- Thesis: Path Planning Framework for Unmanned Ground Vehicles on Uneven Terrain
- Current Location: Software Engineer at Christie Digital, Kitchener, ON
- Thesis: Submodular Maximization Subject to Information Constraints
- Current Location: AI Engineer at RBC Capital Markets, in Toronto
- Thesis: Dead Reckoning for Distributed Network Online Games
- Current Location: Technical Engineer at Swap Robotics, in Waterloo
- co-supervised with Chris Nielsen
- Thesis: A Pursuit Evasion Game Approach to Obstacle Avoidance
- Current Location: Embedded Software Engineer at Ciena, in Toronto
- Thesis: Coverage Path Planning for a Moving Vehicle
- Current location: PhD Student, University of Waterloo
- Thesis: Learning a Motion Policy to Navigate Environments with Structured Uncertainty
- Current Location: Software Engineer at Avidbots in Waterloo, ON.
- Thesis: Motion Planning and Safety for Autonomous Driving
- co-supervised with Krzysztof Czarnecki.
- Current Location: Software Engineer at Waymo in Mountain View, CA.
- Thesis: Assessing User Specifications of Robot Behaviour for Material Transport Tasks
- co-supervised with Dana Kulic
- Current Location: QA Developer, Apple Inc., Cupertino CA.
- Thesis: Robotic Motion Planning in Uncertain Environments via Active Sensing
- Current Location: Lead Embedded Developer at GEOTAB, Kitchener, ON.
- Thesis: Minimizing Turns in Single and Multi Robot Coverage Path Planning
- Current Location: Senior Software Developer at Darwin AI in Waterloo, ON
- Thesis: Distributed Task Allocation and Task Sequencing for Robots with Motion Constraints
- Next Location: PhD Student, University of Waterloo
- Thesis: Robot Patrolling for Stochastic and Adversarial Events
- Next Location: PhD Student, University of Waterloo
- Thesis: Discrete Path Planing Strategies for Coverage and Multi-Robot Rendezvous
- Current Location: Co-founder and CEO at Placenote, Waterloo, ON and Mountain View, CA
- Thesis: Informative Path Planning and Sensor Scheduling for Persistent Monitoring Tasks
- Current location: Software Engineer, National Instruments in Austin, TX
- Thesis: Cardinality Constrained Robust Optimization Applied to a Class of Interval Observers
- Current location: Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Toronto
- Thesis: On Two Combinatorial Optimization Problems in Graphs: Grid Domination and Robustness
- Current location: Assistant Professor of Management Analytics, Queen's University, Canada.
- Previous location: PhD Student, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
Past Undergraduate/Visiting Students
- Sara Taghizadeh Kakhki (Winter 2022 - Winter 2023)
- Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo
- Ansar Khan (Spring 2022)
- Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo
- Neil Brubacher (Spring 2020)
- Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo
- Yingzi Zhang (Fall 2016 - Spring 2017)
- Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, University of Waterloo
- Michael Zechmair (Spring - Fall 2016)
- Master's Student
- Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Technische Universität München (TUM)
- Shamak Dutta (Spring 2016)
- Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo
- Edward Wang (Fall 2015)
- Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo
- Jamie Waugh (Spring-Fall 2014)
- Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo
- Andrew Perkins (Fall 2013)
- Electrical and Computer Systems and Computer Science, Monash University, Australia
- Danson Evan Garcia (Fall 2012 - Spring 2013)
- Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, University of Waterloo
- Sebastian Schweigert (Spring 2013)
- Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo
- Zhaowei (Charlie) Wang (Winter 2013)
- Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo
- Joao Pedro Battistella Nadas (Fall 2012)
- University Federal Technological of Parana, Brazil.
- Ross McCandless (Fall 2012 - Winter 2013)
- Co-op high school student.
- Jingwei (Henry) Zhu (July-Aug 2012)
- The University of Hong Kong.
- Mohammadreza Memarian (Fall 2011 - Winter 2012)
- Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo
- Zhixu Han (Winter 2012)
- Nanjing University, China
Prospective Students
If you are interested in joining my research group, please feel free to send me an email. In the email you should indicate your background in areas such as control, robotics, mathematics and optimization. Also be sure to indicate some specific aspects of my research that you are interested in.