Stephen L. Smith - Research

Research Group

Please see the Autonomous Systems Lab webpage for more detailed information on my research group.

PhD Students

Shamak Dutta (s7dutta (at) uwaterloo.ca)
- Research: Adaptive robot sampling and mapping
Ruiqi Li (r298li (at) uwaterloo.ca)
- co-supervised with John Simpson-Porco
- Research: Data-driven control for autonomous systems
Ali Noormohammadi Asl (a.noormohammadi (at) uwaterloo.ca)
- co-supervised with Kerstin Dautenhahn
- Research: Human-robot collaborative assembly
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
Rodrigue de Schaetzen (rdeschae (at) uwaterloo.ca)
- Research: Autonomous navigation of vessels in icy waters
Jack Dai (zf3dai (at) uwaterloo.ca)
- co-supervised with Yash Vardhan Pant
- Research: Risk-aware motion planning with complex specifications
Ahmed Hamouda (ahmed.hamouda (at) uwaterloo.ca)
- co-supervised with Baris Fidan
- Research: Safe path planning and coordination in off-road environments
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: Postdoc at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Netherlands
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

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
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

Anni Yue (MASc, Oct 2023)
- Thesis: Minimizing Robot Digging Times to Retrieve Bins in Robotic-Based Compact Storage and Retrieval Systems
Yifan Cai (MASc, Jan 2023)
- Thesis: Online Scheduling of Operator Assistance for Multi-Robot Teams with Uncertain Robot Capabilities and Environments
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
Andrew Downie (MASc, Apr 2022)
- Thesis: Submodular Maximization Subject to Information Constraints
- Current Location: AI Engineer at RBC Capital Markets, in Toronto
Tristan Walker (MASc, May 2021)
- Thesis: Dead Reckoning for Distributed Network Online Games
- Current Location: Technical Engineer at Swap Robotics, in Waterloo
Frank Wang (MASc, Apr 2021)
- co-supervised with Chris Nielsen
- Thesis: A Pursuit Evasion Game Approach to Obstacle Avoidance
- Current Location: Embedded Software Engineer at Ciena, in Toronto
Barry Gilhuly (MASc, Apr 2020)
- Thesis: Coverage Path Planning for a Moving Vehicle
- Current location: PhD Student, University of Waterloo
Florence Tsang (MASc, Jan 2020)
- Thesis: Learning a Motion Policy to Navigate Environments with Structured Uncertainty
- Current Location: Software Engineer at Avidbots in Waterloo, ON.
Ryan De Iaco (MASc, Dec 2019)
- Thesis: Motion Planning and Safety for Autonomous Driving
- co-supervised with Krzysztof Czarnecki.
- Current Location: Software Engineer at Waymo in Mountain View, CA.
Alexandru Blidaru (MASc, Sept 2019)
- Thesis: Assessing User Specifications of Robot Behaviour for Material Transport Tasks
- co-supervised with Dana Kulic
- Current Location: QA Developer, Apple Inc., Cupertino CA.
Ryan MacDonald (MASc, Sept 2017)
- Thesis: Robotic Motion Planning in Uncertain Environments via Active Sensing
- Current Location: Lead Embedded Developer at GEOTAB, Kitchener, ON.
Stanislav Bochkarev (MASc, Jan 2017)
- Thesis: Minimizing Turns in Single and Multi Robot Coverage Path Planning
- Current Location: Senior Software Developer at Darwin AI in Waterloo, ON
Armin Sadeghi (MASc, May 2016)
- Thesis: Distributed Task Allocation and Task Sequencing for Robots with Motion Constraints
- Next Location: PhD Student, University of Waterloo
Ahmad Bilal Asghar (MASc, Sept. 2015)
- Thesis: Robot Patrolling for Stochastic and Adversarial Events
- Next Location: PhD Student, University of Waterloo
Neil Mathew (MASc, Jan. 2014)
- 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
Talha Jawaid (MASc, Sept. 2013)
- Thesis: Informative Path Planning and Sensor Scheduling for Persistent Monitoring Tasks
- Current location: Software Engineer, National Instruments in Austin, TX
Philip McCarthy (MASc, Sept. 2013)
- Thesis: Cardinality Constrained Robust Optimization Applied to a Class of Interval Observers
- Current location: Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Toronto
Elaheh Fata (MASc, Aug. 2013)
- 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.