Invited by the Institute of Electronic Information Technology and Automatic Reasoning and Cognitive Research Center, Dr. Yan-Bin Jia, from Iowa State University, visited Chongqing Institute of Green and Intelligent Technology (CIGIT) on Aug 13, 2014. 

    Dr. Jia gave a public presentation titled “Robot Grasping of Deformable Objects” at the academic hall of CIGIT. Dr. Jia described some recent progress made by his group on grasping of deformable planar objects under Coulomb friction. He introduced a grasping paradigm that specifies the finger displacements rather than the forces it uses. He also proposed an event-based algorithm for handling the high modeling cost from repeated deformation updates. 

    This public presentation was chaired by Prof. Yong Feng, the deputy director of the Institute of Electronic Information Technology. Researchers Yao Li, Bin Zheng and Guotian He, the vice director of the Robotics and Intelligent Equipment Innovation Research Center, participated the meeting. After the meeting, Dr. Jia communicated with the audience of CIGIT with interests in relevant areas. 

    Yan-Bin Jia is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Iowa State University.  His research interests in robotics include modeling and grasping of deformable objects, compliant multi-body impacts, and shape from tactile data.  He was an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering in 2008-2011 and a co-editor of a Special Issue (on Tactile Presence) of the International Journal of Robotics Research in 2000. He also served on the Conference Editorial Board of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society in 2006-2008 and 2014.  

   Dr. Jia received the US National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2002. His papers have included a Semi-Finalist for the Best Conference Paper Award and a Finalist for the Anton Philips Best Student Paper Award at the IEEE International Conferences on Robotics and Automation in 1996 and 1998, respectively, and a Finalist for the IEEE Transactions on Robotics King-Sun Fu Memorial Best Paper Award in 2010.