Robohub.org
ep.

172

podcast
 

by
27 December 2014



share this:


two

In this episode, Audrow Nash speaks with Professor John Leonard from MIT about his research on dense, object-based 3D Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM).

Leonard explains what SLAM is, as well as its practical applications. The explanations include what it means for SLAM to be object-based (versus feature-based) and to have dense (versus sparse) environmental mapping. The interview closes with advice for aspiring roboticists.

John Leonard
jleonard_05_nov2014John J. Leonard is Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering and Associate Department Head for Research in the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering. He is also a member of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). His research addresses the problems of navigation and mapping for autonomous mobile robots. He holds the degrees of B.S.E.E. in Electrical Engineering and Science from the University of Pennsylvania (1987) and D.Phil. in Engineering Science from the University of Oxford (1994). He studied at Oxford under a Thouron Fellowship and Research Assistantship funded by the ESPRIT program of the European Community. Prof. Leonard joined the MIT faculty in 1996, after five years as a Post-Doctoral Fellow and Research Scientist in the MIT Sea Grant Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Laboratory. He has served an associate editor of the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering and of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation. He was team leader for MIT’s DARPA Urban Challenge team, which was one of eleven teams to qualify for the Urban Challenge final event and one of six teams to complete the race. He is the recipient of an NSF Career Award (1998), an E.T.S. Walton Visitor Award from Science Foundation Ireland (2004), the King-Sun Fu Memorial Best Transactions on Robotics Paper Award (2006), and he is an IEEE Fellow (2014).

Links:



tags:


Audrow Nash is a Software Engineer at Open Robotics and the host of the Sense Think Act Podcast
Audrow Nash is a Software Engineer at Open Robotics and the host of the Sense Think Act Podcast

            AUAI is supported by:



Subscribe to Robohub newsletter on substack



Related posts :

Interactive world simulator for robot policy training and evaluation

  20 Jul 2026
Yixuan Wang discusses his faithful world simulator that allows robots to learn how to push, pick up, and grasp objects.

Undergrads’ weed-killing robot wins top prize

  17 Jul 2026
Their robot can travel through a vineyard or orchard without a human operator, zapping weeds with a small amount of electricity.

A flapping robot swims and flies like a diving bird

  15 Jul 2026
An aerial-aquatic vehicle developed at EPFL and MIT could lead to a new class of devices for ocean exploration.

Wristband enables wearers to control a robotic hand with their own movements

  13 Jul 2026
By moving their hands and fingers, users can direct a robot to play the piano, shoot a basketball, or manipulate objects in a virtual environment.

#RoboCup2026 social media round-up

  08 Jul 2026
Find out what the teams got up to at this year's RoboCup extravaganza in Incheon.

#RoboCup2026 – humanoid league knockout stages

  06 Jul 2026
Find out who won the small, middle and large divisions in Incheon.

#RoboCup2026 – humanoid league day 2

  03 Jul 2026
Find out the latest from day two of the competition.

Reflections from ICRA 2026

  02 Jul 2026
From dancing robots to moral machines: our Assistant Editor reflects on ICRA 2026.



AUAI is supported by:







Subscribe to Robohub newsletter on substack




 















©2026.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence