Facilities
MRC faculty and affiliates preparing proposals: click here for a complete list of MRC facilities useful for inclusion in a proposal.
Currently MRC facilities are available with 100% capacity without physical distancing requirements for authorized researchers provided they observe the 4Maryland guidelines within lab space.
Orientation for new MRC users and training on MRC equipment is available. Please submit your requests to the Lab Manager at ipenskiy@umd.edu.
MRC Facilities 100% Capacity Statement
MRC Facilities
Brin Family Aerial Robotics Lab
Brin Family Aerial Robotics Lab is a new facility designed for testing flying and ground robotic platforms. The lab has 15 ft high 430 sq.ft netted area for safe quadcopter tests, state-of-the-art Vicon motion capture system, and a workbench with tools for support and maintenance of drones. The lab works as a shared facility and provides access to all MRC faculty and affiliated students. Questions regarding lab usage should be addressed to the lab manager (Ivan Penskiy, ipenskiy@umd.edu).
Robotics and Autonomy Laboratory
The Robotics and Autonomy Laboratory is a multi-functional space on the 3rd floor of the E.A. Fernandez IDEA Factory. RAL functions as a shared research and education facility for all MRC faculty and affiliated students. It supports mobile robotics research, robotics prototyping and manufacturing, and optical inspection equipment.
Robotics Manipulator Lab
Robotics Manipulator Lab features several state-of-the-art manipulators (2 x KUKA LBR iiwa 7, Sawyer, Baxter, UR3e, UR5e) as well as various interchangeable robotic grippers. Manipulators can be easily repositioned into different configurations to allow for collaborative projects with multiple manipulators. The lab works as a shared facility and provides access to all MRC faculty and affiliated students. Questions regarding lab usage should be addressed to the lab manager Ivan Penskiy, ipenskiy@umd.edu.
Robotics Realization Laboratory
The Robotics Realization Laboratory focuses on designing, building, and testing novel robot designs. This is a student centered space that also supports the NSF REU Site program at the University of Maryland focused on Bioinspired Robotics. This lab has been used to test several bio-inspired robotics platforms. These include walking and swimming quadrupeds. This lab has also been used to test small custom made uncrewed ground vehicles.
Affiliated Facilities
Fearless Flight Facility (F3)
The Fearless Flight Facility (F3) is the only university outdoor flight laboratory for testing unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia region.
Maryland Autonomous Technology Research and Innovation Xploration (MATRIX) Lab
Located in the University System of Maryland at Southern Maryland (USMSM) Southern Maryland Autonomous Research and Technology (SMART) Building, the MATRIX Lab features state-of-the-art facilities for autonomous vehicle research including an 80’ by 60’ open air-land lab with an amphibious pool, a hydrology lab featuring a circulating water channel with a 80 cm by 130 cm cross-section, an AR/VR capable research space, roof-top antenna farm, and outdoor ground and air vehicle testing. Expected opening spring 2022.
Neutral Buoyancy Research Facility
Principal Investigator(s): David Akin
The Neutral Buoyancy Research Facility is a one-of-a-kind world-class facility, the largest such facility on a university campus, as well as the only one with underwater motion capture.
University of Maryland Unmanned Aircraft Systems Test Site
The University of Maryland Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Test Site is a research and operations facility based in California, Maryland that works with university, government, and private partners to advance UAS research and demonstrate operational capabilities.
Faculty Labs
Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory (AML)
Principal Investigator(s): Hugh Bruck
The focus of the lab is on both process as well as system level manufacturing solutions. The current research activities include manufacturing process and system simulation, process planning, production planning, manufacturability analysis, and nanomaterial processing. Current facilities include injection molding, CNC machining, ceramic gel casting, in-mold assembly, layered manufacturing, power processing, high temperature sintering, and resin transfer molding.
Advanced Robotics Development Laboratory
Principal Investigator(s): David Akin, Craig Carignan
The Advanced Robotics Development Laboratory is a complete spacecraft integration facility that includes rapid prototyping equipment, a class 10,000 cleanroom, high-precision metrology instrumentation, a thermal chamber, and a thermal vacuum chamber.
Autonomy Robotics Cognition Lab
Principal Investigator(s): John S. Baras, Yiannis Aloimonos, Don Perlis, Cornelia Fermüller
The ARC lab brings together leading-edge approaches in systems engineering, autonomous robotics, computer vision, and cognitive computation to create a diverse research environment supported by experts in multiple domains.
Collaborative Controls and Robotics Laboratory
Principal Investigator(s): Yancy Diaz-Mercado
The Collaborative Controls and Robotics Laboratory (CCRL) focuses on developing collaborative autonomy in multi-agent systems using tools from network and optimal control theory with a range of applications from human-swarm interactions, wind-field monitoring for energy harvesting, and autonomous surgery.
Collective Dynamics and Control Laboratory
Principal Investigator(s): Derek A. Paley
The long-term goal of this lab is to improve our understanding of collective behavior in biological groups and to apply this understanding to synthesize bio-inspired motion-coordination algorithms for autonomous robots.
Computational Sensorimotor Systems Laboratory (CSSL)
Principal Investigator(s): Timothy Horiuchi
CSS laboratory is dedicated to the understanding and silicon implementation of the neural algorithms that support bat echolocation and echolocation-guided navigation in airborne vehicles. With a focus on sensorimotor problems, our main interest lies in adaptive sensing that gathers data specific to changing task specifications and changing levels of data quality.
CPS & Cooperative Autonomy Laboratory
Principal Investigator(s): Nuno Martins
The CPS and Cooperative Autonomy Laboratory houses projects related to cyber-physical systems and it focuses on the implementation of decentralized algorithms for control, coordination, estimation and detection.
ECE Autonomous Systems Laboratory
Principal Investigator(s): Gil Blankenship
The Autonomous Systems Lab (ASL) is involved in several areas of research. A primary focus of the lab is Cooperative Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) using a “network” of robots. We work with Inertial Navigation Units (INU), odometry-based sensors, and vision systems. Sensor fusion, mobile mesh networking, and image processing are all areas of research within the lab. The ASL also supports the ECE Capstone Design Course ENEE408I Autonomous Robotics.
Integrated Biomorphic Information Systems Lab
Principal Investigator(s): Pamela Abshire
The lab’s vision is to understand interactions among communication and computing and the physical world in which we. To accomplish these goals, the lab is developing hybrid bioelectronic systems, incorporating principles of adaptation into electronic systems, and working to understand performance-resource tradeoffs in biology and microelectronics. This research aims to create new hardware for sensing, computing, and communicating under severe resource constraints – particularly for applications in miniature and autonomous robots..
Intelligent Servosystems Laboratory
Principal Investigator(s): P. S. Krishnaprasad
The Intelligent Servosystems Laboratory (ISL) was the first lab in the Institute for Systems Research devoted to problems in robotics.
Intelligent Systems Laboratory, Center for Technology and Systems Management
Principal Investigator(s): Bilal M. Ayyub
The 21st century will see the dawn of intelligent systems. The 19th century gave rise to advanced mechanical systems, and the 20th century to electro-mechanical systems.
Laboratory for Microtechnologies
Principal Investigator(s): Elisabeth Smela
The Laboratory for MicroTechnologies has state-of-the art facilities for realizing next-generation micro-scale to meso-scale polymer robots. We are developing new actuation technologies, based on soft materials that utilize electrochemical, electroosmotic, and electrostatic phenomena. The lab has the following capabilities.
Multi-Scale Measurements Laboratory
Principal Investigator(s): Hugh Bruck
The Multi-scale Measurements Laboratory conducts research on composite and non-composite materials of various length scales.
It conducts state-of-the-art microstructural and nanostrural characterization as well as mechanical and thermal analysis of these materials.
Multiscale Biomaterials Engineering Laboratory
Principal Investigator(s): Xiaoming (Shawn) He
The Multiscale Biomaterials Engineering Laboratory is focused on developing novel microfluidic,
nanoscale, and stem-cell technologies for the treatment and early detection of various diseases
including but not limited to cancer, reproductive disorders, cardiovascular and
neurodegenerative diseases. The laboratory is capable of performing chemical synthesis,
production and characterization of micro and nanoparticles of various biomaterials (e.g.,
hydrogel, polymer, lipid, silica, and carbon), freeze-drying, high temperature and vacuum drying,
soft lithography, cell culture, thermal analysis, photothermal therapy, magnetothermal therapy,
cryotherapy, cryopreservation, and real time digital imaging.
Neuromechanics Research Core
Principal Investigator(s): Jae Kun Shim
The UMD Neuromechanics Research Core studies neural and mechanical mechanisms of human movements in general. The current research focus includes locomotion in persons with lower extremity amputations and footwear, hand and multi-digit actions of people with neurological disorders, and sensory processing mechanisms.
Perception and Robotics Group
Principal Investigator(s): Yiannis Aloimonos, Cornelia Fermüller
Perception and Robotics Group works on active and bio-inspired perception and tests their theories by developing implementations in robotic systems, specifically autonomous drones and humanoid robots. In this way, they need to develop an integration of perception, with control, planning, reasoning and language in new cognitive architectures. A long term goal in the lab is the understanding of human activity. This led to the development of grammars for action which opened a new way for imitation learning in robotics, where learning happens at the level of the sub-goals in the action and not only at the level of the movement.