Robotics Researcher now at UC Berkeley
Bayesian Methods, Cooperative Control, Searching and Tracking

Email: b.lavis(at)UNSWalumni.com
 
Research interests:

• Cooperative Searching and Tracking
• Probabilistic State Estimation
• Optimal Control
• Adaptive Search Spaces
• Marine Search and Rescue
• Environment Estimation
• Crowd Evacuation Modelling

Education:
PhD, Mechatronics, The University of New South Wales, Australia, 2005 - 2008
Exchange: Mechatronics Laboratory, Kyoto University, Japan 2006 - 2007
BE (Hons 1), Mechatronics, The University of New South Wales, Australia, 2004

Awards:
2005 - 2007 University Postgraduate Award (Scholarship)
2004 - The University Medal in Mechatronics (for the best overall performance in the Mechatronic Engineering Program - more info)
2004 - RS Components Prize for Engineering Excellence (for the best performance in the final year of the Mechatronic Engineering Program)
2004 - Faculty of Engineering, Dean's Honours List (more info)
2001 - 2004 Faculty of Engineering Rural Scholarship

Publications
PhD Thesis
Spatially Reconfigurable and Non-Parametric Representation of Dynamic Bayesian Beliefs, 2008 [access online]

Journal Articles / Book Chapters
Benjamin Lavis, Tomonari Furukawa and Hugh F. Durrant-Whyte, "Dynamic space reconfiguration for Bayesian search and tracking with moving targets," Autonomous Robots, vol. 24 (4), Springer, May 2008, pp. 387-399. [access online]

Tomonari Furukawa, Benjamin Lavis and Hugh F. Durrant-Whyte, "Element-based method – a new recursive Bayesian estimation technique for search and tracking," IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 14 pages, submitted.

Benjamin Lavis & Tomonari Furukawa, "Dynamic search spaces for coordinated autonomous marine search and tracking," New Trends In Applied Artificial Intelligence, Eds. H. G. Okuno & M. Ali, Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 4570/2007, Springer, Berlin, 2007, pp 1032-1041.

Conference Papers
Benjamin Lavis & Tomonari Furukawa, "HyPE: Hybrid Particle-Element Approach for Recursive Bayesian Searching-and-Tracking", Robotics: Science and Systems 2008, Zurich, Switzerland, June 25-28, 2008, accepted April 2008, 8 pages.

Benjamin Lavis, Yasuyoshi Yokokohji & Tomonari Furukawa, "Estimation and control for cooperative autonomous searching in crowded urban emergencies", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 19-23 2008, Pasadena California, USA, accepted December 2007.

Benjamin Lavis, Tomonari Furukawa & Yasuyoshi Yokokohji, "Particle filters for estimation and control in search and rescue using heterogeneous UAVs", in Proc. International Conference on Computational Intelligence, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Palmerston North, New Zealand, Nov 28-30, 2007, pp 217-222.

Tomonari Furukawa, Hugh F. Durrant-Whyte & Benjamin Lavis, "The element-based method - theory and its application to Bayesian search and tracking," in Proc. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, San Diego, October 29-Nov 2, 2007, pp. 2807-2812.

Tomonari Furukawa, Frederic Bourgault, Benjamin Lavis & Hugh F. Durrant-Whyte, "Recursive Bayesian search-and-tracking using coordinated UAVs for lost targets," in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Orlando, FL, May 2006, pp 2521-2526.