John J. Leonard

Infobox Scientist
name = John J. Leonard

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residence = United States
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nationality = American
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fields = Robotics
workplaces = Massachusetts Institute of Technology
alma_mater = University of Oxford University of Pennsylvania
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known_for = SLAM
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John J. Leonard is an American roboticist and Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A member of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), Leonard is a renowned researcher in simultaneous localization and mapping,cite book
author = Leonard, J.J.
coauthors = Durrant-whyte, H.F.
year = 1992
title = Directed Sonar Sensing for Mobile Robot Navigation
publisher = Springer
isbn = ] cite journal
author = Leonard, J.J.
coauthors = Durrant-whyte, H.F.; Cox, I.J.
year = 1992
title = Dynamic Map Building for an Autonomous Mobile Robot
journal = The International Journal of Robotics Research
volume = 11
issue = 4
pages = 286
url = http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/11/4/286
accessdate = 2008-07-09] and was the team lead for MIT's 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge Team, one of the six teams to cross the finish line in the final event, placing fourth overall.

Leonard received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1987 and his Ph.D. in Engineering Science from the University of Oxford in 1994, under the Thouron Fellowship. He spent five years as a postdoctoral fellow and Research Scientist in the MIT Sea Grant Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Laboratory, and joined the MIT faculty in 1996.

Leonard has served as an associate editor of the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering and of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation. He received the National Science Foundation Career Award in 1998, an E.T.S. Walton Visitor Award from Science Foundation Ireland in 2004, and the King-Sun Fu Memorial Best IEEE Transactions on Robotics Paper Award in 2006.

Leonard describes his primary research goal as persistent autonomy, i.e., the "capability for one or more robots to operate robustly for days, weeks and months at a time with minimal human supervision, in complex, dynamic environments". [http://cml.mit.edu/~jleonard/] Leonard focuses on the problem of simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), particularly for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV); In 2005, Leonard demonstrated a vision-based 6 DOF SLAM algorithm for mapping the RMS Titanic.citation
last1 = Eustice | first1 = R.
last2 = Singh | first2 = H.
last3 = Leonard | first3 = J.
last4 = Walter | first4 = M.
last5 = Ballard | first5 = R.
year = 2005
title = Visually navigating the RMS Titanic with SLAM information filters
journal = Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems
url = http://cml.mit.edu/~jleonard/pubs/eustice05b.pdf]

References

External links

* [http://cml.mit.edu/~jleonard/ Home page]
* [http://grandchallenge.mit.edu/index.shtml MIT DGC home]