Andrew Bennett

Andrew Bennett
Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering
USA

Biography

In addition to his role on the faculty at Olin College, Dr. Bennett is responsible for developing the SCOPE program, establishing the strategic corporate partnerships that support it and directing the student/faculty SCOPE teams. He has more than 20 years of R&D experience developing novel robot systems for land, water and air use. In 1985-86 Dr. Bennett worked at the Stanford Department of Mechanical Engineering on a novel robotic all-terrain vehicle. From 1991-97 he worked on a variety of autonomous underwater vehicles at the MIT AUV lab, including the Sea Squirt, Odyssey I, Odyssey II and the WHOI Autonomous Benthic Explorer. From 1997-98 he worked on control systems for underwater vehicles and SSTO rocket systems at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory. From 1998 to 2000 he worked for Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development where he helped create a full-sized walking quadruped robot technology demonstrator and several ride effects currently installed in Disney’s Animal Kingdom. From 2000-08 he was Director of Research and the Division Technology Officer (DTO) for iRobot’s Government and Industrial Robotics division where he oversaw all research and technology development and related activities. At iRobot he was also the Program Manager in charge of developing the PackBot mobile robot system under the DARPA Tactical Mobile Robotics (TMR) Program. From 2008-10 Dr. Bennett was the VP for Research & Development at Scientific Systems Company, Inc. of Waltham, MA where he oversaw technical direction for a variety of cutting edge control and sensor development programs. Dr. Bennett served on numerous advisory boards, including the medical advisory board to the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Two samples of Dr. Bennett\\s work, the PackBot and the MIT Daedalus 88, are displayed at the Smithsonian Museum. He is a member of numerous professional societies including the AIAA, IEEE Ocean Engineering Society, the Association of Computing Machines (ACM), the Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME).

Research Interest

high level robot system architecture, with a focus on heterogeneous collaboration between humans and multiple autonomous systems (land, sea, air, space).