Dr. Michael Lanighan
Dr. Lanighan is a roboticist broadly interested in increasing the autonomous capabilities of robot systems. He has led small teams of engineers and scientists in research efforts funded by NASA, USAF, and USN exploring motion planning, generative AI, shared autonomy, and planning under
uncertainty. His work has spanned the TRL spectrum, from proof-of-concept technology demonstrations to deployed production systems.
_education
2012 B.S. Physics and Computer Science, Canisius College. Buffalo NY
2015 M.S. Computer Science, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Amherst MA
2019 Ph.D. Computer Science, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Amherst MA
_publications
M.W. Lanighan and O. Younquist. Leveraging Opportunism in Sample-Based Motion Planning. In Proceedings of the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). Yokohama, Japan, May 2024.
M.W. Lanighan and O. Younquist. Online Fault Detection in Manipulation Tasks via Generative Models. In Proceedings of the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). Yokohama, Japan, May 2024.
S. Hart, A. Huaman Quispe, M.W. Lanighan, and S. Gee. Generalized Affordance Templates for Mobile Manipulation. In Proceedings of the 2022 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). Philadelphia, USA, May 2022.
S.J. Jorgensen, M.W. Lanighan, et al. Deploying the NASA Valkyrie Humanoid for IED Response: An Initial Approach and Evaluation Summary. In Proceedings of the IEEE-RAS 19th International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids). Toronto, Canada, October 2019.
M.W. Lanighan and R.A. Grupen. Long-term Autonomous Mobile Manipulation under Uncertainty. In Proceedings of the 2019 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS). Montreal, Canada, May 2019.
M.W. Lanighan , T. Takahashi, and R.A. Grupen. Planning Robust Manual Tasks in Hierarchical Belief Spaces. In Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS). Delft, The Netherlands, June 2018.
T. Takahashi, M.W. Lanighan , and R.A. Grupen. Intrinsically Motivated Self-Supervised Deep Sensorimotor Learning for Grasping. In Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). Madrid, Spain, October 2018.
T. Takahashi, M.W. Lanighan , and R.A. Grupen. Hybrid Task Planning Grounded in Belief: Constructing Physical Copies of Simple Structures. In Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS). Pittsburgh, USA, June 2017.
D. Ruiken, J.M. Wong, T.Q. Liu, M. Hebert, T. Takahashi, M.W. Lanighan , and R.A. Grupen. Affordance-Based Active Belief: Recognition using Visual and Manual Actions. In Proceedings of the 2016 International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). Daejeon, Korea, October 2016.
S. Gee, M.W. Lanighan, and B. Ames, and R. Burridge Toward Performing a Filter-Vacuuming Procedure Using a Humanoid Robot on ISS. In Proceedings of The International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space (ISAIRAS). Beijing, China, June 2016.
