Sigal Berman

Department of Industrial Engineering & Management

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel

Tel: +972 8 6479785

Fax: +972 8 6472958

Short Biography:

I completed my B.Sc. degree at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in 1991. I then moved to Beer-Sheva and completed my M.Sc. degree at the Department Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Ben–Gurion University of the Negev in 1993. My advisor was Prof. Arnon Cohen. During 1993-1995 I worked as a software engineer for Elta systems group. In 1995 I rejoined the Ben–Gurion University of the Negev as head of the manufacturing laboratories at the Department Industrial Engineering and Management, where I later completed my Ph.D. in 2002. My thesis was about the development and testing of an autonomous automatic guided vehicle system for material handling. My Advisors were Prof. Yael Edan and Prof. Mo Jamshidi. During 1997-1999 I worked as a research assistant at the NASA ACE center at the University of New-Mexico. From 2003 to 2005 I worked at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Weizmann Instituted of Science as a postdoctoral fellow. My host was Prof. Tamar Flash. In 2007 I re-joined the Department of Industrial Engineering & Management at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev this time as a faculty member.

Graduate student opportunity

Current work:

· Human motion analysis using Geometric algebra
Understanding human motion planning can be facilitated by formulating mathematical modules by which the CNS may be operating. I am especially interested in 3D arm motion since it holds many analogies to robotic motion. I am looking at geometric algebra and its applicability to motor control research. I am interested in sub-movement segmentation, modeling of double step movements, and the applicability of the minimum jerk model to 3d motion.
Joint work with Tamar Flash, Dario Liebermann, Joe McIntyre

· Natural interfaces for the smart home
Developing natural interfaces is imperative to the future smart home scenario. Hand gesture based interfaces are a promising line of research for interacting with and controlling objects found in the home such as appliances, home service robots, and entertainment devices.
Joint work with Helman Stern Yael Edan

· Natural interfaces for telerobotics
Mapping human motion to robot motion is non trivial due to the inherent dissimilarities between the two. In accordance with current initiatives for making telerobotic systems more human centered I am working on an innovative telerobotic methodology based on identifying intended actions of the human operator according to hand configuration during object grasping. The robot then selects the grasp most suitable for performing the required action based on both task requirements and robot capabilities.
Joint work with Tamar Flash and Jason Friedman

· Visual haptic displays for tele-robotic minimally invasive surgery
Robotic systems for minimally invasive surgery (MIS) are at the forefront of current medical practice. A major drawback in available robotic MIS systems today is their lack of haptic feedback, which prevents the surgeon from “feeling” the degree of force being applied. This complicates the procedure and may cause injury to the patients. I am looking at adding force feedback to MIS systems and at quantifying their performance improvement.
Joint work with: Eyal Porat, Shraga Shoval, Michael Wagner

· Multi-robot production systems
Multi-robot systems are commonly found in industry. I am working on operation methodologies for multi-robot assembly stations. I am looking at the interaction between knowledge horizons and station characteristics. I am also looking and methodological comparisons between various AGV dispatching algorithms including fuzzy logic based algorithms.
Joint work with Yael Edan, Yisrael Parmet

· Multiple View Point Planning
When setting up a machine vision setup involving multiple cameras and light sources, optimization of their placement can greatly improve the performance of the system. I am working on addressing this issue using several approaches including non linear programming and genetic algorithms.
Joint work with Helman Stern

Earlier work:

· Autonomous AGV system for material handling, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

· Multi robot assembly, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

· AGV dispatching, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

· SMR – Small mobile robot design, Faculty of electrical and computer engineering, UNM, USA.

Publications

Personal Interests:

Cooking (in Hebrew)

Hiking

Last updated 14/11/08.