IHMC Board of Directors Vice Chair Dr. William Dalton to be Inducted into 2016 Florida Inventors Hall of Fame TAMPA, Fla. (Mar. 15, 2016) –Dr. William (Bill) Dalton, Founder and CEO of M2Gen®, a subsidiary of Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa, and Vice Chairman of the IHMC Board of Directors is among the seven inventors announced today as the 2016 inductees of the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame. Bill Dalton was nominated and approved as an inductee for his revolutionizing developments in cancer treatment and he will be inducted at the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame 3rd… Read More

The Running Man is at it again. IHMC’s “Atlas robot,” which placed second in the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA)-sponsored international robotics competition last summer, will be featured in a NOVA documentary this evening, Wednesday, Feb. 24th, called “Rise of the Robots.” It explores how robots are gradually making their way into the real world, with questions such as: “How close are we to a future where humanoid robots are part of our everyday lives? What are the implications of a future with robots that can do a human’s job?” The DARPA competition, held last June in Pomona, California,… Read More

As a mathematical sciences major at Rice University in the 1970s, William “Bill” Clancey took courses in 13 different departments—ranging from philosophy and anthropology to art and music. But it was a cover story in Life Magazine about Shakey, the first robot who could analyze and carry out consecutive commands, that opened up Clancey’s world onto the newly emergent field that he would spend much of his career working on: artificial intelligence. Clancey was especially interested in the philosophical and psychological underpinnings of artificial intelligence, pondering questions such as: What is the nature of knowledge? What can computers do? Can… Read More

When Dawn Kernagis went to the ocean for the first time as a nine-year-old, she knew that she wanted to explore its depths. She had just moved from Iowa to North Carolina. “I became completely intrigued by the ocean,” she said. “I wanted to be a marine biologist. I started to read everything I could get my hands on.” Her parents gave her scuba diving lessons as a birthday present when she turned fifteen, and she would spend the better part of the next two decades in the sea or studying it. Recently, Kernagis, who is a Research Scientist at… Read More

The day that a tree can talk—telling you about its ancestry and physical composition, and the air it breathes—is the future that David Fries envisions. “Rather than sit in a classroom where you have representations of a tree on a white board, you are actually in proximity of the tree and can see visualizations of its chemistry, biology and sustainability,” Fries said. In practice, this means that a mobile device could see a tree and then start tracing the flow of nutrients from its roots to its branches. This “fusion of education and entertainment,” Fries said, is one area that… Read More

  The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has elected Ken Ford, director and CEO of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC), as a Fellow. Ford is one of 347 scientists who have been named Fellows this year. The electing Council elects people “whose efforts on behalf of the advancement of science of its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished.” According to a press release from AAAS, Ford was selected “for founding and directing the IHMC, for his scientific contributions to artificial intelligence and human-centered computing, and for service to many federal agencies.” “I am… Read More

Three years of almost non-stop work paid off Saturday when the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition placed second in a $3.5 million global robotics competition held in Pomona, Calif. Team IHMC’s semi-autonomous robot, nicknamed “Running Man,” on Saturday bested 21 other teams from around the world by driving a car, walking over debris, cutting a hole in a wall, turning a valve for a fire hose and performing other tasks — all with spotty communications between man and machine. The course simulated a disaster area in which humans could not safely operate. “I am incredibly proud of our robotics… Read More

The robotics team from the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) leaves this weekend for what promises to be a historic milestone in the science of making machines move and think like humans. The DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals, to be held June 5-6 in Pomona, Calif., is sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. It will test 25 teams from around the world in a challenge course designed to emulate a disaster area where humans could not safely go. IHMC’s team will be using the 6-foot-tall Atlas robot, built by Boston Dynamics but with the all-important controlling… Read More

NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission iPad App has been released and is available for free download at the iTunes Store. The creation of this novel App was a joint effort between NASA and IHMC. The App is a large knowledge model that uses dozens of concept maps to organize and navigate through hundreds of videos, images and Web links on NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission. Each of the concept maps represents the knowledge of experts on the particular topic. All concept maps in this app were constructed using the IHMC CmapTools software which is available free for download. Check our web page,… Read More

One of the country’s leading lights in the field of undersea medicine has joined IHMC as a research scientist in Pensacola, opening a new area of emphasis for the institute. Dr. Dawn Kernagis, who grew up near Raleigh, N.C., and spent much of her youth cave- and wreck-diving in Florida and around the world, comes to IHMC from Duke University, where her work was considered so pioneering, that she was awarded a grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research before she even started her doctoral program. It was the first time ONR’s Undersea Medicine program had made such a grant…. Read More

CmapTools, the software used by millions of people around the world to build concept maps, is now available for the iPad. Researchers at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) have released a new version to the Apple App Store. “During our testing, the iPad version of CmapTools was particularly popular with elementary and high school students,” said IHMC Associate Director and Senior Research Scientist Dr. Alberto Cañas, the leading developer of CmapTools. “It’s amazing how fast elementary school students got into building the maps, and the speed at which they can build them using the iPad.” Concept… Read More

Jerry Pratt, one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of robotics, has been named to the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame, joining an august group of inventors which includes the likes of Thomas Edison. Pratt, a senior research scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) in Pensacola, holds four patents on robotics inventions and is considered a rising star in the field. He is one of seven people with Florida connections who will be inducted into the Hall at an October ceremony in Tampa. Others in this group, the second year of inductees, include famed automaker Henry… Read More

Open House at IHMC – Thursday, April 11, 2024 To celebrate the National Robotics Week, IHMC researchers will welcome the public from 3 to 7 p.m. April 11, 2024, for an Open House in hopes of inspiring young people to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math. The family-friendly event encourages scientific discovery through hands-on activities, challenges, and demonstrations while providing the opportunity to learn about robots from IHMC’s researchers and educators. National Robotics Week is all about celebrating robotics technology and development and inspiring students of all ages to pursue careers in these areas. At Open House, our… Read More

The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) has awarded one of its highest honors, the AAAI Distinguished Service Award, to Dr. Ken Ford, director and CEO of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC). The Distinguished Service Award, established in 1999, recognizes a single individual each year “for extraordinary and sustained service” to the artificial intelligence (AI) community. Dr. Ford is the 14th honoree. In a letter to Dr. Ford announcing the honor, Awards Committee Chair Manuelo Veloso wrote that he was “specifically honored for your contributions to the field of artificial intelligence through sustained service,… Read More

The Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition is back on track with a planned expansion of its Pensacola research facility following a nearly year-long delay caused by flooding of downtown in April 2014. Completion is scheduled for February 2016. The contractor is Hewes and Company LLC, a Pensacola firm. Hewes has done extensive work across the Pensacola area, including large buildings for Pensacola Christian College, Avalex Technologies and AppRiver. “We’re really pleased to be back on track with the new building,” said IHMC Director and CEO Ken Ford. “The delay was troublesome, but the architects were able to develop… Read More

Dr. Alain T. Rappaport has been named a prestigious Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Dr. Rappaport is a member of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) Board of Directors and of its Science Advisory Council. Dr. Rappaport was cited as having “demonstrated a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society.” The Tampa-based NAI was founded in 2010 “to recognize investigators at universities and non-profit research institutes who translate their research findings into inventions… Read More

The NFL has announced seven winners of $500,000 brain research grants in Head Health Challenge II. Ken Ford, director/CEO of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, serves on the six-person judging panel that selected the winners, who are eligible to receive up to $8.5 million to accelerate brain injury research, diagnosis and protection. The NFL’s partners in Head Health Challenge II are Under Armour and General Electric. The winners, which include researchers from the public and private sectors, were selected among nearly 500 proposals that were submitted between Sept. 2013 and Feb. 2014 from 19 countries. “We had… Read More

The Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) continues to earn recognition for its development of software for the Atlas robot. A recent post on Tech Gen magazine notes IHMC’s work to advance the bipedal robot’s ability to walk more like a human. The IHMC Robotics Team has performed exceptionally well in the multi-year, international Robotics Challenge sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). IHMC came in first in the initial computer simulation trial in June 2013, and second overall in the second phase, which featured using actual robots in field trials at Homestead Miami Speedway in… Read More

An upcoming segment of The Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet program will feature a new exercise exoskeleton developed by researchers at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) in Pensacola. Called the Grasshopper, or Hopper, the device was designed, built and tested as part of a NASA-funded project exploring the use of robotic exoskeletons for microgravity exercise. Because the Hopper uses motors instead of gravity to create the load on the user, the device is suited for use on space missions. Exercise in zero-gravity conditions is critical to maintain muscle strength and bone mass. The Hopper is designed to… Read More

A new land-speed record for legged robots was achieved on May 22 by researchers at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC). The HexRunner robot reached an estimated 30-33 mph on an open course, without any support tethers. The record-setting run was filmed by the Discovery Channel, which is expected to broadcast it later this summer. The HexRunner running robot on its record-setting speed run. “More significant than the top speed is showing that you can make a running robot that doesn’t need a lot of feedback from sensors, and you don’t need a lot of actuation,” said… Read More