Arturo Rankin is a member of the Surface System Perception group (3476) of the Autonomous Systems Division. He graduated from the University of Florida in 1997 with a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. Since joining the technical staff at JPL in April, 1997, he has functioned as a task manager for MER, a member of the MER mission operations team, and as a cognizant engineer. He led the effort that successfully integrated the Field D* global path planner into MER flight software. He has also developed obstacle detection and terrain mapping software for a variety of reimbursable unmanned ground vehicle programs, such as Demo III Experimental Unmanned Ground Vehicle, Perception for Off-Road Robots, Robotic Collaborative Technology Alliances, and Future Combat System Autonomous Navigation System.

Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (1997) from UF
M.S. in Mechanical Engineering (1993) from UF
B.S. in Mechanical Engineering (1987) from Catholic University

Senior Technical Staff Member, JPL
Surface System Perception Group

Principle investigator/task manager/CogE for various research tasks funded by NASA, DARPA, and U.S. Army sponsors

Manage reimbursable and/or flight task(s), support MER operations, develop/test/deliver path planning, terrain classification, and/or terrain mapping software to reimbursable and flight tasks, and propose new work.

Mobile robots, path planning, path exectution, obstacle detection, obstacle avoidance, terrain classification, terrain mapping, image processing, simulation