Issa Nesnas is the Group Supervisor for the Robotic Software Systems group and the Principal Investigator of the multi-institutional robotic software architecture (CLARAty). He has over 16 years of experience in robotic system and software design, sensor-based robotic control, and vision-guided manipulation.

Issa joined JPL in 1997 where he worked on planetary dexterous manipulation for rovers and landers. He developed algorithms for vision-based manipulation, sample acquisition, and instrument placement from rover platforms. He was the Cognizant engineer on CLARAty from 1999 to 2001. More recently, Issa has led several research tasks including rover-based visual tracking and the development of the Rocky 8 and Axel rovers. He also worked on the entry, descent, and landing for the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

Prior to joining JPL in 1997, Issa was a senior project engineer at Adept Technology, Inc. developing high-speed vision-based manipulation technologies.

Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (1995) from the University of Notre Dame, IN

M.S. in Mechanical Engineering (1993) from the Univerity of Notre Dame, IN

B.E. in Electrical Engineering (1991) from Manhattan College, NY

• 16 years of research and development in robotics and vision-based control, of which:
• 8 years at JPL in robotics and rover research for space exploration
• 3 years in robotics for industrial applications
• 5 years in academic robotic research
• 4 years of management experience on small and large multi-center efforts
• Awarded several competed NASA robotic proposals

• Software and hardware architectures for robotic systems
• Autonomous sensor- and vision-based manipulation
• Robotic mobility and control
• High-speed vision-guided robotic operations
• Object-oriented design and artificial intelligence