About Me
Since 2008 I have been an MS / PhD student in the Mechatronics and Haptic Interfaces Lab (MAHI Lab) at Rice University, where I specialize in improving and validating shared-control haptic guidance paradigms for robot-mediated training. I am also a senior trip leader for Rice Outdoor Programs and Education (ROPE) and a freelance web developer. My interests outside of lab include rock climbing, traveling, photography, contributing to Drupal, and spending time with my wonderful girlfriend.
Research
Master's Thesis: Implementation and Analysis of Shared-control Guidance Paradigms for Improved Robot-mediated Training
MAHI Lab, 2008-2010
Many dynamic tasks have a clearly defined optimal trajectory or strategy for completion. Human operators may discover this strategy naturally through practice, but actively teaching it to them will increase their rate of performance improvement. Haptic devices, which provide force feedback to an operator, can physically guide participants through the optimal completion of a task, but this alone does not ensure that they will learn the optimal control strategy. In fact, participants may become dependent on this guidance to complete the task. This research focuses on developing and testing ways in which guidance can be modulated such that it conveys the proper task completion strategy without physically dominating the operator and thus encouraging dependency. These guidance schemes may also be applied to the real-time execution of tasks in order to convey computer-generated task completion strategies to a user without allowing the computer to physically dominate control of the task.
Full text: MS thesis (PDF)
Publications
Powell, D, O'Malley MK. 2011. Efficacy of Shared-Control Guidance Paradigms for Robot-Mediated Training. IEEE World Haptics Conference.
Powell, D. 2010. Implementation and Analysis of Shared-Control Guidance Paradigms for Improved Robot-Mediated Training. Master of Science
Powell, D, O'Malley MK. 2010. Co-presentation of Force Cues for Skill Transfer via Shared-control Systems. 16th Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems (HAPTICS).
Celik, O, Powell D, O'Malley MK. 2009. Impact of visual error augmentation methods on task performance and motor adaptation. IEEE 11th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR 2009). :793-798.
Zhu, AY, Inoue J, Peralta M, Taha W, O'Malley MK, Powell D. 2009. Implementing Haptic Feedback Environments from High-level Descriptions.
Drupal development
I have developed and currently maintain a number of Drupal projects and web sites (see below). Some of my projects are hosted on drupal.org, and others are hosted on my public feature server.
I generally accept modest sponsorship in return for development of modules that I believe will benefit the Drupal community as a whole. However, I am not currently accepting sponsorship for development of new web sites.
Haptics Symposium
I am the developer and maintainer of 2012.hapticssymposium.org and about.hapticssymposium.org.
Rice Web Hosting
I manage a dedicated server in the Mudd data center that houses a number of Drupal-based websites and resources (such as shared storage and SVN repositories) for Rice organizations including MAHI Lab, ROPE (under development), NPL, and MRSL.
Mechatronics and Haptic Interfaces Lab
I am the developer and maintainer of mahilab.rice.edu, the Mechatronics and Haptic Interfaces Lab website.
Rice Outdoors Programs and Education (in development)
I am currently developing rope.rice.edu, which will soon be an industry-leading Drupal-based gear and member management system.
fdaiso.com
I am the developer and maintainer of fdaiso.com, an FDA-compliance assistance company.
Legolab
My team won the LegoLab competition at Rice University in the Fall of 2003.