Statement of Purpose

Boivin, Megan C.

I find robotics to be the perfect mixture of hardware and software. The interaction between a
processor manipulating data from a variety of sensors to control a system is incredibly
fascinating to me. The areas of rehabilitation robotics and prosthetics are particularly interesting,
not only because the engineering aspect of the research is challenging and intriguing, but also
because the outcome of the research has the potential to change the lives of amputees, stroke
victims, or other rehabilitation patients. I have always felt a strong need to use my knowledge
and skills to help others, and to make contributions to society that improve the quality of life for
its members. I graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May 2011 with
a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering, worked as a professional engineer for
the Department of Defense at Edwards AFB in California as an Electronics Test Engineer, and I
am currently in my first year as a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
During my undergraduate career and early career as a practicing engineer I have gained
knowledge and experience through classes, laboratory projects, research, and real world practice
that have prepared me for success in my future endeavors.
My passion for robotics was instilled as early as High School. As a senior I participated in the
school's robotics team that had been organized to compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition.
During this time my interest in robotics grew so I focused on an engineering program that would
allow me to learn more about the field. As an undergraduate preparing for a future in robotics, I
constructed a strong and comprehensive course schedule that included courses in control
systems, mechatronics, sensors and instrumentation, intro to robotics focusing on both
kinematics and computer vision, and multiple lab courses to gain valuable hands on experience
building and testing robots. Continuing my education in robotics as a graduate student I will
begin to make my own contributions to the robotics community that will hopefully have a
positive impact on society by helping disabled individuals through rehabilitation or prosthetics.
During my undergraduate career I worked on several projects through lab courses and student
run organizations. A few of the projects include an autonomous recycling robot, a swing-up
control system for a reaction wheel pendulum, a controller for biped motion, and a humanoid
robotic hand that replicates the movements of the operator. This last project was an idea I
devised to fulfill a project based course. Through the robotic hand project, I learned how to
work closely with the machine shop staff to develop requirements for the mechanical design of
the hand, choose all of the hardware including the microcontroller, sensors, and actuators,
implemented and debugged the code for the controller, wrote a paper discussing the work I had
done on the project, and presented the final project during an open house event. This project was
not only personally rewarding, but also led to my earning a scholarship from the Koniecek
Family and Lisa Foundation.
In addition to the many projects I worked on, I had the opportunity to engage in research. I
began undergraduate research in June 2010 and continued with the project until graduation in
May 2011. I worked closely with Dan Block and two graduate students to design a prototype for
a new class Timothy Bretl was developing for the Aerospace Engineering curriculum. The task
was to design an autonomous system using closed-loop control of XYZ and yaw to demonstrate
algorithms related to navigation, scheduling, imaging, and communications. Our team chose to

Statement of Purpose

Boivin, Megan C.

work with a commercial quad rotor produced by Parrot called the AR.Drone. We worked on
computer vision techniques for object detection and tracking using onboard cameras, and added
on external navigation consisting of GPS and compass to the system. Throughout the year team
members changed due to students graduating and new students arriving, but we always managed
to stay on task while bringing the new students up to speed on the project. This gave me the
opportunity to teach concepts we had been exploring and lessons learned to the new team
members. It also reinforced the importance of our team writing readable and maintainable code
so that the new students could quickly contribute to the project. I learned valuable testing skills
since there were many factors that needed to be taken into consideration when testing the
functionalities of the system, such as weather conditions, wireless network interferences,
scheduling, and data correctness. This research opportunity solidified my interest in graduate
school because I enjoyed the whole process of hypothesizing how to solve the problem we were
given, researching and developing our solution to that problem, testing the solution, and
presenting our findings. Although I desired to continue on with academia, I felt obtaining
practical engineering experience was crucial to the development of my career as an engineer.
I began working for the U.S. Air Force at Edwards AFB in California in July 2011. I work on a
team with two other engineers writing a data analysis tool that is used by the squadrons test
engineers to analyze flight test data. This experience has allowed me to increase my
programming skills through incorporating realistic requirements and creating a usable product
that has been an essential tool for the Electronic Warfare Squadrons data analysis process at the
Air Force Test Center. In addition to my assigned position, I also pursued an extra side project
with the Global Vigilance Combined Test Force assisting the Global Hawk team in developing a
signal processing tool that compared simulated data to flight test data in order to quantify and
locate the errors. Identifying these errors helped the team make a fair and credible assessment of
the system, ensuring that the end product meets the needs of the operational warfighter. Gaining
experience as a professional engineer was rewarding, and the two years I spent at Edwards taught
me a lot about real world deadlines and consequences of solving problems correctly and robustly
instead of just trying to get an A on an assignment or exam.
The ultimate goal for my career is to conduct research that makes an impact on society and
improves the quality of life for other individuals. I am very interested in extending research that
focuses on rehabilitation or exoskeleton robotics and prosthetics that could help improve
rehabilitating and assisting human movement capabilities for those with disabilities. Increasing
the quality of life for people has always been important to me and I strive to make a difference
by using my skills.


Proposed Research Statement

Boivin, Megan C.

Rehabilitation robotics research has been expanding rapidly over the last few years.
There are advanced robotic arms that are able to use rerouted nerve ending signals in
muscle groups that originally came from an amputated limb to move the actuators of the
robotic prosthetic. There are also robotic machines that are helping stroke patients get
mobility back after having lost it due to an attack. This area of research is fascinating not
only for its technical difficulty, but also because it is changing the quality of life for the
end user. For my proposed research I plan to work on extending rehabilitation robotics
and prosthetics and in particular focus on the area of haptics.
Haptics is defined as any form of nonverbal communication involving touch. In a
traditional sense an example could refer to the way people greet each other from kissing
on the cheek, to hugging, or even simply shaking hands. In technology, this can be
modeled by applying forces, vibrations, motions, or some other physical feedback that
takes advantage of the sense of touch.
There is a multitude of research being done in the area of combining robotics and haptics
including medical robotics, virtual reality simulations, and humanoid robotics.
Combining haptics with rehabilitation robotics and prosthetics will allow for quick
feedback to the user and help with positioning correction of the robotic system. This can
also be combined with virtual reality to make the rehabilitation seem like a game. A
professor, Jacob Rosen, at the University of California, Santa Cruz has in fact already
implemented this along with an exoskeleton his lab has created. Knowing there is
research in the area of rehabilitation robotics already being accomplished at the
University of California, Santa Cruz was what initially attracted me to the school.
Having this resource, someone to discuss future ideas and paths with, will be very
beneficial in my future endeavors as I work through my research.
As an undergraduate student I briefly began to experiment in this area by developing a
glove controlled robotic hand that mimicked the movement of the user wearing the glove.
After the hand had initial functionality, pressure sensors were added onto each finger of
the robot and used for feedback control. This allowed the hand to grasp objects such as
soda cans without crushing them. This project was only lightly scratching the surface of
what capabilities are already out there and ones to still be developed.
This area of research has the potential to increase the capabilities of todays rehabilitation
strategies for disabled individuals and amputees, and potentially improve the quality of
life by giving back more mobility that may have been lost to them. As a NSF fellow this
would allow me more freedom to dive more deeply into this area of research and
potentially also collaborate with other researchers in the same area outside of University
of California, Santa Cruz since it has become a very popular area around the world in
recent years.