BART LAB Rescue won the 2nd Place at World RoboCup Rescue 2010 in Singapore

On June 19-26, 2010, BART LAB Rescue attended the Rescue Robot League at the World RoboCup 2010 held in Singapore. There were about more than 20 teams, internationally, to attend the competition, including, Pelican United/ Japan, CASualty/Australia, MRL/Iran and a few Hi-Ranked Thai teams (“iRAP_Pro,” Past World Champion from 2009, “BART LAB Rescue,” Champion from TRR2009 and Japan Open 2010, and “SUCCESS,” Best-In-Class: Advanced Mobility from TRR2009).
BART LAB Rescue was advanced to the Semi-Final Round with other 9 teams, internationally, including the 2 Thai teams. The Semi-Final Round required 2 missions, and the results came out as followed: (No.1) iRAP_Pro (Score 465 Points/15 Victims), (No.2) BART LAB Rescue (Score 430/13 Victims) and (No.3) SUCCESS (Score 330/11 Victims). Therefore, only three Thai teams passed through the Final Round.

On the last day, the Final Run, BART LAB Rescue was not so lucky. After searched, found and reported the second victim, our Tele-Operation Robot was stuck in a big hole near by the wall. Anyway, after combining the scores from the Semi-Final Round and Final Round, BART LAB Rescue was happy enough to share the 2nd Place with SUCCESS, the other Thai team.

Prof. Kimura, Advisor of NU Tech-R team from Japan, was teasing when the Finalist Chart was posted, “It’s the Thailand Open at Singapore.” This sentence and the result proved our much higher standard of Thailand Rescue Robot Competitions, which were able to elevate standards of Thai Rescue Robot teams, and which were able to select the best qualified teams to attend the World Competitions, such as, World RoboCup 2010 in Singapore.

BART LAB Rescue won the first prize at RoboCup Japan Open 2010

On May 1-4, 2010 at Osaka, Japan: BART LAB Rescue team attended the Rescue League at RoboCup Japan Open 2010. There were 11 teams from Japan, [including, “CIT Pelican,” former World Champion ’01 - ’05, “Shinobi,” Japan Champion ’09, and “Nexis-R,” A.K.A. NU-Tech R, Japan Champion ’07-’08], a young team from Iran and BART LAB Rescue, Thailand Champion ’09.

There were three 15-minute missions in the first round. The first mission, BART LAB Rescue scored 142 points while the second rank, CIT Pelican, received only 27 points. After three missions, only 4 teams advanced to the final round, one from Thailand, BART LAB Rescue, and three from Japan, CIT Pelican, Shinobi, and Nexis-R.

The final round was a knock-out one mission with a longer length of time, 30 minutes. It was really closed. Japanese teams were at full performance, however, we were ready as well. BART LAB Rescue won the Japan Open Championship with the final run of 146 points left the second place about 50 points. BART LAB Rescue was only an international team to win a title for all leagues in the RoboCup Japan Open 2010. To attend the Japan Open, BART LAB Rescue was fully supported by the THAICOM Foundation for 2 consecutive years.

BART LAB Members visited Robotics Labs at NARA Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST)

On May 6, 2010 at Nara, Japan: After receiving the Rescue Robot Championship from Japan Open, BART LAB Members visited the Robotics Labs in Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST). Professor Ogasawara, leader of robotics research group at NAIST (http://robotics.naist.jp) arranged a series of Lab Visit in several departments, including, famous android research collaborating with Kokoro.

Mahidol BME signed an MOU with UCLA Center for Small Bowel Disease for Research Collaboration
On April 17, 2010, Dr. Jackrit Suthakorn as the Chair, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Mahidol University has signed an MOU for research collaboration and exchanging program with the UCLA Center for Small Bowel Dieses for Research and National Innovation Agency (NIA). Dr. Kunying Kalaya Sophonpanich, Minister of Science and Technology of Thailand has signed her autograph as the witness of the MOU.

Dr. Suthakorn Visited UCLA Center for Advanced Surgical and Interventional Technology (CASIT)
During April 15-17, 2010, Dr. Jackrit Suthakorn, BART LAB Director, and Dr. Yodchanan Wongsawat joined with a group of researchers from National Innovation Agency (NIA), National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) and Ministry of Science and Technology of Thailand visited UCLA for a number labs, including, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, UCLA Center for Advanced Surgical and Interventional Technology (CASIT), California Nanotechnology Institute, and other research labs in Electrical Engineering.

BART LAB Humanoid at Thai Humanoid League

March 19, 2010: BART LAB accepts the challenge to participate the Thailand Humanoid Robot Soccer Championship 2009. Our new formed BART LAB Humanoid team went through the semi-final round only.

Prof. Peter Zelimann and his students from Germany visited BART LAB

BART LAB Rescue is the winner for 2009 Thailand Rescue Robot Championship (TRR2009).

Years of research and developments on rescue robots, version-to-version of developed rescue robots, it has paid off. On Dec 10, 2009, BART LAB won the first place and Best-In-Class: Autonomy in TRR2009 among the 100 local competitors, and 6 world’s leading teams; Nu Tech-R (Nagaoka University of Technology – Japan), NiiT-Blue (Niigata Institute of Technology – Japan), Jacobs University (Jacobs University – Germany), Pasargad (Amirkabir University of Technology – Iran), Resquake (K.N. Toosi University of Technology – Iran), CASualty (University of New South Wales – Australia). More importantly, the World RoboCup Rescue Organizing Committee perform judging at the Final Round of Thailand Rescue Robot Championship. It was one of the highest honors BART LAB Rescue team had received. (BART LAB Rescue teams has won the Best-In-Class: Autonomy in TRR2008, the second place and SICE award at Japan Open 2009 Rescue League.)

World Experts on Biomedical Engineering and BioRobotics Visited BART LAB.

On Dec 17, 2009, Prof. Brian Davies (Imperial College, London), Prof. Yongmin Kim (University of Washington, Seatle), Prof. Andrew Laines (Columbia University, New York), Prof. Holland Cheng (University of California, Davis), and Prof. Peter Engelhardt (Helsinki University of Tech, Helsinki) paid an hour tech tour at BART LAB. Several nice comments and suggestions were made to us. Prof. Davies is the world’s famous research to develop the “Acrobot”, an orthopedic surgical robot which is the first robot to perform on the human. Prof. Kim is the past president of IEEE Engineering on Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS). His contributions are very well-known on portable ultrasound machines. Prof. Laines is the famous professor for Medical Imaging, especially, Image Enhancement using Wavelet Applications on MR, Ultrasound, and Nuclear Images. Prof. Cheng and Prof. Engelhardt are famous on molecular imaging, especially, living cells.

The Chair of World RoboCup Rescue Organizing Committee, Mr. Adam Jacoff, paid a visit at BART LAB.

On Dec 15, 2009, Mr. Adam Jacoff paid a visit at BART LAB. He has seen how BART LAB conduct research on Rescue Robots from version to version. Rescue robot reviews, design and simulation, construction, experimental set up and results. Mr. Jacoff is the father of Rescue Robot Competition. He has brought robot testing methods to the World RoboCup more than 10 years ago. He is now the Trustee of RoboCup Federation, and the Chair of World RoboCup Rescue Organizing Committee. He works full-time at the Intelligent Systems Division, National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST), Washington, D.C., USA.

Back-To-Back Events: TRR2009, IRRW2009 and ISBME2009

People of BART LAB organized and involved in back-to-back academic events, 2009 Thailand Rescue Robot Championship at The Mall Dept Store on Dec 7-10, 2009 International Rescue Robot Workshop at Amari Orchid Pattaya on Dec 11-14, and 2009 IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Engineering at A Le Meridian Plaza Athenee on Dec 15-17. The co-sponsors for TRR2009, and IRRW2009 are SCG and Thai Robotics Society. The major co-technical sponsors for ISBME2009 are IEEE and ThaiEMBS. Dr. Jackrit Suthakorn was the Program Chair for these three events.

Famous Prof. Shugen Ma from Ritsumeikan, Japan, has a tech tour at BART LAB.

On Nov 30, 2009, Prof. Shugen Ma, from Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan has visited the BART LAB. Prof. Ma is the world famous robotics research on Bio-Inspired Robotics. He is one of the most important students of Prof. Shigeo Hirose of TITech.

New International Exchanging Student from Germany

Joshua Lee Yik Ching, a Master’s student from Furtwangen University of Applied Science, Germany, has joined the BART LAB as a exchange graduate student for six months in order to complete his thesis research. His research will involve "Performance Evaluation of Aurora Tracking System".

BART LAB and Thai Robotics Society organize the "ROBOT AND AUTOMATION PAVILLION" at National S&T Fair 2009.
Dr. Jackrit Suthakorn, Thai Robotics Society and BART LAB members are the main organizer of the "ROBOT AND AUTOMATION PAVILLION" at National Science and Technology Fair 2009 at Muangthong Thani from August 8-23, 2009. The Pavilion includes Demonstrations of Surgical Robots, Humanoid Robot Soccer, Rescue Robots, Entertainment Robots and more.

Auranuch (Ney) Passes Her Master Degree’s Defense, and is leaving for PhD Study at Columbia University.
Auranuch (Ney) Lorsakul, A BART LAB Member, has passed the defense for her Master’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering at the Mahidol University on August 11, 2009. The title is “Development of Algorithms in Surgical Guidance System Using Image Processing Techniques.” She will pursue her PhD degree at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, USA, starting in this Fall 2009.

2 New Research Scientists Join BART LAB
Dr. Danai Laksameethanasan and Dr. Niramon Ruangpayoongsak has joined the Center of Biomedical and Robotics Technology (BART LAB) as the Center Full-Time Faculty Members from May and August 2009, respectively. Dr. Danai receives his Ph.D. from University of Helsinki, Finland, with a background in Microscopy Imaging, and Dr. Niramon received her Dr.-Ing from University of Siegen, Germany, with a background in Image-Guided Robotic Systems.

Dr. Jackrit Suthakorn Leads Thai Rescue Robot Team to Win World RoboCup Rescue’s Title in Austria as the 4th Year in the Row.
Dr. Jackrit Suthakorn, Thai Rescue Robot Team’s Leader and the Thai Robotics Society’s President, leads the Thai Rescue Robot Team to win the World Champion Title at the World RoboCup Rescue in Austria. This year, iRAP_Pro from King Monkut’s University of Techonology North Bangkok, is the Thailand’s representative team to perform their exceptional abilities to the audiences and other international rescue robot teams from around the world.

BART LAB Rescue Won SICE Award and The 1st Runner Up at RoboCup Japan Open 2009

BART LAB Rescue team brought 2 rough-terrain robots (TeleOp III and AutoBot I) attended the RoboCup Rescue League at the RoboCup Japan Open 2009 held at Kyocera Dome, Osaka, during May 7-10, 2009. BART LAB Rescue won the SICE Award from the “Society of Instrumentation and Control Engineering” for the Robot’s Excellent System Development in Displaying Function of Searched-Information. Moreover, BART LAB Rescue also received the “1st Runner Up” position for the RoboCup Rescue League.
BART LAB Rescue team in Japan Open consists of 4 faculty members (Dr. Jackrit Suthakorn – Team Leader, Dr. Warakorn Charoensuk, Dr. Songpol Ongwattanakul, and Prof. Worawit Israngkul), 1 Researcher (Mr. Suratana Jantarajit), and     12 Grad Students (Mr. Onprasert, Mr. Sae-Ung, Mr. Sa-ing, Mr. Nakdhamabhorn, Mr. Saensupho, Mr. Shah, Mr. Derekwattana, Ms. Moonjaita, Mr. Itsarachaiyot, Mr. Intawachirarat, Mr. Sirisopha, and Ms. Lorsakul.)

BART LAB Members are going to Columbia and Johns Hopkins.

Miss Auranuch Lorsakul (Ney) and Miss Sureerat Reaungamornrat (Ja) have been accepted to pursue their Ph.D. degrees at the  Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University, respectively, in this Fall (2009). Auranuch will be working with Prof. Andrew F. Laine, Heffner Biomedical Imaging Lab, Dept of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, New York. While, Sureerat will pursue her graduate studies at the Dept of Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University, Maryland.

BART LAB Rescue will attend the RoboCup Japan Open 2009

BART LAB Rescue Robotics Team, 16 members + 3 robots, will attend the RoboCup Japan Open 2009 as the Thailand’s representative in return to ‘NU-Tech R,’ Japanese Rescue Robot League’s Champion to attend the Thailand Rescue Robot Championship 2008 (TRR2008) in the last December. BART LAB Rescue won the Best in Class: Autonomy, and hold the 2nd best overall score from 77 Thai teams in the TRR2008. The traveling fees will be mainly supported by Thaicom Foundation. The RoboCup Japan Open 2009 will be held in Kyecera Dome, Osaka, Japan, from May 6 - 10, 2009.

World Famous Neuro-Roboticist, "Prof. Joel Burdick" of CAL TECH has visited BART LAB

On February 25, 2009, Prof. Joel Burdick of California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA, has visited BART LAB after performing his role as a plenary speaker at the IEEE ROBIO 2008. Prof. Burdick is academically related to Dr. Jackrit Suthakorn. Prof. Gregory S. Chirikjian of Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Suthakorn's PhD Advisor, was Prof. Burdick's first PhD student. Follow along with Ehsan Mihankhah, TC WorldRoboCup Rescue and Resquake Robotics Team's Leader, Luca Frasson, PhD Student under guidance of Prof.F.R. Baena and Prof. Brian Davies at the Imperial College, UK, and Hisashi Mizumoto, PhD Student from University of Electro-Communication, Japan.

Auranuch is working on 4-D Ultrasound Project at the Columbia University

Auranuch Lorsakul, a BART LAB member, is currently working on 4-D Ultrasound Project under collaboration with / guidance of Prof. Andrew F. Laine at the Dept of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, New York. Auranuch Lorsakul is spending her 8 months as an exchanging researcher there.

‘BART LAB Rescue’ won the Best Autonomy Award from Thaialnd Rescue Robot Championship 2008

BART LAB Rescue Robotics Team won the Best Autonomy Award, over 80 teams from national international, in the Thailand Rescue Robot Championship 2008. The competition was held at the Thailand National Indoor Stadium, Bangkok, on December 13 - 14, 2008.

Co-Inventor of Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), Prof. K. R. Rao visited BART LAB

Prof. Rao, co-inventor of Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) , based technology of JPEG, visited BART LAB on November 11, 2008. Prof. Rao is the main author of Multimedia Communication Systems Text Book, and is currently with University of Texas, Arlington.

New International Exchanging Student from France

 Claire Guerineay studied in biomedical instrument field at the Ecole Superieure D' Ingenieurs De Luminy University. She spent time doing a research here for 3 months from April to July 2551 in the topic “The Development of Monofilment for patients whose nervous system are affected from diabetes ”. 

BART LAB and Department of Biomedical Engineering won best Innovation Awards from "Technology Street Contest On Innovations form Disabled"

BART LAB and Department of Biomedical Engineering received Best Innovation Awards from “Technology Street Contest on Innovations for the Disabled” organized by MCOT at the Impact Convention Center, 14-15 June 2008.

Best Innovation Award for the Physically Handicapped “Electrical Controlby Using Signals from the Brain” by Dr. Yodchanan Wongsawat, Surathana Chanchit, Auranuch Lorsakul, Alisa Kunapinan, Pinyo Kamkaew,and Piyawan Moonjaita from Center for Biomedical And Robotics Technology and Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University

April 2, 2008: BART LAB Intelligent Vehicle Team advances to the final round TIVC 2008.

BART LAB’s Intelligent Vehicle Team, “BART LAB Vehiculum,” passed through the final round in the 2008 Thai Intelligent Vehicle Challenge organized by Thai Robotics Society, Asian Institute of Technology and Seagate. Every car in the TIVC 2008 must autonomously drive along the road in the Bangkok Racing Circuit by itself without human-control. These cars must have their own navigation and controlling systems installed. A vintage Mercedes-Benz was used as the platform, and was modified the steering, braking and accelerating systems.  The Vehiculum was mainly navigating by Computer Vision system, combined of a stereo-camera (Bumble-Bee®), and two left/right FireWire cameras for emergency control. Besides, the Vehiculum was also integrated with a bunch of GPSs and e-compass to combine their sensing information with the Computer Vision system.

Feb 20, 2008: Thai Robotics Society held Committee Meeting at BART LAB

Thai Robotics Society’s committee have visited and held their meeting at BART LAB on February 20, 2008. Attendances included: Prof. Prabhas and Dr. Witaya of Chulalongkorn University, Dr. Vara, Dr.Sthaporn and Dr.Siripun of KMITNB, Dr.Thavida of FIBO, KMUTT, Dr. Somyod of KMITL, Prof. Panya of Kasetsart University, Dr. Kridiwat of Royal Thai Navy, and Dr.Jackrit (BART LAB Director and President of TRS) and Dr.Warakorn of BART LAB, Mahidol University. The meeting was to discuss several TRS agenda, including organizing yearly major robotics competitions, such as, Thailand Rescue Robot, RoboCup Thailand Championship, and other events (see more details in www.trs.or.th).  

January 31, 2008 Goal: Build a Smart Vehicle

Asst. Prof. Dr. Jackrit Suthakorn (BART LAB Director and President Thai Robotics Society) attend's "Press Release" along with AIT Assoc. Prof. Dr. Manukid Parnichkun and Seagate country manager Jeffrey Nygaard of Thailand Intelligent Vehicle Challenges 2008 (TIVC 2008) on 31 Jan 2008 at 13.30-15.45 at Asian Institute of Technology.

NRCT's Secretary General and German Experts  Visited BART LAB

Nov 10, 2007, Prof. Ahnond Bunyaratvej, Secretary General of the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) lead 10 German Stem-Cell Experts to visit BART LAB as a part of Technical Tour Program in the 1st Thai-German Symposium on Regenerative Medicine.

BART LAB Member Joins CIS Research at the Queen’s University. Canada.

Jan 14, 2008, Paweena U-Thaniual, master graduate and past lab manager of BART LAB, is leaving Bangkok to Join the Queen’s University to pursue her PhD  degree, under guidance of Prof. Gabor Fichtinger , Computer-Integrated Surgery Research Lab.

Septemeber 6, 2007 Borripat K. Visit to UMAS for 5 Months

Borripat Kittiwut won a scholarship sponsered by the commission on higher education, royal thai government to study at the university of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst, Massachusetts, USA for one semester (Sep 2007 - Jan 2008).

July 18, 2007 Royal Thai Parliament House

Dr Jackrit and World Rescue Robot 2007 Winners were invited to be guests at Royal thai Parliament House, Dr Jackrit represent as a President of Thai Robotic Society, Dr Jackrit Suthakorn meet to Prime Minister of Thailand and exp

July 9-11, 2007 World Congress on Bioengineering (WACBE 2007)

World Congress on Bioengineering 2007 at Twin Tower Hotel, Bangkok, July, 9-11, 2007, All BART LAB members joined the conference and three of us (Borripat, Auranuch, and Paweena) attended and gave presentations:
[Poster Presentation]
-"An Inverse Kinematics System for F1ATPase Nano-Motor Manipulation" by Borripat K.
[Oral Presentations]
-"Dental Tool Calibration Using Point-Cloud-To-Point cloud Technique with the Least-Square Solution: Toward Development of a Dental Navigation System" by auranuch L. and
-"An Efficient Algorithm for Recovering Distal Holes' Axes in Intramedullary Nail." by Paweena U.

June 15, 2007 President of TRS

BART LAB Director, Dr Jackrit Suthakorn was Selected as a President of Thai Robotics Society for 2 Years.

June 14-15, 2007 CRIT 2007 at Rose Garden

BART LAB held the organization of the TRS conference on robotics and industrial technology under the cooperative with FIBO (Institute of field robotics, KMUTT). Even it was a small national conference with 50 audiences, successfully attendance occurred though the holding period. Two BART LAB members, Mr. B. Kittiwut and Mr. S. Jantarajit won the best paper awards on “ Inverse Kinematic System for rotary protein manipulation” and “Medical Tool Positioning System Using Ultrasonic”, respectively.     

May 23, 2007 at the Final Round Thailand Intelligent Vehicle Challenge

The BART LAB Vehiculum has finished the final competition with the distance 162.04 metres in 5:39 minutes, and won the Excellent Art Work Award. The vehicle is capable detecting the road edge and guiding itself to go along with the roadway autonomously. The vehicle is equipped with several computer vision systems , sensing systems, and on-board processing unit (PC and ARM-7 Microcontroller).

May 8, 2007 at the College of New Jersey

Dr. Jackrit Suthakorn has visited and established research collaboration with Prof. Yunfeng Wang at the College of New Jersey.