Daniel Helmick received his B.S degree in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering with a specialization in controls from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1996 and 1999 respectively. Since June 1999 he has been working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on robotics research projects involving vision/sensor based control of robots, state estimation, and navigation and mobility algorithms. He has worked on robotic vehicles covering a wide range of functionality, including: Mars research rovers for rough terrain mobility; small, tracked robots for urban mobility; a cryobot for ice penetration; and reconfigurable wheeled robots for Mars exploration. His research interests include: sensor-based control of robots, sensor fusion and state estimation, and rover navigation and mobility.

Mechanical Engineering B.S., Virginia Tech 1996

Mechanical Engineering M.S., Georgia Tech, 1999

- Mar Science Laboratory (MSL) Flight Software Team -- Sample Acquisition/Sample Processing and Handling (SA/SPaH) Subsystem -- developing software to control various parts of the SA/SPaH subsystem

Terrain-Adaptive Navigation -- leading a team that will develop technologies for Mars rover navigation in rough terrain including online learning algorithms for predicting slip using mast mounted cameras, integrated with a path planning algorithm and a slip-compensated path following algorithm

sensor-based control of robots
sensor fusion and state estimation
rover mobility and navigation
manipulation