Guest Lecture: Doug Barker

March 03, 2025

12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. CAT

Room A203

When Robots Meet the Real World: Lessons Learned & What’s Next

Abstract: Dr. Doug will share insights from his hands-on work in robotics—from surgical systems that must feel like an extension of a surgeon’s hands to agricultural and manufacturing robots grappling with dust, variable lighting, and dynamic human factors. We’ll explore how real-world conditions can challenge even the most advanced systems, and how critical details—such as technical debt management, rapid iteration with user feedback, team architecture alignment, and system observability—can either propel or hinder a robotics startup as it scales. We’ll also look at recent AI advancements and why your engineering skills will be in high demand as robots become more
capable.

Bio: Doug Barker is a robotics engineer with hands-on experience across surgical, industrial, agricultural, and aerospace domains. He earned his Ph.D. in Agricultural and Biological Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Campaign, where he developed a GPU-accelerated vision system for particle tracking to characterize indoor airflow. Over the past decade, Doug has led multidisciplinary teams and developed software for adaptive robotic control in unstructured environments. In his recent roles, he has focused on applying robots to harvesting in agricultural environments—emphasizing observability of fielded systems and rapid iteration to improve stability and performance.

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