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Several things have to fall into place for a professor to be chosen for a Fulbright Award, and it usually takes several applications. So, University of Detroit Mercy Professor Emeritus Mohan Krishnan was surprised when he was chosen by the international organization this year.<\/p>\n
But everything just seemed to work out for Krishnan, who received a 2020-21 Fulbright Research & Teaching Award at the University of Ljubljana in Ljubljana, Slovenia.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was frankly surprised I was selected because I\u2019ve been told by multiple people that typically you don\u2019t get it in the first year,\u201d Krishnan said. \u201cI was told you might have to come back and apply multiple times or you may never get it because it\u2019s a small percentage that get it. I was happy my proposal was good enough to meet the threshold.\u201d<\/p>\n
Krishnan had to secure a partner institution in a foreign country, have a project they were both interested in and, of course, be selected.<\/p>\n
Krishnan decided he wanted to apply for a Fulbright after visiting a friend of his who was doing a Fulbright in Finland.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in Europe on a two-week vacation and at the end of it, he invited me over to stay a couple of days with him,\u201d Krishnan said of his friend, who used to work at the University of Toledo. \u201cHe took me to the university and introduced me to his colleagues. I was taken by the atmosphere of collegiality. That\u2019s how I got to know about the program and that\u2019s what got me thinking about applying for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In order to take part in the Fulbright program, Krishnan needed an invitation from a foreign institution. He decided to reach out to Gregor Klan\u010dar, an associate professor in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering-Laboratory of Control Systems and Cybernetics at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019d written a book on robotics that caught my attention a couple of years ago, he was one of the co-authors,\u201d Krishnan said. \u201cI noticed when I looked up his background and his special research areas that he was also working on robot motion planning issues, which I\u2019m very much interested in. So it seemed like a good fit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Krishnan wrote him a letter introducing himself and sent Klan\u010dar his resume.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hit it off and things got going pretty quickly, surprisingly now that I look back,\u201d Krishnan said. \u201cIt all happened in about a month. We must have exchanged between 25 and 30 emails. Then we zeroed in on a project and we were off and running.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Krishnan and Klan\u010dar are both interested in motion planning for midsize robots and will be combining their resources to work on a project.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main thrust of the project is optimal motion planning,\u201d Krishnan said. \u201cYou want robots to be optimal in the ways they move, based on what they see around them. Optimal doesn\u2019t necessarily mean the fastest, optimal could be on the slower side, if it means you don\u2019t run over someone or injure a child. Optimal has a special meaning because based on the circumstances, it has to move in a certain way. And if there\u2019s multiple robots moving around, then the task gets harder.\u201d<\/p>\n
Krishnan said optimal motion planning is also key for self-driving cars and one of the problems plaguing companies working on them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the same theory that is the foundation of the burgeoning self-driving car industry,\u201d Krishnan said.<\/p>\n
Krishnan will also help teach a course at the University of Ljubljana and is excited to get to learn the culture of Slovenia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe project is the foundation, but that\u2019s not the only thing, you\u2019re also building life-long relationships and sharing cultural viewpoints, in addition to the technical aspects of the project,\u201d Krishnan said. \u201cFulbright isn\u2019t just open to engineers and scientists, it\u2019s also open to liberal arts people. So it provides an opportunity to share cultural viewpoints and understanding with other Fulrbight Scholars as well as citizens of the host country. And hopefully to build friendships that last far beyond the project.\u201d<\/p>\n
Krishnan also plans to travel to other parts of Europe in his off time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love to travel the world,\u201d Krishnan said. \u201cYou do the work during the week, but then you sneak off during the weekends. Europe has such a beautiful train system so in a few hours you can get to Paris and be back at work on Monday morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Original story by Dave Pemberton. Follow Detroit Mercy on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Instagram<\/a>. Have a story idea? Let us know by\u00a0submitting your idea<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Several things have to fall into place for a professor to be chosen for a Fulbright Award, and it usually takes several applications. So, University …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":4653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[6],"tags":[2723,145,186,886,99,246,2712,2717,2714,2719,2715,2721,2716,2713,847,846,2722,187,2718,2720],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/106\/2020\/05\/fulbirghtlong.jpg?fit=1920%2C1054&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbwnTV-1d1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4651"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4654,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4651\/revisions\/4654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/campusconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}