Brandon J. DeHart, PhD (he/him)

In general, Brandon's research interests span a wide range of topics connected to robotics, from tensegrity structures and bioinspired robot design to interactive architecture and morphological computation. Starting early in his academic career, Brandon has always strived to work on solving problems that will enable the widespread use of robots in entertainment, education, and exploration.

Brandon's PhD research (ECE '19) focused on developing methods and tools to enable dynamic balance and gait in robotic bipeds. This included the development of metrics to quantify how well a given mechanism can balance, balance points to determine if and where a robot needs to step to avoid falling, and how to use these measures in the generation of dynamic balance and gait for bipeds. This research was co-supervised by Professors Dana Kulić and Rob Gorbet.

His MASc research (ECE '11) focused on two areas: developing a framework for the interconnection of cellular automata, and the design of embedded control systems for large-scale interactive art installations. These culminated in the design of an interactive installation where a set of interconnected cellular automata could evolve their rules based on visitors' estimated interest. This research was part of a collaboration with Professor Philip Beesley and his world-renowned studio.

• humanoid robotics
• mobile robotics
• collaborative robotics
• human-robot interaction

• 2019, Doctor of Philosophy, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, Canada
• 2019, Certificate in University Teaching, Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo, Canada
• 2012, Master of Applied Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, Canada
• 2009, Bachelor of Applied Science, Honours Mechatronics Engineering (Co-op), University of Waterloo, Canada

• 2017, NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship - Doctoral (CGS-D), NSERC
• 2015-2016, NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship - Doctoral (PGS-D), NSERC
• 2013-2017, UW President's Graduate Scholarship, University of Waterloo
• 2013-2015, Ontario Graduate Scholarship, Government of Ontario

• Member, IEEE (since 2008)
• Member, Robotics and Automation Society, IEEE (since 2013)
• Member, Research & Training Committee, Canadian Robotics Council (since 2022)

• Advisor and Mentor, Summer Student Program on Space System Design, MDA (2022)
• Member, "Roboethics to Design & Development" Competition Organizing Team, Open Roboethics Institute (since 2021)
• Member, Task Force on "Interdisciplinary, Inter-Faculty Research, Academic Programming, and Training", University of Waterloo (2019-20)

• BME 356L - Control Systems Laboratory
  • Taught in 2021
• ECE 486 - Robot Dynamics and Control
  • Taught in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
• FINE 392 - Technology Art Studio
  • Taught in 2023
• GENE 499 - Special Topics in Fourth-Year Engineering
  • Taught in 2023
• ME 640 - Autonomous Mobile Robotics
  • Taught in 2022, 2023

* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.

• Song, Jiazhi and Petraki, Antoine and DeHart, Brandon J. and Sharf, Inna, "Chance-Constrained Rollover-Free Manipulation Planning With Uncertain Payload Mass," in IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, , 2023
• Rhim, Jimin and Lin, Cheng and Werner, Alexander and DeHart, Brandon J. and Qiang, Vivian and Rismani, Shalaleh and Moon, AJung, "Roboethics as a Design Challenge: Lessons Learned from the Roboethics to Design and Development Competition", 2022 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), , 2022
• DeHart, Brandon J. and Gorbet, Rob and Kulic, Dana, "Spherical Foot Placement Estimator for Humanoid Balance Control and Recovery", 2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), , 2018
• DeHart, Brandon J and Kulić, Dana, "Quantifying Balance Capabilities using Momentum Gain", 2017 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robotics (Humanoids), 561, 2017
• DeHart, Brandon J and Kulić, Dana, "Legged Mechanism Design with Momentum Gains", 2017 IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robotics (Humanoids), 593, 2017
• DeHart, Brandon J and Kulic, Dana, "Push Recovery and Online Gait Generation for 3D Bipeds with the Foot Placement Estimator", 2014 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 1937, 2014
• DeHart, Brandon J and Gorbet, Rob, "Tracking Visitor's Fields of Interest in Large Scale Art Installations", Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC), 2013 IEEE International Conference on, 852, 2013
• Samadani, Ali-Akbar and DeHart, Brandon J and Robinson, Kirsten and Kulić, Dana and Kubica, Eric and Gorbet, Rob, "A study of human performance in recognizing expressive hand movements", RO-MAN, 2011 IEEE, 93, 2011

• Methods and devices for transmitting and receiving data used to activate a device to operate with a server, US9105023B2 (2015)
• Method, system and apparatus for managing notification profiles using graphical indicators, US8319852B2 (2012)
• System and method for automatically drafting a blog entry, US8175583B2 (2012)

• The Future of Tech at Waterloo
• Waterloo creates a ‘terrarium for robots’
• Robert Downey Jr. hosts YouTube series featuring UW's RoboHub
• University of Waterloo's RoboHub to be featured in YouTube AI series