Dr. Gowda Mahanth

Dr. Gowda Mahanth

Assistant Professor

Department: Computer Science and Engineering
College:  Engineering
Address: W314 Westgate Building
Phone: 814-863-0608
E-mail: mahanth.gowda@psu.edu
Website: http://www.cse.psu.edu/~mkg31/

Motion Tracking Problems in IoT: Sports, Drones and Wearables
Our research lies in developing inferencing techniques from wireless signals and mobile sensors. Our projects focus on inferring various motion patterns of objects and humans, by leveraging inertial sensors embedded in these objects, as well as wireless signals emitted (or reflected) from them. For instance, we will use a combination of GPS signals and inertial sensors on drones to precisely track its 3D orientation over time, ultimately improving safety against failures and crashes. In another application in sports analytics, we will embed sensors and radios inside baseballs and cricket balls and compute their 3D trajectory and spin patterns, even when they move at extremely high speeds. We have also been investigating how a human’s arm gestures can be tracked from sparse sensor measurements, even when his entire body is involved in complicated motions (e.g., when he is throwing a basketball while simultaneously jumping in air). While these are diverse applications in cyber physical systems, Internet of Things (IoT), and human behavior, our research concentrates on developing the core motion-related building blocks that underlie them. Towards this end, we will draw on theoretical techniques in wireless communication, signal processing, and machine learning, but translate them to completely functional systems on real-world platforms. Overall, we will work on cross-disciplinary research problems at the intersection of theory and systems with an emphasis on more general problems in multi-modal sensing and inference.