Episode Twenty-One: Sean Katagiri
Sean Katagiri, a robotics engineer at The National Robotarium, discusses his work on autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) for offshore energy inspection and legged robots for construction site monitoring. He explains the technical challenges of subsea operations, including the transition from tethered to resident systems, the limitations of LIDAR and sonar underwater, and the similarities between underwater and space robotics. Katagiri also describes how The National Robotarium aims to bridge the gap between academic research and industrial application, specifically using Spot robots to automate progress tracking on construction sites.