About Hougen

Dean Hougen, assistant professor of computer science and founder of OU’s REAL (Robotics, Evolution, Adaptation and Learning) Laboratory, studies the intelligent connection between sensing and action in robots, which enables them to expand their horizons beyond such tightly controlled environments as factories to find uses in military endeavors, medical and assistive applications, space exploration and elsewhere in our everyday lives.

“Based on what a robot is able to sense, it makes decisions about what actions to take, given its goals and capabilities,” Hougen explains. For example, with funding from the U.S. Army Research Office, his REAL Lab team is developing robots that are better able to conduct surveillance, reconnaissance and battlefield assessment.

In related research, Hougen is exploring the development of robotic teamwork. “A ground-based robot can see what is immediately in front of it, but doesn’t have the ability to know the global picture of what the environment looks like. It can’t plan the best path to get from Point A to Point B because it doesn’t know what is between the two. But if we team it up with other robots that are exploring the environment, they can share the information they are gathering with one another,” he says.