taylor.athaniel.howell@gmail.com, https://thowell.github.io
PhD Candidate, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Stanford University
PhD 2022, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University. Advisors: Zac Manchester, Allison Okamura
MS 2019, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University.
BS 2016, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah.
Research Scientist Intern - DeepMind Robotics Simulation Team (MuJoCo) (June - September 2022)
Research Intern - Google Brain (June - September 2021)
Course Assistant - Dynamics and Control of Aircraft (AA271a) Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University (April - June 2021)
Instructor - GREAT Summer Camp. Department of Computer Science, University of Utah (June - July 2017)
Twisty Puzzle Designer (August 2007 - January 2011)
Lead | Co-lead
Numerical Optimization For Things That Move: Simulation, Planning, and Control. T. Howell. 2022. (dissertation)
Predictive Sampling: Real-time Behaviour Synthesis with MuJoCo. T. Howell, N. Gileadi, S. Tunyasuvunakool, K. Zakka, T. Erez, Y. Tassa. arXiv. 2022. (paper) (code) (slides)
CALIPSO: A Differentiable Solver for Trajectory Optimization with Conic and Complementarity Constraints. T. Howell, K. Tracy, S. Le Cleac'h. Z. Manchester. ISRR. 2022. (paper) (code) (slides)
Dojo: A Differentiable Physics Engine for Robotics. T. Howell & S. Le Cleac'h, Z. Kolter, M. Schwager, Z. Manchester. (submitted to RSS). 2022. (paper) (code)
Trajectory Optimization with Optimization-Based Dynamics. T. Howell, S. Le Cleac'h, S. Singh, P. Florence, Z. Manchester, V. Sindhwani. Robotics and Automation Letters. 2022. (paper) (code) (poster)
Fast Contact-Implicit Model-Predictive Control. S. Le Cleac'h & T. Howell, M. Schwager, Z. Manchester. (submitted to TRO). 2021. (paper) (code)
Direct Policy Optimization using Deterministic Sampling and Collocation. T. Howell, C. Fu, Z. Manchester. Robotics and Automation Letters. 2020. (paper) (code)
Scalable Cooperative Transport of Cable-Suspended Loads with UAVs using Distributed Trajectory Optimization. B. Jackson & T. Howell, K. Shah, M. Schwager, Z. Manchester. Robotics and Automation Letters. 2020. (paper)
ALTRO: A Fast Solver for Constrained Trajectory Optimization. T. Howell & B. Jackson, Z. Manchester. International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Macao, China. 2019. (paper) (code)
Sorting Rotating Micromachines By Variations in Their Magnetic Properties. T. Howell, B. Osting, J. Abbott. Physical Review Applied. 2018. (paper)
Contributions
RoboPianist: A Benchmark for High-Dimensional Robot Control. K. Zakka, L. Smith, N. Gileadi, T. Howell, X. B. Peng, S. Singh, Y. Tassa, P. Florence, A. Zeng, P. Abbeel. arXiv. (paper)
Differentiable Physics Simulation of Dynamics-Augmented Neural Objects. S. Le Cleac'h, HX Yu, M. Guo, T. Howell, R. Gao, J. Wu, Z. Manchester, M. Schwager. (submitted to RAL). 2022. (paper)
Differentiable Collision Detection for a Set of Convex Primitives. K. Tracy, T. Howell, Z. Manchester. ICRA. 2023. (paper)
Use of a highly parallel Microfluidic Flow Cell Array to determine therapeutic drug dose response curves. J. Arellano, T. Howell, J. Gammon, S. Cho, M. Janat Amsbury, B. Gale. Biomedical Microdevices. 2017. (paper)
MuJoCo MPC: An Open-source Tool for Real-time Behavior Synthesis. (poster)
- Hyundai Vision Conference. August 2023.
Numerical Optimization For Things That Move: Simulation, Planning, and Control. (thesis) (slides)
- PhD Defense. Stanford. November 2022.
Contact-Implicit Predictive Control. (slides)
- ELO-X Workshop. Freiburg. October 2022.
CALIPSO: A Differentiable Solver for Trajectory Optimization with Conic and Complementarity Constraints. (slides)
- ISRR 2022. Geneva. September 2022.
Dojo: A Differentible Physics Engine for Robotics. (w/ S. Le Cleac'h) (slides) (poster)
- Differentiable Physics for Robotics workshop. RSS 2022. New York City. July 2022.
Fast Contact-Implicit Model-Predictive Control. (w/ S. Le Cleac'h) (slides) (poster)
- The Science of Bumping into Things workshop. RSS 2022. New York City. July 2022.
Trajectory Optimization with Optimization-Based Dynamics. (presentation) (slides)
- ICRA 2022, Philadelphia. May 2022.
Dojo: A Differentiable Simulator for Robotics. (w/ S. Le Cleac'h) (slides) (video)
- Microsoft Research. May 2022
- SciML webinar, Carnegie Mellon University. April 2022
- SystemX lunch seminar, Stanford University. March 2022
Contact-Implicit Model-Predictive Control. (w/ S. Le Cleac'h). (slides)
- Machines in Motion, New York University. December 2021.
- Locomotion Seminar, Carnegie Mellon University. November 2021.
ALTRO: A Fast Solver for Constrained Trajectory Optimization. (w/ B. Jackson) (poster)
- BARS, University of California Berkeley. November 2019
- System X seminar, Stanford University. November 2019
- Toward Online Optimal Control of Dynamic Robots, ICRA workshop. May 2019