M. Alba Pérez Gracia

September, 2011

Department of Mechanical Engineering

College of Science and Engineering,

Idaho State University

921 S. 8^th Ave, mail stop 8060

Pocatello, ID 83209

208 282 5655

perealba@isu.edu, aperez@iri.upc.es

http://engr.isu.edu/~perealba/

Education

3/99 – 9/03 Ph. D. Mechanical Engineering, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA.

9/97 – 3/99 Masters of Science, Mechanical Engineering, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Univ. of California, Irvine, CA, USA.

9/86 – 1/97 Bachelor of Science, Industrial Engineering (BSIE 1996), specialized in Mechanical Engineering, ETSEIB, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, (BarcelonaTech), Barcelona, Spain.

Experience

07/04 – present Assistant Professor -- Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Science and Engineering, Idaho State University.

11/08 – 08/11 Ramon y Cajal Researcher – Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial, UPC-CSIC, Barcelona, Spain.

11/03 – 07/04 Postgraduate Researcher -- Robotics and Automation Laboratory, UCI: applied research in kinematic synthesis. Professor J. M. McCarthy.

3/97 – 8/97 Design Engineer -- MAI, United Technologies Automotive. Design of housings for electrical automotive components. Contact address: Ctra. Igualada, km 1,5 Pol. Industrial - P.O. Box 106, 43800 Valls (Spain).

12/96 – 3/97 Design Engineer -- Bitron Industrie España, S.A. Design of temperature and pressure sensors for appliances and automotive industry. Contact address: Bitron Industrie España, C/ Ifni, 24 30, 08930 Sant Adria del Besos, Barcelona (Spain).

1/94 – 6/96 Planning engineer -- Waste Agency, Departament de Medi Ambient, Catalonia, Spain. Supervisor: Mr. Carles Viñolas, head of the Planning Department. Development of the regional planning for the minimization, recycling and disposal of the industrial waste. Contact address: C/ Doctor Roux, 80, 08017 Barcelona (Spain).

Publications

Refereed Journal Articles

1. Perez Gracia, A., “Synthesis of Spatial RPRP Closed Linkages for a Given Screw System”, ASME Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics, 3(2), 2011.
2. Sato, C., Martinez, R.G., Shields, M.S., Perez Gracia, A., and Schoen, M.P., “Behavior of Microbial Fuel Cell in a Startup Phase”, Int. Journal of Environmental Engineering, 1(1):36-51, 2009.
3. Lai, J.C.K., Schoen, M.P., Perez Gracia, A., Naidu, D.S., and Leung, S.W., “Prosthetic Devices: Challenges and Implications of Robotic Implants and Biological Interfaces”, Proc. of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Vol. 221, Part H: Journal of Engineering in Medicine, Special Issue on Micro and Nano Technologies in Medicine, 210:173-183. London, UK, 2007.
4. Perez Gracia, A. and McCarthy, J.M., ”The Kinematic Synthesis of Spatial Serial Chains Using Clifford Algebra Exponentials”, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C, Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science, 220(7): 953-968, 2006.
5. Perez, A. and McCarthy, J.M., “Clifford Algebra Exponentials and Planar Linkage Synthesis Equations”, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, 127(5): 931-940, September 2005.
6. Perez, A. and McCarthy, J.M., “Geometric Design of RRP, RPR and PRR Serial Chains”, Mechanism and Machine Theory, 40(11):1294-1311, November 2005.
7. Perez, A. and McCarthy, J.M., “Dual Quaternion Synthesis of Constrained Robotic Systems”, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, 126(3): 425-435, 2004.
8. Perez, A. and McCarthy, J.M., “Dimensional Synthesis of Bennett Linkages,” ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, 125(1): 98-104, March 2003.
9. Collins, C.L., McCarthy, J.M., Perez, A. and Su, H., “The Structure of an Extensible Java Applet for Spatial Linkage Synthesis,” ASME Journal of Computing and Information Science and Engineering, 2(1): 45-49, 2002.
10. Perez, A. and McCarthy, J.M., “Bennett’s Linkage and the Cylindroid,” Mechanism and Machine Theory, 37(11): 1245-1260, November 2002.

Refereed Conference Proceedings:

11. Simo-Serra, E., Perez-Gracia, A., Moon, H. and Robson, N., “Design of Multifingered Robotic Hands for Finite and Infinitesimal Tasks Using Kinematic Synthesis”, submitted to the 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.
12. Simo-Serra, E., Moreno-Noguer, F., and Perez-Gracia, A., “Design of Non-anthropomorphic Robotic Hands for Anthropomorphic Tasks”, ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences, IDETC 2011, Washington DC, USA, August 29-31, 2011.
13. Wolbrecht, E.T., Reinkensmeyer, D.J., and Perez-Gracia, A., “Single Degree-of-Freedom Exoskeleton Mechanism Design for Finger and Thumb Rehabilitation”, ICORR 2011: Int. Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics, Zurich, Switzerland, June 29-July 1, 2011.
14. Sands, D., Perez Gracia, A., McCormack, J., and Wolbrecht, E.T., “Design of a Scalable Mechanism for Finger Rehabilitation”, 15^th IASTED International Conference on Robotics and Applications, Cambridge, MA, USA, November 1-3, 2010.
15. Crawford, A.L., Molitor, J., Perez Gracia, A., and Chiu, S., “Design of a Robotic Hand and Simple EMG Input Controller with a Biologically-Inspired Parallel Actuation System for Prosthetic Applications”, 1st International Conference on Applied Bionics and Biomechanics (ICABB), Venice, Italy, October 14-16, 2010.
16. Perez Gracia, A., “Synthesis of Spatial RPRP Loops for a Given Screw System”, Proc. of the EuCoMeS, 3rd European Conference on Mechanism Science, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, September 14-18, 2010.
17. Crawford, A.L., and Perez Gracia, A., “Design of a Robotic Hand with a Biologically-Inspired Parallel Actuation System for Prosthetic Applications”, Proc. of the ASME 2010 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences (IDETC/CIE 2010), Montreal, Quebec, Canada, August 15-18, 2010.
18. Chen, C.-H., Naidu, D. S., Perez Gracia, A., and Schoen, M. P., “A hybrid adaptive control strategy for a smart prosthetic hand”, 31st Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Conference (IEEE EMBC’09), Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, September, 2-6, pp. 5056-5059, 2009.
19. Chen, C-H., Naidu, D.S., Perez, A., and Schoen, M.P., “Fusion of Hard and Soft Control Techniques for Prosthetic Hand”, Proceedings of the IASTED International Conference on Intelligent Systems and Control (ISC 2008), Orlando, FL, USA, November 16-18, 2008.
20. Chen, C-H., Bosworth, K.W., Schoen, M.P., Bearden, S.E., Naidu, D.S., and Perez, A., “A Study of Particle Swarm Optimization on Leukocyte Adhesion Molecules and Control Strategies for Smart Prosthetic Hand”, IEEE Swarm Intelligence Symposium, St Louis, MO, September 21-23, 2008.
21. Knight, B.M., Schoen, M.P., and Perez Gracia, A., “Distributed Actuation and Shape Control of Ionic Polymer Metal Composites”, Proc. of IMECE, Int. Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, Chicago, IL, November 2006.
22. Duraisamy, K., Perez Gracia, A. and Schoen, M.P., “Vison-Based Kinematic Synthesis of Hand Motion”, Proc. of IMECE, Int. Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, Chicago, IL, November 2006.
23. Villa-Uriol, M.C., Perez Gracia, A. and Kuester, F., "Humanoid Synthesis Using Clifford Algebra", 2006 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Orlando, Florida, May 15-19, 2006.
24. Duraisamy, K., Isebor, O., Perez, A., Schoen, M.P. and Naidu, D.S., "Kinematic Synthesis for Smart Hand Prosthetics", BioRob 2006: 1st IEEE/RAS Int. Conf. on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics, Pisa, Italy, February 20-22, 2006.
25. Soh, G.S., Perez Gracia, A. and McCarthy, J.M., "The Kinematic Synthesis of Mechanically Constrained Planar 3R Chains", Proc. of the EuCoMeS, 1st European Conference on Mechanism Science, Obergurgl, Austria, February 21-26, 2006.
26. Perez, A. and McCarthy, J.M., “Sizing a Serial Chain to Fit a Task Trajectory Using Clifford Algebra Exponentials”, 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, April 18-22, 2005, Barcelona.
27. Wolbrecht, E., Su, H.-J., Perez, A. and McCarthy, J.M. "Geometric Design Of Symmetric 3-RRS Constrained Parallel Platforms," ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition , Anaheim , CA , November 13-19, 2004.
28. Perez, A., Su, H.J. and McCarthy, J.M., “Synthetica 2.0: Software for the Synthesis of Constrained Serial Chains”, 2004 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences, Salt Lake City, September 2004.
29. Villa-Uriol, M.C., Kuester, F., Bagherzadeh, N., Perez, A. and McCarthy, J.M., “Kinematic Synthesis of Avatar Skeletons from Visual Data”, Advances in Robot Kinematics, June 2004, J. Lenarcic and C. Galletti, eds., Kluwer Academic Publishing, 2004.
30. Perez, A. and McCarthy, J.M., “Dimensional Synthesis of CRR Serial Chains”, ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences, Chicago, IL, September 2003.
31. Perez, A. and McCarthy, J.M., “Dimensional Synthesis of RPC Serial Robots”, International Conference on Advanced Robotics, ICAR 2003, Coimbra, Portugal, June 2003.
32. Perez, A. and McCarthy, J.M., “Dual Quaternion Synthesis of a Parallel 2-TPR Robot,” Proc. of the Workshop on Fundamental Issues and Future Research Directions for Parallel Mechanisms and Manipulators, October 3-4, 2002, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.
33. Perez, A., McCarthy, J.M. and Bennett, B., “Dual Quaternion Synthesis of Constrained Robots,” Advances in Robot Kinematics, (J. Lenarcic and F. Thomas,eds.), pp. 443-452, Kluwer Academic Publ.,Netherlands, 2002.
34. Perez, A., and McCarthy, J.M., “Dimensional Synthesis of Bennett Linkages,” Proceedings of the ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences, Baltimore, MD, Sept. 10-13, 2000.
35. Perez, A. and McCarthy, J.M., “Dimensional Synthesis of Spatial RR Robots,” Advances in Robot Kinematics, (J. Lenarcic and M.M. Stanisic, eds.), pp. 93-102, Kluwer Academic Publ., Netherlands, June 2000.

Presentations and Invited Seminars:

• Invited seminar, Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), Barcelona, Spain, Challenges in the Design of Better Prosthetic Hands, February 2011.
• Invited seminar, Institut de Robotica i Informatica Industrial, Barcelona, Spain: Open Problems in Kinematic Synthesis, February 2009.
• Invited seminar, Mechanical Engineering Dept., Univ. of Utah: Kinematic Synthesis Using Clifford Algebras: Theory and Applications. Speaker: Alba Perez. October 2007.
• Tutorial, IEEE ICRA 2005 Conference: Robot Design Using Mechanism Synthesis Theory. Organizer: J.M. McCarthy. Speakers: J.M. McCarthy, Hai Jun Su, Alba Perez. April 2005.
• Tutorial, ASME DETC 2004 Conference: Robot Design Using Mechanism Synthesis Theory. Organizer: J.M. McCarthy. Speakers: J.M. McCarthy, Hai Jun Su, Alba Perez. September 2004.

Awards and Research Grants

Research Grants and Contracts:

• Acciones Complementarias para Proyectos de Investigación Fundamental no Orientada 2011, Subprograma EXPLORA, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, convocatoria 2011 (Spain), submitted April 2011: “PRO-FACES: Programmable Surfaces”, PI: Alba Pérez Gracia, research team: Federico Thomas Arroyo and Carme Torras Genis.

• National Institute of Health, USA: Sub-contract from project: “Determinants of the Effectiveness of Robot-Assisted Hand Movement Training”, PI: David Reinkensmeyer, 1-year (2010-2011) agreement: Alba Pérez Gracia, UPC, and sub-award holder Eric Wolbrecht, Univ.of Idaho.

• Subprograma de proyectos de investigación fundamental no orientada del Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, convocatoria 2010 (Spain), September 2010 – September 2012: “An Extension of Branch and Prune Techniques for the Synthesis and Analysis of Motion of Complex Robotic Systems”, PI: Lluís Ros Giralt, research team: Alba Perez Gracia and 9 more.

• US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, June 2010 – June 2012: “Smart Prosthetic Hand Technology”. PI: D. Subbaram Naidu, co-PIs: Jim Lai, Solomon Leung, Marco P. Schoen, Alba Perez Gracia, Alex Urfer and Steve Chiu.

• US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, June 2007 – June 2009: “Smart Prosthetic Hand Technology”. PI: D. Subbaram Naidu, co-PIs: Jim Lai, Solomon Leung, Marco P. Schoen and Alba Perez Gracia.

• CAES-LDRD, April 2007 – September 2008 : “Development of Microbial Fuel Cell, fueled by domestic, agricultural, and food processing wastewaters”, PI: Dr Chikashi Sato, co-PIs: Malcolm Shields, Marco Schoen, Alba Perez-Gracia

• NASA Idaho EPSCOR 2006-2007: “Tumbleweed Microrobots Using Electroactive Polymers”, PI: Marco P. Schoen, co-PI: Brian Williams, Alba Perez Gracia.

• ISU Faculty Research Committee Grant, May 2005 - May 2007, project: “Use of Robot Synthesis Theory for Characterization of Protein Kinematics”. PI: Alba Perez Gracia.

Graduate Research Directed (Master’s Theses and PhD Dissertations)

• Yihun, Y., Novel Prosthetic Hand Design, PhD Dissertation, ISU, ongoing.
• Batbold, B., Design of 1-dof Parallel Robots Using a Finite-Screw Description of their Workspace, Master’s Thesis, IRI, ongoing.
• A. Crawford, Design of a Novel Hierarchical Prosthetic Hand Actuation System, PhD Dissertation, ISU, April 2010.
• D. Alder, Dynamic Simulation of a Human Hand for Prosthetic Applications, Master’s Thesis, ISU, February 2009.
• H. Ahsan, 3D Computer Vision System for Hand Joint Motion Calculation, Master’s Thesis, ISU, December 2008.
• K. Duraisamy, Kinematic Synthesis for Smart Hand Prostheses, Master’s Thesis, ISU, December, 2006.
• R. Isaak, A Study of Overconstrained Linkage Networks, Master’s Thesis, ISU, June, 2006.

Teaching Experience (ISU)

Fall 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2011 Kinematics and Dynamics of Machinery: Kinematic analysis and design of cams, gears, and linkages; velocity, acceleration and force analysis; kinematic synthesis; balancing; computer-aided analysis and synthesis. College of Engineering, Idaho State University.

Fall 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008 Measurement Systems Laboratory: Principles of measurement, standards and accuracy, detectors and transducers, digital data acquisition, signal conditioning systems and devices, statistical concepts in measurement, experimental investigation of engineering systems. College of Engineering, Idaho State University.

Fall 2005, 2007, 2011 Robot Kinematics: A graduate level course which introduces the students to several mathematical tools for robot analysis and design: homogeneous matrices, Lie algebras and Clifford algebras. . College of Engineering, Idaho State University

Spring 2005, 2006, 2007 Machine Design: Design of mechanical components subject to static and fatigue loads. Design using screws, fasteners, springs, bearings, and welds. Computer-aided design using finite element methods. College of Engineering, Idaho State University.

Spring 2005, 2006, 2008 Mechatronics: Basic kinematics, sensors, actuators, measurements, electronics, microprocessors, programmable logic controllers, feedback control, robotics and intelligent manufacturing. College of Engineering, Idaho State University.

Spring 2006 Statics: Concepts of force vectors and equilibrium with emphasis on free body diagrams. Trusses, beams, frames, centroids, fluid statics, and friction. College of Engineering, Idaho State University.

Spring 2007, 2008 Symbolic Programming: Introduces symbolic programming language, with emphasis on algebraic, calculus, and linear algebraic manipulations and visualization, with engineering applications. College of Engineering, Idaho State University.

Professional Activities and Affiliations

• Member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
• Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).
• Associated Editor, IFAC Mechatronics journal (since 2010).
• Symposium co-organizer, ASME 2011 IDETC/CIE Conference (2011).

University Service Activities

• University Library Committee, Idaho State University, 2004-2005.
• Campus Planning Council, Idaho State University, 2005-2008.
• Research Coordinating Council, Idaho State University, 2006-2008.
• General Education Requirements Committee, Idaho State University, 2007-2008.