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Ernest Lenard Hall Scientist

Ernest Lenard (Ernie) Hall, Ph.D., PE, is Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science in the School of Dynamic Systems in the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Cincinnati. He was also the Paul E. Geier Professor of Robotics in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Cincinnati. He has also held joint appointments at the University of Cincinnati with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science. He regularly collaborates with faculty and students in other colleges at University of Cincinnati, as well as civic groups, including the FIRST Lego League, the Ohio Academy of Science, and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (Chapter 21). While consulting with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, he became interested in efforts to make useful robots for some of the dangerous tasks encountered by the Department of Energy, Department of Defense and NASA. He noted the importance of combining image processing algorithms with manipulators and controller to build intelligent robots, especially in automatic target recognition. He has founded and has co-chaired an annual conference on Intelligent Robots and Computer Vision for the past 25 years to provide a forum for new innovations in this field. He sits as the first Paul. E. Geier Professor of Robotics at the University of Cincinnati. At the University of Cincinnati, he established the Center for Robotics Research, which encourages robotics activities in industry, medicine, defense, and even at home with projects like a robot lawn mower. He also founded the UC Robot Team that has participated in the Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition for the past 15 years and the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005 and 2007.He has also served as a judge for the Cincinnati FIRST Lego League for two years and has been called the Woodie Flowers of Cincinnati for giving the Gracious Professionalism award. In 2006, Ernest L. Hall won the Grand Prize in the "Made in Express" contest sponsored by Microsoft. His entry for the contest was an all-terrain self-maneuverable robot developed using Microsoft Visual Studio Express. He donated the $10,000 cash prize from the contest back to the University of Cincinnati to support robotics.