Red Whittaker
| Dr. William L. "Red" Whittaker | |
|---|---|
| Born | Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, USA |
| Fields | Robotics, Driverless Cars, Planetary Rovers, Autonomated Agriculture, Automated mining |
| Institutions | Carnegie Mellon University, Astrobotic Technology |
| Alma mater |
Princeton University Carnegie Mellon University |
Red Whittaker is a roboticist and research professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University. He led Tartan Racing to its first-place victory in the DARPA Grand Challenge (2007) Urban Challenge and brought Carnegie Mellon University the two million dollar prize. Previously, Whittaker also competed for the DARPA Grand Challenge placing second and third place simultaneously, in the Grand Challenge Races.
Whittaker is currently the Fredkin Research Professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute as well as the Director of the Field Robotics Center and Chief Scientist of the Robotics Engineering Consortium, both located at the university.
He is also leading the CMU team which is competing for the Google Lunar X Prize. As the Chairman and CSO of Astrobotic Technology, Whittaker will play an instrumental role in further lunar development.
Whittaker spent his childhood in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, where his father was a salesman for explosives and his mother was a chemist. He matriculated at Princeton University, but interrupted his studies to join the United States Marines. He returned to Princeton to earn his bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1973 and then attended Carnegie Mellon University, where he earned his master's degree in 1975 and his Ph.D. in 1979, both in civil engineering.
In March of the year he received his Ph.D., the nuclear reactor at nearby Three Mile Island nearly experienced a meltdown. Within a budget of $1.5 million, Whittaker and his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon built robots to inspect and perform repairs in the reactor's damaged basement, and their experiences with that project resulted in the creation of the Field Robotics Center at Carnegie Mellon University. Whittaker's later teams would also develop robots to help with the aftermath of the nuclear reactor accident at Chernobyl in 1986. In 1987, Whittaker co-founded RedZone Robotics to develop and sell (or lease) robots that could operate in hazardous environments and situations too dangerous for humans.
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