Hello! Welcome to my project page! I am a junior at MIT studying Comptuer Science and Math. I currently work with the Hugh Herr's Biomechatronics Group and Leslie Kaelbling and Tomas Lozano-Perez's Learning and Intelligent Systems Group.

I am particularly interested in the intersection of Robotics and Machine Learning with a focus on applying machine learning techniques to improve current robotic performance. Some of my recent projects include creating a chess playing robot in Drake simulator using Mask R-CNN and ICP and developing Local Neural Descriptor Fields for locally condition pose extraction. On my free time, I enjoy making random things, dumpster diving, and exploring my school's campus.

I've attached my resume in case anyone is curious. Otherwise, enjoy the projects!

Publications

Local Neural Descriptor Fields: Locally Conditioned Object Representations for Manipulation

Ethan Chun, Yilun Du, Anthony Simeonov, Tomas Lozano-Perez, Leslie Kaelbling

Neural Descriptor Fields are a way to implicitly represent three dimensional geometry in a neural network. Similarly shaped objects produce similar descriptor fields, thus one can use Neural Descriptor Fields to encode object poses. Unfortunately, conventional Neural Descriptor Fields encode information at the object level -- a handle on a mug is treated differently than if that handle were glued to a bottle. In this paper, we present an architecture which restrict Neural Descriptors to local geometry, allowing for more varied robotic manipulation.

Modulation of Prosthetic Ankle Plantarflexion Through Direct Myoelectric Control of a Subject-Optimized Neuromuscular Model

Tony Shu, Christopher Shallal, Ethan Chun, Aashini Shah, Angel Bu, Daniel Levine, Seong Ho Yeon, Matthew Carney, Hyungeun Song, Tsung-Han Hsieh, and Hugh M. Herr

The focus of this paper is on a novel EMG control paradigm using a Neuromuscular model of trans-tibial amputee subject. However, in order to test this paradigm, we also needed a fully function robotic ankle -- hence my role. While Tony and Chris focused on the controls aspect, I worked on sensor integration, mechanical system upgrades, new firmware to accommodate the EMG board, and various other mechatronics related tasks. It's a lot of fun building robots!

Technical Projects

ChessBot: A Single View Perception and Manipulation System for Robotic Chess

Now presenting, a robot playing chess! Using a single RGBD sensor, this robot system can perceive and act on the state of a 3d simulated chess board. Winning a 2022 Outstanding Project Award, this is my final project for MIT's course on robotic manipulation.

Mechatronics Upgrades to the TF8 Powered Prosthetic Knee

Over the past year, I've been working with Tony Shu to upgrade and refine the TF8 actuator system for use as a powered prosthetic knee. On my part, this involved various custom designed hardware, included a new endstop system and electronics mounts.

A Single-board Mechatronics Platform for Control of a Powered Prosthesis

During my early time at Biomechatronics, I worked extensively with Dan Levine and Tony Shu to develop a new Prosthesis Controller. This system, dubbed Talaria Verdin, enables much of the complex movement seen in the Biomechatronics publication above and is currently in use on three powered prosthesis systems.

Random Projects

Bird Lamp

I made this bird lamp for a friend's birthday. It's designed after the small birds hopping around MIT's campus. The shell was resin printed and the lights are controlled by a small arduino-like microcontroller.

Maker Portfolio

This is a collection of images and descriptions from the maker portfolio that I used to apply to MIT. I haven't edited it too much but its a good overview of some of my previous projects

Ethan Chun's Super Fun Project Site