Titus H. Klinge

Ames, Iowa, United States

I am a robotics SWE at Third Wave Automation, specializing in perception. Currently, I am working on real-time safety systems, including modeling, developing, and implementing impact detection algorithms for autonomous forklifts in C++ and Python.

My career/research interests primarily revolve around solving technical problems, especially those at the boundary of my comfort zone, challenging me to learn new techniques or a new domain. I thoroughly enjoy learning and applying classical machine learning and probabilistic robotics techniques in my current role. I enjoy solving real-time computing problems arising in robotics and safety-related issues involving runtime verification. I am also interested in applications of analog computing and systems of differential equations.

I received my B.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Iowa State University, studying molecular programming, an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of computer science, software engineering, and molecular biology. My research focused on applying analog computing and software engineering techniques to molecular programming. I was particularly interested in the chemical reaction network (CRN), an abstract mathematical model of a molecular system. Chemical reaction networks are continuous-time dynamical systems with either continuous or discrete state spaces. Continuous CRNs are deterministic and are roughly equivalent to Shannon’s general-purpose analog computer. In contrast, discrete CRNs are stochastic and are related to many models of distributed systems, such as Petri nets and population protocols.

Previously, I spent six years teaching computer science at higher-ed institutions around the Midwest, including Drake University, Carleton College, and Grinnell College. I thoroughly enjoy teaching and course design and released some of my materials under a Creative Commons license. Check them out on my teaching page.

News

Apr 19, 2024	Invited journal article Reactamole: functional reactive molecular programming published in Natural Computing
Dec 1, 2023	Promoted to Senior Software Engineer at Third Wave Automation
Jan 18, 2022	Started new role as a Software Engineer at Third Wave Automation

Selected Publications

TCS

Robust biomolecular finite automata

Klinge, Titus H., Lathrop, James I., and Lutz, Jack H.

Theoretical Computer Science (2020)

arXiv Bib HTML

@article{10.1016/j.tcs.2020.01.008,
  title = {Robust biomolecular finite automata},
  journal = {Theoretical Computer Science},
  volume = {816},
  pages = {114-143},
  year = {2020},
  issn = {0304-3975},
  doi = {10.1016/j.tcs.2020.01.008},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tcs.2020.01.008},
  author = {Klinge, Titus H. and Lathrop, James I. and Lutz, Jack H.},
  keywords = {Biomolecular automata, Input/output chemical reaction networks, Concentration signals, Molecular programming, Robustness}
}

TOSEM

Runtime Fault Detection in Programmed Molecular Systems

Ellis, Samuel J., Klinge, Titus H., Lathrop, James I., Lutz, Jack H., Lutz, Robyn R., Miner, Andrew S., and Potter, Hugh D.

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (Mar 2019)

arXiv Bib HTML

@article{10.1145/3295740,
  author = {Ellis, Samuel J. and Klinge, Titus H. and Lathrop, James I. and Lutz, Jack H. and Lutz, Robyn R. and Miner, Andrew S. and Potter, Hugh D.},
  title = {Runtime Fault Detection in Programmed Molecular Systems},
  year = {2019},
  issue_date = {April 2019},
  publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
  address = {New York, NY, USA},
  volume = {28},
  number = {2},
  issn = {1049-331X},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3295740},
  doi = {10.1145/3295740},
  journal = {ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology},
  month = mar,
  articleno = {6},
  numpages = {20},
  keywords = {chemical reaction networks, molecular system safety, probabilistic model checking, requirements engineering, Molecular programming}
}

NACO

Reactamole: functional reactive molecular programming

Klinge, Titus H., Lathrop, James I., Osera, Peter-Michael, and Rogers, Allison

Natural Computing (Apr 2024)

Bib HTML Code

@article{10.1007/s11047-024-09982-5,
  author = {Klinge, Titus H. and Lathrop, James I. and Osera, Peter-Michael and Rogers, Allison},
  title = {Reactamole: functional reactive molecular programming},
  journal = {Natural Computing},
  year = {2024},
  month = apr,
  day = {19},
  issn = {1572-9796},
  doi = {10.1007/s11047-024-09982-5},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s11047-024-09982-5},
}