Faculty Events
Carnegie Mellon University
Towards Generalization and Efficiency in Reinforcement Learning
Abstract: In classic supervised machine learning, a learning agent behaves as a passive observer: it receives examples from some external environment which it has no control over and then makes predictions. Reinforcement Learning (RL), on the other hand, is fundamentally interactive : an autonomous agent must learn how to behave in an unknown and possibly [...]
Resilient Safety Assurance for Human-Centered Autonomous Systems
In order for autonomous systems like robots, drones, and self-driving cars to be reliably introduced into our society, they must be able to actively account for safety during their operation. While safety analysis has traditionally been conducted offline for controlled environments like cages on factory floors, the much higher complexity of open, human-populated spaces like [...]
Carnegie Mellon University
Rethinking the Relationship between Data and Robotics.
Abstract: While robotics has made tremendous progress over the last few decades, most success stories are still limited to carefully engineered and precisely modeled environments. Interestingly, one of the most significant successes in the last decade of AI has been the use of Machine Learning (ML) to generalize and robustly handle diverse situations. So why [...]
Faculty Candidate: Yuke Zhu
Talk: Closing the perception-action loop Abstract: Robots and autonomous systems have been playing a significant role in the modern economy. Custom-built robots have remarkably improved productivity, operational safety, and product quality. However, these robots are usually programmed for specific tasks in well-controlled environments, unable to perform diverse tasks in the real world. In this talk, I will [...]
Self-Directed Learning
Abstract: Generalization, i.e., the ability to adapt to novel scenarios, is the hallmark of human intelligence. While we have systems that excel at recognizing objects, cleaning floors, playing complex games and occasionally beating humans, they are incredibly specific in that they only perform the tasks they are trained for and are miserable at generalization. In [...]
Learning to see the physical world
Abstract: Human intelligence is beyond pattern recognition. From a single image, we're able to explain what we see, reconstruct the scene in 3D, predict what's going to happen, and plan our actions accordingly. In this talk, I will present our recent work on physical scene understanding---building versatile, data-efficient, and generalizable machines that learn to see, reason about, and interact [...]
Learning to Synthesize Images
Abstract: People are avid consumers of visual content. Every day, we watch videos, play games, and share photos on social media. However, there is an asymmetry – while everybody is able to consume visual content, only a chosen few (e.g., painters, sculptors, film directors) are talented enough to express themselves visually. For example, in modern [...]
Faculty Candidate: Angjoo Kanazawa
Title: Perceiving Humans in the 3D World Abstract: Since the dawn of civilization, we have functioned in a social environment where we spend our days interacting with other humans. As we approach a society where intelligent systems and humans coexist, these systems must also interpret and interact with humans that reside in the 3D world. [...]
Augmenting Imagination: Capturing, Modeling, and Exploring the World Through Video
Abstract: Cameras offer a rich and ubiquitous source of data about the world around us, providing many opportunities to explore new computational approaches to real-world problems. In this talk, I will show how insights from art, science, and engineering can help us connect progress in visual computing with typically non-visual problems in other domains, allowing [...]
AI-Driven Videos Synthesis and its Implications
Abstract: In this talk, I will present my research vision in how to create photo-realistic digital replica of the real world, and how to make holograms become a reality. Eventually, I would like to see photos and videos evolve to become interactive, holographic content indistinguishable from the real world. Imagine taking such 3D photos to [...]
Understanding 3D Scans
Abstract: With recent developments in both commodity range sensors as well as mixed reality devices, capturing and creating 3D models of the world around us has become increasingly important. As the world around us lives in a three-dimensional space, such 3D models will not only facilitate capture and display for content creation but also provide [...]
Human-guided Task Transfer for Interactive Robots
Abstract: Adaptability is an essential skill in human cognition, enabling us to draw from our extensive, life-long experiences with various objects and tasks in order to address novel problems. To date, most robots do not have this kind of adaptability, and yet, as our expectations of robots’ interactive and assistive capacity grows, it will be [...]
RI Faculty Social
All Robotics Institute faculty are invited to attend this informal team-building business/social event. Beverages and snacks will be provided.
RI Faculty Social
All Robotics Institute faculty are invited to attend this informal team-building business/social event. Beverages and snacks will be provided.
Robotics Institute Faculty Retreat
More information to come.
2020 RI Faculty Dinner
Invitation with information will be emailed to invitees.
Spring 2020 RI Reappointment & Promotion Preview Meeting – For RI Voting Faculty Only
Numerical Methods for Things That Move: From Quadrupeds to Starships
Abstract: Recent advances in motion planning and control have led to dramatic successes like SpaceX’s rocket landings and Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot acrobatics. However, the underlying numerical methods used in these applications are typically decades old, not tuned for high performance on planning and control problems, and are often unable to cope with the types [...]
Human-in-the-loop Model Creation
Abstract: Modern machine learning systems have made astonishing progress in automating labor-intensive tasks such as visual recognition and machine translation. While ML systems complete these tasks better and faster, humans are largely left behind. Indeed, most humans are entirely excluded from the creation process of machine learning models, except for tedious data annotation. In [...]
Hands-On Interactions
Abstract: Our sense of touch is present in almost all our interactions with the world, from providing us with the feedback necessary to perceive and manipulate objects without having to look at them, to allowing our limbs to move and walk without us having to think about how to take the next step. We use [...]
RI Council Meeting
RI Council is a leadership group made up of the Director of RI, Academic Program Leads, Committee Chairs, and members at large as appointed by the Director. RI Council meets generally once a week to discuss department business.
Details to Follow . . .
Details to Follow . . .
RI Hiring Meeting
A faculty hiring meeting to discuss candidates for faculty position
RI Council Meeting
RI Council is a leadership group made up of the Director of RI, Academic Program Leads, Committee Chairs, and members at large as appointed by the Director. RI Council meets generally once a week to discuss department business.
Carnegie Mellon University
Generalization for Robot Learning In The Wild
Abstract: How can we train a robot that can generalize to perform thousands of tasks in thousands of environments? This question underscores the holy grail of robot learning, more generally machine learning, research. Current AI systems are incredibly specific in that they only perform the tasks they are trained for and are miserable at generalization. [...]
Details to Follow . . .
Details to Follow . . .
Five Traps for Robots in Human Environments….And How to Avoid Them
Abstract: Robotics today is moving beyond fixed environments and into human spaces like homes, restaurants, and hospitals. In these new spaces, robots will necessarily have to interact with people. In some sense, every recent robotics problem is partly a human-robot interaction problem. Thus, the field of HRI can offer insights to the broader robotics community [...]
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
An autonomous navigation system that could hopefully support RI research
I will show a few videos as the key results of our research in the last several years. These results span the scope of state estimation, mapping, autonomous navigation, and exploration. While these results illustrate separate pieces of work, the underlying modules contribute to a final, integrated autonomy system in the end. I will show a simulation [...]
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
NREC Study Group & Recent Projects
This talk will describe the NREC study process that has been developed as a lower cost of entry work product for potential partners. This is a process that is available for anyone on campus that wants to help their sponsors create viable system concepts and potential development costs before committing to a full development program. [...]
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
Junior Faculty PhD Admissions Process Presentation
A presentation lead by David Wettergreen regarding the PhD Admission process.
Making AI trustworthy and understandable by clinicians
Abstract: Understandable-AI techniques facilitate to use of AI as a tool by human experts, giving humans insight into how AI decisions are made thereby helping experts discern which AI predictions should or shouldn’t be trusted. Understandable techniques may be especially useful for applications with insufficient validation data for regulatory approval, for which human experts must remain the final decision [...]
Perceiving Objects and Interactions in 3D
Abstract: We observe and interact with myriad of objects in our everyday lives, from cups and bottles to hammers and tennis rackets. In this talk, I will outline our group’s efforts towards understanding these objects and our everyday interactions with them in 3D. I will first focus on scaling 3D prediction for isolated objects across [...]
Geometry Processing and Differential Geometry
Abstract: Basic representations for three-dimensional geometry have a profound effect on what can be achieved downstream, in a variety of disciplines (physical simulation, computational design, geometric learning, etc.). In this talk I will discuss recent efforts in our group to revisit fundamental choices in the way we represent digital geometry, and solve geometric equations. The guiding [...]
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
Faculty Candidate: Wenshan Wang
Title: Towards General Autonomy: Learning from Simulation, Interaction, and Demonstration Abstract: Today's autonomous systems are still brittle in challenging environments or rely on designers to anticipate all possible scenarios to respond appropriately. On the other hand, leveraging machine learning techniques, robot systems are trained in simulation or the real world for various tasks. Due to [...]
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
Promoting Human Creativity with FRIDA: Framework and Robotics Initiative for Developing Arts
ABSTRACT: FRIDA, a reference to the vibrant painter Frida Kahlo, stands for a Framework and Robotics Initiative for Developing Arts to promote human creativity. FRIDA supports intuitive ways for people to collaboratively create artworks including natural language, images, and sounds. Because FRIDA is for real-world arts, our work is uniquely different from digital art tools [...]
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
SCS Master’s Diploma Ceremony followed by Reception
Ceremony: 11:30 a.m. Auditorium, Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum 4141 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 Reception: Following ceremony Grand Ballroom, Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum 4141 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
SCS PhD Hooding Ceremony followed by Reception
SCS PhD Hooding Ceremony: 11 a.m. Kresge Theatre, College of Fine ArtsReception: Following ceremony Gates Hillman Center, 6th floor
The President’s Reception in honor of CMU’s Doctoral Candidates
Commencement Ceremony
UG Diploma Ceremony followed by Reception
RI Faculty Social
Please join us for our RI Faculty Social. Heavy appetizers and beverages will be served.
Active Search for Reconnaissance and Rescue
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
TBA
Special RI Seminar
Title: Testing, Analysis, and Specification for Robust and Reliable Robot Software Abstract: Building robust and reliable robotic software is an inherently challenging feat that requires substantial expertise across a variety of disciplines. Despite that, writing robot software has never been easier thanks to software frameworks such as ROS: At its best, ROS allows newcomers to assemble simple, [...]
TBA
Robotics Institute Faculty Retreat
RI Faculty, please hold the date for the 2023 Robotics Institute Faculty Retreat. Invitations and agenda info to follow when it becomes available.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
Robot Learning, Wearable Sensing, and Teleoperation in Pursuit of Robotic Caregivers
Abstract Designing safe and reliable robotic assistance for caregiving is a grand challenge in robotics. A sixth of the United States population is over the age of 65 and in 2014 more than a quarter of the population had a disability. Robotic caregivers could positively benefit society; yet, physical robotic assistance presents several challenges and [...]
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Meeting: Multi-Robot Field Autonomy: A 5 Year Perspective
LIVE DEMO! Come see, hear and witness progress made in developing a heterogeneous (wheeled, legged, etc.) team of field deployable mobile robots. Details will be shared on the history of development of multi-robot autonomy at CMU throughout the previous DARPA Subterranean Challenge, DARPA RACER program, and current ARL projects. There will be an ongoing live and interactive [...]
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
Language: You’ve probably heard of it, read it, written it, gestured it, mimed it… Why can’t robots?
Abstract: Language is how meaning is conveyed between humans, and now the basis of foundation models. By implication, it's the most important modality for all of AGI and will replace the entire robotics control stack as the most important thing for all of us to work on.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
Advanced robotics for manufacturing: challenges and opportunities
Abstract: Presenting projects with ARM Institute (including robot grinding, human-robot collaboration, and modularized manufacturing) and discussing some new opportunities in applying AI and robotics in manufacturing domain.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.
RI Faculty Business Meeting
Meeting for RI Faculty. Discussions include various department topics, policies, and procedures. Generally meets weekly.