VASC Seminar
Anand Bhattad
PhD candidate
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

What do generative models know about geometry and illumination?

3305 Newell-Simon Hall

Abstract: Generative models can produce compelling pictures of realistic scenes. Objects are in sensible places, surfaces have rich textures, illumination effects appear accurate, and the models are controllable. These models, such as StyleGAN, can also generate semantically meaningful edits of scenes by modifying internal parameters. But do these models manipulate a purely abstract representation of the [...]

Seminar
Matthew Johnson-Roberson, Zeynep Temel, Kris Kitani, Deva Ramanan, Henny Admoni
Singleton Room, Roberts Engineering Hall
Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

Life as a Professor Seminar

Singleton Room, Roberts Engineering Hall

Have you ever wondered what life is like as a professor? What do professors do on a daily basis? What makes the faculty career challenging and rewarding? Maybe you have even thought about becoming a faculty member yourself? Join us on March 22nd from 2:00 - 3:30 PM, where a panel of CMU faculty will [...]

RI Seminar
Lerrel Pinto
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Robotics and Machine Learning, New York University

A Constructivist’s Guide to Robot Learning

1305 Newell Simon Hall

Over the last decade, a variety of paradigms have sought to teach robots complex and dexterous behaviors in real-world environments. On one end of the spectrum we have nativist approaches that bake in fundamental human knowledge through physics models, simulators and knowledge graphs. While on the other end of the spectrum we have tabula-rasa approaches [...]

VASC Seminar
Saurabh Gupta
Assistant Professor
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Robot Learning by Understanding Egocentric Videos

GHC 8102

Abstract: True gains of machine learning in AI sub-fields such as computer vision and natural language processing have come about from the use of large-scale diverse datasets for learning. In this talk, I will discuss if and how we can leverage large-scale diverse data in the form of egocentric videos (first-person videos of humans conducting [...]

RI Seminar
Luca Carlone
Leonardo Career Development Associate Professor
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Next-Generation Robot Perception: Hierarchical Representations, Certifiable Algorithms, and Self-Supervised Learning

1305 Newell Simon Hall

Spatial perception —the robot’s ability to sense and understand the surrounding environment— is a key enabler for robot navigation, manipulation, and human-robot interaction. Recent advances in perception algorithms and systems have enabled robots to create large-scale geometric maps of unknown environments and detect objects of interest. Despite these advances, a large gap still separates robot [...]

Field Robotics Center Seminar
Dr. Larry Matthies
Technology Coordinator
Mars Exploration Program Office, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California

Autonomous mobility in Mars exploration: recent achievements and future prospects

NSH 4305

Abstract: This talk will summarize key recent advances in autonomous surface and aerial mobility for Mars exploration, then discuss potential future missions and technology needs for Mars and other planetary bodies. Among recent advances, the Perseverance rover that is now operating on Mars includes new autonomous navigation capability that dramatically increases its traverse speed over [...]

RI Seminar
Phillip Isola
Associate Professor
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Structures and Environments for Generalist Agents

1305 Newell Simon Hall

Abstract: We are entering an era of highly general AI, enabled by supervised models of the Internet. However, it remains an open question how intelligence emerged in the first place, before there was an Internet to imitate. Understanding the emergence of skillful behavior, without expert data to imitate, has been a longstanding goal of reinforcement [...]

VASC Seminar
Angjoo Kanazawa
Assistant Professor of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
, University of California at Berkeley

From Videos to 4D Worlds and Beyond

Newell-Simon Hall 3305

Abstract:  Abstract: The world underlying images and videos is 3-dimensional and dynamic, i.e. 4D, with people interacting with each other, objects, and the underlying scene. Even in videos of a static scene, there is always the camera moving about in the 4D world. Accurately recovering this information is essential for building systems that can reason [...]

RI Seminar
Vandi Verma
Deputy Manager
Mobility and Robotics Systems, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Mars Robots and Robotics at NASA JPL

Newell-Simon Hall 4305

Abstract: In this seminar I’ll discuss Mars robots, the unprecedented results we’re seeing with the latest Mars mission, and how we got here. Perseverance’s manipulation and sampling systems have collected samples from unique locations at twice the rate of any prior mission. 88% of all driving has been autonomous. This has enabled the mission to [...]