Seminar
Bio-inspired dynamics for multi-agent decision-making
Abstract: I will present distributed decision-making dynamics for multi-agent systems, motivated by studies of animal groups, such as house-hunting honeybees, and their extraordinary ability to make collective decisions that are both robust to disturbance and adaptable to change. The dynamics derive from principles of symmetry, consensus, and bifurcation in networked systems, exploiting instability as a [...]
Multimodal, multilevel analysis of human behavior
Abstract: Computer analysis of human behavior is an interdisciplinary endeavor combining sensing technology, theoretical and empirical models of human behavior, pattern recognition and machine learning algorithms, and interaction sciences. The applications in this area range widely, from robotics to healthcare, from smart environments to multimedia, from security to humanitarian response. While human behaviors span different [...]
Robotics-Inspired Implantable Passive Mechanisms to Surgically Re-Engineer the Human Body
Abstract: Tendon-transfer surgeries are performed for a variety of conditions such as stroke, palsies, trauma, and congenital defects. The surgery involves re-routing a tendon from a nonfunctioning muscle to a functioning muscle to partially restore lost function. However, a fundamental aspect of the current surgery, namely the suture that attaches the tendon(s) to the muscles, [...]
Rendering Material Properties through Touch
Abstract: Humans haptically perceive the material properties of objects, such as roughness and compliance, through signals from sensory receptors in skin, muscles, tendons, and joints. Approaches to haptic rendering of material properties operate by stimulating, or attempting to stimulate, some or all of these receptor populations. My talk will describe research on haptic perception of [...]
Object Detection and Tracking on Low Resolution Aerial Images
Abstract: Object tracking from an aerial platform poses a number of unique challenges including the small number of pixels representing the objects, large camera motion, and low temporal resolution. Because of these unique reasons, low resolution aerial image analysis needs to be tackled differently than the traditional image analysis both in terms of the sensors, [...]
From Automation to Autonomy and the Ubiquity of Moral Decision Making
Abstract: I argue that there is an important sense in which all decisions are moral decisions and I explore some implications of this insight (and its denial) for the design and human impacts of increasingly complex automated systems and emerging autonomous systems. This insight is obscured when we think about automated systems by the social [...]
Personalized model of kinematic and dynamic of physical activities
Teruko Yata Memorial Lecture in Robotics Abstract: By now it has become a cliché the statement that the population in industrial world is aging and hence the problem of physical agility is a serious health problem. Moreover this issue is aggravated even with younger population due to our sedative life style. It also is an [...]