VASC Seminar
Vishnu Lokhande
Assistant Professor
University at Buffalo, SUNY

Creating robust deep learning models involves effectively managing nuisance variables

Newell-Simon Hall 3305

Abstract: Over the past decade, we have witnessed significant advances in capabilities of deep neural network models in vision and machine learning. However, issues related to bias, discrimination, and fairness in general, have received a great deal of negative attention (e.g., mistakes in surveillance and animal-human confusion of vision models). But bias in AI models [...]

RI Seminar
Krzysztof Skonieczny
Associate Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Concordia University

Reduced-Gravity Flights and Field Testing for Lunar and Planetary Rovers

1305 Newell Simon Hall

Abstract: As humanity returns to the Moon and is developing outposts and related infrastructure, we need to understand how robots and work machines will behave in this harsh environment. It is challenging to find representative testing environments on Earth for Lunar and planetary rovers. To investigate the effects of reduced-gravity on interactions with granular terrains, [...]

VASC Seminar
Mohit Gupta
Associate Professor
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Shedding Light on 3D Cameras

Newell-Simon Hall 3305

Abstract: The advent (and commoditization) of low-cost 3D cameras is revolutionizing many application domains, including robotics, autonomous navigation, human computer interfaces, and recently even consumer devices such as cell-phones. Most modern 3D cameras (e.g., LiDAR) are active; they consist of a light source that emits coded light into the scene, i.e., its intensity is modulated over [...]

RI Seminar
Dieter Fox
Professor, University of Washington
Senior Director of Robotics Research, NVIDIA

Where’s RobotGPT?

1305 Newell Simon Hall

Abstract: The last years have seen astonishing progress in the capabilities of generative AI techniques, particularly in the areas of language and visual understanding and generation. Key to the success of these models are the use of image and text data sets of unprecedented scale along with models that are able to digest such large [...]

VASC Seminar
Ilya Chugunov
PhD Candidate
Computational Imaging Lab, Princeton University

Neural Field Representations of Mobile Computational Photography

Newell-Simon Hall 3305

Abstract: Burst imaging pipelines allow cellphones to compensate for less-than-ideal optical and sensor hardware by computationally merging multiple lower-quality images into a single high-quality output. The main challenge for these pipelines is compensating for pixel motion, estimating how to align and merge measurements across time while the user's natural hand tremor involuntarily shakes the camera. In [...]

RI Seminar
Saurabh Gupta
Assistant Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Robot Learning by Understanding Egocentric Videos

1305 Newell Simon Hall

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 how we can leverage large-scale diverse data in the form of egocentric videos (first-person videos of humans conducting different tasks) [...]

Seminar
Systems Scientist
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Special Seminar

NSH 3305

Speaker: Abhisesh Silwal Title: Robotics and AI for Sustainable Agriculture Abstract: Production agriculture plays a critical role in our lives, providing food security and enabling sustainability. Despite its immense importance, it currently faces many challenges including shortage of farmworkers, increasing production costs, excess use of herbicides just to name a few. Robotics and artificial intelligence-based [...]

VASC Seminar
Mian Wei
PhD Candidate
University of Toronto

Passive Ultra-Wideband Single-Photon Imaging

3305 Newell-Simon Hall

Abstract: High-speed light sources, fast cameras, and depth sensors have made it possible to image dynamic phenomena occurring in ever smaller time intervals with the help of actively-controlled light sources and synchronization. Unfortunately, while these techniques do capture ultrafast events, they cannot simultaneously capture slower ones too. I will discuss our recent work on passive ultra-wideband [...]

Seminar
Dr. Audrey Sedal
Assistant Professor
Mechanical Engineering, McGill University

Simulation-Driven Soft Robotics

Newell-Simon Hall 4305

Abstract: Soft-bodied robots present a compelling solution for navigating tight spaces and interacting with unknown obstacles, with potential applications in inspection, medicine, and AR/VR.  Yet, even after a decade, soft robots remain largely in the prototype phase without scaling to the tasks where they show the most promise. These systems are difficult to design and [...]