RI Seminar
Social Perception for Machines
Abstract: Despite decades of progress, machines remain intelligent tools rather than collaborative partners in individual human enterprise. A key reason is that machine perception of inter-personal communication is largely unsolved and a computationally accessible representation of such behavior remains elusive. In this talk, I will describe our research arc over the past decade at CMU [...]
Geometry Processing in The Wild
Abstract: Geometric data abounds, but our algorithms for geometry processing are failing. Whether from medical imagery, free-form architecture, self-driving cars, or 3D-printed parts, geometric data is often messy, riddled with "defects" that cause algorithms to crash or behave unpredictably. The traditional philosophy assumes geometry is given with 100% certainty and that algorithms can use whatever [...]
Self Driving Cars and AI: Transforming our cities and our lives
Abstract: Artificial intelligence and machine learning are critical to reaching full autonomy in self driving cars. I will present two autonomy systems along with the use of machine learning in each of them. I will summarize recent progress in commercializing these systems and make some observations about the potential impact of these systems in our [...]
Robotic Morphing Matter
Abstract: Morphing matter harnesses the programmability in material structures and compositions to achieve transformative behaviors and integrates sensing, actuation, and computation to create adaptive and responsive material systems. These material systems can be leveraged to design soft robots, self-assembling furniture, adaptive fabrics, and self-folding foods. In this talk, Lining presents the recent works in the [...]
The Mechanical Side of Artificial Intelligence
Abstract: Artificial Intelligence typically focuses on perception, learning, and control methods to enable autonomous robots to make and act on decisions in real environments. On the contrary, our research is focused on the design, mechanics, materials, and manufacturing of novel robot platforms that make the perception, control, or action easier or more robust for natural, unstructured, and [...]
Three surprises and a story of prison education
Abstract: I will talk about three results that surprised me. First, I will show that the free configuration space of an elastic wire is path-connected, a result that makes easy a manipulation planning problem that was thought to be hard. Second, I will show a linear relationship between stimulation parameters, skin impedance, and sensation intensity [...]
Robots Learning from Human Teachers
Abstract: In this talk I will cover some of the recent work out of the Socially Intelligent Machines Lab at UT Austin (http://sim.ece.utexas.edu/research.html). The vision of our research is to enable robots to function in dynamic human environments by allowing them to flexibly adapt their skill set via learning interactions with end-users. We explore the ways in which [...]
Creative Robots with Deep Reinforcement Learning
Recent advances in Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) algorithms provided us with the possibility of adding intelligence to robots. Recently, we have been applying a variety of DRL algorithms to the tasks that modern control theory may not be able to solve. We observed intriguing creativity from robots when they are constrained in reaching a certain [...]