MSR Speaking Qualifier
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Aditya Agarwal – MSR Thesis Talk

Zoom Link:  https://cmu.zoom.us/j/3276236755   Title: Fast and High-Quality GPU-based Deliberative Perception for Object Pose Estimation Abstract:  Pose estimation of known objects is fundamental to tasks such as robotic grasping and manipulation. The need for reliable grasping imposes stringent accuracy requirements on pose estimation in cluttered, occluded scenes in dynamic environments. Existing methods either require large sets of [...]

PhD Speaking Qualifier
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Learning Active Task-Oriented Exploration Policies for Bridging the Sim-to-Real Gap

Zoom Link Abstract: Training robotic policies in simulation suffers from the sim-to-real gap, as simulated dynamics can be different from real-world dynamics. Past works tackled this problem through domain randomization and online system-identification. The former is sensitive to the manually-specified training distribution of dynamics parameters and can result in behaviors that are overly conservative. The [...]

PhD Thesis Proposal
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Understanding, Exploiting and Improving Inter-view Relationships

 Zoom Link Abstract: Multi-view machine learning has received substantial attention in various applications over recent years. These applications typically involve learning on data obtained from multiple sources of information, such as, for example, in multi-sensor systems such as self-driving cars and patient bed-side monitoring. Learning models for such applications can often benefit from leveraging not [...]

PhD Speaking Qualifier
Postdoctoral Fellow
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Interferometric light transmission probing with coded mutual intensity

Zoom Link Abstract: We introduce a new interferometric imaging methodology that we term interferometry with coded mutual intensity, which allows selectively imaging photon paths based on attributes such as their length and endpoints. At the core of our methodology is a new technical result that shows that manipulating the spatial coherence properties of the light [...]

MSR Speaking Qualifier
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Josh Jaekel – MSR Thesis Talk

Zoom Link: https://cmu.zoom.us/j/97161117200?pwd=QlpkS0hFOFVLRDlKVlFqby9JbWZTUT09 Title: Towards Robust Multi-Camera Visual Inertial Odometry Abstract: Visual inertial odometry (VIO) has become an increasingly popular method of obtaining a state estimate on board smaller robots like micro aerial vehicles (MAVs). While VIO has demonstrated impressive results in certain environments, there is still work to be done in improving the robustness of [...]

MSR Speaking Qualifier
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

John Mai – MSR Thesis Talk

Zoom Link: https://cmu.zoom.us/j/7518832261 Title: System Design, Modelling, and Control for an Off-Road Autonomous Ground Vehicle Abstract: Autonomy in passenger road vehicles has long been a goal for many research groups and companies, and there has been a significant amount of focus on achieving this endeavour. A lesser focused upon area is the task of precise autonomous [...]

MSR Speaking Qualifier
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Zoom Link: https://cmu.zoom.us/j/5523238059   Title: Robust Instance Tracking via Uncertainty Flow   Abstract: Current state-of-the-art trackers often fail due to distractors and large object appearance changes. In this work, we explore the use of dense optical flow to improve tracking robustness. Our main insight is that, because flow estimation can also have errors, we need [...]

MSR Speaking Qualifier
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Sarthak Ahuja – MSR Thesis Talk

NSH 4305

Zoom Link: https://cmu.zoom.us/j/8978517404 Title: Visual Assessment for Non-Disruptive Object Extraction Abstract: Robots operating in human environments need to perform a variety of dexterous manipulation tasks on object arrangements that have complex physical support relationships, e.g. procuring utensils from a large pile of dishes, grabbing a bottle from a stuffed fridge, or fetching a book from a loaded [...]

MSR Speaking Qualifier
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Eric Dexheimer – MSR Thesis Talk

Location: https://cmu.zoom.us/j/98262481359?pwd=dnN4UERmQlF6dVVROTQ1czYrU215UT09 Title: Efficient Multiresolution Scrolling Grid for MAV Obstacle Avoidance Abstract: In this talk, we propose the use of an efficient, structured multiresolution representation for robot mapping and planning.  We focus on expanding the sensor range of dense local grids for memory-constrained platforms.  While multiresolution data structures have been proposed previously, we avoid processing [...]

MSR Speaking Qualifier
Robotics Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University

Tanmay Agarwal – MSR Thesis Talk

Zoom link: https://cmu.zoom.us/j/3388909661 Title: On-Policy Reinforcement Learning for Learning to Drive in Urban Settings Abstract: Traditional autonomous vehicle pipelines that follow a modular approach have been very successful in the past both in academia and industry, which has led to autonomy deployed on road. Though this approach provides ease of interpretation, its generalizability to unseen [...]